There are 300.000 to 400.000 Afghans in Pakistan awaiting return to Afghanistan. Resettlement in most cases is the appropriate response to the expulsion of refugees from Indochina as a result of military hostilities and persecution. No one suggests that the Vietnamese refugees who have fled from Vietnam can be repatriated back to that country. This is by and large true of Laotians and Hmong refugees presently in Thailand who were involved either with the U.S. military or with the Royal Laotian Army. On the other hand. in the case of many of the Cambodian refugees along the Thai border. repatriation is a distinct possibility after the war in that country is over. I have taken this time. Mr. Chairman. to try to lay aside any fears my colleagues and the public may have that the United States is threatened by these 14 million refugees. I hopefully have made the case that the overwhelming majority of them are either candidates for repatriation or for local resettlement locally. The situation in the Soviet Union and in the countries of first asylum in Southeast Asia is unique.
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refugees