Speech #970062190

From their content. I can understand why the Attorney General does not want them released. as can be seen from the following excerpt: An assessment of the presently arriving Vietnamese has been made by the American Consul stationed in Songkhla. Thailand and his report taken by a Consular Officer who has been at his post for approximately 2 years indicates that 72 percent of the persons arriving at that location are economic immigrants. Further that the U.S. acceptance rate is acting as a magnet to a group who are tired of being deprived of the many things available in the western world and more exactly in the U.S. Other documents make an even stronger case for the argument that a large percentage of those claiming to be political refugees are in reality economic refugees. There is also considerable evidence that many officials from friendly governments involved in Southeast Asia believe that our overly generous refugee policy is actually encouraging the flow of refugees. Even those few who are true refugees do not have an automatic claim to resettlement in the United States. We have done more than our share by resettling more Indochinese refugees than all the other countries combined and by expending billions of dollars for assistance. I do not believe that it is fair to the American taxpayer to continue to ask him to contribute to an endless stream of people from Southeast Asia seeking a better life. There is no light at the end of the tunnel for this program in Indochina. It will go on as long as we are willing to fund the major portion of it. and offer the hope to every immigrant for settlement in the United States. If the only immigration problem we faced in the United States involved the Indochinese. the argument to continue to admit them might be more convincing. But this is not the case. Last year immigration to the United States was at its highest level in our history. We admitted over 800.000 legal immigrants and probably as many illegal immigrants. A major portion of the legal ones were refugees. Our refugee program has grown so large that we can no longer afford to think of it outside of our total immigration policy. Refugees come to this country as permanent residents and they contribute to the economic and social problems caused by a growing population. However. because of their special needs. they also generate direct costs for taxpayers. In fiscal year 1980 we spent $2 billion for refugee assistance and will probably spend $2.5 billion in fiscal year 1981. Furthermore. State and local governments are becoming more worried about the increased cost they must shoulder for refugees. A New York Times article reported in July that. "each month. California officials estimate. from 5.000 to 6.000 Southeast Asian refugees move to their State. and more than half seek public financial assistance." If this administration is committed to telling our elderly who have spent their lifetimes working for the good of this country that they must accept less in the way of domestic assistance programs and social security. I do not believe that we can continue a policy which admits hundreds of thousands of refugees each year who will require very expensive special assistance programs. The United States has gone far beyond the original intent of our Southeast Asian refugee resettlement program. We have created a multimillion dollar refugee recruiting program which is spearheaded by the State Department and which contravenes our own laws. Hundreds of voluntary agencies have been created to process refugees and even though they operate on very humanitarian principles. they rely on millions of dollars of grants through the refugee program in order to exist. We have in effect created a special interest group both within and without the Government which is programed for one purposeto process and resettle refugees in the United States. An example of this can be seen in recent activity. Earlier this year the Department of State committed the United States to accepting several thousand African refugees. again more than the rest of the world combined. Now it appears that the administration has agreed to double the admission level for refugees from Poland. In order to accomplish this increase. the Department of Justice is using a little deception. On the one hand. they claim to be offsetting the Polish admissions by decreasing Indochinese refugee admissions. However. since the total refugee admissions greatly exceed the statutory yearly level of 50.000 by four or five times. there is no real reduction or offset. The administration has merely played games with numbers which are already too high. It is time that we dec.are that the United States cannot be the resettlement colony for all the refugees of the world. There are 16 million refugees in the world and this number will probably increase due to the uncertain and volatile political and economic situations which exist in many countries of the world today. This does not mean that we must completely stop the admission of refugees. The United States should always stand ready to do its fair share and even more. But we can no longer afford the luxury of an unlimited. openended policy. Our immigration law establishes 50.000 refugees a year as a normal flow. yet. even though this legislation is less than 2 years old. we have never adhered to its limits. We admitted about 235.000 refugees in fiscal year 1980. we will admit about 217.000 in fiscal year 1981. and the number being suggested for fiscal year 1982 is 178.000. Actions beyond our control in Cuba. Haiti. or a dozen other countries could push that total much higher. Congress did not intend that the Refugee Act be abused in this fashion. If this. or any other administration. cannot use good judgment in administering the statute. Congress should take back some of the unlimited authority given to the President. Mr. President. we cannot continue to administer our refugee policy in an ad hoc fashion as we have in the past. The only way to gain control of our total immigration policy is to include refugees within one total ceiling. Without the one ceiling to force us to set our priorities on immigration. we will continue on the same treadmill we presently are on. There are enough present and future hot spots in the world to keep the number of refugees in the millions and there will always be specialinterest groups demanding that a particular group of people be given special treatment. In the past it has been Cuba. Haiti. and Indochina. Tomorrow it will be El Salvador. Poland. or any number of other countries. News reports on this problem have begun to surface and they are providing support for the INS contention that many of these people are not refugees. I ask unanimous consont that artices from the New York Times. the Christian Science Monitor. and the South China Morning Post be printed in the RECORD.