We would make it statutory. The bill further provides for a study and a report by the U.S. Refugee Coordinator. part of the State Department. to improve the initial reception and placement process for refugees. and some Improvements might include financial incentives for doing a good job of moving people into the country and off of welfare and onto the work rolls. It may include an expanded role for the mutual assistance organizations. Those are ethnic organizations run by ethnic groups for the betterment of their incoming countrymen. and sometimes those groups have not been as carefully and effectively utilized in the opinion of the committee as they could be. Further. the committee. in an attempt to reduce welfare dependency among newly arrived refugees. which is in the 60- to 70percent range in some categories. has proposed changes in the cash and medical assistance programs. The subcommittee has been told repeatedly since 1981. when the gentleman from Kentucky became chairman of the subcommittee. that many refugees are reluctant to take certain entrylevel jobs because those jobs do not offer medical coverage. because the employer does not offer insurance or medical coverage. at least during the initial period of employment. and they go on Medicare or Medicaid or what have you. or State welfare. and then they draw their medical coverage in that way. These refugees understand the high costs of health care and welfare coverage early on when they enter the country. so rather than take a Job with no medical coverage. they refuse the job and. instead. go onto welfare rolls which entitle them to Medicaid. So. in H.R. 1452. the committee makes newly arrived refugees eligible for medical assistance for a 1year period for medical assistance whether or not they are working. This gives them an opportunity to take a job which does not pay a grand amount of money. a Job which does not have the medical coverage. but which gives them the chance to be a part of America and earn their way. and for that 1year period It gives them the comfort and security of knowing their own health needs are covered. Second in this same connection. H.R. 1452 bars employable refugees from receiving cash assistance if they refuse to take a suitable job approved by their voluntary agency sponsor or State or local employment service. or if they fail to show up for job interviews which would. of course. lead to approved employment. The first refusal of a Job or Job interview would carry a penalty. a 3month bar from taking advantage of the refugee assistance program. A second refusal would carry a penalty of a 6month ban. This. Mr. Chairman. is obviously strong medicine. but the committee believes that strong medicine is required to show every possible encouragement to incoming refugees that to be on welfare is not the American system but that to be on the work rolls is the American system. Section 7 of the bill prohibits any reduction in the per capita funding level of the matching grant program. which is also administered by the Office of Refugee Resettlement. Mostly the Matching Grant Program. which allows for a certain grant of the voluntary agency which is matched by money raised by that selfsame voluntary agency. is primarily used for the settlement of Soviet Jews in the United States. although it is now expanded to other resettlement progrmns. The administration early this year proposed reducing the funding of the matching grant program by 50 percent as a step toward the eventual total elimination of this very successful program.
Keywords matched
Refugee refugee refugees