Speech #1010044770

I think it is acceptable to the leadership of the committee. Essentially it is designed to establish categories of Indochinese aliens who are presumed to be targets of persecution and is analogous to the provisions in the bill regarding Soviet Jews and Evangelicals. In fact. what the amendment seeks to do is to take the categories that were set forth in the guidelines for Indochinese refugee processing issued by the Immigration and Naturalization Service a few years ago and put them into law. They include 24 categories of Vietnamese. Laotians. and Cambodians who have a real reason to fear persecution in the cotuntries from which they come. It includes such categories as reeducation camp prisoners. former employees of the governments of those countries that were associated with us. ethnic Chinese. Buddhist monks. and others. all of whom have been systematically persecuted and discriminated against over the course of the last 14 years in Indochina. Over the past several months. there has been a precipitous decline in the number of Indochinese whose applications for refugee status have been approved by INS. The purpose of this amendment is to put into law the very strong presumption that if one fits into one of these categories which were devised by the INS itself. he or she is entitled to refugee status.