I also want to thank my colleague. the gentleman from New York . as well as my colleague on the Committee on Appropriations. the gentleman from Massachusetts . for introducing this amendment. As important as it is and as important as the upcoming conference in Geneva will be. there are two very disquieting signs on the horizon that I would like to bring to the attention of my colleagues as well as to the attention of the State Department. Program managers in the Office of Refugee Administration within the State Department offered a plan. a proposal. that at the conference the number of ODP interviews would be increased from 1.500 to 3.000 per month. to double those reunification interviews. and that proposal was rejected by senior officials in the State Department. At the same time. there has been a new and very restrictive policy when it comes to interviewing those people seeking refugee admission to the United States. and that is to only interview those people with letters of introduction. in other words. those people who already had immigrant visas. Mr. Speaker. I must submit to the Members that many of the people applying do not have imiimigrant visas. and In fact. of the total universe of about 700.000 people. including many Vietnamese people who served in reeducation camps for almost a decade. this would reduce the total nunber in the universe who could apply under ODP to a little over 100.000. As important as that conference is. it is my hope we can bring to the attention of the State Department that it is a mistake to move into this conference with a more restrictive policy at a time when we should be setting an example for other nations in the free world that we are willing to take more of the responsibility for a problem that. in great part. we helped to make.
Keywords matched
immigrant Refugee refugee visas