Speech #960183741

But today what I am doing is asking for more money for a program for one reason. I believe this is one of the cases where the expenses involved are truly a national and not a local responsibility. It is a national commitment. and a correct national commitment rather than a local one. to take in the refugees from Indochina. There is a national responsibility to pay for the resettlement. wherever it may be. What has occurred in the resettlement process over the past few years is that rather than being dispersed throughout the country on an equal basis. a per capita basis. with the citizens of this country. there has been a tendency for refugees to settle in some areas far more than in others. The best estimate we have at the present time. for instance. is that in California. where we have 10 percent of the population of the United States. we have 40 percent of the refugees from Southeast Asia. There is nothing wrong with that. We do not begrudge the country that. We are attempting to be as hospitable as possible. but a problem arises at the point at which the people in the local community are asked to bear the financial burden for that. If you have 10 percent of the population but 40 percent of those who are coming in. that results in an unfair financial burden. What this amendment talks to is the question of those refugees who came in the first wave of refugeesin 1975 and 1976after the fall of Saigon the older refugees in terms of their time of settlement here. These are the ones who came in during a period of time in which we did not have a well coordinated refugee program. The reason it was not well coordinated is not mysterious nor should it be criticized now. But. in the after effects of the fall of Saigon. it was very necessary for us to act rapidly because time was truly of the essence. and we did act with whatever resources we had available at that time. But no one can say it was not a disjointed effort and an effort that really in retrospect. had we had more time. could not have been better accomplished. The intention of this bill is to make future resettlement more effective than our premium efforts. But in the meantime in those states that have a large number of refugees who have been here for a long period of time. the question remains if they have not been successfully assimilated into that society. who should pay the cost of the support services that are absolutely necessary? That is what this amendment is about. Some talk has been made of the fact that the original bill that came to us from the administration asked for 2 years of funding. and we increased it to four years.