Madam Chairman. I urge my colleagues to vote for H.R. 2022. After many years of presuming that Soviet Jews and other persecuted minorities qualified as refugees as a group. a new United St es policy was announed last fall. rejecting some individuals for not having a "wellfounded fear of persecution" and granting them "special humanitarian parole". This sudden change in policy caught many Soviet Jews and other persecuted minorities totally unprepared. Denial of refugee status rates increased dramatically from 6.7 percent in December 1988 to 36.5 percent in March 1989. The June 1989 rate was 21.3 percent. Although denial rates increased. the "profile" of individuals seeking refugee status had not. In fact. initially. of those who ask for their cases to be reconsidered. as many as 63 percent were overturned and granted refugee status. One problem is the various inconsistencies in the manner in which individual refugee cases were adjudicated. Several factors contributed to these inconsistencies. First. guidance provided INS officers changed as INS phased in casebyadjudications. with resulting stricter interpretation of refugee eligibility. Initially knowledge among some INS officers about Soviet country conditions and the treatment of specific ethnic and religious groups in the Soviet Union was lacking. Differing interview approaches affected the quality and type of available information upon which to base adjudications. The tremendous volume of refugee applicants was also a contributing factor. INS and consular officials. both in Europe and Washington. agreed that cases were not being adjudicated consistently. as indicated by the high rate of cases overturned. To their credit.
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refugee refugees