Speech #1020070165

For example. I have joined other Members of Congress In repeatedly asking President Gorbachev to release the thousands of Jews who have repeatedly asked for and been refused permission to leave the Soviet Union. The Soviet Union must set these refuseniks free so they can emigrate to a country where they can practice as Jews and be free from the antiSemitism that they have felt throughout their lives. He has responded. over the years. by allowing more Jews than ever to emigrate. but the Soviet Govemment still severely restricts emigration. Although almost 200.000 Jews left the U.S.S.R. In 1990. many of them had been waiting for years for their visas. Refuseniks are still called parasites. for they are forbidden to work. refused educational opportunities. and lose their homes. Their treatment is no different from 40 years ago. In 1952. Harry Truman vetoed a law mandating a quota system for Immigration Into the United States. He discussed the pitiful state of those living under Soviet domination. and his words ring true for many Jewish refuseniks today. He said. "They are silenced. fenced off by barbed wire and minefieldsno one passes their borders but at the risk of his life." In the gulags. the prisons. the Siberian tundra.