Speech #960255124

They are people with ability. with talent. They are people who under any standard we would want to come into this country. and they account for 270.000. Now. there is an additional group of people who are classified under immigrants who are members of the immediate families of those who have already come to the United States. members of the immediate families. families having been separated. husbands and wives. parents and children having been separated. So part of our program for handling immigrants is to reunite families. Who is going to argue against that? Are we going to say "No. we are going to keep families separated. we are going to shut the door on them?" I do not believe so. y So. Mr. President. if you were to add y up the traditional immigrant program the preferential program for people coming in. many of them who have beer waiting 7 or 8 years. plus members oJ the immediate family. the approximate figure is 400.000. The limitation placed by the Senator from Kentucky would be 650.000 from all classifications. What is the other classification? The L first is immigrants. The second is the refugee status of people. These are peoe ple who are not in the ordinary program. and this is the situation we have been faced with there. Refugees. some of them come from Indochina. some of them * come from the Soviet Unionprimarily Soviet Jewsand then others come from e all over the world. They are refugees. With respect to the situation prior to the influx of the Cubans. before the Cuban exodus. the United States target for refugee immigration for this year. 1980. was 233.000. That number included 168.000 Indochinese. 33.000 Sovietsmainly Soviet Jews. 19.500 Cubans. 5.000 eastern Europeans. 2.500 Middle Easterners. 1.500 Africans. 4.700 others. That was the estimate before the influx of the Cubans. In the refugee category we were going to have 230.000 refugees. approximately 170.000 of those from Indochina. Now. Mr. President. if we do not ship back the 100.000 or so Cubans. if we accommodate them in the United States. then what is this going to mean to American refugee policy as a practical matter if we go along with the Huddleston amendment? It means people who are going to be left out are the people from Indochina. It means instead of 170.000 refugees coming into the United States from Indochina we are going to shut the door. we are going to cut back. maybe by approximately half or so. the total number coming in from Indochina. I would suggest. Mr. President. to the Senate that the fallout from shutting the door on half the refugees from Indochina is a gruesome fallout indeed. Mr. President. I have seen refugees. Along with Senator BAUCUS and Senator SASSER I went to the border of Thailand last October. and we saw refugees. We saw who they were. People were dying before our very eyes. Babies were dying in their mothers arms. people so weak they could not get off the ground. We went to Bangkok to the refugee camp run by the United Nations. Everybody always thinks that everything the United Nations does is so wonderful. It is a hellhole. People have been sitting around refugee camps waiting to be resettled 6. 7. 8 months. cholera outbreaks in those camps. a stench which is unbelievable. People crowded in spaces so that they could barely lie down side by side. That is the situation in Indochina.