How significant will human rights be perceived by the Soviet Union as a priority of United States foreign policy if our foremost case of Soviet human rights abuseemigration of Soviet Jewsproves to be unworthy of our time. our money. and our sympathy? The integrity of American foreign and human rights policy is at stake. Under current INS operating procedure. refugee status is granted only if in the course of a 15minute interview. with largely untrained U.S. Immigration and Naturalization Service officials. Soviet refugees can prove a well founded fear of political persecution. According to Robert Eddy. chief INS official !n Rome. the new policys implication is that discrimination no longer amounts to political persecution. This is tantamount to shifting the burden of proof to the victims. whose understanding of the process as well as their understanding of English is usually insufficient to create testimonial quality evidence on their behalf. Therefore. over 4.000 individual cases of Soviet Jews have recently been denied refugee visas on the pretext that they do not fit the precise. new. glasnost sanitized definition of a political refugee. With the administration. we have addressed the need for increased allotment numbers for this fiscal year and Congress has passed an appropriation bill to carry us through this period. as well. However. the most important and humanitarian issue has yet to be addressed. Hopefully. we will do that today. The Immigration and Refugee Subcommittee held a hearing on the unjust situation facing Soviet emigres in Ladispoli. Italy. in April. I had the opportunity to testify before the committee.
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Immigration Refugee Naturalization visas refugees refugee