Chairman. just about 2 years ago the State of Florida was inundated by thousands of Cuban entrants in the Mariel boatlift situation. During that period of time when this entrance occurred. through mistakes of past administrations. we wound up with a lot more people in our State. particularly in the southern end. than we had before it started. During the intervening period of time since that occurred we have been receiving literally thousands of Haitian refugees. As a result of these entrants coming on our shores the cost to the local and State governments of Florida has been enormous. There will be in Dade County schools 18.000 more students in September starting school than there would have been had we not had the Cuban Mariel boatlift or the influx of Haitian refugees. The results to the taxpayers of the State of Florida in nonreimbursable costs. that is costs that are not reimbursed by the Federal Government. is estimated to be in excess of $80 million. just as a result of this alone. The cost of crime fighting and criminal justice in our State has gone up enormously as well. Estimates range from $15 to $25 million or $30 million in costs attributable alone to the influx of those who have come in the last 2 years. We also have a tremendous burden placed upon local and State taxpayers by the fact that we have extra health costs that are not reimbursed through cash and medical assistance under the current laws of our Federal Government. Yet. although our local taxpayers are having to pay that burden. they did not ask for these entrants or these refugees who are covered by the Refugee Assistance Act. They came as a result. as I said earlier. of mistakes in policy of past administrations. by the fortuitous circumstances of the plight of those who seek to come to our shores for relief of economic and other hardships. As a result of this fact. in the full Committee on the Judiciary I offered an amendment to this bill which would provide for the Federal Governments reimbursing the net increase in costs to the State and local governments from initial refugee resettlement and from secondary migration. Because of the fact that I felt at the time that I did not have the votes. frankly. to pass that. and because of some ambiguities in how you compute the net costs and how they should be reimbursed. I yielded to the suggestion of the gentleman from the State of Kentucky . my distinguished subcommittee chairman. for the substitute amendment in the bill which is presently in this act today to call for a study by the Director of the Office of Refugee Resettlement. to make available to us as of January of next year data on how we might in a practical way proceed to come up with a way to compensate States and local governments for this enormous extra burden that the taxpayers did not expect or anticipate and which. frankly. should be shared by the country as a whole if we are going to have those problems. I was very pleased the gentleman from Kentucky substituted his amendment. offered his amendment as a substitute. and I supported it. I am not offering my full amendment today. I am instead supporting. with all of my might and word. the enactment of the amendments to the Refugee Assistance Act in the form presented to the floor. I urge adoption of this bill. I think it is extremely important that we have the full set of amendments to the act for a number of reasons unrelated to the comments I have just made but particularly because we need to have that study. we need to find out how we can go about making it fair throughout this country where we have an excess population. an excess impact. as a result of refugee and entrants increases in numbers.
Keywords matched
Refugee refugee refugees