PORTER. and KEMP. who have arranged this special order to coincide with the Congressional Fast and Prayer Vigil for Soviet Jewry. By participating in these events. we make it clear that the treatment of Jews inside the Soviet Union does not go unnoticed by the United States. With the release of Anatoly Shcharansky. new hope has been given to families that are separated by the restrictive immigration policies of the Soviet Union. The Soviet Union recently informed the United States that it intends to resolve 36 separated family cases involving 117 individuals. However. there are many more cases than this. We must continue to focus on the individual cases in order to keep the flame of hope alive for all of the refusenik families. The case of Marat and Claudia Osnis. which I have adopted. fits the typical scenario of a divided refusenik family. The Osnis family first applied for an exit visa in 1972 together with Marats parents and his grandmother. Marats parents and grandmother were allowed to emigrate to Israel. but Marat was refused on the grounds that he had been exposed to classified materials at his job as an engineer. However. he was told that he would be granted an exit visa within a short time. Marat was not allowed to continue in his profession after applying for a visa and had to support his family by tutoring and odd manual jobs. His wife. Claudia. was expelled from the university where she was a student of economics. In 1979. Marat was told that he would receive his exit visa in 1981. 10 years after leaving his former job as an engineer. however he was refused again in October 1981 without explanation. The oppression and limits on personal freedom which the Osnis family. along with other Soviet refuseniks. must endure is unconscionable in todays world. It is my fervent wish that the new hopes lighted in the hearts of Soviet refuseniks and divided families by the release of Anatoly Shcharansky and the recent Soviet announcement will not be extinguished.
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emigrate immigration visa