Speech #1050041510

Mr. President. this amendment is basically a technical correction to language that I had included in the Fiscal Year 1997 Omnibus Consolidated Appropriations Act. That language. and the amendment I offer today. are designed to make humanitarian exceptions for the unmarried adult children of former reeducation camp detainees seeking to emigrate to the United States under the Orderly Departure Program. Despite what I considered to have been pretty unambiguous legislation in both word and intent. the Immigration and Naturalization Service and Department of State interpreted my amendment to the 1997 bill so as to exclude the very people to whom the provision was targeted. Prior to April 1995. the adult married children of former Vietnamese reeducation camp prisoners were granted derivative refugee status and were permitted to accompany their parents to the United States under a subprogram of the Orderly Departure Program [ODP]. This policy changed in April 1995. My amendment to FY1997 Foreign Operations Appropriations Bill. which comprises part of the Omnibus Appropriations Act. was intended to restore the status quo ante regarding the adult unmarried children of former prisoners. My comments in the CONGRESSIONAL RECORD from July 25. 1996 clearly spelled this out. Unfortunately. certain categories of children who. prior to April 1995 had received derivative refugee status and whom Congress intended to be covered by last years amendment. are now considered ineligible to benefit from that legislation. To ask these widows to come to the United States without their children is equal to denying them entry under the program. Many of these women are elderly and in poor health. and the presence of their children is essential to providing the semblance of a family unit with the care that includes. The second problem stemming from INS and the State Departments interpretation of the 1997 language involves the roughly 20 percent of former Vietnamese reeducation camp prisoners resettled in the United States who were processed as immigrants. at the convenience of the United States Government. Their unmarried adult children. prior to April 1995. were still given derivative refugee status. however. the position of INS and State is that these children are now ineligible because the language in the FY 1997 bill included the phrase "processed as refugees for resettlement in the United States." That phrase was intended to identify the children of former prisoners being brought to the United States under the subprogram of the ODP and eligible to be processed as a refugeewhich all clearly wereas distinct from the children of former prisoners who were not being processed for resettlement in the United States. The fact that a former prisoner. eligible to be processed as a refugee under the ODP subprogram. was processed as an immigrant had no effect prior to April 1995. and their children were granted refugee status. The intention of last years legislation was to restore the status quo ante. including for the unmarried adult children of former prisoners eligible for and included in this subprogram but resettled as immigrants.