Madam Chairman. I rise in strong support of legislation being considered today by the House which will make it significantly easier for Soviet Jews and other persecuted minorities to gain admission Into the United States as refugees. First. I would like to pay tribute to our distinguished colleagues who have worked to bring this essential bill to the floor: Congressman BRUCE MORRISON. the author of the bill and chairman of the Subcommittee on Immigration. Congressmen BARNEY FRANK. of Massachusetts. CHUCK SCHUMER and HAMILTON FISH. of New York. and HOWARD BERMAN. of California. all members of the subcommittee who have devoted a great deal of time and effort to this matter. and my good friend. Congressman BEN GILMAN. of New York. who has worked tirelessly to see the adoption of this important legislation. Over the years. the United States has made it clear that the relaxation of Soviet emigration policy was a vital United States foreign policy goal. We have supported Soviet refuseniks who desire freedom and we have supported their efforts to emigration. But after years when Soviet Jews automatically qualified as refugees. the Immigration and Naturalization Service recently departed from its longstanding practice of presuming that these individ. uals have a wellfounded fear of persecution. The result is that many Jewish refuseniks have emigrated from the Soviet Union. only to find that they do not have refugee status and thus cannot enter the United States. We cannot ar.d must not turn our backs on these Soviet refugees. We cannot stand Idly by and seo them excluded from admission to the country for which they risked their lives. It would be a grievous betrayal of our principles and the. abandonment of a decadeslong effort by the Congress and the U.S.
Keywords matched
Immigration emigration Naturalization refugee refugees emigrated