In my opinion. any believer in God is a persecuted person in the Soviet Union. Accordingly. I believe that Soviet Jews and other religious believers such as Evangelical Christians must continue to be presumed to be persecuted or have a wellfounded fear of persecution and should be granted refugee ststus. The United States can still undertake a casebycase review consistent with a presumption of refugee statusa presumption that Is rebuttable. If a Soviet Jew is a relative of a government official and has had a privileged existence. perhaps the presumption is rebutted. Asking questions to elicit this type of rebuttal information is not precluded under this type of presumption. But. in my opinion. we need not ask Soviet Jews. individual by individual. to demonstrate they are persecuted persons or have a wellfounded fear of persecution. given what we know about conditions in the Soviet Union. I believe this approach is fully consistent with the Refugee Act of 1980. Further. I am deeply distressed by the prospect that. suddenly. the United States appears willing to turn away some of those who qualify as refugees and seek entry to the United States from the Soviet Union. As I mentioned earlier. administration representatives anticipate that as many September .09. 1989 as 125.000 to 200.000 persons will seek refugee status in fiscal year 1990. Moscow embassy officials say the number may even reach 300.000. While not all will qualify for refugee status. itis likely that at least 50.000 will so qualify. with or without an appropriate presumption. Since there are various priorities among refugees. including priorities based on family connections. quite clearly some Soviet Jews. Pentacostals. and other religious minorities are going to be prevented from entering the United States in favor of those with a higher priority. Parole status. which does not carry with it financial assistance. may accommodate another portion of the applicants. but tens of thousands of religious believers may be left behind in the Soviet Union.
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Refugee refugee refugees