While this and many other restrictions are not currently being enforced. we have no reason to believe that these changes will remain once Gorbachev is gone. The bill currently before the House is a good first step toward improving the situation for Soviet Jews and Evangelical Christians. It requires that the administration return to its commitment of granting refugee status to certain individuals. It requires that the administration return to its policy of presuming that some individuals. by virtue of the fact that they belong to certain religious and ethnic groups. are subject to persecution. The bill also adjusts to refugee status nationals of Vietnam. Laos. or Cambodia and Soviets who have been denied refugee status between August 1988 and September 1989 or who were paroled into the United States. This legislation is needed to force the administration to return to its presumption of refugee status. We have spent far too much time telling emigrees you can go. but you cannot come. It is far too long to tell Soviet citizens who have been waiting many years that they must wait longer. And it is far too difficult to accept that the United States. whose President. Secretary of State. and Members of Congress year after year urged the Soviets to open the gates of emigration. has suddenly lost the key to the gates of American freedom.
Identified stereotypes
Some individuals, by virtue of belonging to certain religious and ethnic groups, are subject to persecution.