Speech #970062190

Mr. President. since the fall of Vietnam. the United States has undertaken one of the largest and most expensive refugee assistance efforts in our history. Almost 500.000 refugees have been resettled in the United States and approximately $2 billon has been spent for Indochinese refugee assistance. However. even after this monumental effort. the end is not in sight for the flow of refugees from Indochina. I believe that ample evidence exists to prove that many of the individuals claiming to be persecuted in Indochina are in reality immigrants who are seeking a better economic life and that our resettlement policies are encouraging this continuing flow of people. Therefore. I am submitting a resolution today which would recommend that the Executive and the Congress conduct an immediate investigation into these allegations to determine if the program is being administered in accordance with the intent of Congress. Although I believe that sufficient evidence exists to justify immediate phasing out of this program. my resolution only calls for an investigation at this time. I do not make this recommendation lightly. No one can deny that the individuals claiming to be refugees in that area are needy people. but there is no convincing evidence that their needs are any greater than those of the 16 million other refugees in the world today. Furthermore. at a Vime when we are cutting billions of dollars out of domestic assistance programs. we should not continue this expensive foreign program which is misguided and counterproductive. There is no doubt that our well publicized resettlement program has actually made the refugee situation worse by encouraging individuals to leave their countries. A study entitled "Indochinese Refugees: The Impact of First Asylum Countries and Implications for American Policy." which was prepared for the use of the Joint Economic Committee on November 25. 1080. mde basically this finding. The study states: The success of the program for Laotians and Vietnamese has the effect of increasing the flow of refugees attracted by liberal first asylum conditions and the prospect for rapid resettlement. This finding comes as no surprise to those of us who have followed closely the Indochinese refugee problem from its very beginning. Several years ago it was not uncommon for the "boat people" to be picked up by our Navy. Nor was it unusual for these people to know which State in our country they wanted to go because of its reputation for the best refugee resettlement program. They learn of these generous and rapid resettlement programs from many sources. The Voice of America and the BBC are constantly broadcasting about the type of receptions these people are getting. and then there is the flow of information from friends and relatives. The South China Morning Post recently ran an article on the exodus and reported that refugees "are sent a photo of a relative standing in front of a car which probably doesnt belong to him and then telling of jobs. houses. purchases... The Vietnamese seem to expect that they will be welcomed wherever they go. ..". As long as this type of advertdsing continues. we should not be surprised to learn that the flow of refugees is still as high as it once was. This is substantiated by the New York Times which reported on June 26. 1981 that: The number of refugees leaving Vietnam on small boats rose in April and May to the highest level in two years. and partial statistics obtained from the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees indicate that the rate of departure remains high this month despite heavy monsoon weather in the South China Sea. This discouraging fact was underscored by the publication of the 1981 World Refugee Survey prepared by the U.S. Committee for Refugees. The title of one of the lead articles in this publication tells the whole story-"Indochina Refugees: No End in Sight." It is time that the United States faces up to the fact that continuing our present policies in this area of the world will only make the problem worse in the long run. The United States is not a bottomless well from which assistance can be extracted for an indefinite time. The Joint Economic Committee study says that as many as one million more people are willing to come out of Vietnam. I do not believe that we should continue to provide the encouragement for these people to do so. If the present flow of individuals out of Indochina truly consisted of refugees. I would have more reservations about proposing this phaseout. But the most recent evidence strongly indicates that 70 percent or more may not fit our very liberal definition of "refugee." Section 101(a) (42) of the Immigration and Nationality Act defines a refugee as the following: Any person who is unable or unwilling to return to. and is unable or unwilling to avail himself or herself of the protection of. that country because of persecution or a wellfounded fear of persecution. Unfortunately. it appears that many of those who claim to be refugees under this section are fleeing economic hardships and do not have a fear of persecution in its true sense. The Joint Economic Committee study found that: Most recent arrivals are lowrisk refugees that do not belong to harassed minority groups. do not have close family ties in the United States. and were not associated with American programs during the war (66% of those in the initial processing phase for entry into the United States in MarchApril 1980 fell in this category IV of "other" under the American preference criteria for Indochinese refugees). This argument of lack of refugee status is supported from other sources. The South China Morning Post reported on June 23. 1981 that: For about 90 percent of the people who want to leave the reasons are economic. a diplomat said. Some say they want to go for their childrens education future. others complain about health care. On June 26 the New York Times reported: An argument increasingly voiced is that more than six years after the Communist victory in Indochina the genuine political refugees have already left and those who now are risking their own lives and those of their families to escape are doing so for economic gain. This point of view has been openly discussed in the press for a long time now. On March 24. 1981 the Christian Science Monitor ran an article which said: A growing number of immigration officers. refugee workers. and even a few social workers are claiming that many of the refugees are not really refugees but "assisted immigrants." Now a large percentage are young unemployed. draft dodgers. students. and many others who may find life in Vietnam hard. but are not being persecuted. While this problem has been reported in the press. it has also been strongly debated within the Reagan administration. The Department of State has taken the position that all individuals leaving Vietnam. Laos and Cambodia are to be presumed to be refugees. After a great deal of hard infighting by the Department of State. the Attorney General agreed with the Department. although there is no provision in the law for this kind of blanket. automatic classfication. The unfortunate aspect of this capitulation by the Attorney General is not that it will continue a counterproductive foreign policy but that the Nations chief law enforcement officer has decided that he will not enforce the immigraton law as it was written by Congress last year. The order which went out to INS officers in the field from the Acting Commissioner of INS states that "INS officers will lmit their findings to admissiblity under Section 212(a) of the Immigration and Nationality Act." The effect of this order was to prohibit the use of section 101 (a) (42). which is where "refugee" is defined. The internal fight between INS and the Department of State was an extremely bitter one and there are files full of cables. letters. and memos which provide convincing evidence that the refugee policy in Southeast Asia is not in compliance with the law. It should come as no surprise to anyone that the Department of Justice is trying to cover up this evidence. Although I have been trying since June 15. 1981 to secure copies of this correspondence. the Department has refused to release it.