I did not hear his entire talk. but I heard some of it and I will respond to those remarks. While I find myself most often in agreement with my good friend from Wyoming. in this case I do not find myself in agreement at all. My friend from Wyoming said that in the event you transfer this to the State Department hard decisions on refugees will not be made. Mr. President. that is not the experience of my life. The hard decisions that were made by the State Department. the hard decision that I see being made by the State Department. the hard decisions that were made in the early part of my life with respect to refugees by the State Department. certainly would suggest that the statement by my friend from Wyoming really is not based on fact. During the thirties and forties the attitude of the State Department. with the notable exception of the father of the distinguished chairman of the Foreign Relations Committee. with the exception of very few people other than Senator PELLs father. was that they made decisions that were not hard but were harsh. that were unfeeling. and. as you see the State Department making the hard decisions that indeed have to be made in the field of foreign relations. the idea that. if you transfer to the State Department these decisions. that hard decisions are not going to be made certainly has no precedent in history and certainly I do not think is rooted in fact. The fact that they do know what is going on in those border camps. the fact that they have a larger and broader viewpoint of who is a refugee and who is indeed under stress in the world than perhaps does the INS is to its credit and is the reason that they should be included in this process. So. first. in response to my good friend from Wyoming. and indeed he is my good friend. I say that the transfer of some of this authority and some of the decisionmaking to the State Department is indeed called for and he should not fear that the State Department is going to take an attitude that is not hardminded as he wants those decisions to be. Then my friend from Wyoming said that we get two or three members of the family now in addition to the refugee. I am not quite sure why he finds that to be such a disadvantage. Indeed we should bringover the members of the family. I agree with him that some of the organizations should be forced to expend the funds and not bank them. and those kind of things. but the family is indeed welcome in this country. I was a member of one of those families at an earlier period of my life and the idea that close members of the family should somehow be excluded is I think not becoming to this entire argument. You only have to live in a camp to be a refugee for a few years says the Senator from Wyoming. Well. I do not understand that these folks are there in those camps by choice. and I would say to him they are not Taj Mahals there as he used the expression.
Keywords matched
refugee refugees