Tragically. however. the Centers for Disease Control have been unable to notify physicians around the United States to examine Hmong patients for such respiratory problems. for the U.S. Government has thus far been unable to obtain what it considers incontrovertible evidence of the use of chenical weapons in Laos. Perhaps just as important. many physicians who might wish to examine Hmong patients on their own initiativephys:cians who. for instance. have read press accounts of the gas warfareoften cannot do so because. like many Americans. they do not know how to identify a refugee as a Hmong rather than as. for instance. a Vietnamese or Cambodian. Far too little is known by most Americans about the unique story of the Hmong. In the mass exodus from Indochina over the past few years. the Hmong have gotten lost in the shuffle. Indeed. it is ironic that many Hmong refugees. who have spent years in camps throughout Thailand. have been given a lower visa preference than the boat people from Vietnam who have become refugees more recently. I am not suggesting. of course. that we can or should attempt to measure suffering with such precision that we somehow establish a "miseryquota" for refugees. But it is nonetheless tragic that people who have been homeless for years must remain so because we are not aware that they are a distinct people with distinct problems. Fortunately. more information will become available to the public about the Hmong in the future.
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refugee visa refugees