Speech #970191255

Mr. Chairman. I rise in support of H.R. 5879. the Refugee Assistance Amendments of 1982. This legislation extends for 1 year the funding authorization for domestic resettlement activities under the Refugee Act of 1980. At present. the State of California is home to nearly onequarter of a million Southeast Asian refugees. They represent between 35 and 40 percent of the total U.S. population of Southeast Asian refugees. making California the most heavily affected State. In addition. about 10 percent of the Nations Cuban refugees and 15 percent of all Soviet refugees have settled in California. Fully 32.7 percent of all Southeast Asian refugees in California reside in Los Angeles County. a part of which I represent. This means that the resettlement activities authorized by H.R. 5879 are critical to the State and to my district. Three provisions of the bill in particular deserve mention. These include: First. a $14 million authorization for initial medical screening and treatment of refugees. second. a requirement for the Office of Refugee Resettlement to establish a refugee placement policy which protects against the settlement of refugees in areas of the country where heavy resettlement has already taken place. and third. a commitment to reimburse State and local governments for 100 percent of allowable cash and medical assistance costs for newly arrived refugees. All three subject areas have been studied by the Appropriations Subcommittee on LaborHHSEducation. of which I am a member. and I am glad to see that they are addressed as well in H.R. 5879. The need for better medical screening of refugees in clear. Refugees have a far greater incidence of several serious and contagious diseases than the overall U.S. population. Among these are tuberculosis. serious parasites. hepatitis B. malaria. and leprosy. Despite the fact that refugees are examined overseas before being admitted to the United States. the centers for disease control have found that those who entered the country in 1980 with no evidence of disease exhibited tuberculosis symptoms after admission at a rate 34 times greater than the overall U.S. rate. In Los Angeles County. the TB rate has increased from 19 to 24.8 percent since 1970. largely because of the influx of new immigrants and refugees into the area. In the light of the incidence of disease among refugees. I am pleased that H.R. 5879 seeks to tighten refugee medical screening procedures abroad and authorizes additional funds to State and local health agencies to help them respond to the medical needs of refugees. I am also pleased that H.R. 5879 addresses the problem of refugee placement. For too long. little has been done to try to disperse refugee resettlement in a way that avoids a heavy economic. health. and social service impact on localities and States such as California. H.R. 5879 represents a major first step toward resolving this problem by ordering the Director of the Office of Refugee Resettlement to develop and implement a refugee placement policy. To the extent possible. this policy should encourage placement away from areas where refugees and CubanHaitian entrants are already concentrated. Finally. and perhaps most importantly. H.R. 5879 commits the Federal Government to provide 100percent reimbursement to State and local governments for the cost of providing cash and medical assistance to newly arrived refugees. As was so clearly pointed out in a Los Angeles Times editorial last month: It is Federal policy. after all. that sets the number of refugees who enter the country each year. and the conditions under which they are allowed to immigrate. Yet it is local governments that bear most of the burden of paying for additional social services when refugees ... congregate in particular states or cities... Through the appropriations process. we recently addressed this problem in two respects. First. we approved the expenditure of more than $23 million from the fiscal year 1982 urgent supplemental appropriations bill to reimburse States such as Florida and California for the cost of having to delay the implementation of new Federal regulations governing cash and medical assistance payments to refugees. Secondly. those of us who served as conferees on the urgent supplemental added language in the conference report confirming that at least for 1982. funding has been provided by the Federal Government based on a