Speech #960183715

I was listening to the debate earlier by the gentleman from Georgia and the terms of having an open policy. I want to commend him for that. Hopefully. the committee will support the Danielson amendment to H.R. 2816 which provides 100 percent Federal reimbursement for refugee services through fiscal year 1981. The cost of integrating the Indochinese is a national responsibility and should be shared by all Americans. Without this amendment. the burden for the welfare and medical costs for some refugees will fall unfairly on States and communities where large numbers of refugees have settled. This problem of concentration is demonstrated by the fact that 69 percent of the refugees admitted live in only 11 States. My State of Minnesota. especially the city of St. Paul has one of the largest concentration of refugees per capita in the Nation. The potential impact on the budget of local governments is easily recognized. Fully 65 to 70 percent of the refugees living in our area receive public assistance. Certainly part of the reason for the abnormally large amount of the refugees receiving assistance is a result of the large percentage of Hmong in our St. Paul refugee population. Our Nation has a special responsibility to the Hmong. who originate from the mountainous area of Laos and Vietnam. Because of their cooperation with our military and intelligence forces during the Vietnam conflict. these people have been subjected to extreme persecution by the current Southeast Asian regimes. Because the Hmong homelands are very rural and remote. their adjustment to our post industrial society is more difficult than most. Although the Hmong have a very sophisticated culture. their language was not translated to an alphabet until this decade. As a result. most of the adult refugees have little literary skills. In addition the Hmong as a population have had an extremely long wait in Southeast Asian camps until final resettlement in this country. Indeed. some of the Hmong have been in the Thai camps since 1976. The squalid conditions of the camps have contributed to severe health problems among the refugees. In many cases their physical ailments are chronic conditions requiring longterm treatment or the result of tropical diseases. the diagnosis and treatment of which can be a major problem for a physician in a cold weather State. St. Paul and the other communities of Ramsey County are committed to provide comprehensive services to the refugees. The local governments. voluntary agencies and individual citizens have opened their hearts and homes to facilitate this difficult transition and I know that this will continue. This legislation would terminate the full Federal funding and place a 4year limitation on reimbursement. The effect of this provision would be to place the financial burden of the services to the first wave of refugees on the already strained budgets of those communities where the refugees have settled. If the refugees were dispersed evenly throughout the country the adverse impact upon specific communities would be minimal. The reality of the situation is that the Indochinese have migrated to a small number of cities and States. This is a natural and normal phenomena which bring the refugees in close contacts with their friends and relatives. Just as with other immigrant groups. this concentration is beneficial to the refugee community. because it provides the needed support and reenforcement mechanisms to expedite the adjustment to our society. Mr. Speaker. I ask my colleagues to support this amendment. which helps to alleviate the unevenly distributed burden on State and local governments assisting current refugees. Your vote for this amendment will help to retain the proper national focus on assimilating the refugees in States and cities that have in the past accepted the responsibility and who continue to respond to the needs of the refugee population. Certainly this action that we may take today is a predicate of a positive future response from these communities to our national commitment. The real genesis of the problem here is some of the reaction we get especially back home.