Speech #1010020000

Children of Pentecostals are taunted by schoolmates and insulted by teachers. Sometimes they are expelled for professing their religious beliefs. Similarly. there are strong reasons why Vietnamese who hold letters of introduction in the Orderly Departure Program [ODP] are entitled to a presumption. absent evidence to the contrary. that they are refugees. The United States has been taking Vietnamese out of Saigon under the ODP Program since 1981. It only accepts for admission under this program close relatives of United States citizens. former political prisoners. former employees of American firms in Vietnam. and those with close ties to the United States. such as South Vietnamese Government officials. Only people with family ties to the United States and no close ties or family in other countries are accepted into the ODP Program. When a case fits United States criteria. our Embassy sends letters of introduction from the United States Embassy in Bangkok to the Vietnamese citizen inviting them to apply for admission to the United States. To be granted an interview with the INS. the applicant must first be given an exit visa by the Vietnamese Government. To obtain exit visas. some Vietnamese have paid extensive bribes. lost their jobs and their housing. and many have survived on remittances provided by stateside families. Almost all applicants for the ODP Program have waited for years to emigrate. and many applied to leave on the basis of U.S. letters of introduction. They have responded to our encouragement and relied on our assurances. to their great detriment. They were rejected for refugee status despite the fact that interviews took place in Vietnamesecontrolled facilities using Governmentprovided interpreters. If rejected as refugees and forced to stay in Vietnam. or leave by the laborious and delayed process of humanitarian parole. they are likely to suffer adverse consequences for their attempt to leave for the United States. Many will likely take to unseaworthy boats departing clandestinely. risking the open sea. the threats of pirates. and the likelihood of being pushed back to sea. should they find land. These refugees are of special concern to the United States because we have repeatedly told the Vietnamese Government and the VietnameseAmerican community that we would continue to accept family reunification cases as refugees. Since registering with the ODP Program. they have thrown their lot in with the United States by asking to come here. Their close family members were admitted as refugees. and they come from groups whom the United States in the past determined to suffer persecution in Vietnam. What accounts for the sudden increase in rejections in groups that historically have been accepted without question as refugees? It depends who you ask. The INS contends that the Increase in denials is merely the result of a more uniform application of the immigration laws that always applied to most refugees to Soviet Jews and others. GAO believes its a problem with the way INS is now interviewing applicants under the socalled new and more uniform application of the immigration laws. GAO visited Rome and Moscow to review the process by which INS officers were interviewing potential Soviet refugees. GAO found that the results of the Interviews were inconsistent. Who was determined to be a refugee depended not on the merits of the individual applying. but on the particular officer interviewing the applicant. Specifically. GAO found that whether someone received refugee status depended on the INS officers level of knowledge of conditions in the Soviet Union. how long the interview was. and whether the INS officer asked openended or specific questions. GAOs conclusions were reinforced by the fact that 50 percent of those whose applications were initially denied were granted refugee status after an appeal. Similarly. World Relief. the international humanitarian assistance arm of the National Association of Evangelicals [NAE] in January sent a seven member legal task force to Rome in response to the denial of the first 170 Pentecostals ever denied refugee status. The task force found that virtually all the denials were the result of the INSs misapplication of the refugee standard as well as major Inconsistencies in the adjudication process. Inconsistencies included interviews that lasted only 10 minutes. including 5 minutes of those for translation. They also resulted from varying levels of knowledge of country conditions. inadequate training of INS officers. and a tremendous volume of workload. The administration has offered humanitarian parole and new immigrant visas as a solution to this problem. However. this is not a solution. First. to be eligible for parole. an applicant must obtain an affidavit of support from an American pledging financial support. Once parole is granted. the individual has the right to work. but cannot receive the travel. resettlement. and medical benefits provided to those with refugee status. Further. those with parole status are unable to adjust their status to that of permanent resident unless they qualify under another provision of the Immigration and Naturalization Act. while refugees are ultimately eligible for permanent residence in the United States. The new immigrant in the national interest category can convert to citizenship eventually in the same way as refugees. However. it is still unclear what medical benefits such immigrants can be eligible for. Even more important. this sends the wrong foreign policy message to the Soviet Union. In essence. it says that 30.000 Soviet Jews and Evangelical Christians a year face no legitimate fear of persecution in the Soviet Union. and that conditions there are fine for these groups. Mr. President. since conditions for the historically persecuted groups in this bill have not improved. nor has the INS shown an ability to fairly interview refugee applicants from these groups. this bill is desperately needed as an interim measure. Until the INS shows an ability to implement its new standards of casebycase determinations in a fair and equitable manner. Congress must step in to remedy the inequities that are being caused by this new policy.