Chairman. I thank my friend and colleague from California for yielding this time to me. In my district in California there is a special group of refugees who are an integral part of the United States effort to win the war in Southeast Asia. The Hmong refugees. an archaic highland ethnic group. assisted the Central Intelligence Agency in Vietnam to gain valuable and critical information on the movement of the Viet Cong In the area. In return for their help the U.S. Government offered them a lifeline to escape the genocide rampant in that country at the hands of the Communist regime in Vietnam. The primary assistance to these new refugees. who. until 40 years ago did not even have a written language. is the Targeted Assistance Program. This Federal help Is directed to States and counties which are heavily impacted by this enormous influx of refugees. California is a State that Is extremely hard hit by the secondary migration of refugees. Fresno County. which I represent. has over 20.000 refugees. and of these. 82 percent are Hmongs. San Joaquin County has nearly 19.000 refugees. and the Hmongs make up 16.000 of them. Now. these people are not living in my district because they read a brochure about Fresno County when they were living in Cambodia. They are here because the U.S.
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refugees