Madam President. it is a privilege to join Senator GRAHAM. Senator MACK. Senator ABRAHAM and our other distinguished colleagues in supporting legislation to provide permanent residence to Haitian refugees. Last year Congress enacted the Nicaraguan Adjustment and Central American Relief Act. which enabled Nicaraguan and Cuban refugees to remain permanently in the United States as immigrants. That legislation also enables Salvadorans. Guatemalans. Eastern Europeans and nationals from the former Soviet Union to seek similar relief on a casebycase basis. Haitian refugees deserve no less. Haitians have seen their relatives. friends and neighbors jailed. or murdered. or abducted in the middle of the night and never seen again. Like other refugees. they have fled from decades of violence and brutal repression by the Ton Ton Macoutes. and later the military regime which overthrew the first democratically elected president of Haiti. The Bush and Clinton Administrations found that the vast majority of these refugees were fleeing from political persecution in Haiti. Thousands of these Haitians were paroled into the United States after establishing a credible fear of persecution. Many others filed bona fide applications for asylum upon arrival in the United States.
Keywords matched
refugees immigrants