Speech #1040067456

Mr. LAMAR SMITH and Mr. OBEY. which would restore common sense to the bills handling of the 47.000 Indochinese asylum seekers in refugee camps in Southeast Asia. While the issues here are. in one sense. emotional and complex. the justification for our amendment can be boiled down to one short sentence. Economic migrants have no claim to resettlement in the United States as political refugees and should return to their home countries. The BereuterObeyLamar Smith amendment would allow the repatriation of Indochinese in Southeast Asian camps who have been determined by the U.N. High Commissioner on Refugees to have no. I repeat no. claim to refugee status. These migrantsat least 12.000 of whom are North Vietnamesehave been screened out by the UNHCR. i.e.. they have been declared economic migrants. not political refugees. Let me make one crucial point so there is no misunderstanding about the Intent of this amendment. Since our departure from Vietnam in 1975 the United States has resettled more than 1 million Indochinese refugees. This Member has always supported that effort and continues to believe the United States must offer refuge to bona fide political refugees who have a well founded fear of persecution in Indochina. as elsewhere. This Member will work with others concerned about fair treatment of legitimate refugees. but this Member cannot support a program to give nonrefugees the rights and privileges of bonafide political refugees. The language in this section appears to be doing just that by calling for the bulk of the 47.000 Indochinese in the camps to be. and I quote. "offered resettlement outside of their countries or origin." Another fundamental issue in this debate is the role of the U.N. High Commissioner for Refugees. The legislation suggests that UNHCR can no longer be trusted to make fair and objective refugee determinations. If that is what the drafters intended. then I would ask them who should take over this international refugee determination role. the United States? Clearly. we cannot fill the breach. This is a very dangerous precedent. which could undermine future refugee efforts worldwide. Let me take a minute to point out the problems I see with the existing language in the bill. Section 2104 calls for the resettlement of tens of thousands of Indochinese economic migrants to the United States. While the language does not name the United States explicitly as the resettlement country. there should be no misunderstanding about itno other country would take them. The Governments of Canada and Australia. also home to thousands of Indochinese refugees. have told my office that they and the other resettlement countries would not be willing to take any of the screened out from the camps. In addition to the immigration problems that this language would cause us. there are some real dangers in this legislation for the asylum seekers themselves. I must say that I have been somewhat surprised at the breadth and depth of concern about the legislation among the nongovernment organizations which advocate refugee rights and interests. Not only the U.N. High Commissioner for Refugees. but also the U.S. Committee on Refugees. Save and Children. World Vision.