Speech #1040204697

But there is no question that large numbers of people came here requesting asylum for one reason: they wanted jobs. As Senator SIMPSON has correctly stated. the process and procedure was that people would come in and declare they wanted asylum. The first thing that happened was they got a green card. went out and got lost in society. There was very. very significant abuse of that whole process. But that has changed dramatically in the last year. By and large. we ought to be looking at what the current condition is. not what the conditions were 1 year ago. 2 years ago. 3 years ago when we had all the significant abuses in the asylum system. The principal abuses for the asylum system. as in the whole issue of illegal immigration. were jobs. People saw this as an opportunity to come to the United States. say "asylum." get that green card and then go to work. Instead of running across the Rio Grande or trying to come on in across another border. that was one of the ways that they came in here. That whole spigot. in terms of the jobs. has been closed down by the INS because they no longer provide the green card so that these people can go out to work. and second. they are held in detention. We have to ask ourselves whether we are going to be satisfied with a counselor. as well trained as they are. making the final judgment about a wellfounded fear of persecution. I can remember it was not long ago when we had a number of Soviet Jews who came through Rome and were being evaluated as to whether they were real or refugees coming into the United States. There were a series of counselors out there. All had been trained. all seeing these various refugees. refuseniks. people who had been persecuted in the Soviet Union. At the end of the day. one group let in 60 percent and another group let in 20 percent. We had hearings on that. So you find diversity. What we are talking about are the limited numbers which we are faced with now. In 1994. we had 122.000 asylum claims and we completed 60.000. In 1995. we had 126.000 claims and we completed 53.000. We have seen this dramatic change that has taken place with asylum claimsdramatic. dramatic change. Out of the 53.000. there are approximately 6.000 that actually receive asylum. Mr.