Speech #970248305

Mr. President. the Senate presently has before it the Refugee Assistance Amendments of 1982. H.R. 5879. In essence. this bill would reauthorize the assistance portion of the Refugee Act of 1980. When the bill passed the House. the 3year reauthorization was reduced to I year by Chairman MAZZOLI. He chose to reauthorize for I year because it would guarantee that the Congress would have to come back next year and give consideration to the many serious problems associated with the refugee program since time did not permit doing so during this Congress. Among these concerns are the defini. tion of "refugee." the annual consultation process through which refugee allocations and ceilings are determined. and the role of the U.S. Coordinator for Refugee Affairs. I believe that the Refugee Act of 1980 has failed to maintain reasonable control of refugee admissions and is In need of substantial modification. During the 3 years it has been in effect. the act has permitted refugee admissions of more than 300 percent of what Congress set as the "normal flow" for those years. Unfortunately. the prospects for fiscal year 1983 are not greatly improved. Even though the normal flow has been reduced to zero due to a sunset provision. the admission level has been set by the administration at 98.000. The partial Federal cost for domestic assistance for refugees in this coun. try will be $1.08 billion. which is not much of a reduction compared to last years cost of $1.09 billion. However. even these cost estimates are incomplete because they do not include many Federal programs refugees par. ticipate in and. more importantly. they do not include the State and local costs associated with the refugee resettlement costs. No one can deny that the United States should continue to provide reasonable assistance to the refugees of the world. However. there are limits to what we can do as a nation. According to the findings of the Senate Judiciary Committee. the United States permanently resettles more immigrants and refugees than the rest of the world combined. At a time when we are drastically cutting back on assistance programs for our own citizens. I believe that it is time that we recognize that we are doing more than our fair share. The distinguished chairman of the Senate Immigration Subcommittee. Senator SIMPSON. has indicated on numerous occasions in the past that he too is concerned about the size of the refugee program and has indicated that there are problems with it which should be addressed. While we probably do not agree completely on what these problems are or how they should be addressed. I have great respect for his concerns. compassion. and expertise. The distinguished chairman has stated that he intends to more thoroughly address the refugee resettlement issues in additional hearings next year. Would the chairman tell us more specifically what his plans are regarding these hearings?