Mr. Speaker. the House today considered and passed H.R. 2816. the Refugee Act of 1979. a bill that will significantly improve our efforts to deal with the important problem of political refugees from all over the world. As a member of the Congressional Black Caucus Task Force on Haitian Refugees. I am particularly concerned with the plight of Haitian refugees who have been arriving in great numbers. Most come in rickety. unseaworthy boats analogous to their more famous brethren from Indochina. Only the welcome for the Haitians is far less generous that we have extended to the Indochinese. The Statue of Liberty. perhaps the most famous monument in America. contains the inscription: Give me your tired. your poor Your huddled masses yearning to breathe free The wretched refuse of your teeming shore Send these. the homeless. tempesttossed to me ... I feel that we have forgotten those inspiring words. The Haitians whom we have turned away from our shores are receiving precisely the opposite messagethe land of liberty does not want this particular huddled mass yearning to breathe free. these homeless. tempesttossed refugees fleeing repression in search of liberty. Our colleagues have gathered today out of a deep concern for the inequitable treatment we have so far extended Haitian refugees. Each Member who joins us in the colloquium today will doubtless focus on his or her areas of concern. For my part.
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Refugees Refugee refugees