[Senate Hearing 106-716]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office]
S. Hrg. 106-716
ANNUAL REFUGEE CONSULTATION
=======================================================================
HEARING
before the
SUBCOMMITTEE ON IMMIGRATION
of the
COMMITTEE ON THE JUDICIARY
UNITED STATES SENATE
ONE HUNDRED SIXTH CONGRESS
FIRST SESSION
on
EXAMINING THE PRESIDENT'S PROPOSED ANNUAL REFUGEE ADMISSIONS AND
ALLOCATION FOR FISCAL YEAR 2000
__________
AUGUST 4, 1999
__________
Serial No. J-106-43
__________
Printed for the use of the Committee on the Judiciary
U.S. GOVERNMENT PRINTING OFFICE
67-480 CC WASHINGTON : 2000
SENATE COMMITTEE ON THE JUDICIARY
ORRIN G. HATCH, Utah, Chairman
STROM THURMOND, South Carolina PATRICK J. LEAHY, Vermont
CHARLES E. GRASSLEY, Iowa EDWARD M. KENNEDY, Massachusetts
ARLEN SPECTER, Pennsylvania JOSEPH R. BIDEN, Jr., Delaware
JON KYL, Arizona HERBERT KOHL, Wisconsin
MIKE DeWINE, Ohio DIANNE FEINSTEIN, California
JOHN ASHCROFT, Missouri RUSSELL D. FEINGOLD, Wisconsin
SPENCER ABRAHAM, Michigan ROBERT G. TORRICELLI, New Jersey
JEFF SESSIONS, Alabama CHARLES E. SCHUMER, New York
BOB SMITH, New Hampshire
Manus Cooney, Chief Counsel and Staff Director
Bruce A. Cohen, Minority Chief Counsel
______
Subcommittee on Immigration
SPENCER ABRAHAM, Michigan, Chairman
ARLEN SPECTER, Pennsylvania EDWARD M. KENNEDY, Massachusetts
CHARLES E. GRASSLEY, Iowa DIANNE FEINSTEIN, California
JON KYL, Arizona CHARLES E. SCHUMER, New York
Lee Liberman Otis, Chief Counsel
Melody Barnes, Minority Chief Counsel
(ii)
C O N T E N T S
----------
STATEMENTS OF COMMITTEE MEMBERS
Page
Abraham, Hon. Spencer, U.S. Senator from the State of Michigan... 1
Kennedy, Hon. Edward M., U.S. Senator from the State of
Massachusetts.................................................. 3
CHRONOLOGICAL LIST OF WITNESSES
Statement of Julia V. Taft, Assistant Secretary of State, Bureau
of Population, Refugees, and Migration, Department of State,
Washington, DC; accompanied by Lavinia Limon, Director, Office
of Refugee Resettlement, Department of Health and Human
Services; Jeffrey Weiss, Director, International Affairs,
Immigration and Naturalization Service; and Kathleen Thompson,
Director, Refugee Branch, Immigration and Naturalization
Service........................................................ 4
Panel consisting of Mary Kortenhoven, Missionary to Sierra Leone,
Christian Reformed Church, Grand Rapids, MI; Binta Bah, refugee
from Sierra Leone, Grand Rapids, MI; Nicholas A. DiMarzio,
Bishop of Camden, NJ, and chairman, Committee on Migration,
National Conference of Catholic Bishops, Camden, NJ; and
Ralston H. Deffenbaugh, Jr., president, Lutheran Immigration
and Refugee Service, Washington, DC, on behalf of the American
Council for Voluntary International Action..................... 21
ALPHABETICAL LIST AND MATERIAL SUBMITTED
Bah, Binta:
Testimony.................................................... 24
Prepared statement........................................... 27
Deffenbaugh, Ralston H., Jr.:
Testimony.................................................... 48
Prepared statement........................................... 50
DiMarzio, Nicholas A.:
Testimony.................................................... 29
Prepared statement........................................... 31
Joint Report on the Resettlement of Sudanese Youth In
Kakuma Camp, Kenya..................................... 37
Kortenhoven, Mary:
Testimony.................................................... 21
Prepared statement........................................... 23
Limon, Lavinia: Prepared statement............................... 18
Taft, Julia V.:
Testimony.................................................... 4
Prepared statement........................................... 15
ANNUAL REFUGEE CONSULTATION
----------
WEDNESDAY, AUGUST 4, 1999
U.S. Senate,
Subcommittee on Immigration,
Committee on the Judiciary,
Washington, DC.
The subcommittee met, pursuant to notice, at 2:09 p.m., in
room SD-628, Dirksen Senate Office Building, Hon. Spencer
Abraham (chairman of the subcommittee) presiding.
OPENING STATEMENT OF HON. SPENCER ABRAHAM, A U.S. SENATOR FROM
THE STATE OF MICHIGAN
Senator Abraham. We will call the hearing to order. I want
to welcome everybody to this hearing on the President's fiscal
year 2000 proposal for annual refugee admissions. We will try
to cover a fair amount of ground here today and hear from, I
think, some very important witnesses with testimony of concern
to all of us who focus on these issues.
To begin, I will make an opening statement. Certainly, if
Senator Kennedy or any of the other members of the subcommittee
attend, we will offer them the opportunity to make their
statements, as well, or include them in the record, and then we
will go to our first panel.
Today, we are here to discuss, as I said, the President's
fiscal year 2000 proposal for refugee admissions. Under the
law, before the start of each fiscal year, the President or his
cabinet-level designee must provide the House and the Senate
Judiciary Committees with the President's proposed
determination of refugee admissions and allocation. It is then
the job of the Senate and the House committees to provide input
and advice as to the numbers and the geographic distribution of
such refugee admissions. In the event of an unforseen emergency
refugee situation of the kind which we have already had this
year, the President, after consultation with Congress, may
increase the numbers during a fiscal year.
Our nation has seen a 40 percent drop in proposed refugee
admissions since 1993. This committee has expressed some
disappointment at this development in previous hearings and in
communications which have been sent by myself and Senators
Kennedy, Hatch, and Leahy. We have also expressed concern that
artificial obstacles to refugee interviews and inattention to
America's humanitarian and foreign policy objectives have
prevented persecuted individuals from being processed and
resettled in the United States. Consequently, we were pleased
in fiscal year 1998 that the decline in the refugee ceiling was
finally reversed, although I have to confess some
disappointment when in 1999 the ceiling fell once again.
In the middle of fiscal year 1999, the tragic and brutal
suppression in Kosovo thrust the refugee issue into the
spotlight. In this emergency situation, to relieve individual
suffering and political tension in Macedonia, up to 20,000
Kosovar refugees were permitted to come to the United States.
Approximately half that number ultimately arrived because a
welcome change in the Kosovo situation allowed many Kosovar
refugees to return to their homes.
I am pleased that the administration proposes to raise the
fiscal year 2000 refugee ceiling to 90,000. It is my hope that
this increased support for refugee admissions will not be
transitory, but rather part of a consistent and sustained
effort to demonstrate American leadership in this refugee
policy area.
I believe the Kosovo crisis showed once again that America
is a nation filled with generous people who are proud of our
tradition of helping refugees, and I am proud of the generosity
displayed by the people in my home State of Michigan during
this time of need. When food was scarce, Gerber Baby Products,
which is based in Fremont, MI, donated over 21,000 cases of
baby food products for the infants of refugees who fled Kosovo.
And when the time came for Kosovar refugees to be welcomed to
America, I witnessed remarkable community involvement in
Detroit, as people of all faiths came together to help refugee
families who had been brutally driven from their homes. In
Lansing, MI, the solidarity with refugees was so strongly felt
that youngsters donated money they had saved for roller
skating. Two 9-year-old boys gave one cargo truck driver
$23.50. The boys had earned the money by selling their toys,
all so that they could help Kosovar refugees.
While statistics will be discussed, today's hearing is, at
least in our minds, dedicated in no small measure to those who
help refugees and to the refugees themselves, because behind
every refugee, there is a tragic story, and on our second
panel, we will hear one such story from Binta Bah. But we will
also hear from those who assist refugees, including a
missionary who helps with assimilation efforts in Michigan.
Not all refugee situations make the evening news, and we
should never lose sight of that. We must seek to help those who
are persecuted regardless of whether TV cameramen and
photographers have ventured to that part of the globe. I think
the crisis in Sierra Leone, the troubled nation which we will
hear about in our second panel, has received far too little
attention, given the horrors that people have suffered there.
It is sobering to think that nearly 400 years have passed
since America's first refugees, the Pilgrims, came to these
shores. Some time after the Pilgrims came, another group of
refugees arrived, and, undoubtedly, there were people who
questioned whether there was enough room for those refugees in
this new land. I personally hope soon for a day when we will
move beyond that type of divisiveness so that all refugees can
be sure of being welcomed when they make their way here without
acrimonious debate. The response to the Kosovo crisis and the
support for Sierra Leone refugees and others being received in
our country and in my home State of Michigan should, I think,
make all of us hopeful that the dawn of that new day will soon
be upon us.
At this point, as I say, if other members arrive, we will
hear their opening statements, but I think that at this stage
we will turn to our first panel of witnesses. We will hear
again from Julia Taft, who is the Assistant Secretary of State
of the Bureau of Population, Refugees, and Migration. She is
accompanied by Lavinia Limon, who is the Director of the Office
of Refugee Resettlement for the Department of Health and Human
Services; by Jeffrey Weiss, who is the Director of
International Affairs; and Kathleen Thompson, who is Director
of the Refugee Branch for the Immigration and Naturalization
Service.
Officials from the INS and HHS will not be giving spoken
testimony here but have submitted written testimony and will be
available to the subcommittee members to answer questions,
either today or in written form that might be subsequent. At
this time I would like to enter the prepared statement of
Senator Edward M. Kennedy.
[The prepared statement of Senator Kennedy follows:]
Prepared Statement of Senator Edward M. Kennedy
I commend Senator Abraham for convening this important hearing on
refugees, and I join in welcoming our distinguished, witnesses.
I commend the Administration for its decision to propose a refugee
admissions ceiling of 90,000 for fiscal year 2000, a welcome, increase
of 12,000. Many of us have been concerned by the continuing decline in
refugee admission ceilings in recent years, falling more than 40
percent from 132,000 in 1993 to 78,000 in 1999 at a time when the
number of refugees dislocated by civil war and global turmoil has
significantly increased.
Today, there are more than 13 million refugees in the world.
Reductions in our refugee admission ceilings have sent the wrong signal
to nations that engage in persecution. Our opposition to religious
intolerance in the former Soviet Union and other Newly Independent
States is undermined by reducing refugee admissions in the face of
intolerance and ongoing persecution. It also sends the wrong signal to
refugees--that they are not welcome here. I am pleased to see that with
this proposed increase, the message we will be sending is that refugees
are welcome.
I also commend the Administration, and especially Julia Taft, for
the sustained and successful response to the Kosovo refugee crisis.
Kosovo was one of the largest refugee crises since World War II. The
vast exodus placed a huge strain on neighboring nations. By providing
humanitarian aid and by resettling Kosovar refugees in the United
States, we have reduced the burden on those nations, and set an example
for other countries. Also, by bringing refugees into the United States,
rather than holding them in detention in Guantanamo, we have set an
example for the humane treatment of refugees everywhere. We must not
abdicate our leadership role. We must do more to assist humanitarian
efforts and to help Kosovar refugees returning to their homes.
As we continue to help the Balkans, we cannot ignore other regions
of the world, especially Africa. There are six million refugees and
internally displaced persons in Africa, and they have faced horrors and
brutality similar to those in Kosovo. The attention and resources
devoted to Kosovo should be the example we follow in Africa. Increasing
the fiscal year 2000 ceiling for Africa to 18,000 is a good first step.
We know that the United States alone cannot begin to solve the enormous
and complex issues of Africa, but the United States is clearly in a
position to do more.
The United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees, Mrs. Ogata,
recently told the U.N. Security Council that there is ``a perception of
disparity'' in the assistance being given to African refugees, compared
to the world's response in Kosovo. The United States has the ability to
correct this unacceptable perception. Our role as the leading world
power, with extraordinary resources, demands that we do more.
Certainly, the plight of the African refugees deserves greater
attention and a greater response by the United States and other
nations.
Another recent development that merits praise is the
Administration's decision to amend the requirements for waivers
requested by approved refugees who test positive for HIV. Prior to this
change, such refugees were in danger of forced repatriation or
detention and persecution in the country of first asylum. This change
in policy is consistent with our humanitarian traditions and our
international obligations.
America's leadership on this issue is critical. Other nations
carefully monitor our refugee policies as a guide in establishing their
own policies. With this significant change, HIV-positive individuals
who have a well-founded fear of persecution will be able to find
protection in the United States and join their families.
Americans support the rescue and resettlement of refugees fleeing
religious, political and ethnic persecution. There is strong bipartisan
support in Congress for the refugee program. We should work together to
increase refugee admissions, and to achieve the goal of strengthening
U.S. international leadership on refugee policy.
I welcome Assistant Secretary of State Julia Taft and the other
witnesses today, and I look forward to their testimony.
At this point, we will turn to Secretary Taft. We look
forward to hearing her opening statement. As you all know, and
for those of you who have not testified before, we have a
little clock system here. Typically, the light system is set
for about 5 minutes, but we do want to hear what you have to
say and so we will let you do your full statement. Take
whatever time you need, Secretary Taft, and we look forward to
hearing your comments at this time.
STATEMENT OF JULIA V. TAFT, ASSISTANT SECRETARY OF STATE,
BUREAU OF POPULATION, REFUGEES, AND MIGRATION, DEPARTMENT OF
STATE, WASHINGTON, DC; ACCOMPANIED BY LAVINIA LIMON, DIRECTOR,
OFFICE OF REFUGEE RESETTLEMENT, DEPARTMENT OF HEALTH AND HUMAN
SERVICES; JEFFREY WEISS, DIRECTOR, INTERNATIONAL AFFAIRS,
IMMIGRATION AND NATURALIZATION SERVICE; AND KATHLEEN THOMPSON,
DIRECTOR, REFUGEE BRANCH, IMMIGRATION AND NATURALIZATION
SERVICE
Ms. Taft. Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman. I am really
pleased to participate at today's hearing on the President's
proposed fiscal year 2000 refugee admissions program. Under
your leadership, this subcommittee has consistently provided
bipartisan support for this important humanitarian effort and
we really look forward to a continuing close partnership with
you on this, as well as with the voluntary resettlement
agencies who assist in anchoring all new refugees in the
American society once they arrive.
With your permission, I have longer testimony that would
take more than five minutes which I would like to submit for
the record.
Senator Abraham. Please.
Ms. Taft. Thank you. First, let me start with a few words
about the Balkans. The massive humanitarian disaster caused by
Milosevich's regime toward ethnic cleansing in Kosovo really
demanded a swift and immediate response. We are very pleased
that, as a government, we have collectively worked to
contribute to the international effort to offer places of
refuge for these Kosovars. I think it is very symbolic that I
have with me INS and HHS, who during the Kosovar crisis
provided the most wonderful support and leadership and energy
for both of their bureaus and departments and we are very
pleased about that, and we also got a lot of good help from the
Defense Department.
But I think the thing that characterized mostly the
willingness for us to accept the Kosovars was what you talked
about earlier, which was the outpouring of interest and
commitment from the American people all over. We have never
seen anything like this. Hotlines that were both offering
assistance through FEMA, as well as hotlines that InterAction
and the voluntary agencies had showed an unprecedented level of
real commitment, so we are very touched by that.
The refugee admissions program at the time, we believe, was
the best vehicle that we had to assist the Kosovars who were
overwhelming the first asylum capacity of Macedonia. While most
often this process of refugee admissions is used for permanent
resettlement in the United States, we have now found that it
can also be used as a temporary asylum, as well, and we have
been able to demonstrate that when there is a humanitarian
crisis of such urgency, that we can raise the level of
admissions to meet the needs. Unfortunately, due to the time
constraints, it was not possible to do full Congressional
consultation this past time, but we certainly will correct that
in the future.
I think it is important to point out for the overall
numbers that the changing ethnic and religious composition of
refugee populations being resettled in our country now poses a
lot of new challenges. The numbers of new ethnic groups that
are being offered resettlement as a durable solution has
skyrocketed in recent years. By accepting persons based on the
need for rescue and resettlement rather than their integration
prospects or the strength of their advocacy groups, we find
that U.S. leadership has been demonstrated in our willingness
to accept such diverse caseloads.
But the more diverse population we are now bringing in do
not necessarily have the benefit of strong ethnic community
support, as the Indochinese or the Soviet refugees have had,
and for this reason, we have been working closely with our non-
governmental partners to address this situation and to plan to
strengthen orientation for both sponsors and refugees to
improve the quality of resettlement.
Now, I would like to turn to the specific proposals the
President would like to offer for the year 2000 admissions. Our
overall request is for 90,000. This will include 18,000 for
Africa; 8,000 for East Asia; 17,000 for the former Yugoslavia,
which is the Bosnian caseload and Croatian caseload; the former
Soviet Union, 20,000; Latin America, 3,000; Near East/South
Asia, 8,000; and Kosovars, 10,000. We also have included a
level of 6,000 unallocated, which throughout the year we would
be able to redistribute through consultation with you.
Eighty-thousand of the 90,000 numbers would be funded
through our normal migration and refugee assistance account.
However, there is a lot of discussion going on with regard to
our budget right now in other fora on the Hill and that we may
have a problem paying for those 80,000 if we do not receive our
full requested level of $660 million for the full MRA account.
I just flag that as a potential problem. The other 10,000
cases, which would be the Kosovar refugees, they can be funded
by the appropriation that we got as an emergency supplemental.
The 17,000 number is proposed for the known Kosovar crisis
from the former Yugoslavia would address the ongoing need for
the Bosnian resettlement. This program is decreasing, but there
still is a need and we plan to stay with that program.
In Africa, as you know, we have gone from 7,000 in fiscal
year 1998 to 12,000 this year. Now, we are going to try to go
to 18,000. We have identified a number of very vulnerable
groups that do need third-country resettlement and we are going
to be reaching out to those. They are in about 20 different
countries of Africa, so it is an interesting and difficult
caseload.
For the Near East and South Asia, this includes Iranians,
Iraqis, Kurds, Afghan women. We are going to double the
caseload there, and one of the reasons we are doing this is
that we have made a lot of effort with the UNHCR and the
voluntary agencies to expand our access to people at particular
risk.
For the longstanding programs of the former Soviet Union,
Vietnam, and Cuba, those programs are declining, but it is a
natural decline. We believe that we are reaching those most in
need, but we are going to only probably need 20,000 slots next
year, or this coming year.
In Vietnam, we will need numbers, of course, for the
closing out of the orderly departure program and the ROVR
program. We are going to begin processing in Ho Chi Minh City
for those caseloads, as well as former U.S. Government
employees and Amerasians. We still have caseloads of Burmese
that we will be processing from East Asia.
With regard to Cuba, our number requested will be 3,000.
That is about double what we currently are getting this year.
We have tried a number of things to expand the refugee caseload
from Cuba by underwriting some of the exit fee costs so that
that would encourage more to come forward, but we think that
3,000 will be more than adequate.
Finally, let me just say that refugee admissions is only
one piece of our big portfolio. The bulk of our funding and
efforts do go into refugee assistance overseas, and for that,
we spend over about $450 million. We are going to be
maintaining all of our efforts, but there has been one area
that I think it is really important to set the record straight
and that is on the question of whether we are not doing enough
for Africans and other refugees because we are doing so much
for Kosovo. Let me just say that this is an issue that gets
raised in many different fora and by the media and it is a
question that we always have to ask and we always have to be
able to examine how well we are doing.
It is a problem. In many of the donor countries, they are
taking money away from the developing country assistance
programs and they are using it for Kosovo. Because of the
willingness of Congress to pass the emergency supplemental for
Kosovo, I can say we have not taken any money away from any
assistance programs. As a matter of fact, we have, in most
instances, been more than 25 percent of the assistance level
worldwide for African refugees.
With that, sir, let me just stop my introductory comments
and welcome any questions and also my colleagues here will be
glad to answer those directed toward them. Thank you.
Senator Abraham. Thank you, and thank you for giving us a
little bit of an overview of the situation. We, I think, have
worked pretty well together on this subcommittee and in the
Congress to try to be supportive this year of the sort of
unexpected and emergency circumstances and we recognize that
there is more to the process than simply the appropriation.
There is also the execution that has to take place, and I
think, notwithstanding the extraordinary circumstances that we
were confronted with, that all organizations involved, both our
official government organizations, the nine governmental
organizations, the U.N. High Commissioner's Office and so on,
did yeoman's work and beyond the call of duty to try to meet
what was a pretty staggering challenge that, I think, would
have been even a far more difficult circumstance today had it
not been for effective operations, so we compliment all of you.
Let me start just to clarify on the numbers, and this would
be the tables themselves. In the copy that we received the
other day, there is a footnote, I guess it is, on the Kosovo
crisis refugees, the fiscal year 2000 ceiling. The footnote
says, basically, up to an additional 10,000 crisis refugees may
be admitted in fiscal year 2000 provided that existing
resources are available. Is there----
Ms. Taft. That is not a problem.
Senator Abraham. I was going to say, your testimony seems
to suggest that has been addressed, but I wanted to just
clarify it for my own purposes. So that number is one for which
the----
Ms. Taft. We have the money in the supplemental. We are
going to bracket it aside to make sure that--we can spend it on
this or we could spend it on any number of urgent requirements
inside Kosovo, but we are holding it aside for this if we need
those numbers.
Senator Abraham. Right. So this is not conditioned on any
money that has not already been made available?
Ms. Taft. No, sir.
Senator Abraham. OK. Good.
Ms. Taft. Sorry for the misunderstanding.
Senator Abraham. I thought it was the way you just said it,
but I wanted to make sure we were clear.
Let me ask you, on the second panel, as you are aware, we
are going to hear from some people who are involved in the non-
governmental organizations, and I was wondering if anybody on
the panel, starting with you, Secretary Taft, would just like
to comment on the role that those organizations play to help
sort of flesh out, maybe, for people who read our record have a
better understanding of how we have different responsibilities
and what your assessments have been of the performance of those
groups in the various crises we have confronted.
Ms. Taft. Our relationship with the voluntary resettlement
agencies goes back decades. We have used basically the same
structure for resettlement, well, since I started in the
refugee business 25 years ago, but they were engaged with the
State Department for decades before that.
These organizations have a wonderful constituency that does
two things important for us. One, it provides advocacy and
understanding by the American public about who refugees are and
why they are coming to this country, and that is immensely
important because it builds a foundation for helping them
resettle.
They also keep us honest. They are calling all the time,
sending us letters, going on site visits to try to raise issues
with us, and we have had a very active relationship with them
on working groups for every one of the regions that we talked
about. We have an ongoing relationship to talk about who are
they seeing, what kinds of issues are coming out, are we
processing well enough, what kinds of ideas do they have about
future refugee flows, et cetera. So it is a dynamic
relationship, but we do not always agree.
One of the things that we have to struggle with as the
executive branch is how do you meet a perceived need, a real
need, and how do you finance it and how do you actually manage
it. So you will see that the numbers that the voluntary
agencies often request to be brought into this country are
always going to be higher. They have always been higher than
any administration I have ever known feels that they can both
manage and pay for. So there is that creative tension.
We also have used--in about half of the processing places
around the world, we use the voluntary agencies under contract
to us to actually do the preparation of cases. This is
particularly appropriate where we have caseloads where we do
not really know who the people are. They really have to do
documentation preparation to be able to present the cases to
INS. So, as I say, in half the places, we use them for a very
important function of refugee processing.
The final point I guess I would like to make is that we are
all a team, or a family, and a family sometimes disagrees. But,
basically, the combination of the interest of the Hill, your
committee and the House committee, the involvement that we all
have in our own discussions in the executive branch and working
with the NGO's is just--it is what keeps this probably one of
the most vibrant programs that the U.S. Government funds.
Maybe Lavinia, who also has another full relationship with
the voluntary agencies----
Senator Abraham. Yes. Please comment.
Ms. Limon. It is a partnership, also, which Julia has
characterized, where the voluntary agencies and their local
affiliates work in partnership with us and the States to put on
various programs of assistance to refugees. Just let me note,
they operate the matching grant program, which is a program
where they raise local dollars and local assistance to help
move refugees into economic self-sufficiency within the first 4
months. Their success rate on that is about 80 to 90 percent,
which is really fabulous. They also work in partnership with us
to put on different grant programs, like community-family
strengthening, working with youth, and working with elderly and
on citizenship. So the voluntary agencies are integral to
having domestic resettlement work and the integration and
economic and social self-sufficiency be real for refugees.
Senator Abraham. Let me turn, really, to all of you at this
point for anybody who would like to comment on the issue of the
way that the Kosovar refugee assimilation effort worked, or
really just the movement of people. It seemed that the efforts
which went through Fort Dix were very successful, given the
crisis that we confronted, and I wondered if you feel that the
process that was at work there and the model that may have been
established is something that will be useful for future
situations if we confront such things again, and just your
general evaluation. I mean, it seemed to work pretty well, but
I would be interested in what anybody on this panel would like
to say about how effective you think it was and how you see it
as possibly being applied in future conditions.
Ms. Taft. Let me just start off, because I really want the
bulk of the time to go to Kathleen, who was on the Macedonia
side of the processing, and to Lavinia, who within hours of
hearing we were going to do this was up at Fort Dix and was the
real spark to get that going as well as it did.
Where you have an emergency requirement where people have
to move quickly to the United States, there were some people
who said, well, let us send them to Guantanamo, and then there
were others, like me, who said, over my dead body. That is not
the kind of image we want. That is not the kind of processing
we want. We need something Stateside, and it was at that point
that DOD was able to identify several places that HHS then
finally selected and Fort Dix to go ahead on.
We do not always need that kind of quick processing, and
the people who were sent to Fort Dix were basically people who
did not have relatives in this country that needed to move
quickly. So I think it is good to have an option. We are hoping
that we can kind of keep Fort Dix on mothballs just in case we
need it in the future, but I will defer to Lavinia on her
assessment for that process. Lavinia.
Ms. Limon. Yes. I would agree with Julia. It was a
successful operation with the help of State, the Department of
Defense in particular, and INS and Red Cross, who is not
usually a player on domestic refugee emergencies, and the
voluntary agencies.
I believe it is a good option. I think it was very good for
the refugees. I think it helped the American people understand
what being a refugee was. We had very good press coverage. The
people of New Jersey, I think, got a clear understanding of
what was going on. We had an outpouring of volunteers and
contributions and what not.
I think it is a secondary option. The processing overseas
is, obviously, where you want to be most of the time in a kind
of an emergency with an evacuation. What we did was prove that
it is an option. It is a viable option for the government to
take.
Senator Abraham. This committee had expressed concerns when
we first heard the theory of Guantanamo as the likely source, I
think sharing some of your concerns, and it seems this proved
to be a far more appropriate way, let us say, to handle a
crisis of this dimension that required that instantaneous
processing. I just would hope we would draw from it. My
question sort of suggests that we would draw from this
experience a new model to kind of be thinking about in the
event we are ever again confronted with this type of numbers
and this kind of time frame.
Ms. Taft. But I think it is important, too, though, to get
a perspective from INS, because everybody who came to Fort Dix
was seen by INS overseas before they came so that these people
were not here as first asylum. Kathleen, why do you not comment
on how--you did both. You did the direct departures as well as
those who were coming to Fort Dix. Is there anything that would
be particularly of concern or what lessons were learned in
terms of that process from an INS perspective?
Ms. Thompson. About 4,000 of the 11,000 Kosovars who were
admitted as refugees to the United States came through Fort
Dix. This is the first time that we had the opportunity to try
this sort of bifurcated processing, which we did with the Fort
Dix model. In all cases, both the direct departures, direct
arrivals, and the Fort Dix cases, INS did a full status
determination. We adjudicated the cases to find whether the
people had a well-founded fear of persecution. For the Fort Dix
cases, some of the processes that we could not get up and
running so quickly, like medical examinations and security
checks and such, were postponed and were completed at Fort Dix.
I think this worked particularly well, the Fort Dix model,
because of the strength of the refugees' claims and the
similarities and the very fact that our adjudications were so
very close to the time of their flight from persecution. I
think if we had a more complex caseload, it might not work as
well, because we were able to move cases through very quickly.
We had our first planeload filled within hours, I guess about
10 hours of work, filled our first planeload, and so it was a
really quick effort, but I think it was because their caseload
was so compelling.
Senator Abraham. Let me ask INS a separate question, and
this is a little more specific, but it is at least our
understanding that a number of refugees have been identified in
Lebanon by the U.N. High Commissioner's Office as possible
refugees, certainly, and there is, I guess, an expectation that
at some point they will be interviewed there. Is there a
timetable or a time frame when we might expect that will take
place, when there will be personnel to make such interviews?
Ms. Thompson. We have been working with UNHCR and the
Department of State on identifying the caseload and preparing
for a circuit ride. Our office in Athens that has geographical
jurisdiction over Lebanon has placed that on a circuit ride
schedule for next year. The one thing that we are awaiting is a
final security assessment from the embassy in Beirut that will
permit our travel, but it is definitely on our horizon.
Senator Abraham. When you say a security----
Ms. Thompson. Well, in the past, there have been certain
security arrangements that were required for U.S. officials to
travel to Lebanon, and I do not know if Secretary Taft could
comment on the latest from the embassy.
Ms. Taft. INS has to be approved by the diplomatic security
people at the State Department before they can go to certain
parts of the world. We all do.
Senator Abraham. Sure.
Ms. Taft. And Lebanon has certain levels of security
threats, so they have to get approval by the diplomatic
security people to be able to go there and stay and do the
processing. So I think it is to be scheduled. I mean, this is
not going to be a problem.
Mr. Weiss. And we are prepared, once we get that clearance,
we are prepared----
Senator Abraham. Is there a problem with that?
Ms. Taft. It depends on what country you go to. There are
certain places I cannot go in the world and probably they would
go crazy if you went, where it is just not safe enough to go.
So we have to make sure that it is safe for----
Senator Abraham. I understand. I just wondered. I thought
that, at least with respect to Lebanon, that we had sort of
moved past anything that would require a significant delay. In
fact, I was sort of surprised when I met recently with
Ambassador Satterfield, who in the process of talking about how
members of the Senate might get to Lebanon, because in the past
there would have either have to have been the use of an air
bridge from Cyprus, but he said, well, you can just fly into
the airport now. So I am really asking you not to challenge you
but just because it seemed as if we had maybe gotten past that
point with regard to Lebanon, and if it has not, it is news.
I will just ask you all to keep us apprised or let us know
what specifics you might as to what seems to be a likely
timetable for getting that clearance, and if there are
problems, I would just like to know about it. I was a little
surprised when I heard that direct flights into Beirut now were
being approved for members of Congress and I would assume that
if that is possible, then presumably it would also apply for
others in the government.
Ms. Taft. We will get back to you, sir, on that. But part
of their answer is that they have to schedule circuit rides,
and the Athens office is the office that was backstopping all
of the Kosovar activities in Macedonia, so some of the circuit
rides had to be rescheduled, and whether security was the
issue, funding was the issue, or enough people were the issue,
we will get back to you on that.
Senator Abraham. In the same vein, or maybe it is the same
circumstance, but in the hearing a couple of years ago, we had
inquired about the circuit riding possibilities with respect to
the former Soviet Union, and I was wondering if there have been
any developments along those lines because I know other members
of the committee have asked me about this as well as colleagues
because of reports we hear about people there.
We have always debated those numbers a little bit because
the amount of people who purportedly are in the category of
potential refugees does not seem to sometimes match the number
who show up in interviews and things like that. One of the
concerns that those who want to see those numbers remain high
have expressed is that people are either afraid or too far away
and so on, and we had talked about trying to address that
because we keep that number there pretty high and yet we do not
necessarily always hit that number. I just wondered what the
status was with respect to that.
Ms. Taft. We have, as a result of our consultations with
you and others, during the past year have sent out letters to
all of the people who had been approved for movement but had
not actually moved through the system between 1991 and, I
believe, 1996. So we sent out 7,000 letters. We sent out
letters to their sponsors. We validated addresses. We got back
2,000 responses.
In those responses, we had asked whether they needed to see
an adjudicator close by, whether they had a problem with
transportation to Moscow, we asked them all kinds of questions
as to why they were not moving. Only 84 people said they did
not have the money to go to Moscow to get their final medical
clearance and to leave. So we said, OK, we will pay for that.
We will give you a loan for that and we will pay your stipend
when you go to Moscow.
That does not mean we may not mean circuit rides, but what
we did find out for that first group of 2,000 respondents, that
none of them had requested circuit rides. Now, INS still has
them. They have been proposed. You have reviewed whether you
can do it. They are planned for Tashkent, Uzbekistan, Almaty,
Kazakhstan, Tbilisi, Minsk, Belarus, and Riga, if we need them,
and we do not right now. We have not asked them to execute a
circuit ride process. However, it is my understanding that you
are prepared to do it if we need it.
Mr. Weiss. We are prepared to do that, Senator. It would be
one of the great noble adventures in Central Asia that many of
our former Peace Corps volunteer refugee officers will jump at.
Senator Abraham. I am sure they would. Maybe we should do
one just for the sake of the memoirs.
Ms. Taft. But, actually, we did establish an IOM medical
processing capability in Almaty, and maybe what we should do is
try Almaty as sort of a Central Asia overlay with INS and your
Peace Corps volunteers, your INS and IOM and we will see if
that helps at all. But it does not at this time appear that the
reason people are not availing themselves to resettlement is
because there is no circuit ride.
Senator Abraham. You received 2,000 responses from what was
the total?
Ms. Taft. Seven thousand letters. We have thousands more
that are going out, because, as you know, there were 30,000
people who have not yet moved.
Senator Abraham. Right.
Ms. Taft. Most of them have not moved for the last 2 or 3
years, but we wanted to take the older caseload and find out
what was really happening with them. But we are sending out
letters now to the more recent cases and we will see what they
have to say. We want to find out why they are not moving and we
will solve it. We want to solve it with them. But many of the
reasons people have not moved are a grandmother who is sick or
a father who is ill, personal reasons.
Senator Abraham. So you have seen no evidence in the
responses, basically, that you have received to this point to
suggest that incapacity of some sort is a factor in terms of
not being eligible?
Ms. Taft. No, sir.
Senator Abraham. Let me ask, just on another matter, some
concerns have been raised to us about a possible change in
policy with respect to interviews of those seeking refugee
status in certain countries where, at least in the reports we
have heard, there may be a policy change that would not allow
interviews to occur for those who are either married children
of U.S. residents or grandparents of U.S. residents unless they
were separately referred by UNHCR or embassy personnel. Is that
a rumor that is with any basis or is that something that is----
Ms. Taft. You are talking about the former Soviet Union?
Senator Abraham. No, it is unspecific in terms of the
countries being possibly affected by the policy, but what we
have----
Ms. Taft. We just proposed a change with the voluntary
agencies in a meeting we had on Monday where we are
recommending that the Bosnian caseload, which is processed
primarily out of Zagreb and out of Frankfurt, that we not
include what is called a P-4 category, and the P-4 category,
just to--is the only place we have it. A P-4 is grandparents,
grandchildren, married sons and daughters, and siblings of U.S.
citizens and persons lawfully admitted to the United States as
permanent resident aliens, refugees, asylees, conditional
residents, and certain parolees.
This priority four is only applying to Bosnia, and we are
trying to build, as you can imagine, more equity in our program
and not to have extra eligibility, which really does sort of
link into a longer-term immigration program. We thought maybe
it was time to reassess that for the Bosnians, because, as I
say, they are the only caseload that had it.
But that does not mean that anybody who does not have a
well-founded fear of persecution in their own right, they can
still become a P-1 or they can be a P-2, if they also meet a P-
2 category. We do not want anyone who is at risk of being
persecuted or who has been persecuted to be denied access. What
we are addressing in this P-4 category are the really extended
family members who, in their own right, may have less of a
vulnerability.
Senator Abraham. So that category only is applicable to the
Bosnian refugees----
Ms. Taft. Bosnia, yes, sir.
Senator Abraham [continuing]. And so the possible change
that you are either recommending or proposing or whatever would
only affect those refugees because that is the only place where
the P-4 category exists? Again, I am kind of just going on
information supplied without a lot of detail to us. So,
basically, you are looking for either the embassy personnel or
UNHCR to make a referral before those P-4 category people would
be interviewed, unless they fell into another category, as
well?
Ms. Taft. Well, if any of the P-4--we have, I think, an
agreement with the voluntary agencies that they would be
comfortable, or at least acceptable, for us to stop new AOR's,
affidavits of relationship, by November 1. So we still have
some time to work on this. We also, as you know, have a big
backlog of more urgent cases in Bosnia, P-1's, P-2's, and P-
3's. We would like to implement it now, not that it is going to
affect so much the people who are already registered, but if
you can imagine 120,000 people who have already been processed
to the United States from the Bosnian caseload, they all have
brothers and sisters that are now applying and wanting to come,
as well. I just think it is important for us to be careful that
we----
Senator Abraham. In short, what you are saying is that
since this is a unique policy for this----
Ms. Taft. For just that caseload.
Senator Abraham [continuing]. One caseload that any
movement in this direction is only aimed at sort of leveling
the playing field with regard to others?
Ms. Taft. Exactly.
Senator Abraham. Let me just change subjects for a moment,
Ms. Limon, and ask you to just describe for us the sorts of
things that we try to do as part of our overall refugee program
here in the United States to better train or prepare or find
work for refugees, because I think a lot of people should know
more about this. I know that is one of the priorities we have,
so maybe you could tell us about some of the things that your
offices do.
Ms. Limon. With pleasure, Mr. Chairman. The domestic
refugee program is quite varied and quite extensive throughout
most of the States in the United States. We start out, of
course, with refugee cash and medical assistance, which is for
8 months, a short time to achieve economic and social self-
sufficiency, but one which I think we have found to be optimum,
that it does give the refugees enough time to get on their feet
and does not leave them in a dependent situation for a long
time. So we have seen a great success with that.
We have social service money going to all the States for
basically employment services and for other kinds of social
services, to work with youth and elderly and women and other
people with particular problems. We have supported victims of
torture programs prior to the Victims of Torture Act being
passed, and we hope that it is funded this coming year
separately so we can extend those services to non-refugees as
well as refugees, since our appropriation is just for refugees.
This year, we were able to put out support for schools, K
through 12, who have been impacted by refugee children coming
in, and I think ORR over the years has really been very
important in developing the field of English as a second
language, and, of course, English and jobs is the emphasis. I
think we have been very successful in the last few years.
We have also implemented the GIPRA guidelines in measuring
performance, that every State has basically increased their
performance by 5 percent every year in terms of moving people
to self-sufficiency. Obviously, the economy has something to do
with that. The jobs are available. But also, I think, the
entire program has shifted so that self-sufficiency and moving
refugees on is something that not only the people who work with
refugees are completely bought into, but the refugees
themselves come with the attitude of, where is my job and how
do I get moving, and we see that all over the country.
Senator Abraham. So you feel very optimistic about the
program?
Ms. Limon. I do. I think it has really had a dramatic
improvement the last few years.
Senator Abraham. I want to thank, once again, all of you.
We look forward to swift completion of the consultation process
between now and the end of the fiscal year and we will be in
touch, as well as to hear additionally about the challenges you
all are dealing with every day. We appreciate your being here,
Secretary Taft and all of you.
Ms. Taft. Thank you so much.
Senator Abraham. Thank you.
[The prepared statements of Ms. Taft and Lavinia Limon
follow:]
Prepared Statement of Julia V. Taft
Mr. Chairman, I am pleased to participate in today's hearing on the
President's proposal for the fiscal year 2000 refugee admissions
program. Under your leadership, this subcommittee has consistently
provided strong bipartisan support for this important humanitarian
effort and I look forward to reviewing with you where the
Administration believes our focus should be as we enter the next
millennium.
But first, a few words about recent events in the Balkans. The
massive humanitarian disaster caused by the Milosevic regime's
attempted ethnic cleansing in Kosovo demanded a swift and resolute
response by the international community. It seems almost impossible to
comprehend that some 800,000 citizens of the Federal Republic of
Yugoslavia fled their country under threat of unspeakable violence,
survived for several weeks in hastily constructed refugee camps, host
family accommodations or in evacuation locations around the globe; and
then--in the vast majority of cases--returned home to Kosovo. And all
in four short months. While the international community's effort was
massive and, even under the most difficult circumstances, effective in
providing food and shelter and minimizing the spread of disease, much
credit for this remarkable outcome rests with the Kosovars themselves.
After the horror that they had experienced, their abiding goal and what
sustained them throughout was the fervent desire to return to their
homes, communities, customs and culture. They did not leave by choice
to seek a better life elsewhere. They, like most refugees in the world,
wanted above all else to go home.
In order to reduce the pressure on Macedonia, a neighboring state
that deserves enormous credit for sharing its territory with the
fleeing Kosovars and the relief effort, the United States joined 30
other countries in offering places of refuge to these strong and
remarkable people. The refugee admissions program that we are here to
talk about today was the best available vehicle the United States had
to assist the Kosovars. While most often used in situations where
resettlement is intended as a permanent solution, we have now seen that
it can also be effectively used in other situations. The fact that the
resources of a well-established network of voluntary agency affiliates
could be used in this emergency operation greatly facilitated our
ability to respond. In all some 11,000 Kosovars have been provided
refuge here since the first arrivals on May 5. In keeping with our
commitment to facilitate their voluntary return to Kosovo, the first
group of 300 repatriating Kosovars departed the United States on July
26. The International Organization for Migration estimates that up to a
third of the 11,000 have requested information on return flights.
While all of this has been happening, the American people have been
reminded of what it means to be a refugee. The public's response to the
plight of the Kosovars was immediate and overwhelming. We received tens
of thousands of calls and everyone wanted to do something. We did our
best to ensure that these offers of assistance were appropriately
channeled to voluntary organizations that resettle not just Kosovars
but refugees from all over the world. These refugees may not receive
the same press attention but they are welcomed in communities across
the United States week in week out year after year.
The changing ethnic and religious composition of the refugee
population being resettled under the admissions program has posed new
challenges for the resettlement community. Religious persecution has
long been the basis of a significant percentage of applications to our
refugee admissions program and we have unfortunately no reason to
believe that this global phenomenon will ameliorate in the near term.
The number of new ethnic groups being offered resettlement as a durable
solution has skyrocketed in recent years.
Some have noted that in 1993 the authorized refugee ceiling was
considerably higher than it is at present. However, two in-country
refugee programs in Vietnam and the former Soviet Union which the
United States was fulfilling long-standing historic commitments then
produced 80 percent of admissions. By way of contrast, in the current
fiscal year, that percentage will continue to decline to about 40
percent, leaving the majority of U.S. refugee admissions for those
individuals and groups recognized by UNHCR and the international
community as refugees in need of resettlement. It is by accepting
persons based on their need for resettlement rather than on their
integration prospects or the strength of their advocacy groups that
U.S. leadership and commitment are demonstrated.
The more diverse population we now bring in often cannot depend on
the kind of ethnic community support that was available to the
Indochinese and Soviet refugees and there are signs that the system is
straining in some locations. We have begun a dialogue with our non-
governmental resettlement partners to determine how the government and
the private sector should best organize our institutions and resources
to better meet the needs of incoming refugees, including through the
involvement of interested members of resettlement communities.
I would like to turn now to the specifics of the President's
proposal for fiscal year 2000.
We believe that the overall admissions ceiling in the coming year
should be 90,000. Eighty thousand of these numbers, would be funded
through the President's requested level for the Migration and Refugee
Assistance account for fiscal year 2000. However, if we receive an
appropriation less than $660 million, we will be forced to cut the
number of admissions. Adequate funding is a prerequisite for
implementing the type of generous refugee admissions program many in
this Congress have encouraged this Administration to maintain.
In addition to the 80,000 numbers to be funded by our regular MRA
budget, we also propose that up to 10,000 numbers be made available to
address compelling refugee cases, which have arisen from the Kosovo
crisis. Given the dynamic nature of events in the region, it is
difficult to estimate how many of these admissions will be needed.
These would be funded out of the Kosovo Emergency Supplemental
Appropriation already approved by Congress. While most Kosovar
Albanians have already or will be able to return, there will be
individuals identified by UNHCR who are in need of third country
resettlement. Members of minority groups, such as the Roma people, and
former refugees now unable to remain safely in the former Yugoslavia--
such as Krajina Serbs--will continue to need assistance in finding a
durable solution. In addition, we anticipate that there will be certain
Kosovar Albanians who were so traumatized they will not be able to
return.
The 17,000 numbers proposed for non-Kosovo crisis refugees from the
Former Yugoslavia would address the ongoing need for Bosnian
resettlement. While this program is decreasing in size, there remains a
significant population for whom return to Bosnia is not yet a realistic
prospect. Many persons in mixed marriages fall into this category.
In Africa, I am pleased to report that the rapid expansion from
7,000 admissions in fiscal year 1998 to 12,000 this year has been
accomplished without diminishing either the quality of the processing
or the caseload. We credit all of our operational partners--Church
World Service (the Joint Voluntary Agency), INS, UNHCR, and the
International Organization for Migration--with doing a masterful job of
coordination, in spite of the disruption created by the bombing of our
Nairobi Embassy one year ago this week.
INS and we have continued to develop our relationship with UNHCR
field office staff in Africa to enhance their understanding of our
programmatic and legal requirements. Together we have identified groups
of refugees, such as Ogoni and Togolese in Benin and the Mushunguli
(Bantu Somalis) in Kenya who needed or need third country resettlement.
In keeping with this progress, the President's proposal for African
refugee resettlement would be to increase significantly the ceiling in
fiscal year 2000 to 18,000. This is consistent with our effort to
ensure that we resettle those populations most in need.
Our support of UNHCR in the Near East/South Asia region has greatly
expanded their work in individual status determinations and, as a
result, referrals for resettlement. Although many of the beneficiaries
are members of nationalities traditionally included in our admissions
program--Iraqis and Iranians--we have also seen a sizeable increase in
the numbers of Afghan Women at Risk and African refugees, long resident
in the region, referred for resettlement. As the President has made
clear, we are deeply opposed to the Taliban regime's repressive
policies toward women and we are committed to ensuring that Afghan
women in vulnerable circumstances obtain the protection they deserve.
In order to accommodate the anticipated surge in referrals, we are
proposing to double this regional ceiling in fiscal year 2000 to 8,000.
As I noted earlier, the longstanding in-country programs for the
former Soviet Union, Vietnam and Cuba are declining. In the former
Soviet Union, admissions this year are unlikely to reach 20,000. New
applications from eligible individuals have declined and the
composition of the caseload now comprises predominantly Evangelical
Christian cases. We are making a last effort to resettle those among
the long-approved population of over 30,000 who have yet to take
advantage of our resettlement offer. We continue to work with the
voluntary agencies to address the issues of those who have not departed
and expect to see a slight increase in next year's admissions level as
some among this group decide to migrate. The proposed ceiling for the
former Soviet Union is 20,000 in fiscal year 2000.
In Vietnam, most of the remaining Orderly Departure and ROVR
program cases are being adjudicated this fiscal year but not all will
arrive by September 30 and will require fiscal year 2000 admissions
numbers. In addition, interviews of some former U.S. government
employees and Amerasians as well as compelling cases of current
persecution will be handled through a refugee unit recently established
in conjunction with our consulate in Ho Chi Minh City. Burmese and
other East Asian cases referred by UNHCR or U.S. Embassies will also
utilize some of the 8,000 admissions numbers proposed for the region.
For the past two years, Cuban refugee admissions have fallen well
below the authorized ceiling. We have taken steps to ameliorate the
burden posed by the Cuban government's exorbitant departure fees.
Refugee admissions remain an important component of the 20,000 annual
Cuban migration program and we continue to interview qualified
applicants. In addition, the program remains available to individuals
of other Latin American nationalities referred to the program by UNHCR
or U.S. embassies. The recommended ceiling for fiscal year 2000 is
3,000.
Given the considerable uncertainties surrounding the need for
refugee admissions numbers, we recommend that 6,000 numbers be
unassigned to specific regions, but rather, be available for future
allocation from an unallocated reserve. This will allow the program the
flexibility needed to address situations such as this year's Kosovo
crisis.
Turning briefly to our other area of major responsibility--refugee
assistance, the Balkans has been the single largest focus for our
bureau over the past year. I am extremely proud of the role my staff
played in quickly moving resources to the region, evacuating refugees
from first asylum countries, keeping the U.S. Government apprised of
the constantly changing situation on the ground, and working with other
governments and humanitarian organizations. In addition to our
resettlement efforts, PRM has provided more than $130 million in
assistance in fiscal year 1999 for emergency relief, return, and
reintegration. The funds recently appropriated by the Congress in the
Emergency supplemental are already being used to address the priority
needs of the returnees inside Kosovo.
Even as we focused on Kosovo, we continued our efforts to
facilitate minority return in Bosnia and Croatia. Although progress in
these countries is slower than desired, the momentum is in the right
direction and we remain committed to this effort.
In the Middle East, PRM's substantial contributions to the UN
Relief and Works Agency are a key element of U.S. assistance to the
Middle East Peace Process, supporting over 3.2 million Palestinian
refugees. In addition, the US helps more than 50,000 humanitarian
migrants from the former Soviet Union resettle in Israel yearly.
Migration is one of the top issues on the USG's agenda with our
neighbors to the south, and PRM is increasing its funding in the
region. The U.S. is responsible for implementing several sections of
the Santiago Summit of the Americas Plan of Action, including the
section pertaining to Migrant Workers, and we will soon assume the
chair of the Regional Conference on Migration (known as the Puebla
Group). PRM is providing assistance for people displaced by the
hostilities in Colombia, an area of growing concern.
The U.S. remains the driving force behind efforts to help states of
the former Soviet Union develop effective and comprehensive solutions
to population movements within and among their countries. Earlier this
month, the Government of Russia officially thanked us for the role we
have played on this front. At the same time, PRM continues to support
programs that foster self-reliance for IDP's in Azerbaijan and Georgia
as well as refugees in Armenia.
Much of the news from Africa has been discouraging over the last
year--unspeakable atrocities in Sierra Leone where innocent men, women,
and even small children have had limbs chopped off in order to
terrorize rather than kill; renewed warfare in the Congo which pulled
in neighbors near and further afield; a war we have difficulty
understanding between Ethiopia and Eritrea; another cycle of warfare in
Congo/Brazzaville. All of these have uprooted people from their homes.
In recent weeks, however, there have been a number of hopeful
developments that I would like to highlight.
The July 7 Lome peace accord between the Government of Sierra Leone
and the Revolutionary United Front has been holding and does provide a
framework for that long-suffering country to move toward recovery and
reconciliation. When appropriate, PRM/State will strongly support the
repatriation of some 450,000 refugees currently in Guinea, Liberia, and
Cote d'Ivoire. Sierra Leonean refugees have always been anxious to
return home when the conflict ebbed in earlier stages, so we expect
that most will want to return as soon as they perceive Sierra Leone to
be secure. At the same time, many refugees have experienced atrocities
and setbacks in previous peace processes so many may be cautious about
returning.
At a recent international meeting (Brookings Group) of senior
representatives from select major donors (including NGO's, UN agencies,
and the World Bank), Sierra Leone was selected as a target country for
proposed ``partnership initiatives'' designed to improve relief and
development planning and program implementation. This should lead to
increased donor attention to Sierra Leone, which has received
insufficient world attention compared to other complex humanitarian
emergencies. The Great Lakes region, especially Burundi, was also
selected as a pilot.
A cease-fire accord for Congo has been signed last month by six
heads of state involved in the war there. The agreement still lacks the
signature of the rebels because of internal disagreements, but we are
hopeful that this will soon be rectified, that the fighting will indeed
stop, and the outflow of refugees--principally to Tanzania, Zambia, and
the CAR--will also be reversed.
And an accord between Ethiopia and Eritrea seems imminent. Peace
there would enable the internally displaced to return to their homes.
And possibly those who were forced out because they had ethnic origins
in the other state might even be able to return eventually, should they
want to.
Our assistance earmarked for Africa this fiscal year is expected to
reach some $135 million. One element of that is the beginnings of an
effort to close the gap between the basic assistance that often exists
in Africa with what international practice outlines as the minimum
standard in such areas as nutrition and health. For example, we are
providing assistance to an NGO in Guinea to mount a new program to
address gender violence. In the Great Lakes, we are providing
additional funds to WFP to help ensure that refugees dependent upon
external food deliveries get the requisite 2,000 kcal per day.
We are also pursuing this ``up to standard'' initiative with Afghan
refugees, with a special focus on educational opportunities for refugee
women and girls in Pakistan. When it looked a few years ago as if peace
might come to Afghanistan, repatriation was robust and international
aid to refugees began to be downsized. Now, with genuine peace still
elusive in Afghanistan and the patience of the refugee-hosting nations
wearing thin as the decade closes, we have redoubled rather than phased
out our assistance. We expect our earmarked assistance for Afghans to
reach nearly $10 million this fiscal year, while general regional
contributions to the UNHCR and ICRC also benefit Afghans significantly.
In East Asia, Burmese continue to be the largest refugee group now
that Cambodians have all returned home. I am happy to report that the
Thai Government's relatively recent agreement to accord UNHCR an
explicit monitoring role along the Burma border where all basic
assistance is provided by NGO's has resulted in refugee registration
and the thwarting of some threatened pushbacks. The situation in
Indonesia is quite worrisome, particularly in East Timor and Aceh,
where the kind of relief and protection that an ICRC presence can bring
is so needed. That is a good example of where our Bureau works closely
with other elements of the Department and USAID to take as much
complementary preventive action as possible.
I have not, of course, mentioned all of the humanitarian situations
in which we are deeply involved and would be happy to try to answer
whatever specific questions you might have. I do want to address one
issue that keeps arising--the perception that we are doing more for
some refugee groups than for others. Late last month (7/22), for
example, the Wall Street Journal carried a story that the Office for
the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA) was concerned that aid
to Kosovo is coming at the expense of humanitarian disasters in Africa
and Asia. While we cannot speak for other countries, the United States
has ensured that our funding of refugee assistance for Kosovo has not
diminished our regular commitment to assist refugees and others in
humanitarian crises in the world, thanks to the special supplemental
appropriation.
Everyone recognizes that humanitarian needs in Africa, for example,
are huge and that there are many obstacles to meeting all of them
adequately--from programming levels to logistical access. However, it
is not by merely criticizing aid to victims in Kosovo that those
obstacles will be overcome. We must look at concrete ways of ensuring
that our collective efforts everywhere are indeed up to international
standards and requirements.
In closing, let me reiterate our great appreciation for your steady
support for all that we are trying to do for the world's refugees and
internally displaced persons. We value our relationship with the
Congress and welcome your thoughts on the President's fiscal year 2000
admissions proposal or other aspects of the United States humanitarian
relief efforts.
__________
Prepared Statement of Lavinia Limon
Mr. Chairman, I appreciate the opportunity to submit this testimony
on behalf of the President's recommendations for fiscal year 2000
refugee admissions. As the Director of the Office of Refugee
Resettlement in the Administration for Children and Families, I am
responsible for administering the refugee and entrant assistance
program.
The domestic refugee resettlement program must be able to respond
quickly, visibly, and flexibly in providing refugee-specific services
and in responding to refugee admissions crises. I believe that the
program has become much more effective at moving people to economic and
social self-sufficiency in the last five years than ever before. There
are many reasons for this success such as the changes in welfare
reform, the strong economy, our flexibility in delivering services, the
broadening of social services available to refugees, and that refugees
have a strong work ethic and ambition to succeed.
background
Since 1975, over 2.2 million refugees have been resettled in the
United States. The major goal of the refugee and entrant assistance
program is to help refugees achieve economic self-sufficiency and
social adjustment within the shortest time possible following their
arrival in the U.S. For fiscal year 1999, approximately $435.2 million
was available through seven different programs: refugee cash and
medical assistance, the ``alternative programs'' under the Wilson/Fish
authority, social services, preventive health services, the voluntary
agency matching grant program, the unaccompanied refugee minors
program, and the targeted assistance grant program.
Refugee cash assistance and refugee medical assistance (RCA/RMA)
are available to needy refugees who are not eligible for other cash or
medical assistance programs such as Temporary Assistance for Needy
Families (TANF), Supplemental Security Income (SSI), or Medicaid, and
who arrive in the U.S. with few or no financial resources. This refugee
assistance is State-administered and is paid entirely from federal
funds. It is available to refugees only for a limited number of months
following arrival in the U.S.; currently RCA/RMA are available for a
refugee's first 8 months in the U.S.
We also reimburse States for the costs incurred on behalf of
refugee children in the U.S. who are identified in countries of first
asylum as unaccompanied minors. Depending on their individual needs,
refugee children are placed in foster care, group care, independent
living, or residential treatment.
At the State and local level, activities continue around creating
alternative programs using the Wilson/Fish authority. Under this
authority, we develop alternative projects that promote early
employment of refugees. States, voluntary resettlement agencies, and
other non-profit organizations have the opportunity to develop
innovative approaches for the provision of cash and medical assistance,
social services, and case management. Three projects were established
when the State governments of Kentucky, Nevada, and South Dakota
decided not to continue administering the refugee cash and medical
assistance program. Eight other projects have been established as
refugee-specific alternatives to the TANF and RCA programs; they are
located in North Dakota, Colorado, Idaho, Maryland, California,
Vermont, Oklahoma, and Louisiana.
To help refugees become self-supporting as quickly as possible, we
also provide funding to State governments and private, non-profit
agencies to provide services, such as English as a Second Language and
employment training. Refugees receiving cash and medical assistance are
required to be enrolled in employment services and to accept offers of
employment.
For fiscal year 1999, ORR provided grants to State public health
departments for preventive health assessment and treatment services to
refugees for protection of the public health against contagious
diseases.
Under the Voluntary Agency Matching Grant Program, agencies match
Federal funds from private funds or in-kind goods and services. About
one-quarter of all newly arriving refugees are enrolled in this
program. Under Matching Grant rules, during the refugees' first four
months in the U.S., nine voluntary resettlement agencies take
responsibility for resettling refugees through their local networks and
assisting them to become self-sufficient through private initiatives
without recourse to public assistance.
The Targeted Assistance Grants program targets additional resources
to communities facing extraordinary resettlement problems because of a
high concentration of refugees and a high use of public assistance by
the resident refugee population. Special efforts are directed to those
refugees who depend upon public assistance.
recent activities in the program
Our discretionary funds have supported services to refugees in a
broad array of activities: Cultural orientation services for refugees
who are newly arrived, help to localities which receive unanticipated
arrivals as well as communities affected by increases in the arrival of
Cuban and Haitian entrants, and support for communities which represent
preferred resettlement sites. Ongoing activities supported by
discretionary funds include community and family strengthening,
domestic violence prevention, crime prevention, mental health services,
English language and vocational training, micro-enterprise, support for
local and national ethnic groups, and targeted assistance to local,
impacted counties. This year, ORR has funded a new area of educational
support to schools with a significant proportion of refugee children.
Finally, discretionary funds also support services for communities with
large concentrations of refugees who have experienced particular
difficulty acculturating to local communities. These include subsidized
employment, citizenship services, and services for the elderly.
As you know, in the Refugee Act there is a provision that
authorizes the Secretary to make arrangements for the temporary care of
refugees in the United States in emergency circumstances, including the
establishment of domestic processing centers. The most recent use of
this provision was the assistance ORR provided to Kosovar refugees at
Fort Dix, New Jersey. ORR coordinated the efforts of other HHS
agencies, the military, the State Department, the Immigration and
Naturalization Service, the Customs Service and other agencies at Fort
Dix. I am happy to report that this joint effort ensured the smooth and
efficient processing of over 4,000 Kosovar refugees and their
resettlement in communities all across the country in a very short
period of time.
conclusion
We will continue to work closely with Congress, the States,
voluntary agencies and others involved in refugee resettlement to
identify creative and effective ways to help refugees achieve economic
self-sufficiency and social adjustment as quickly as possible.
We believe the Administration's proposed 5-year reauthorization
package provides the framework for accomplishing this goal. We look
forward to working with the Committee to reauthorize the refugee and
entrant program this year.
Senator Abraham. I would now ask our second panel and its
members to please join us. If I can have everybody's attention,
we will turn to our second panel. Let me just begin by
introducing our witnesses and then we will go to them for
statements.
First, we will hear from Mary Kortenhoven, who is a case
worker from the Program Assisting Refugee Acculturation, or
PARA, with the Church World Service and who is also a
missionary with the Christian Reformed Church in Grand Rapids,
MI. We welcome you here.
We also have next to her Binta Bah, who is a refugee from
Sierra Leone, also from Michigan, I guess, now. Ms. Bah arrived
in the United States in late May. Her statement will be read by
Mrs. Kortenhoven.
Then we will hear from Bishop Nicholas DiMarzio, who is the
Bishop of Camden, NJ, and who is Chairman of the Committee on
Migration for the National Conference of Catholic Bishops. We
welcome you.
Finally, we will hear from Mr. Ralston Deffenbaugh, who is
President of the Lutheran Immigration and Refugee Services.
I want to thank you all for coming. Because there are a
number of folks who will be testifying on this panel, we will
try to use our 5-minute clock here. The green light means go,
the yellow light means 1 minute left, and the red light means
you have hit 5 minutes, although we are pretty flexible about
finishing paragraphs and things like that at the end. We will
include full statements in the record, even if they exceed the
5-minute time frame here.
We will begin with you, and I guess you are going to read a
statement for Mrs. Bah at this time, as well as your own,
maybe?
Mrs. Kortenhoven. Do you want mine or hers first?
Senator Abraham. Why do you not start with yours and then
we will have you read hers after you finish. Welcome.
PANEL CONSISTING OF MARY KORTENHOVEN, MISSIONARY TO SIERRA
LEONE, CHRISTIAN REFORMED CHURCH, GRAND RAPIDS, MI; BINTA BAH,
REFUGEE FROM SIERRA LEONE, GRAND RAPIDS, MI; NICHOLAS A.
DiMARZIO, BISHOP OF CAMDEN, NJ, AND CHAIRMAN, COMMITTEE ON
MIGRATION, NATIONAL CONFERENCE OF CATHOLIC BISHOPS, CAMDEN, NJ;
AND RALSTON H. DEFFENBAUGH, JR., PRESIDENT, LUTHERAN
IMMIGRATION AND REFUGEE SERVICE, WASHINGTON, DC, ON BEHALF OF
THE AMERICAN COUNCIL FOR VOLUNTARY INTERNATIONAL ACTION
STATEMENT OF MARY KORTENHOVEN
Mrs. Kortenhoven. Thank you, Senator Abraham, for inviting
me to come with Binta Bah to this hearing. My name is Mary
Kortenhoven and I am a missionary to Sierra Leone from the
Christian Reformed Church. I have served with my family in
Sierra Leone since 1980 and am waiting to return as soon as
that is possible. I deeply appreciate the privilege of being
able to give my own brief statement and to read Binta's
testimony.
I am also glad to have the opportunity to say thank you to
you, Senator Abraham, for the leadership that you have given on
policy issues affecting refugees and asylum seekers. We are
fortunate to have a chair of this committee who cares so much
about the protection and humanitarian assistance for these
vulnerable people.
I feel that I represent two sides of this story. I come as
one of the good folks in West Michigan. I represent the
compassionate ones who have welcomed the strangers. They are
people who are very concerned about the millions of refugees
and displaced people all over the world. The people in West
Michigan care very much about what is happening to people in
Africa.
I also feel qualified to represent the refugee side of the
story. I have been forced from my home by war three different
times. The first was in Nigeria with the Biafran War. The
second was when rebels of the RUF marched into the area where
we were living in Sierra Leone. The third was during the coup
in 1997 when the AFRC took control of Sierra Leone.
A refugee does not choose to become a refugee. We all
think, ``This will never happen to me,'' and everyone who is
forced to leave her home thinks, ``This will be over in a few
days and I will return to my home.'' I know I thought these
things when my family had to leave our home of 14 years in
Foria. We left at the same time Binta was forced from her home
in Sefadu. We woke up to the news that rebels had burned a town
20 miles away and were entering a village 10 miles away. I went
from room to room wondering, what should I take, and thinking,
I cannot fill the car with my stuff.
I left with six women and six children in the vehicle. We
cried for miles as we passed neighbors running on foot with
loads on their heads and children on their backs. We passed a
carpenter with his wheelbarrow full of tools. Mothers put more
children through our windows. Other mothers were crying for
children they could not find. We saw the children further down
the road and told them to sit and wait for your mothers. I will
never forget that exodus.
I was able to return to the village a month later. There
was nothing left of our house. It was a burned-out shell.
Scraps of charred paper were stuck in the corners and broken
glass covered the cement floors. My son's favorite shirt lay
half-burned on the path in front of what used to be his
bedroom. The lives of my family and the lives of our neighbors
were forever changed.
Since that time, much has happened. The war in Sierra Leone
has taken many turns and now we wait as a peace accord has been
signed. My husband is in Sierra Leone and is working with
others in the NGO community and the government to get food to
the hungry people in parts of the country that have been cut
off. Last week, they negotiated with the RUF to deliver food to
Kabala, the main city in the north. The convoy carrying rice
and seed rice got as far as 60 miles from Kabala, and there
they were stopped. The RUF commandos told them they could not
guarantee their safety in Tamaboro country. Everyone returned
to Freetown.
I have not been in Sierra Leone myself since 1997, but
before I left, I was able to spend short periods of time back
in the village. I watched people come back into their villages
and begin to rebuild their homes and lives. Displaced people
would wander into the village.
But during this past year, much of what was rebuilt then
has been destroyed. Whole villages in the area have been
leveled. Many people live on their farms and others have moved
to Freetown. The whole of the north is rebel-held territory.
More recently, I met with some of our Sierra Leonean staff
at a conference in Dakar, Senegal. Each one described the
terror that they and their families lived through in the
January attacks on Freetown. They told us how Paul, the
carpenter who built our houses, was captured and killed. He
refused to let the captors cut off his hands. A young rebel
shot him in the stomach and then in the head. Paul's 4-year-old
grandson was wounded by the bullet that killed his grandfather.
Paul is the same carpenter who I saw pushing his wheelbarrow
full of tools away from Foria.
Betty, a nurse working for ICRC, adopted the two daughters
of a woman she attended in labor and delivery. The woman died
because she had had both of her arms cut off by rebels who
attacked her village in the north. She did not have the will to
survive.
Others told of utter panic when their doors were pushed
open by drug-crazed small boys. Eric escaped with machete
wounds to his head. Dickson and Marah took turns dancing and
singing praises of the RUF around the clock for 3 days. They
danced to save their families from being killed by the young
boys who had commandeered their house.
Refugees come from these places. Refugees have escaped from
these same scenes. They are the ones who got away. They have
traveled far and left all. They have been separated from family
and neighbors by the chaos of war. They threw their children on
departing boats and jumped in after them. They traveled
hundreds of miles by foot. They were taunted by the name
``refugee'' as they passed through towns.
But refugees are brave people. They are determined to get
on with living. Refugees who come to the United States have
been given a hope of a better future. I have seen the
excitement of people getting a home ready, the satisfaction of
helping to find the right job, and the joy of seeing a family
settled. I have much respect for these, our new friends. They
share with us the load of their experiences. They give us the
gift of their determination. They teach us that we are
neighbors in this broken world.
Senator Abraham, I sincerely appreciate the opportunity you
have given to me to share with you and members of this
committee something of the story of Sierra Leone. I thank you
for your time and for listening to us today. Please continue
your good work for all of our sakes.
Senator Abraham. Thank you.
[The prepared statement of Mrs. Kortenhoven follows:]
Prepared Statement of Mrs. Mary Kortenhoven
Thank you Senator Abraham for inviting me to come with Binta Bah to
this hearing. My name is Mary Kortenhoven and I am a missionary to
Sierra Leone from the Christian Reformed Church. I have served in
Sierra Leone since 1980 and am waiting to return as soon as that is
possible. I deeply appreciate the privilege of being able to give my
own brief statement and to read Binta's testimony. I am also glad to
have the opportunity to say thank you to you, Senator Abraham, for the
leadership that you have given on policy issues affecting refugees and
asylum seekers. We are fortunate to have a Chair of this committee who
cares so much about the protection and humanitarian assistance for
these most vulnerable people.
I feel that I represent two sides in this story. I come as one of
the ``good folks'' in West Michigan. I represent the compassionate ones
who have welcomed the strangers. They are people who are very concerned
about the millions of refugees and displaced people all around the
world. The people in West Michigan care very much about what is
happening to people in Africa. I also feel qualified to represent the
refugee side of the story. I have been forced from my home by war three
different times. The first was in 1967 when the Biafran War began in
Nigeria. The second time was in 1994, when rebels of the RUF
(Revolutionary United Front) marched into the area where we were living
in Sierra Leone. The third was when Freetown was besieged by heavy
firing during the coup in 1997 in which the AFRC (Armed Forces Ruling
Council) took control of Sierra Leone.
A refugee does not choose to be a refugee. We all think ``that will
never happen to me!'' And everyone who is forced to leave her home
thinks ``this will be over in a few days and I will be able to return
to my home.'' I know I thought these things when my family had to leave
our home of fourteen years in Foria, a village in the North of Sierra
Leone. We left at the same time that Binta was forced from her home in
Sefadu, a hundred miles to the East of Foria. We woke up to the news
that rebels had burned a town twenty miles away and were entering a
village ten miles away. I went from room to room in my house wondering
``what should I take?'' and I was thinking ``no, I can't fill the car
with my stuff!'' I left with six women and six children in the vehicle.
We cried for miles as we passed neighbors running on foot with loads on
their heads and children on their backs. We passed a carpenter with his
wheelbarrow full of tools. All had the look of terror on their faces.
Mothers put more children through our windows. We met young men manning
roadblocks in deserted villages. We told them to just run, the
roadblocks were useless. Mothers were crying for children that they
could not find. We saw the children further down the road and told them
to sit and wait for their mothers. I will never forget that exodus.
I was able to return to the village a month later. There was
nothing left of our house. It was a burned out shell. Scraps of charred
paper were stuck in the corners and the broken glass covered the cement
floors. My son's favorite shirt lay half burned on the path in front of
what used to be his bedroom. The lives of my family and the lives of
our neighbors were forever changed.
Since that time much has happened. The war in Sierra Leone has
taken many turns and now we wait as a peace accord has been signed. My
husband is in Sierra Leone and is working with others in the NGO
community and the government to get food to the hungry people in parts
of the country that have been cut off from food and medicine for
months. Last week they negotiated with the RUF to deliver food to
Kabala, the main city in the North. The trip was to take place on
Wednesday, July 27th. A convoy carrying rice and seed rice got as far
as a village 60 miles from Kabala and there they were stopped. The RUF
commandos told them they could not guarantee their safety in Tamaboro
country. Everyone returned to Freetown.
I have not been in Sierra Leone since 1997 because the U.S. embassy
has declared it an unaccompanied post. But before I left I was able to
spend short periods of time back in the village. I watched the people
come back into their villages and begin to rebuild their homes and
lives. Displaced people would wander into the village. One woman who
came was pregnant and severely anemic. She had been walking for weeks.
Everyone she knew had disappeared. She died shortly after delivery. The
community health worker adopted her son. During this past year much of
what was rebuilt back then has been destroyed. Whole villages in the
area have been leveled. Many people live on their farms and others have
moved to Freetown. The whole of the northern part of the country is
rebel held territory.
More recently I met with some of our Sierra Leonean staff at a
conference in Dakar, Senegal. Each one described the terror that they
and their families lived through in the January attacks on Freetown.
They told us how Paul, the carpenter who built our houses was captured
and killed. He refused to allow his captors to cut off his hands. A
young rebel shot him in the stomach and then in the head. Paul's four
year old grandson was wounded by the bullet that killed his
grandfather. Paul is the same carpenter who was pushing his wheelbarrow
full of tools away from Foria. Mabereh told how she and her children
narrowly escaped ambush on the road as they fled an attack on Kabala.
Betty, a nurse working for ICRC, adopted the two daughters of a woman
she attended in labor and delivery. The woman died because she had had
both of her arms cut off by rebels who attacked her village in the
North. She did not have the will to survive. Other men and women told
amazing accounts of selfless bravery in a helpless time. They told of
utter panic when their doors were pushed open by drug crazed small
boys. Eric escaped with machete wounds to his head. Dickson and Marah
took turns dancing and singing praises of the RUF around the clock for
three days. They danced to save their families from being killed by the
young boys who had commandeered their house.
Refugees come from these places. Refugees have escaped from these
same scenes. They are the ones ``who got away''. They have traveled far
and left all. They have been separated from family and neighbors by the
chaos of war. They threw their children on departing boats and jumped
in after them. They traveled hundreds of miles my foot. They were
taunted by the name, refugee, as they passed through strange towns.
Sometimes the refugees were beat up by the border guards or city
policemen for not having the right papers. But refugees are brave
people. They are determined to get on with living. Refugees who come to
the United States have been given hope of a better future. The work
that I do with PARA, an affiliate of Church World Service, in Grand
Rapids, Michigan, has allowed me to be a positive force in the lives of
both the refugees and the communities who welcome them. I have seen the
excitement of people getting a home ready, the satisfaction of helping
to find the right job, and the joy of seeing a family settled. I have
much respect for our new friends. They share with us the load of their
experiences. They give us the gift of their determination. They teach
us that we are neighbors in this broken world.
Senator Abraham, I sincerely appreciate the opportunity you have
given me to share with you and the members of this committee something
of the story of Sierra Leone. I thank you for your time and for
listening to us today. Please continue your good work for all of our
sakes.
Senator Abraham. We welcome you.
STATEMENT OF BINTA BAH
Mrs. Bah. My name is Binta Bah. I am Binta Bah, a refugee
from Sierra Leone. I tell you people thank you from the United
States.
Senator Abraham. Thank you, and welcome. We are happy you
are here. Mary, if you want to proceed.
Mrs. Kortenhoven. I want to say thank you to Senator
Abraham and the Senate Immigration Committee for inviting me to
give my testimony this afternoon. I am grateful to tell my
story, which represents the story of so many of my Sierra Leone
sisters and brothers. Thank you for taking time to listen and
learn about our situation.
I am 32 years old. I was born in the town of Sefadu in the
eastern part of Sierra Leone. Sefadu is in the heart of the
diamond mining area of the country. I entered the United States
on May 27. I came with my two sons, Mohamed, who is eight, and
Saiko, who is three. My sister, Anti, who is 16, also came with
us. We came from the refugee camp in Basse, Gambia. I was
resettled by Church World Service and received by people from
two Christian Reformed Churches in Grand Rapids, MI.
I was living a quiet life in Sierra Leone with my husband,
Abdulai Jawo. We had been married 5 years and had two children,
Mohamed and baby Fatmata. My husband was an inspector in the
diamond mines and I was a market woman. We lived in a good
house and had a good life.
In 1991, a war started in Sierra Leone. For a long time, we
were not troubled by the war, but then things began to happen
that I had never before experienced in my life. The rebels
started to come into the bush around Sefadu. They came because
they wanted to mine diamonds. The government soldiers would
come into town and force people to go clear the bush around the
town. Too much bush made it easier for rebels to come.
Then the soldiers started to kill the rebels that they
found. They would come into town with the heads of dead rebels
on sticks. They would walk around with these heads and we all
became very frightened. We had never seen anything like it
before in our lives. The children would hide in the houses and
were too afraid to play outside. Some children stopped eating.
My neighbors were like myself. We had never gone anywhere
far in our lives. We did not know where we could go to get away
from what we were seeing. We felt very insecure in the town. At
times, we would feel like our world was shaking, and then it
would be quiet again. And so we lived for a long time.
Then one Friday night, the rain pounded on our tin roofs.
It was a very hard rain, and after the rain, in the early hours
of the morning, we awoke to the noise of gunfire. The firing
was coming from three sides of the town. My husband jumped out
of the window in the back of the house and ran away through the
bush. I was inside of my room, hiding with my children. My
daughter, Fatmata, cried, and I heard the rebels say that
someone must be hiding inside that house. Three rebels broke
down the door and found us in the room. They said they were
freedom fighters. They fell on me and raped me. Mohamed was
crying and went under the bed to hide. Fatmata was crying on
the bed. I shouted and cried for someone to save me, but no one
was there to hear my shouting.
When they left me, I was in a very bad condition, but a
mother always thinks of her children first and so I tied
Fatmata on my back and threw Mohamed on my shoulder and ran to
hide in the bush. I hid for a while and I realized my clothes
were torn and dirty, so I ran back into my house and quickly
took some clothes. I ran back to the bush and found others who
were suffering also. We went into the bush and stayed there. We
ate cassava and oranges. One woman who was with us gave birth
and died. The child also died. The husband and his two children
stayed with us.
We only knew that we wanted to go to Guinea, but we did not
know the way. We would get directions as we went from village
to village. After one month of walking, we reached the border.
We went to the camp, which was in Kissydugu, Guinea. But the
camp was so crowded with people and the Guinea people harassed
the refugees. I looked at myself and decided I had suffered too
much already and did not want to stay there under those
conditions.
I found transport to Labe, Guinea, and then I walked from
one village to the next. My daughter was very sick with a high
fever and diarrhea. I had nothing to give her but my breast.
When I got to the second village, Fatmata died. One good man
helped me. He went to the people in the village and begged
money to buy a cloth to bury the child, and he asked the other
men to help him with the burial.
Then they helped me to get transport to the town of
Kundala. When I reached Kundala on the border of Guinea and
Senegal, I met another lorry carrying palm oil. I heard people
talking Krio, and so I told them I had come from Sierra Leone.
They took me with them to the refugee camp where they were
living, but we went through the bush to get there because if
the Gambian authorities caught me without identification, they
would send me back to Sierra Leone, and also, people who did
not have proper papers were sent to a place called ``No Man's
Land.'' This was a place of punishment. The man who was the
head of the camp went with me to Banjul and begged for me so
that I could get the right papers.
After I was in the camp for a short time, my son, Saiko,
was born. He was born in the clinic in town. He was healthy and
I returned to the camp. When I was first in the camp, we had a
regular supply of food, but the supply was cut off and we had
nothing.
One day, the rebels from the Casamance in Senegal came and
attacked the town of Farefinye in Gambia. The Gambian people
said the rebels were speaking Krio, Fula, and Mandingo. So
early in the morning, the Gambian soldiers came and surrounded
the refugee camp. They opened the doors of our houses and
pulled people out.
After that, the immigration people from Kenya came to
interview us. At the time of my second interview, my sister,
Anti, found me at the camp. She came from Guinea, so I could
put Anti on my application. My other sister, Tata, came much
later and there was no chance for her in that interview. When
Tata came, she told me that my husband, Abdulai, was killed in
the attack on Sefadu. She saw his body when she went back to
look for our mother and father and brother. She did not find
any of them, but she saw my dead husband's body.
So this man, Ali, was with me in the camp and helped me.
When I heard my husband was dead, I thought it is better for a
woman to be with a man, and so I decided to marry Ali. We sent
the marriage papers to Joiner to show him that we were married.
Joiner is the man who works for the UN in Banjul.
Now I am here. I want to tell you many things. Thanks to
the United States for giving refugees a new home. Thanks to
Church World Service for helping to bring us here. And a very
special thanks to my sponsors in Grand Rapids.
I am happy. When I came to this place, I felt nothing could
get me except God. Life here is sweet, but if you get your man
beside you to encourage you, life is fine. People here are good
and everything here is OK for me.
I know I cannot return to Sierra Leone. Everything that my
grandfather did, everything my father did, everything my
husband, Abdulai, did is gone. People who have come from Sierra
Leone tell me all our houses are gone. Rebels are digging for
diamonds in the very places our houses stood. Sefadu is in
rebel-held territory. The people are hungry and children are
dying. I do not like to think about it. The only thing is that
I remember my mama and my pa and my small brother and my
husband and my sister. I have my life. I did not die, but
sometimes, I cannot sleep. I remember.
Senator Abraham. Thank you for being here today.
[The prepared statement of Mrs. Bah follows:]
Prepared Statement of Mrs. Binta Bah
Good afternoon Mr. Chairman, members of the committee, ladies and
gentlemen. My name is Binta Bah.
I want to say thank you to Senator Abraham and the Senate
Immigration Committee for inviting me to give my testimony this
afternoon. I am grateful to tell my story which represents the story of
so many of my Sierra Leonean sisters and brothers. Thank you for taking
time to listen and learn about our situation.
I am thirty two years old. I was born in the town of Sefadu in the
Eastern part of Sierra Leone. Sefadu is in the heart of the diamond
mining area of the country. I entered the United States on May 27,
1999. I came with my two sons, Mohamed, who is eight years old and
Saiko, who is three years old. My sister, Anti, 16, also came with us.
We came from the Kerr-Al Hassan refugee camp in Basse, Gambia. I was
resettled by Church World Service and was received by the people of two
churches in Grand Rapids, Michigan. (Woodlawn Christian Reformed Church
and Madison Square Christian Reformed Church).
I was living a quiet life in Sierra Leone with my husband, Abdulai
Jawo. We had been married five years and had two children, Mohamed and
baby Fatmata. My husband was an inspector in the diamond mines and I
was a market woman. I would go to another town and buy green bananas
and sell them to other market women. I also did cookery, selling small
cakes at my market stall. We lived in a good house and had a good life.
In 1991 a war started in Sierra Leone. For a long time we were not
troubled by the war but then things began to happen that I had never
before experienced in my life. The rebels started to come into the bush
around Sefadu. They came because they wanted to mine diamonds. The
government soldiers would come into town and force people to go out to
clear the bush around the town. Too much bush made it easier for the
rebels to come into town unnoticed.
Then the soldiers started to kill the rebels that they found. They
would come into town with the heads of dead rebels on sticks. They
would walk around with these heads and we all became very frightened.
We had never seen anything like this before in our lives. The children
would hide in the houses and were too afraid to play outside. Some
children stopped eating. My neighbors were like myself, we had never
gone anywhere far in our lives. We did not know where we could go to
get away from what we were seeing. We felt very insecure in the town.
At times we would feel like our world was shaking and then it would be
quiet again. And so we lived for a long time.
Then one Friday night the rain pounded the tin roofs of our houses,
it was a very hard rain and after the rain in the early hours of the
morning we woke to the noise of gunfire. The firing was coming from
three sides of the, town. It was very loud and we were very frightened.
My husband jumped out of the window in the back of the house and ran
away through the back into the bush. I was inside of my room hiding
with my children. My daughter, Fatmata cried and I heard the rebels say
that someone must be hiding inside the house. Three rebels broke down
the door and found us in the room. They said that they were Freedom
Fighters. They fell on me and raped me. Mohamed was crying and went
under the bed to hide. Fatmata was crying on the bed. I shouted and
cried out for someone to save me but no one was there to hear my
shouting.
When they left me I was in a very bad condition. But a mother
always thinks of her children first and so I tied Fatmata on my back
and threw Mohamed on my shoulder and ran out to hide in the bush. After
I hid there for awhile I realized that my clothes were torn and dirty
and so I ran back to my house and quickly took some other clothes. I
ran back into the bush and there I found others who were suffering also
from the attack. We went into the bush and stayed there. We ate cassava
and oranges that we found along the way. One woman who was with us gave
birth and died. The child also died. The husband and his two children
stayed with us.
We only knew that we wanted to go to Guinea but we did not know the
way. We would get directions as we went from village to village. After
one month of walking we reached the border. We went to the camp which
was in Kissydugu, Guinea. But the camp was so crowded with people and
the Guinea people harrassed the refugees. I looked at myself and
decided I had suffered too much already and did not want to stay there.
under those conditions.
I found transport on a lorry to Labe, Guinea. I had to beg the
driver for a long time to take me. When I got to Labe I waited three
days for another lorry. The driver talked to me fine and told me to go
to another junction where I would find transport to the Gambia. I
walked from one village to the next. My daughter was very sick with a
high fever and diarrhea. I had nothing to give her but my breast. When
I got to the second village Fatmata died. One good man helped me. He
went to the people in the village and begged money to buy a cloth to
bury the child. And he asked the other men to help him with the burial.
Then they helped me to get transport to the town of Kundala.
Kundala is on the border of Guinea and Senegal. I rode on a lorry with
dried animal skins. When we reached a check point I met another lorry
that was carrying palm oil. I heard people taking Krio and so I told
them that I had come from Sierra Leone. They took me with them to the
refugee camp where they were living.
We went through the bush to get there because if the Gambian
authorities caught me without identification they would send me back to
Sierra Leone. And also people who did not have proper papers were sent
to a place called ``No Man's Land''. This was a place of punishment. It
was bush with no trees and no food. People really suffered in this
place. The UN knew about this place and they knew that many Sierra
Leoneans had been sent there and so they begged the government of
Gambia to allow people to be registered in the camp. The man who was
the head of the camp went with me to Banjul and begged for me so that I
could get the right papers.
After I was in the camp for a short time my son Saiko was born. He
was born in the clinic in town. He was a healthy baby and I returned to
the camp right after he was born. When I was first in the camp we had a
regular supply of food but the supply was cut off and we had nothing.
One day the rebels in the Casamance came and attacked the town of
Farefinye in the Gambia. The Gambian people said that the rebels were
speaking Krio, Fula, and Mandingo. So early in the morning the Gambian
soldiers came and surrounded the refugee camp. They opened the doors of
our houses and tents and pulled people out. The soldiers went inside
and checked all the rooms and then they came out and searched our
pockets. When this happened we became very afraid and for three days
and nights we sat by our doors. We did not sleep. We just sat and
worried. The women suffered because we did not get any supplies of
food. We usually would collect firewood and take it to the market in
Basse to sell, but now the Red Cross ID was rejected by the Gambian
officials and so we could not take firewood to the market. We were
suffering like that when the woman came from Dakar, Senegal, to
interview us.
After that the immigration people from the JVA (Joint Volunteer
Agency/Kenya) came to interview us. It was at the time of the second
interview that my sister, Anti, found me at the camp. She came from
Guinea. So I could put Anti on my application. My other sister, Tata,
came much later and there was no chance for her in that interview. When
Tata came she told me that my husband, Abdulai was killed in the attack
on Sefadu. She saw his body when she went back to look for our mother,
father, and brother. She did not find anyone of them but she saw my
dead husband's body.
So this man Ali was with me in the camp and he helped me with
collecting firewood and with my children, Mohamed and Saiko. When I
heard that my husband was dead I thought that it is better for a woman
to be with a man and so I decided to marry Ali. I wanted it to be a
traditional wedding because I wanted it to be important. Ali gave one
sheep and two hundred dalacies and we had a proper wedding at the camp.
We sent the marriage papers to Joiner to show him that we were married.
Joiner is the man who works for the UN in Banjul. Ali said that I
should not spoil my chance to go to the U.S. So I took Tata and left
her with Ali to look after.
Now I am here. I want to tell you many thanks--thanks to the United
States for giving refugees a new home, thanks to Church World Service
for helping to bring us here, and a very special thanks to my sponsors
in Grand Rapids, who have helped my family so much and have become my
friends. I am very happy. These people pulled me from much suffering.
All of time that I was in the Gambia I felt that my life was still at
risk. I expected that at any time I could die. When I came to this
place I feel that nothing can get me unless God. Life here is sweet but
if you get your man beside you to encourage you--life is fine! People
here are so good and everything here is okay for me. I know that I
cannot return to Sierra Leone. Everything that my grandfather did,
everything that my father did, everything that my husband, Abdulai, did
is gone. The houses are all destroyed. People who have come from Sierra
Leone tell me that all of our houses are gone. Rebels are digging for
diamonds in the very places where our houses stood. Sefadu is in rebel
held country. The people are hungry and children are dying. I do not
like to think about it. The only thing is that I remember my mama and
my pa and my small brother and my husband and my sister. I have my
life, I did not die but sometimes I cannot sleep--I remember.
Senator Abraham. We turn to you now, Bishop DiMarzio.
STATEMENT OF NICHOLAS A. DiMARZIO
Bishop DiMarzio. Thank you, first, Mr. Chairman, for your
leadership and that of Senator Kennedy, the minority leader on
this committee. You certainly have given much time and effort
to making sure that refugees have an opportunity in the United
States. We appreciate that very much.
I am Bishop Nicholas DiMarzio, Chairman of the Bishops'
Committee on Migration of the U.S. Catholic Conference, and
prior to that, I was Director of Migration and Refugee Services
for the U.S. Catholic Conference for a period of 6 years, so I
have had a long history of resettlement, actively engaged in
resettlement and also working at the policy level with the
bishops.
Our concerns today really are regarding the decrease in the
admissions over the last 7 years. We really have gone 40
percent less than what we could have done. I think we can do
more and we should do more. The need is there and the capacity
to resettle refugees in the United States is also there, and we
are not really reaching the need, nor are we exhausting our
capacity.
I would like to look at certain special populations that I
would like to emphasize as really in need of resettlement.
First would be the unaccompanied minors. The unaccompanied
minors are a special population in refugee camps that really
are in need of resettlement. For the most part, they will not
be able to return to their places of origin. They have lost
their families, for the most part, also, and really should have
an opportunity for resettlement in the United States. We have
been very generous in the past, resettling almost 10,000
unaccompanied minors in the last several years. However, in the
last 3 years, we have only resettled 50 unaccompanied minors in
the United States.
The U.S. Catholic Conference and the Lutheran Immigration
Service recently undertook a trip to the Kakuma camp in Kenya,
and we have a report that I would like to submit for the
record.
Senator Abraham. We will be glad to accept it.
Bishop DiMarzio. This report outlines the need there and
also, from the two agencies that are involved in the
unaccompanied minors program, we can assure you that the
capacity is there and the results that have been taken from the
refugee unaccompanied minor program are really spectacular.
There have been success stories that we can share.
Bishop DiMarzio. Also, we would like to look at the
situation in Africa. We just learned today at the earlier
testimony that there will be an increase in numbers, and we are
happy for that increase, but I do think we still have room to
improve the numbers there. There is a real need. We need to
certainly look at various situations there. There is more than
one country in need and we are really happy that there is some
movement.
Also, we need to look at women at risk. As you have heard
already from the testimony just before, how difficult it is for
women who are alone in these camps to really survive. We need
to look at them as a special category for our attention.
Finally, something that does not apply strictly to the
refugee issue but to the asylum issue in this country is
something we need to look at. The law of 1996 that enabled the
expedited removal to take place has really wreaked havoc on
those who have come to the United States directly looking for
asylum. Although there are problems in the asylum program,
having this expedited removal has really taken away from many,
many people the opportunity for a fair hearing in the United
States. It is something that I do not think our country really
should be proud of. I think we should really work on changing
that.
To the Kosovo situation for a minute. I think, as you said,
it was a model program. It really brought together all of the
best elements that we could bring to dealing with the refugee
situation. First, from diverting away from Guantanamo, then
bringing people directly to the United States to relieve the
overcrowding in Macedonia, encouraging other countries to
participate because we did participate. Here, I think our
policy and humanitarian goals came together for a change. They
worked together and were able to do a lot for the Kosovars.
I think, most of all, we have dispelled the myth that
America is not open to refugees. When there is the proper
understanding, when the press is there, when people see the
need, they respond, and we have seen that happen and we need
to, I think, work on other situations in the same way.
Unfortunately, as we have heard, the issue of unequal
treatment is brought up, but all comparisons are really odious.
What is the case is that we should have the same energy applied
to all refugee situations so that we can make a difference, so
that we can, indeed, be proud of the refugee program because it
does accomplish our foreign policy goals, if only we let the
country work at it. It has proven that it can be done.
Finally, there are two recommendations in the full
testimony. First, we should really reverse the decline in
admissions. We should target the vulnerable groups for the
priorities. And second, we should look at enhancing the
cooperation between the Department of State and the joint
voluntary agencies. There is this creative tension, as Ms. Taft
mentioned, but the creative tension should only be something
that joins us together in a better working relationship. I
believe in the last several years, that has been weakened and
we should really try to strengthen it because that partnership
between government and the private sector is really critical in
the refugee program, as it is in many places, but also there.
I think we have proven that we are committed. Catholic
Relief Services worked in the camps in Macedonia at a moment's
notice, set up those camps, worked there. Migration and Refugee
Services, that I represent, was there with all the other
voluntary agencies. We have a commitment to the betterment of
the lot of the refugees around the world. We want to work with
you in improving the admissions numbers. I think we really can
do better and we should do better. Thank you.
Senator Abraham. Thank you very much, Bishop.
[The prepared statement and report of Bishop DiMarzio
follow:]
Prepared Statement of Bishop Nicholas A. DiMarzio
I am Bishop Nicholas DiMarzio, Bishop of Camden, New Jersey, and
chairman of the National Conference of Catholic Bishops' Committee on
Migration. It is a pleasure to testify before you today on the vital
humanitarian topic of refugee admissions to the United States.
I wish to take this opportunity to thank you, Mr. Chairman, and
ranking Minority member Senator Edward M. Kennedy, for your long
support for refugees. I know that Senator Kennedy is one of the authors
of the Refugee Act of 1980 \1\ and that you both have championed the
cause of refugee protection and resettlement throughout your tenure in
the Senate. Your work, and that of this Subcommittee, has resulted in
protection for literally millions of refugees over the years.
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\1\ Pub. L. No. 96-212, 94 Stat. 102.
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Mr. Chairman, Church teaching has long supported the protection of
and respect for the fight of an individual to live in security and to
flee life-threatening situations, particularly those stemming from
political oppression and persecution. In 1974, Pope Paul VI succinctly
articulated the position of the Church in this regard:
Individuals and groups must be secure from arrest, torture, and
imprisonment for political and ideological reasons, and all in
society, including migrant workers, must be guaranteed
juridical protection of their personal, social, cultural and
political rights. We condemn the abridgement of rights because
of race. We advocate that nations and contesting groups seek
reconciliation by halting persecution of others and granting
amnesty, marked by mercy and equity, to political prisoners and
exiles.\2\
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\2\ Pope Paul VI, Message of Pope Paul VI in (Union with the Synod,
1974.
In line with our teaching, the Catholic Church in the United
States, has long welcomed immigrants and refugees to our shores. Since
the Refugee Act of 1980, Migration and Refugee Services (MRS) of the
U.S. Catholic Conference, working with our government and Catholic
diocesan resettlement programs throughout the country, has resettled
some 650,000 refugees. That is nearly 32 percent of the total, more
than any other single agency. As Executive Director of MRS from 1985 to
1991, I supervised the agency's work and am familiar with the service
provided refugees both abroad and when they come to our country.
As you well know, Mr. Chairman, refugees are migrants with a tragic
difference. Driven outside their country, refugees cannot return home
for fear of persecution. Having already suffered, sometimes
unspeakably, they often face years in crowded, primitive, dangerous
refugee camps. Eighty percent are women and children. For some of these
people, whether they be fleeing Bosnia, Burma or Afghanistan,
resettlement in a third country may be their only hope for a life of
peace, dignity and hope.
And yet the United States Government has been sharply curtailing
its response to refugees in America. For 1991, the year I ended my term
as head of MRS, our government set a ceiling of 131,000 refugees from
around the world to be admitted to the United States. Now, as I return
to refugee work as Chairman of the Bishops' Migration Committee, I am
disappointed to find that the admissions limit has been lowered by over
40 percent. Over a longer time, refugee admissions into the United
States have dropped even more drastically, from 207,000 in 1980 to a
ceiling of 78,000 for 1999. This reflects a disturbing trend,
especially considering the existence of more than 13.5 million refugees
in the world today.\3\
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\3\ World Refugee Survey 1998, U.S. Committee for Refugees.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
I am pleased, therefore, to see that the Administration is
requesting a modest increase in the refugee ceiling for fiscal year
2000, which represents a welcome start in redressing an unfortunate
downward trend. However, it is clear, Mr. Chairman, that U.S.
leadership in the area of refugee protection is in decline. Whether
because of a shift in how we strategically view the world since the end
of the Cold War, or reflective of a decision by our leaders to turn
inward, the United States is increasingly abdicating its worldwide
leadership role in refugee protection. It is our view, Mr. Chairman,
that our refugee policy should be reexamined to adjust to the post-Cold
War realities in the world and to restore the United States'
international role as a protector of human rights. Such a policy change
would serve not only humanitarian goals, but also U.S. foreign policy
interests.
the resettlement option
There are three options, or internationally-recognized ``durable''
solutions, which should be pursued in any refugee situation: return of
the refugees to their homeland if conditions permit; integration into
the neighboring country which receives them; or resettlement in a third
country. The best solution for refugees is that they return home safely
and voluntarily, or, in the alternative, resettle in the country of
``first'' asylum or within the geographic region. But for those with no
other option, resettlement in a third country, such as the United
States, should remain a viable alternative.
Not all refugees want or need resettlement in a third country. In
fact, less than one percent of the world's refugees ever gain permanent
residence elsewhere. For many of them, however, it often represents the
only alternative to years of confinement in a refugee camp or a
dangerous, uncertain existence as outcasts in countries that do not
want them. To consign refugees to such unfortunate circumstances is,
indeed, intolerable.
When the United States accepts refugees, we protect those involved,
reduce the chances that ``first-asylum'' countries will send refugees
back to their persecutors involuntarily, and provide the leadership
necessary to encourage other wealthy nations to accept refugees. By so
doing, we also reaffirm a tradition of compassion that separates us
from much of the world.
There are those who question whether sufficient need exists to
warrant an increase in U.S. refugee admissions. For those who hold this
view, I recommend a document recently released by the Committee on
Migration and Refugee Affairs (CMRA) of InterAction, ``U.S. Refugee
Admissions Program for Fiscal Year 2000.'' The document, prepared for
this year's refugee admissions consultations, clearly demonstrates
that, despite the fall of the Soviet Union and its satellite states,
from which the majority of refugees entering this country used to come,
the violent situations around the globe that spawn refugees have not
diminished but increased. One need look no further than the former
Yugoslavia for confirmation of this unfortunate reality.
Mr. Chairman, during the Cold War most Americans felt a moral
obligation to offer resettlement to those fleeing Communist regimes,
whether Eastern Europeans or Cubans or Indochinese. The same moral
sense should move us to take a similar view of today's victims, whether
from the Sudan or Burma or Iraq, who are also fleeing dangers of great
magnitude.
refugee populations globally
While the CMRA admissions document presents an excellent summation
of resettlement needs, I would like to highlight for the subcommittee
several compelling refugee situations around the globe and several
special refugee populations deserving of protection.
1. Africa
The resettlement needs of Africa as a whole, where there are now
some six million refugees and displaced people, are far from being met,
even after the welcome increase in our ceiling for African refugee
admissions from 7,000 to 12,000 for fiscal year 1999. Conflicts in
Sierra Leone, Sudan, Ethiopia, Eritrea, the Democratic Republic of the
Congo, and Congo-Brazzaville are producing refugees who are victims of
violence and torture and have little hope of returning to their homes
in the near future.
Last year my fellow bishop, John W. Yanta of Amarillo, Texas,
visited Kakuma camp in Kenya, where he found 55,000 refugees, mostly
Sudanese. Many had been there since the camp opened in 1992. Since
then, the world has seen the grisly spectacle of civilian victims,
mostly women and children, fleeing Sierra Leone with arms and legs cut
off. Other refugees are scattered all across the continent.
Just recently, for example, 30,000 people fled fighting in the
Congo Republic into neighboring Gabon. Because of a lack of
infrastructure, food resources, and political stability in their
country, many Liberians who fled violence in recent years remain unable
to return to their homes. And Sierra Leone continues to produce
refugees at a steady rate, burdening neighboring countries and
overwhelming the U.N. High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) and
private organizations attempting to meet the needs of over 500,000
refugees.
MRS and its coalition partners have, for some years, urged the
State Department to increase the intake of African refugees through the
U.S. refugee program. While the approved ceiling for African refugees
has increased, there has been concern in the past that the actual
processing of African refugees has regularly fallen short of approved
ceilings. This has not been due to a lack of need but rather to a
failure to develop adequate processing mechanisms in Africa to identify
and process those refugees who fall within the processing guidelines
for admission to the U.S. Refugee program. We expect that, in the
future, the need for resettlement of refugees from Africa will continue
to be high and that the ability to identify and process such refugees
will grow, resulting in increased admissions from that region of the
world.
2. Southeast Asia
The United States has provided leadership over the past two decades
in resettling refugees from Southeast Asia through the Indochinese
refugee program. During the last days of Saigon to the present day, the
United States has brought to our shores for protection well over one
million people with whom we served and fought.
Now, as we bring this highly successful program to a close, we
would like to assure fair treatment for those relatively few cases
which remain. Prominent among these are our former U.S. government
employees. These are U.S. Embassy and other U.S. agency employees with
five years or more of service to our country in Vietnam. Because of
their association with the United States, many have been persecuted
since the fall of Saigon and are entitled to an appropriate and fair
review of their cases.
Despite this fact, approval rates for former employees plummeted to
less than two percent in 1996 and 1997. In light of the background of
the applicants and the intent of the program, such a result is
unacceptable. After strong expressions of concern from senior members
of Congress and nongovernmental organizations over the past months, the
Department of State has agreed to open processing for those former
employees not yet adjudicated. We urge the Subcommittee to continue to
encourage the State Department to review the denied cases, and to
institute procedures for all cases that will assure their consideration
in a fairminded manner.
3. Unaccompanied Refugee Minors
Unaccompanied refugee minors represent one of the most vulnerable
groups of refugees, susceptible to military conscription, sexual and
physical assault, trafficking, and other forms of abuse and violence.
Thousands of unaccompanied refugee minors, some of whom have lost their
parents to conflict and are orphans, today are spending their childhood
years in refugee camps. In recent years, despite our great resources,
we have welcomed only a tiny handful of these children to our country.
During Fiscal Year 1997, the United States accepted only one
unaccompanied refugee minor for resettlement and only eleven
unaccompanied minors in Fiscal Year 1998.
For many months now, MRS has been working with the Lutheran
Immigration and Refugee Services (LIRS), UNHCR, and the State
Department to establish a carefully-considered program to increase this
number, resettling children initially from Africa. In June and July
1998, USCC, LIRS, and UNHCR undertook a joint mission to Kakuma refugee
camp in Kenya to identify unaccompanied minors and investigate and
recommend procedural methods for referring minors for resettlement. The
joint mission identified a group of southern Sudanese youth--commonly
referred to as the ``lost boys of Sudan''--who share a refugee
experience of persecution. Most left Sudan as children in 1987 for
Ethiopia to escape the civil war killings of family members and
starvation. They experienced further trauma in 1991 when they were
forced back to Sudan and subsequently fled again, this time to Kenya in
early 1992. During this period, many of these Sudanese youth were
forcibly recruited into revolutionary military groups. Mr. Chairman,
these young people, who have experienced severe trauma and dislocation,
hold no hope of normal lives without an opportunity for resettlement in
a third country such as the United States. With your consent, Mr.
Chairman, I would ask that the final report of the Joint Mission to
Kakuma Camp be included in the hearing record.
Considering the special vulnerability of this refugee group, USCC/
MRS recommends that the United States accept at least 500 of these
minors in Fiscal Year 2000. I know, Mr. Chairman, that a U.S. program
assisting minors can be successful because, in the 1970's, I
established the first unaccompanied refugee minor program in New
Jersey. We welcomed over 500 children during the program's life, and
the success stories that resulted from our efforts were truly
impressive.
4. Other Special Populations
Other special populations deserve consideration for resettlement.
For example, there exists a large, unknown number of ``women at risk''
among the world's refugees who represent prime candidates for admission
under the U.S. refugee program. They range from Afghan women and girls
denied access to medical treatment and prohibited from attending school
by the Taliban to orphaned Rwandan girls who are heads of households
and caring for their siblings. They also include young girls and women
fleeing targeted mutilations in Sierra Leone and Chinese women fleeing
forced abortions and sterilization. Many of these women and girls
belong to societies whose cultural practices make it hard for them to
receive the protection they need and deserve. Other vulnerable refugees
include the elderly without family to care for them, people with
medical impairments, and boys in danger of forced military
conscription.
Many refugees, Mr. Chairman, have something in common: they are not
always easy for the United States, or even UNHCR, to identify with the
methods currently in use. That is partly because our own refugee-
identification model was developed in response to outflows like that
from Indochina, where masses of people fled and were housed in camps
abroad to which we had direct access.
Many refugees today, by contrast, are in smaller, scattered camps
or living on their own, making it more difficult to identify and
interview them. The State Department is aware of this obstacle to our
refugee-processing efforts and is working to overcome it. In the coming
weeks, our agency and others hope to offer the State Department our own
suggestions for improvements in this vital area.
the u.s. asylum system
At the same time the United States' commitment to refugee
protection abroad needs to be strengthened, domestic laws which govern
those who make it to our shores and request protection are overly
restrictive and unjust. As the Chairman and this Subcommittee is aware,
the 1996 Illegal Immigration Reform and Immigrant Responsibility Act
(IIRIRA) \4\ served to weaken asylum protections for those who arrive
at our ports of entry fleeing persecution.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
\4\ Pub. L. No. 104-208, 110 Stat. 3009.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
Specifically, the 1996 law created the procedure of ``expedited
removal,'' which empowers low-level Immigration and Naturalization
Service (INS) inspectors summarily to remove potential asylum-seekers
without a hearing before an immigration judge. Under this procedure,
more than 76,000 individuals were removed from the United States during
Fiscal Year 1998. While lack of sufficient data and accessibility to
interviews conducted by inspectors prevents specific conclusions, it is
likely that in the past few years the United States has returned to
their persecutors asylum-seekers with valid claims to protection.\5\
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
\5\ The Lawyers' Committee for Human Rights recently documented two
cases of Kosovar Albanians being returned to their persecutors.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
Other legal and policy changes, such as a one-year filing deadline
for asylum claims and the detention of asylum-seekers who have
articulated a credible fear of persecution, contribute to the erosion
of protections under the U.S. asylum program. Having jurisdiction over
these issues, Mr. Chairman, we respectfully ask you and the
subcommittee to review the provisions of the 1996 IIRIRA law affecting
asylum-seekers and consider their repeal. In order to restore U.S.
leadership in refugee protection, the Congress and the Administration
also must restore U.S. commitment to the concept of asylum.
the capacity question
Many agree that there is a real need in the world to resettle more
refugees. But what about our capacity to absorb more refugees? Has not
our long involvement with Indochinese, Bosnians and other refugees
produced a variant of compassion fatigue?
Not at all. Our own programs find no lack of American families
enthusiastic about sponsoring and assisting refugees. One indicator is
the magnitude of the cash and in-kind contributions that come through
our dioceses--resources that supplement the modest but welcome
government outlay. Last year these contributions amounted to some $12
million, all coming from ordinary (or should I say extraordinary)
working Americans. Our colleague refugee resettlement agencies report
the same generous enthusiasm.
For those who question the commitment of the American people to
refugee resettlement, Kosovo provides a ringing response. The
overwhelming demonstrations of support and offers of aid from the
public to the Kosovars have been well documented. Agencies, including
ours, were deluged with offers of assistance for the Kosovars to whom
our government offered protection. When Americans see people in
desperate need, they are quick to help. We are convinced that, if our
public were shown the sufferings of the Sudanese in Kenya or the
Burmese in Thailand in same detail as they witnessed the desperation of
the Kosovars, they would react in the same generous way.
Furthermore, the agencies, including MRS, which partner with the
government to provide initial resettlement services are prepared to
accept a larger number of cases, During the Kosovo crisis,
nongovernmental organizations and the government worked as a team to
ensure that all Kosovar refugees brought to the United States were
unified with their families and into local communities in an
expeditious manner.
lessons of kosovo
It has become increasingly evident that the U.S. response to the
Kosovo refugee crisis helped reduce the suffering and save the lives of
many of the refugees. The coordinated action to facilitate evacuations
from Macedonia; the offer of resettlement to 20,000 Kosovars as
refugees; the decision not to use Guantanamo Bay as a temporary
processing point; and the promise to facilitate and fund voluntary
repatriation all represented appropriate responses to an emerging
humanitarian crisis. This model of protection should be applied to
similar situations around the globe which produce refugees but do not
draw media attention.
Just as we can be proud of our response to the Kosovo refugee
crisis, we can draw from it important lessons for the future. First,
Kosovo teaches us that U.S. leadership is crucial in ensuring that the
international community responds to refugee situations. The United
States' commitment to accept 20,000 Kosovar refugees in the early days
of the crisis helped precipitate the offers of temporary asylum from
European allies and other nations. In the end, only 11,000 refugees
arrived in the United States, many of whom will now be returning to
their own country. But the United States' important gesture helped
assure protection for many more.
Second, the resettlement option can serve not only our humanitarian
interests but also U.S. foreign policy goals. In particular refugee
situations, evacuation and resettlement reduce the chances that
countries of ``first asylum'' will send refugees back to their
persecutors or close their borders, further destabilizing a war-torn
region. For example, our announcement of 20,000 places for Kosovars
helped reassure the Government of Macedonia, at a critical moment, that
it would not be left alone to cope with an unbearable burden.
Accordingly, the evacuation by the international community of refugees
from Macedonia allowed that country to continue to accept Kosovars
crossing the border: despite an initial statement that it would not
allow in more than 20,000 Kosovars, Macedonia eventually provided
protection for over 240,000 refugees. The United States helped make
that happen.
A third lesson from Kosovo is that the partnership between the U.S.
Government and the voluntary agencies which assist it in the
resettlement of refugees is alive and flourishing. We and our
resettlement agency colleagues showed once again that, when we are
asked to respond to a refugee crisis, we have the capacity, resources
and enthusiasm to do so. Agencies were given only several days to staff
the reception center at Fort Dix and ready our networks across the
country for thousands of Kosovars. I was at Fort Dix this past May 7 to
greet the second flight of Kosovar refugees, and I can assure you that,
on that day and subsequently, our public/private collaboration worked.
Fourth, Kosovo reaffirms the truth that refugees rarely want to
leave their homes, but are compelled to do so out of fear. If
circumstances allow for their safe return, they go home.
Fifth is a lesson to which I already alluded: during the Kosovo
crisis the myth that the American public does not support refugee
resettlement in the United States was dispelled. Once educated,
Americans respond positively to the cry of the refugee.
While there are many lessons from the Kosovo refugee crisis, there
remain several troubling questions. Many have asked why, for example,
the United States and other nations did so much for the Kosovars when
so much less is done for refugees in places like the Sudan, Sierra
Leone, and the Congo, where long-running crises have condemned millions
of people to misery and death. I would put the question another way:
Why can we not more often summon the strength of will and generosity of
spirit that marked our Kosovo refugee effort? Do we respond to a
refugee crisis only if we are militarily involved in the conflict that
spawns it? Do we respond to a crisis only when it grabs the attention
of the media and subsequently the nation?
As a nation which should be committed to the cause of human rights
globally, we must consider these questions. Part of the answer may come
back to U.S. leadership, which must involve not only the Administration
but also Congress, the media, and other powerful voices in our society.
History has demonstrated that courses of action designed to end these
ongoing tragedies can attract the required public support if they are
well considered and if the need is adequately explained.
conclusion
Mr. Chairman, the United States must continue to exert leadership
in refugee affairs. Otherwise, experience shows that the level of
attention given to the world's refugees and displaced persons will
surely fall. Leadership includes directing the international spotlight
to situations of intolerable human suffering and mounting efforts to
end them. On behalf of the U.S. Catholic bishops, let me conclude with
several recommendations on how we might better execute our leadership
responsibilities:
1. Our great country, which is undergoing a period of unprecedented
prosperity, should today be accepting at least 100,000 refugees per
year.
The immediate need is to reverse the steady, eight-year decline in
our refugee admissions ceiling. For Fiscal Year 2000, the United States
should also accept at least 500 unaccompanied refugee minors, redouble
our efforts to relieve suffering in Africa by increasing our refugee
admissions from that continent, and expand our efforts to identify and
find durable solutions for refugees who are especially vulnerable,
including women at risk, the elderly without families, and those with
medical impairments.
2. The U.S. Refugee Program must continue its past emphasis on
family reunification.
Some argue that refugees with refugee relatives in the United
States (designated P-3, P-4, and P-5) are not ``real'' refugees. That
is wrong: all refugees must satisfy the same criteria. Nor do refugees
who are relatives displace others more deserving; in fact, their very
designation puts them in line behind those who are P-2, the designation
given refugees in groups who are ``of humanitarian interest to the
United States,'' and those who are P-1, in immediate danger. On the
positive side, refugee families resettle better when they are together.
Preserving families should remain a key objective of U.S. refugee
policy.
3. The State Department, assisted by the voluntary agencies, should
continue the search for innovative ways to identify and offer
resettlement to refugees in situations where access to them is
difficult.
The State Department and the voluntary agencies assisting in
resettlement processing overseas should renew their dedication to a
working partnership which results in processing that is fair,
efficient, and cost-effective. The voluntary agencies have a legitimate
and necessary role, for which there is no adequate substitute. They
improve the fairness of adjudications by providing an outside voice,
offer assistance in case preparation that is flexible and cost-
effective, provide a smooth interface with the domestic resettlement
agencies, and bring to the U.S. refugee program the support of
important religious, ethnic, and humanitarian constituencies. The
public/private partnership that this collaboration constitutes must
continue and be strengthened.
4. Congress should strengthen the U.S. asylum system.
``Expedited removal,'' the procedure whereby low-level Immigration
and Naturalization Service (INS) officers at ports of entry summarily
deport asylum-seekers back to the country from which they traveled,
should be repealed, and judicial review of asylum claims restored. The
one-year filing deadline for asylum claims for those who reach our
country, which is insufficient for many who are unaware of the law,
also should be repealed. Asylum-seekers who articulate a credible fear
of persecution should not be detained unless they are a threat to
society.
Other of our recommendations, Mr. Chairman, fall outside the
purview of the Judiciary Committee, but I wish to record them
nonetheless.
The United States should increase assistance for refugees
overseas, with a special emphasis on Africa.
The UNHCR, the international humanitarian agency which assists
refugees with life-sustaining support overseas until they are able to
return home, cannot do its job properly when it is underfunded, which
is the condition of many of its specific programs. While it is right
for us to expect other nations to pay their fair share, it often is
U.S. leadership which encourages them to meet their obligations. At a
minimum, Congress should appropriate full funding of the
Administration's Migration and Refugee Assistance (MRA) and Emergency
Refugee and Migration Assistance (ERMA) requests.
The United States should redouble efforts to seek peaceful
settlements to wars in countries like Sudan, Angola and the
Congo Republic.
Each of these recommendations, Mr. Chairman, is offered in a spirit
of humility and a recognition that all of us involved in refugee work--
whether government officials or private agency personnel--are doing our
best to address complicated and daunting problems.
Mr. Chairman, it is the view of the U.S. Catholic bishops that the
United States must make a renewed commitment to refugee protection
globally. By so doing, we serve our own vital interests and act as an
example to other nations. Perhaps more importantly, we honor the
democratic values we espouse, continue a tradition of compassion which
has long characterized our nation, and offer a beacon of hope to
suffering refugees around the world. As a model of democracy and
freedom to millions worldwide, we can and must do more to provide safe
haven to those who flee persecution.
On behalf of the nation's Catholic bishops, I thank you and your
colleagues on the Subcommittee for allowing me the opportunity to
present our views and for your leadership in this important public
service.
______
Joint Report On the Resettlement of Sudanese Youth In
Kakuma Camp, Kenya
Of The United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees, United States
Catholic Conference, Lutheran Immigration and Refugee Service, U.S.A.,
February 1, 1999
introduction
1. Further to the recommendations of the April 1998 meeting on
unaccompanied refugee minors organized by the United States Office of
Refugee Resettlement in Washington D.C., a joint mission was organized
by UNHCR, USCC and LIRS to Kakuma refugee camp in Kenya from 29 June to
15 July 1998.\1\ The objective of the mission was to assist UNHCR to
develop an effective methodology for using resettlement as an
instrument of protection and durable solution for unaccompanied minors
in a refugee camp context. The mission was to develop practical
guidance for the proper identification of children in need of
resettlement.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
\1\ The members of this mission were Elizabeth Harshaw, Children's
Services Specialist, U.S. Catholic Conference, Migration and Refugee
Services (USCC/MRS); Susan Schmidt, Director of Children's Services,
Lutheran Immigration and Refugee Service (LIRS); and Maricela Daniel,
Regional Policy Advisor (Refugee Children), UNHCR Regional Office in
Addis Ababa.
Field work was conducted in Kakuma Camp in Kenya. For 12 days, the
mission met with UNHCR and NGO staff who work directly with the
unaccompanied minors, with community and religious leaders and with
groups of minors and young adults living in group and foster care
arrangements. The mission also met representatives from relevant
organizations, including UNICEF/Operation Lifeline Sudan (Lokichoggio
and Nairobi offices), ICRC Tracing Section (Lokichoggio and Nairobi
offices), Kenyan Red Cross (Kakuma representative), and Radda Barnen
(Lokichoggio and Nairobi offices). See Annex 2 for details.
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2. This report begins with a brief overview of the policy
references and guidelines for the resettlement of children and
adolescents. It then considers the specific situation prevailing in
Kakuma camp and provides a framework for assessing resettlement needs.
resettlement: policy references and guidelines
3. The UNHCR Resettlement Handbook is cited in the following
paragraphs as the authoritative UNHCR reference on resettlement issues
which has taken into account, and operationalises to the extent
possible, considerations relevant specifically to unaccompanied and
separated minors. In accordance with the Convention on the Rights of
the Child, which establishes that children and adolescents are
``entitled to special care and assistance,'' the Handbook provides
guidance on the use of resettlement as a vital instrument of protection
and a durable solution for unaccompanied minors. Chapter 4 of the
Handbook states:
Among cases to be promoted for resettlement, priority attention
should be given to those refugees with acute legal and physical
protection needs and, in particular, to women-at-risk and
unaccompanied children for whom resettlement has been found in
their best interests.
4. Sub-chapter 4.7 refers specifically to children and adolescents.
The guidelines for the resettlement of unaccompanied minors require:
consistent application of the principle of ``best interests
of the child'', in accordance with article 3 of the Convention
on the Rights of the Child and Conclusion No. 47 of the
Executive Committee of the UNHCR;
a case-by-case examination including the participation of
child welfare personnel;
effective participation of the refugee child; and
assessment of the nature and durability of the relationship,
when resettlement with a family other than the minors own
family is being considered.
5. The Resettlement Handbook refers to family reunification as the
primary objective of the resettlement of unaccompanied minors:
The resettlement of an unaccompanied minor for reasons other
than family reunification should not be considered unless, for
example, the minor is being cared for by a foster family which
is being considered for resettlement, the minor has formed a
strong emotional or social bond with the family, and
resettlement will not interfere with tracing and reunification
with the original family.\2\
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\2\ Section 4.7.2 on Minors and Family Reunification refers.
6. The ensuing sections of the Handbook concerning minors who are
under physical threat (4.7.3) and minors who are disabled, traumatized
or in need of medical care (4.7.4) cite several specific situations
where resettlement may be considered for minors. Minors, due to their
own actions or perceived actions, may be particularly targeted by
authorities or other parties and find themselves in circumstances where
resettlement is perhaps the only solution to ensure their protection.
If the physical safety of a minor is under sever threat and local
solutions are not available, immediate resettlement may be the only
practical means to guarantee his or her protection. As with adult
refugees, minors who have been traumatized or tortured or who are
survivors of sexual violence need to be given priority, in particular
when their condition represents a significant obstacle to leading a
normal life and to their eventual achievement of self-sufficiency.
7. It may be difficult for an unaccompanied minor to establish
refugee status using the same refugee criteria and procedures applied
to adults. When a child is unable to articulate a claim, or when it is
not possible to determine the refugee status of a minor, a decision
should be made as to what durable solution would be in the minor's best
interest. UNHCR encourages countries to consider the best interests of
the child when determining the refugee status of a minor, and to
determine refugee status using the broadest possible interpretation.
8. Where it is found necessary to resettle a minor who is
accompanied by family, resettlement should be made possible for the
minor's family, or the guardian, even if these other family members
would have no independent grounds for resettlement. The Handbook offers
the specific guidance that a child evacuated for treatment ``should
always be accompanied by a close relative, or someone with whom the
child has an emotional bond. In extraordinary circumstances when this
is not possible, the child must be accompanied by someone who speaks
the child's language and can provide emotional support.'' \3\
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
\3\ Section 4.7.4 on Minors who are disabled, traumatized or in
need of medical care refers.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
9. The sub-chapter in the Resettlement Handbook on refugees without
local integration prospects (4.9) has particular bearing on the
situation of the large population of Sudanese refugees in Kakuma Camp,
since voluntary repatriation is not yet a realistic option encouraged
by UNHCR nor is local integration allowed by the Kenyan authorities.
This section states that:
Under the broad concept of seeking resettlement as a durable
solution when resettlement for immediate protection reasons is
not necessary, UNHCR may consider promoting resettlement for
specific individual cases or even groups.
There is no fixed period for considering resettlement for durable
solution purposes, but the guidelines do suggest it would usually take
more than two years to fully explore the possibilities of local
settlement or voluntary repatriation. While the lack of local
integration prospects is not considered sufficient grounds for the
resettlement of children in light of the specific requirements of the
Handbook, the risk of an indefinite refugee experience should trigger a
formal best interest assessment and a vigorous family tracing effort.
10. Interpretation of the ``best interest of the child'' may be a
rather difficult assessment because it often implies a balance of
rights that, at times, may be conflicting. The opinion of a child is
important in the context of resettlement and so it is essential that a
child is given the elements to give an informed opinion. Consideration
of the bests interests of the child and of the child's opinion are
important for making determinations appropriate for a particular child.
Chapter 7.1 of the Resettlement Handbook offers a fuller discussion of
the CRC and the four essential elements of the best interests rule:
a set of principles about the developmental needs of
children and adolescents;
a set of attitudes that a decision-maker needs to have;
a set of procedures that a decision-maker needs to follow;
and
various institutional structures to help ensure rationality
and fairness in the decision-making process.
11. In sum, UNHCR's guidelines and policy orientations attach prime
importance to the principle of family unity and have established that
children are best cared by their family and within their community.
Resettlement of an unaccompanied minor is carried out with caution and
essentially for family reunion reasons or the preservation of family-
type relationships when it has been ascertained that this is in the
best interest of the child. When the right to life is at stake or other
essential rights are threatened and the necessary protection cannot be
provided in the refugee situation, resettlement may become the best
solution for the child. In any event, the right to the unity of his/her
family calls for all measures by those working with refugee children--
UNHCR staff, child welfare specialists, partner agency representatives,
resettlement program staff and others--to ensure that safeguards are in
place to preserve the possibility of family reunion.
practice at kakuma refugee camp
12. The following sections of this paper present a framework for
applying the guidelines concerning the resettlement of refugee children
in the specific context of Kakuma camp.
13. Kakuma refugee camp lies some 130 kilometers south of the
Kenya-Sudan border. It was established in 1992 to accommodate a major
influx of Sudanese refugees, largely composed of unaccompanied minors.
The camp population is comprised of diverse ethnic, religious,
linguistic and political backgrounds, an unbalanced sex ratio in favor
of males, and a high number of adolescents including 5,080
unaccompanied minors and young adults. The camp is now hosting refugees
from southern Sudan, Somalia, Ethiopia and other African countries
(such as Democratic Republic of the Congo, Rwanda, Burundi, Uganda and
Liberia) plus a group of persons tentatively registered as Kenyan/
stateless.
14. The registered camp population was 65,000 in October 1998.
Sudanese refugees account for about 67 percent of the total camp
population (45,000). Most of them have fled the protracted civil war in
southern Sudan between the Government of Sudan and the resistance
forces, which began and has remained continuous since 1982. Many have
also left because of the ensuing famine and destruction. The camp
population continues to grow with the arrival of southern Sudanese.
15. The refugee youth population of specific concern in the
following sections are those Southern Sudanese youth who have sometimes
been referred to as ``unaccompanied minors'' or the ``lost boys of
Sudan.'' There are significant elements of a shared refugee experience
of persecution among these youth. They first left Sudan as children for
Ethiopia in mid-1987, fleeing the civil war killings of family members
and starvation. The SPLA facilitated the flight to the camps in
Ethiopia and also forcibly moved some youth to create an educated cadre
and to train them (and in some cases, deploy them in battle). They
experienced further traumatic experiences and displacement when they
had to depart Ethiopia back into Sudan in 1991 and then when they fled
again in search of safety to Kenya soon thereafter, beginning in 1992.
16. While commonly referred to as ``unaccompanied minors'' and
``boys'', roughly half of the 5,000 Sudanese youth are over 18 years of
age.\4\ Sixty five per cent (3,237) live in group care arrangements and
the remaining 35 per cent (1,739)--mostly the youngest of the
refugees--are in foster families. Over the years, those working most
closely with the youth indicate that it is not unusual for the youth to
re-establish contact with their relatives in the Sudan and some
occasionally travel to Southern Sudan. At the end of 1996, following
severe tensions between the Nuer and Dinka communities, the Nuer youth
were separated to their own area: 325 Nuer youth are in group care and
201 are in the foster care with 47 families.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
\4\ The statistics of the Sudanese youth in Kakuma camp need to be
updated. Following is the breakdown by age and type of care, as of
March 1998.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
social and protection considerations
17. A key point of departure in the development of the psycho-
social support programmes was the need to assist the children to cope
with the sudden separation from their families and the witnessing of
atrocities committed to their families and villages, and to offer
protection to the children in a culturally sensible manner. Much has
been done on their behalf, but still many do require continued special
care. The assistance programme for the refugee youth has had a strong
focus on education, and many have reached the highest levels of
education available in Kakuma camp. The programme has also offered them
skills training activities (such as tailoring, carpentry and masonry),
sports and recreation equipment, and supplementary assistance (shoes,
clothing, etc.).
18. Channels for communication with relatives and others in
Southern Sudan exist through Red Cross messages, from news brought by
new arrivals and/or from personal visits to Sudan. Many of the youth,
however, still long for their families and some suffer from the lack of
information of family members at home. The impact on the youngest is
most felt and requires continued attention. Indeed, one third of the
484 children in Kakuma with special needs--including physical or mental
disabilities--are from among the refugee youth who fled to Ethiopia and
after returning to Sudan, fled once again to Kenya. For the older among
them, the lack of family support becomes more acute when it comes to
rites of passage, especially marriage. Most of the young men have no
means to pay the traditional bride price and so their prospects for
marriage, with honour to the family and thus adherence to traditional
norms, are limited. Constraints in following the customary rites of
passage, and the lack of resources for traditional marriage practices,
are disruptions affecting all youth (including those within families)
in the refugee camps.\5\
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
\5\ With respect to marriage and bride price arrangements, families
of youth within family settings reportedly are sometimes able to make
their arrangements based upon promises of future payments, while this
is not possible for those cut off from their family.
Under 18 Over 18 Totals
Group Care....................... 1,291 1,946 3,237 (65%)
Foster Care...................... 1,239 503 1,742 (35%)
Totals........................... 2,530 (51%) 2,449 (49%) 4,979
Group Care Breakdown Under 18 Over 18
9 years old: 1 18 years old: 739
10 years old: 0 19 years old: 617
11 years old: 2 20 years old: 349
12 years old: 1 21 years old: 137
13 years old: 14 22 years old: 49
14 years old: 46 23 years old: 26
15 years old: 181 24 years old: 3
16 years old: 393 25 years old: 6
17 years old: 670 26 years old: 2
19. Many of the refugee youth in Kakuma have been living during
their most formative years in a group care arrangement, as opposed to
family-based foster care. While the lack of family protection might in
some cases make these youth more vulnerable to forced recruitment to
military groups or banditry, their awareness of children's rights
through camp-based educational/training activities, and their
separation from family-based pressures to ``serve the rebellion'' also
renders these youth more resistant to pressures from the community (to
be drafted, for example) and to be independent of one or another rebel
faction.
20. In Ethiopia and in Kakuma, the psycho-social programmes for
these youth were organised and supported by Radda Barnen. After Radda
Barnen left Kakuma at the end of 1997, the Lutheran World Federation
(LWF) assumed responsibility for implementing the psycho-social
programme. The system of group care is culturally-sensitive and has
allowed the children to survive a series of very negative and traumatic
experiences. Some staff claim that the youth are ostracised by the
community and regarded, even beyond 18, as ``minors'' because most have
been unable (or unwilling) to go through the customary/traditional
rites of passage. It is important to note, however, that the disruption
of these traditional rites has had a much more general impact on young
refugees in the camp, in general, not just those who are unaccompanied
or separated from their families. There are also strong indications
that the lack of some or all elements of these traditional rites is
being accepted, increasingly, as one of the many changes brought about
by war and the refugee situation. While it appears to be the case that
the general refugee community feels less responsibility for the youth
because they have received extensive and focused attention and direct
benefits from international agencies, researchers, journalists and
others, this does not equate with ``ostracism.''
durable solutions
21. It is reported that more than 100 of the refugee youth have
returned to Sudan on their own to serve as teachers or technicians.
Formal repatriation to Sudan cannot now be promoted or undertaken by
UNHCR, nor has organised family reunification been possible, because of
the multiple and ongoing displacements and civil war in Sudan. The
Sudan Government's requirement that reunifications take place through
Khartoum is a severe limitation on the ICRC's ability to deliver
children directly to their parents, once identified. Family tracing
efforts must nevertheless continue.
22. Over the years, UNHCR and its operational partners have put
into place structured programmes for ensuring proper care that has
allowed the refugee youth to confront the traumas of war and
displacement and to engage in education and productive activities.
Nevertheless, there are no prospects for local integration in Kenya.\6\
Sudanese refugees will continue to be assisted in the designated camps
until the conditions allow for their voluntary repatriation, the
durable solution which will necessarily apply to the vast majority of
refugees.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
\6\ It is important to note that local settlement for Sudanese
refugees, including unaccompanied minors, in Uganda has been largely
successful. There is concern that a broad-based resettlement effort in
neighboring Kenya could serve to disrupt and undermine the viability of
this local settlement program, by possibly triggering irregular
movements.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
23. During the extended stay in asylum for most refugee youth, a
more concerted effort should be made to reintegrate them into the
broader Sudanese community. It is also clear that some of the children
continue to yearn for their families in Southern Sudan. For those who
maintain contact with parents or care givers, family reunification
should be pursued. Those youth who choose (or have) to remain in Kakuma
until an eventual return to Sudan is possible should have more
possibilities for secondary school opportunities and vocational
training.
24. Resettlement can continue to be used effectively to address the
needs for protection and durable solutions of some of the refugees in
Kakuma camp. In accordance with the UNHCR Resettlement Handbook,
priority must of course be given to those individuals who are facing
immediate physical protection problems. When specific conditions are
met, UNHCR may also consider promoting resettlement for refugees who
will not be able to return home in the foreseeable future who have no
local integration prospects. In general, resettlement can ensure long-
term protection and provide a durable solution for refugees. Given
appropriate arrangements for selection and reception, resettlement may
also provide advanced educational opportunities and the chance of a
productive future for the Sudanese youth.
resettlement
25. UNHCR has clearly established policies and guidelines on the
use of resettlement for refugee youth and children, especially those
who are unaccompanied or separated. These guidelines necessarily focus
on the individual and, as noted above, they focus on durable and
interim solutions other than resettlement in most circumstances. Third
country resettlement for unaccompanied minors is generally not deemed
appropriate by established UNHCR guidelines unless there is a strong
family link abroad or the child is facing an immediate physical/legal
protection problem or has serious medical problems. Being cared for
within their own community provides the minors with physical and
emotional protection while awaiting possible repatriation or
reunification with their own families. A policy which is broadly
inclusive--which promotes the resettlement of all of the youth as a
group--is neither well-founded nor possible to implement. Equally, a
policy which is strict and exclusive--which denies the possibility of
resettlement--is also not supported. A selective, but open, ``middle
ground'' approach is needed.
26. Concerned by the fact that only a very few of the Southern
Sudanese refugees in Kakuma camp have been resettled under UNHCR
auspices to date, some American NGO's have recommended that sub-groups
of the youth population be designated as eligible for direct processing
by the USA, which would then proceed with an individual assessment of
their refugee claim only. One NGO, for example, has recommended that
the following categories be considered for third country resettlement:
boys under 18 years of age;
young adults who are orphans without extended family;
boys and young men who need special protection for whatever
reason; and
boys and young men who have particular difficulty
integrating into their community.
27. This approach is not consistent with UNHCR guidelines which
require a prior, individual assessment of the needs of minors.
Moreover, the definition of broad categories using such ambiguous and
loose criteria renders this approach unworkable.
28. Whereas a group-based approach to eligibility only involves an
individual determination of the refugee claim, UNHCR must, in the case
of refugee minors, first establish the need for resettlement and
determine that it would be in the best interest of the child. Thus,
UNHCR cannot agree to promote the resettlement of all of the youth
under the age of 18. As indicated above, the Resettlement Handbook is
quite clear with regard to unaccompanied or separated minors:
resettlement should only be considered upon a case-by-case examination.
The needs of the youth in group care would have to be assessed with the
assistance of the caregivers in order to establish that resettlement
would meet the child's best interests. Whereas adolescents could in
principle express their views, children would require specialised
attention.\7\ Similarly, in some cases, subject to the requirement that
it is in the child's best interest (e.g., where strong familial bonds
have been established, especially where other family links have been
lost), the youth in foster families would need to be considered for
resettlement with their host family.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
\7\ The CRC applies to everyone below the age of 18 years unless,
under the applicable law, majority is attained earlier. According to
the dictionary, a child is a person who has not yet reached puberty or
sexual maturity, and in common usage it is not applied to anyone over
14 or 15 years. A person who is no longer a child but not yet an adult
is an adolescent.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
resettlement of refugees above 18 years old
29. The youth over 18 years old, notwithstanding their social
circumstance, are no longer minors. From an adjudication point of view,
these young men are presumably able to articulate their claim to
refugee status and make responsible decisions regarding resettlement.
30. UNHCR has again initiated contacts with the refugee community
to smooth the process for the integration of those youth who are no
longer minors. In accordance with standard practice, UNHCR refers for
resettlement those young adults who have protection problems and meet
the criteria of the Resettlement Handbook. If those from among the
Sudanese youth who trekked via Ethiopia and Sudan to Kenya who are now
young men over 18 are designated as being eligible for resettlement as
a ``group of special concern'' to the United States, UNHCR could agree
to work with American partners to support processing activities;
however, only after a rigorous assessment of the fuller and regional
implications, as discussed below.
31. In the first place, there are comparable groups of Sudanese
youth in Ethiopia and Uganda, and in neighbouring Southern Sudan. If a
resettlement programme is initiated only in Kakuma and based simply
upon fitting a group definition, there will almost certainly be an
influx of new arrivals from neighbouring countries, including from
Sudan. Indeed, in recent months, increased numbers of young men
declaring themselves to be ``unaccompanied minors'' have been arriving
at Kakuma. This upswing coincides with the heightened and fairly
explicit interest of visitors in possible resettlement initiatives.
32. Secondly, a resettlement initiative targeting the young men in
Kakuma should not preclude active and early consideration of other
young refugees, regardless of gender or nationality, in both Kakuma and
Dadaab who meet the criteria for resettlement. It is understood that
UNHCR may already proceed with individual referrals of such cases, but
in the context of an eventual group designation for Sudanese youth, it
should be explicitly recognised that these other referrals should also
benefit from any special assessment, processing and reception
arrangements.
33. Thirdly, it should be recognised that although the above 18
year-olds are in a qualitatively different situation from an
adjudication point of view, they will require specialised counselling
as they consider whether to apply for resettlement. Moreover, they will
require special attention in terms of counselling and access to
services and educational opportunities, upon arrival in the United
States. UNHCR would therefore request advanced information on the
nature, scope and duration of psycho-social, education, and material
support services which will be provided by agencies and service
providers in the context of a special programme for these young adults.
34. Finally, given the special profile of this refugee population,
practical measures would need to be taken to ensure favourable
consideration of requests on an individual basis for reunion with
extended family members and links who might not be eligible under
normal immigration standards but who meet the criteria for the
``constellations'' of family reunification described in the
Resettlement Handbook and who would contribute actively to the welfare
of the young adults in question.
35. In sum, a group designation by the United States could indeed
be a positive response to the need for a durable solution for the young
men. A prior understanding would need to be reached that the common
experience of persecution and well-founded fear to return to Sudan
constitute sufficient grounds to meet the refugee definition, as some
individuals are better able to articulate their situation and claim
than others. Moreover, as has been the case with other group referrals,
an action plan and division of responsibilities would be agreed to in
order to ensure that implementation is fair, speedy and not disruptive.
resettlement of children under 18 years old
36. As indicated above, UNHCR can only consider the resettlement of
unaccompanied or separated minors after a case-by-case examination. A
group designation for minors would therefore contradict established
criteria and procedures for the resettlement of children and
adolescents. For a fuller discussion, please refer to Chapters 4.7, 5.8
and 7.1 of the Resettlement Handbook.
37. In the context of Kakuma (and also in the camps in Ethiopia and
Uganda) \8\ registration for the children should be updated and, for
each individual case, family tracing efforts should be recorded.
Existing files for all of the youth registered over time with Radda
Barnen should serve as a basic reference.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
\8\ In Ethiopia, the Sudanese ``unaccompanied minor'' population in
Fugnido camp numbered some 3,000 in early 1998. There are some 545 who
are now older than 18 years. In Uganda, there are some 130 minors in
two Adjumani settlements (Biyaya and Agojo) and a larger number who are
older than 18 years. There are other Sudanese unaccompanied minors in
Arua settlements (Rhino and Imvepi), Kitgum (Acholpi) and Masindi.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
38. Given the age distribution of the Sudanese youth population in
Kakuma, it should be possible to undertake an individual, protection-
oriented assessment of the quality of foster or group care of those
children--beginning with the youngest minors and moving up the age
ladder--for whom all tracing possibilities have been exhausted. In
accordance with the Resettlement Handbook, priority attention should be
given to those children and adolescents:
whose protection or physical security is at risk; and
for whom the quality of care and psycho-social support does
not meet minimum standards and the refugee community is unable
or unwilling to offer greater support.
39. Where tracing possibilities have not been exhausted,
coordinated action by UNHCR, ICRC and responsible NGO's should be
undertaken to accelerate the tracing effort in a timely manner. Should
the tracing effort finally be successful, an assessment would be
undertaken to determine if there are any reasons not to consider family
reunification as the most appropriate solution. With due consideration
given to age and maturity of the minor, his/her views should also be
included in the assessment.
A resettlement activity for minors should permit all necessary
facilities, including UNHCR or UNHCR-designated presence at the time of
the adjudication interview, as individual circumstances require. (It
should be noted here a couple of cases already referred by UNHCR were
rejected by INS. The new Guidelines for Children's Asylum Claims
released on 12 October 1998 by INS should be implemented as part of any
INS interviews with this population.) The effective participation of
the refugee children or adolescent must also be assured and their views
should be taken into account in decisions regarding arrangements for
themselves and their siblings. Specialised counselling should be
provided on the procedures and implications of resettlement, including
advice on the process, from the adjudication interview through medical
examinations and adjustment to the new environment, where targeted
services would necessarily be made available and the close ties
established among the youth over the years would be taken into account.
40. Another crucial consideration in the event of a resettlement
action is that relatives, especially siblings, and guardians of the
unaccompanied minor be clearly documented on UNHCR referrals to
facilitate unified resettlement or eventual family reunification in the
United States provided this is in the best interests of the child.
a suggested methodology for determining minimum standards
41. The above-mentioned reference documents and guidelines state
that unaccompanied minors may need resettlement for family
reunification and foster family accompaniment, actual or feared
physical threats, and special health needs. The minimum standard for
assessing the need for resettlement of minors should include the
situation where an unaccompanied child has experienced, or is at risk
of experiencing, exploitation, abuse, neglect or ostracism because of
his or her status as an unaccompanied refugee minor, where other means
of protection are unavailable or inadequate.
42. Unaccompanied minors may face greater protection risks as
compared to accompanied minors because they lack an identifiable adult
charged with protecting them, advocating for them, and otherwise
looking out for their best interests. Examples of such situations could
include: an unaccompanied child forced into inappropriate labor or
domestic servitude for survival; an unaccompanied child abused by a
foster family or care-giver; an unaccompanied minor ostracized by his/
her community due to family associations, rape, minority status, etc.;
an unaccompanied child forced into an undesirable marriage, or
subjected to a traditional cultural practice to which the child is
opposed.
43. It should be noted that, in some cases, alternative living
arrangements may be possible within the camp. In other cases, the camp
may have exhausted possibilities, the child may have experienced
numerous changes in placement already, or the child may remain at risk
anywhere within the camp. Under these circumstances, where minimum
standards are not met, resettlement ought to be considered.
44. To further develop the extent and quality of field-based
referrals, it is suggested that specific operational instructions be
prepared. One person within each agency should act as agency
representative for the collection of this information. The ``risk
factors'' being experienced by a child or adolescent, such as those
listed below (or others as identified in other refugee camp
situations), when identified by field UNHCR or partner agency field
staff, should be brought to the attention of Senior Protection Officer
in Nairobi through a referral form, via regular interagency meetings or
in some other formal and recorded fashion.
identifying ``risk factors'' for unaccompanied children and youth
45. In the field of domestic child welfare, one means of
determining whether a child is in need of protection from abuse or
neglect, is to look at the risk factors in the child's life. A similar
approach could be used for unaccompanied minors in a refugee camp. The
intent of the following paragraphs is to help sensitize UNHCR and NGO
staff to situations in which unaccompanied youth face particular risks.
Risk factors include both generalized protection issues, common to many
refugee camp situations, and protection issues specific to a particular
camp, region, culture, or conflict. This is not to say that an
unaccompanied minor in any of the following circumstances is
categorically in need of resettlement. If these risk factors apply,
however, there should be further consideration given to protection
measures, including resettlement, which may need to be taken.
Conscription/Military Recruitment
46. Unaccompanied youth can be at greater risk of recruitment if
there is no one to protect them from forced recruitment or to
discourage voluntary conscription. Unaccompanied youth may be targeted
for recruitment because there are no adults to protect them from the
influences of seeking the camaraderie or material benefit of military
service or seeking revenge on those who persecuted or killed their
family and relations. In open camps, the presence of undesirable
elements in a refugee population increases, and there is need to be
vigilant to the risks which unaccompanied minors face because they do
not have family to provide support and supervision. Unaccompanied girls
without an adult to defend them are at even greater risk of being
targeted and forced to provide sexual services.
Child Abductions
47. Minors may be targeted for abduction, based on cultural
traditions or as a tactic of war. Unaccompanied minors may be at
greater risk of being victim to such a practice if there is no
identified adult to defend them.
Forced Marriages
48. In some cultures, young women and girls may be forced into
arranged marriages. In Kakuma, for example, much older Sudanese men who
have the resources to pay the dowry for marriage may force adolescent
girls into marriage. The pressure on girls to marry is made greater by
the gender imbalance in the Sudanese community in Kakuma (twice as many
males as females). Unaccompanied girls without adult family members to
defend their interests may be at greatest risk of forced marriages.
Even unaccompanied girls fostered by families within the camp may be
at-risk, since such marriages will bring wealth to the foster family.
Female Genital Mutilation (FGM)
49. This practice presents one of the few instances in which the
family and the community imposes harm to the child. In the
extraordinary event that a girl in a camp situation expresses
opposition to the practice and requests protection, resettlement may
need to be considered. Whether or not the girl is accompanied is of
secondary importance; indeed, an unaccompanied girl may be more likely
free of the practice.
Inactivity and prolonged stay in the camp
50. While inactivity can be a problem for all minors in a refugee
camp, it can pose an even greater obstacle to development for
unaccompanied minors. Inactivity in a refugee camp situation can add to
a sense of despair, lead to delinquency, and increase the vulnerability
of the child to forced military recruitment. Minors in families will
generally have the additional structural supports and defenses to
minimize the social and legal risks of inactivity.
51. A prolonged stay in a refugee camp can create despair for any
refugee, but a child or adolescent without family support may be
particularly affected due to developmental needs, lack of family
structure, lack of adult guidance, loneliness, etc. In the Kakuma
context, many of the Sudanese youth have passed the last ten, most
impressionable, years of their lives in a refugee camp.
Satisfying basic needs
52. Limited access to basic needs, such as food, clothing, shelter
and water is a problem confronting refugees generally. However,
deprivation especially impacts children and the elderly. Unaccompanied
minors are at particular risk because they are younger physically, lack
shared family resources, have limited life experience and may not have
adult guidance on how to get by with minimal provisions.
Care arrangements
53. While foster care has the advantage of keeping children within
a family environment and within their culture, it also has potential
dangers if not adequately supervised and supported. The risks to the
minor may increase as the level of stress on the foster family
increases, a common predicament in a refugee camp situation. Minors in
foster care may face greater risk of exploitation for household labor.
Shared household labor can be a legitimate expectation of any child;
however, it can also be subject to abuse. Children in foster care are
sometimes charged to do more household labor than birth children. A
foster child who is exploited or neglected is vulnerable to feelings of
despair and, indeed, to health risks.
54. There are indications that the problems facing Sudanese girls
in foster care--not necessarily unaccompanied but rather separated from
their parents and cared by relatives who are by customs responsible--
have been neglected. Because the girls do not speak up about their
problems, there is a common perception that they do not have any. This
needs to be established on an individual basis, especially in light of
the concerns about forced early marriages and potential abuse in
household labor practices.
Lack of family ties or extended separation from family
55. The extent of existing family ties, or their total absence, is
an important indicator of risk for an unaccompanied minor. Those
without traceable relatives may face greater developmental and security
risks than children with families, even in the event of physical
separation. Unaccompanied minors without the developmental and
emotional support of family, as well as protection and resource support
of an adult relative, are particularly at-risk. In pursuing timely
durable solutions for unaccompanied minors, efforts at family reunion
must be vigorous in respect of the child's need for permanence and
security.
Special Needs
56. Children with special needs may require on-going specialized
care or extra supports, such as special education, assisted mobility,
personal hygiene, supported interaction with peers, and special medical
attention and follow-up. Depending on the level of care required to
attend to their special needs or disability, these youth may be
difficult to foster. In a refugee camp environment, where resources are
spread thin, the needs of this population cannot always be met and the
risks of neglect and exploitation increase.
Groups with special protection needs
57. While ``special needs'' is generally used to refer to
individuals with disabilities, it may also refer to sub-groups within
the broader population which have particular protection or service
needs. One example is that of the Sudanese unaccompanied youth who were
taken to Cuba in 1984 for education. Some as young as 10 to 12 years
old were subsequently transferred to refugee camps in Uganda, where the
transition was reportedly quite difficult. Another example in Kakuma
concerns the Nuer population, which is much smaller than the Dinka
population. There have been occasional problems of relations which
Kakuma authorities have tried to manage. The need to separate the
children of minority groups may reflect the possibility that
unaccompanied minors may face greater protection risks than other
children.
operational and resource considerations
58. Finding durable solutions for unaccompanied minors is time-
intensive. The report to the UNHCR Standing Committee on the Evaluation
of UNHCR's Efforts on Behalf of Children and Adolescents (EC/47/SC/
CRP50 of 15 August 1997) states that ``the team concluded that a strong
and well informed protection presence is needed to identify and address
the specific problems faced by minors'' and goes on to suggest that the
secondment of child and adolescent welfare and education specialists
may help to reinforce UNHCR's operational capacity.
59. In the event of a group designation for young adults, with the
provisions indicated above, a very careful assessment would be required
bearing in mind other direct processing experiences based on group
designations. Additional UNHCR staff support would be required for
UNHCR offices in the region to prepare name lists for transmission to
the U.S. Refugee Co-ordinator. Individual identification pictures would
need to be taken at an early stage to minimise fraudulent manipulation
of eligibility lists. In addition, UNHCR staff would be responsible for
preparing individual referrals for other young adults, regardless of
gender or nationality, in need of resettlement to be considered in
parallel to the designated group.
60. As concerns the children and adolescents, UNHCR would need to
work with ICRC and NGO's to update any existing files and to initiate,
as required, further tracing efforts. In order to focus attention on
minors potentially most in need, UNHCR protection and child welfare
staff would begin with individual assessments of the youngest minors,
moving up the age ladder.
conclusion
61. Resettlement remains a durable solution available to all
refugees, including unaccompanied minors. While resettlement is not the
preferred durable solution for all or even most youth, it is
nonetheless the only durable solution for some unaccompanied children
and adolescents. This report presents some considerations to guide an
assessment of the extent to which minimum standards of care and psycho-
social support are respected. The application of this methodology in
Kakuma should be monitored closely, before it is tested in other
refugee contexts.
62. This paper provides a framework for implementing resettlement
for the Sudanese youth which takes into account several essential
considerations relating to UNHCR's guidelines for the protection of
refugee children, the demographics of the Sudanese youth population in
the region, and the protection needs of other young refugees. Given the
very special character of the refugee population involved, a
comprehensive framework for action needs to be agreed upon before
proceeding with resettlement for any designated groups. UNHCR is
prepared to work closely with partners to further this process.
______
Annex 1--Brief Description of the United States Resettlement Program
for Unaccompanied Refugee Minors
Several field staff recommended that the mission report include a
general description of the specialized resettlement services available
to unaccompanied minors to show that such resources do exist in the
U.S. for unaccompanied youth with protection concerns and/or without
other durable solution possibilities.
The United States Refugee Program includes specialized resettlement
services for unaccompanied minors. These services are provided by two
voluntary agencies, Lutheran Immigration and Refugee Service and United
States Catholic Conference/Migration and Refugee Service, which are
authorized by the U.S. Department of State to resettle unaccompanied
youth and have worked with unaccompanied refugee youth for more than 20
years. These agencies work through licensed child welfare affiliates to
provide appropriate support services.
Resettlement of unaccompanied youth occurs in accordance with
domestic child welfare guidelines, but services are only provided
through programs specifically designed for the reception of refugee
youth. Minors are placed in foster care or independent living
arrangements, appropriate to the youth's developmental needs. The type
of services available through these programs includes:
indirect financial support for housing, food, clothing, and
other necessities
meddical care
assistance of a social worker
independent living skills training (i.e. consumer/budgeting
skills, housing, food preparation, social and legal systems,
transportation, education, community resources)
education/English as a Second Language (ESL)/tutoring
job skills training and career/college counseling
mental health services
on-going family tracing, where possible
cultural activities/recreation
special educational services, where appropriate
legal assistance
Youth who enter the United States prior to age 18 can remain in
foster care/independent living until they complete high school or reach
20-21 years of age (depending upon particular state emancipation
guidelines.) These services are funded through the Office of Refugee
Resettlement of the United States Department of Health and Human
Services.
Foster care placements are based on the individual needs of a
particular youth, with attention to the cultural, linguistic, and
religious background of a youth; special health, educational, and
emotional needs; as well as the personality, temperament and opinions
of the youth. Foster parents must be licensed by their state or county
child welfare provider and receive on-going training in child welfare
matters. Foster parents come from a diversity of ethnic and linguistic
backgrounds, and they receive special training on the adjustment needs
of refugee youth.
Annex 2--Itinerary of the Mission To Kakuma
Monday 29 June: Meeting with UNHCR
Representative; Briefings
by UNHCR Protection and
Durable Solutions Units;
Meetings with Radda Barnen,
UNICEF/Operation Lifeline
Sudan, International Rescue
Committee, ICRC, Save the
Children/UK.
Tuesday 30 June: Arrival in Kakuma, Briefing
by Head of Sub-Office and
UNHCR staff.
Wednesday 1 July: Meetings with Lutheran World
Federation, IRC and
National Council of
Churches/Kenya concerning
all aspects of programming
targeting the minors and
young adults. Meeting with
the Kenyan Red Cross on
tracing and Red Cross
Message activities.
Thursday 2 July: Meeting with agencies in
Lokichoggio (UNHCR
Reception/Transit Center
and ICRC Hospital). Attend
Peace Education Workshop
with refugee youth.
Friday 3 July: Meetings with Chairmen and
Community Leaders of the
Dinka and Nuer communities
in Kakuma camp.
Saturday 4 July: Meetings with LWF
representative responsible
for psycho-social care;
with Jesuit Refugee
Service; and with Lopit
youth and caretakers.
Monday 6 July: Meetings with UNHCR
Community Services Field
Officer and the UNHCR
Consultant Responsible for
Peace Education. Meetings
with Nuer caretakers and
refugee youth in group
care.
Tuesday 7 July: Meeting with Dinka youth in
foster care and group care.
Wednesday 8 July: Meeting with agencies in
Lokichoggio (UNICEF/OLS,
Radda Barnen, and ICRC) and
with Sudanese religious
leaders.
Thursday 9 July: Meeting with JRS and Don
Bosco staff in Kakuma.
Debriefing at UNHCR Sub-
Office in Kakuma. Return to
Nairobi.
Friday 10 July: Report writing.
Monday 13 July: Meetings with Radda Barnen
and ICRC in Nairobi.
Debriefing at UNHCR.
Tuesday 14 July: Meetings with LWF Program
Coordinator and New Sudan
Council of Churches. Report
writing.
Wednesday 15 July: Meeting with Joint Voluntary
Agency (Church World
Service).
Thursday 16 July: Preparation of draft report.
Senator Abraham. Mr. Deffenbaugh.
STATEMENT OF RALSTON H. DEFFENBAUGH, JR.
Mr. Deffenbaugh. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. It is a great
honor to be able to testify again before this subcommittee, and
I must say, particularly a privilege today to be included in
testimony along with such noble people as we have heard. Thanks
for that privilege.
Senator Abraham. Thank you for being here.
Mr. Deffenbaugh. I testify today on behalf of the
InterAction Committee on Migration and Refugee Affairs, which
includes all of the national voluntary agencies which are
involved in working with the U.S. Government in partnership in
the rescue, processing, and resettlement of refugees. I want to
also associate myself fully with the remarks of Bishop
DiMarzio.
One unfortunate lesson that we have learned in the 1990's
in terms of U.S. refugee policy is that the United States has
sent negative signals to the world in terms of whether we are
open to receiving refugees. The chart, of course, showing the
annual refugee admissions numbers during the 1990's shows that
quite vividly, with the 41 percent decline, from 132,000 in
fiscal year 1992 to the level of 78,000 in fiscal year 1999.
Another very negative signal, of course, was that of the
immigration law of 1996 and the extreme restrictions that were
placed on asylum seekers, that other stream of refugees who
come to our country.
I want to express deep appreciation for your leadership and
that of Senator Kennedy and Senators Hatch and Leahy on the
full committee in urging a more open door for refugees and in
urging the administration to increase refugee admissions
numbers and to protect asylum seekers. We are grateful for that
leadership and hope that we can do whatever possible to support
you in those efforts.
I also, though, in fairness and with great happiness want
to give a word of gratitude for the statement we heard today
from Secretary Taft that the numbers will be increased to
90,000 in the coming fiscal year. That is an important step in
the right direction. We hope it will continue.
Also, hats off to the administration for the way the Kosovo
resettlement was handled. It could have been Guantanamo, it
could have been Guam; it was not, it was Fort Dix. It could
have been a special sort of Rube Goldberg status set up for
those refugees, and said, no, they were admitted as refugees
with the right to then choose in dignity whether they wished to
stay or whether they wished to return to Kosovo and the
resettlement systems were put in place. Hats off. It was a job
well done for the administration.
I wish to just in the remaining time highlight a few of the
points from the written testimony, and, of course, if I may
submit the written testimony for the record, along with the
full admissions document that we have prepared.
Senator Abraham. Sure.
Mr. Deffenbaugh. First, in terms of relations with the
UNHCR, the U.S. Government has done a fine job this decade in
helping to strengthen the resettlement section of UNHCR. That
section is now vital and working well. It was not a few years
ago. The reason it is working well now is in large part because
of U.S. pressure, leadership, and funding for that.
However, we need to sustain that effort, and in particular,
we need as a United States to respond favorably when UNHCR
makes special requests of us. Recently, it has been
disappointing to us to see that the United States has dragged
its feet on responding to special UNHCR requests for the
resettlement of an additional 5,000 Bosnian refugees out of
Germany, as well as 9,000 Somali Bantu or Mushunguli refugees
who are now in Kenya. We hope that the United States will
respond more expeditiously to those special requests.
Also, then, on the principle of family unity, we heard the
interchange with Secretary Taft about the so-called priority
four refugee admissions. I must say I am disappointed to hear
that in the aim of having consistency within the refugee
program that we should move to a lower common denominator of
admissions, and because we do not admit grandparents or adult
children or siblings of refugees from countries other than
Bosnia, that we should, therefore, exclude the Bosnian refugees
who have that family relationship.
We believe strongly that that P-4 category should be
extended to all refugees, and we believe, in fact, that the
principle of family unity is one which is an important
humanitarian value which Americans share and which makes for
good resettlement. It is not necessarily leading to a broader
immigration program because these people must still go through
a refugee interview and show that they do qualify as refugees
and have the well-founded fear of persecution. It is not that
they are not refugees. The question is just who will get a
chance to be interviewed for admission to the United States.
I want to associate myself with Mr. DiMarzio's comments
about refugee women at risk and the unaccompanied refugee
minors. These tend to be neglected groups of refugees and who
are sometimes, unfortunately, neglected even in our refugee
program. There have been some good efforts recently with UNHCR,
the State Department, and the voluntary agencies for the
increased admissions of these groups. These efforts need to be
sustained.
Internally displaced persons now have no access to U.S.
resettlement in general. We would like to see us look at the
model of programs like that of Canada, where in certain
circumstances internally displaced can be resettled.
Finally, the relationship between resettlement and first
asylum. We hope that movements will continue in the Congress to
amend some of the harsher provisions of the 1996 law as they
relate to expedited removal, to denials of asylum claims
because they may not have been filed within a year, to some of
the policies of denying work authorization for asylum seekers,
and particularly the detention of asylum seekers. I think,
frankly, it is shocking that in this land in which all of our
coins say ``liberty,'' we proclaim that value, that people who
flee to our country seeking liberty we lock behind bars while
we make decisions about their claims.
We have decided at voluntary agencies this year not to try
to articulate a magic total refugee admissions number. We are
glad, as I said, the administration now plans to increase
admissions. We hope that the admissions level will continue to
rise in years to come. We believe that the welcome of the
United States toward refugees is a generous and open one and we
can do more. Thank you.
Senator Abraham. Thank you.
[The prepared statement of Mr. Deffenbaugh follows:]
Prepared Statement of Ralston H. Deffenbaugh, Jr.
introduction--the kosovo context
Senator Abraham, Senator Kennedy, Members of the Subcommittee, I am
honored to be here today to present the testimony on refugee admissions
for Fiscal Year 2000 on behalf of InterAction's Committee on Migration
and Refugee Affairs (CMRA). The CMRA is the coalition of national
refugee advocacy agencies, including all of the national voluntary
agencies, which work in partnership with the United States government
in the rescue, processing and resettlement of refugees.
One lesson learned from the recent crisis in Kosovo is that United
States leadership is essential to promoting international refugee
protection. If we expect other countries to accept refugees for first
asylum and for resettlement, the United States needs to set an example.
Unfortunately, since 1993 the United States has set an example of
slowly closing the door. The Illegal Immigration and Immigrant
Responsibility Act of 1996 (IIRIRA), together with recent Immigration
and Naturalization Service (INS) regulations, have sent a message to
the rest of the world that asylum seekers and refugees are no longer
welcomed here. This undesirable signal has been re-enforced by the
Administration's decision to decrease refugee admissions by 40
percent--from 132,000 in Fiscal Year 1993 to 78,000 in Fiscal Year
1999.
InterAction's Committee on Migration and Refugee Affairs urges the
United States to revive its leadership by example. We urge the
Administration to increase refugee admissions to earlier levels, as has
been repeatedly advocated by the leadership of the Senate Judiciary
Committee and the Immigration Subcommittee--Senator Hatch and Senator
Leahy, Senator Abraham and Senator Kennedy. CMRA respectfully requests
the Clinton Administration and Congress to restore refugee admissions
to no less than 132,000--the admissions level which was in place at the
time of President Clinton's first inauguration. We also call upon
Congress and the President to commit themselves to reversing the damage
that has been done to our nation's tradition of political asylum.
The United States government, however, deserves praise for the
leadership, flexibility, and creativity that it has recently exhibited
in its refugee policy as applied to Kosovo. The decision to offer safe
haven to an initial group of 20,000 refugees in need of protection; the
promise to facilitate and fund voluntary repatriation for those
refugees given safe haven in the United States when and if they wish to
return to Kosovo; the abandonment of the plan to erect a ``holding''
camp in Guantanamo Bay, Cuba in favor of setting up a processing camp
in Fort Dix on U.S. soil; the swift response of the United States to
the need to facilitate evacuations from Macedonia; and the long hours
and hard work of the employees of the Department of State Bureau for
Population, Refugees and Migration (PRM), the Immigration and
Naturalization Service (INS), and the Office of Refugee Resettlement
(ORR) in the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS), are all
strong signals that the Administration has revitalized its commitment
to refugee protection and resettlement.
We hope that this renewed leadership will be extended to non-
Kosovar refugees who do not currently have access to the U.S. program,
but for whom resettlement would be a viable durable solution.
the united states and others must do more to sustain united nations
high commissioner for refugees (unhcr) recent progress in resettlement
For many years, the predominant view in the institutional culture
of the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) was that
resettlement was the ``least desirable durable solution'' for refugees
(the ``preferred'' solutions being voluntary repatriation and local
integration of refugees). Indeed, resettlement may be undesirable for
those refugees who have found temporary asylum and still have reason to
hope that they can soon return home.
In many refugee situations, however, there comes a time that
refugees realize they will not be able to repatriate for years, if at
all. Nor is local integration a possibility in an increasingly
restrictive world. The sad reality is that there is a de facto fourth
``durable solution''--indefinite limbo status without access to any of
the three durable solutions. Once it becomes evident that their
foreseeable future will be spent languishing in camps or in urban areas
in an illegal or temporary status, many refugees decide they cannot
sustain this much longer. For their physical safety and psychological
well being, they would prefer to be permanently resettled in a third
country.
The UNHCR Resettlement Section in Geneva, under the leadership of
Mr. Shelly Pitterman, deserves great credit for the progress the UNHCR
has made in working with resettlement countries to promote resettlement
as a durable solution. In recent years, aided by the invaluable new
UNHCR Resettlement Handbook and resettlement workshops that the
resettlement section has convened throughout the world, the UNHCR has
actively promoted and greatly enhanced the effectiveness and use of
resettlement as a tool of international protection. Resettlement
remains the ``least available'' of the durable solutions but is no
longer referred to as the ``least desirable.''
It is our hope that the UNHCR Resettlement Section in Geneva will
continue its efforts to encourage field staff to refer refugees for
resettlement when it becomes evident that neither voluntary
repatriation nor local integration is imminent. Resettlement countries
such as the United States, however, now need to do more to ensure that
the UNHCR's resettlement efforts continue to move forward. For example,
there have been instances, where INS has denied significant percentages
of caseloads referred by the UNHCR. In too many instances, there may be
a lack of communication between the U.S. government and the UNHCR at
the field level, and the UNHCR is perplexed as to why cases which they
found so compelling are denied refugee status by the United States.
This discourages future referrals from the UNHCR. The United States and
other resettlement countries must make a more proactive and sustained
field effort to inform the UNHCR about their respective refugee
adjudications procedures, both generally and in specific cases.
Resettlement countries should also continue to provide the UNHCR with
resources, particularly in terms of funding protection officer
positions, resettlement training, and a staff secondment program, in
order to encourage and improve resettlement referrals from the UNHCR.
Likewise, while the United States refugee resettlement program has
increased demands on the UNHCR to produce more and more individual
cases for refugee resettlement, the slow pace of U.S. processing has
precluded UNHCR from referring urgent protection cases to the program.
We applaud the United States recent decision to allow Kosovar Albanians
who were quickly evacuated from Macedonia after a cursory refugee
interview to complete their refugee processing in the United States. We
urge the United States and other resettlement countries to extend
similar expedited procedures to other refugees with immediate
protection and resettlement needs.
Similarly, in the past year the United States has also sent mixed
signals to the UNHCR concerning its desire to accept ``durable
solution'' cases for resettlement. For example, early this year the
UNHCR sent letters requesting that the United States process an
additional 5,000 Bosnian refugees out of Germany, as well as 9,000
Somali Bantu (Mushunguli) refugees in the Dadaab Camps in Kenya, for
whom voluntary repatriation and local integration are not foreseeable.
The United States has not yet acted on the six-month-old request on the
Mushunguli, but promptly issued a written rejection of the request for
the resettlement of the Bosnian refugees. While the United States has
now informally indicated that it may ultimately accept nearly 5,000
additional Bosnian refugees, as requested, such mixed signals from a
major resettlement country threaten UNHCR's ability to sustain the
significant progress which the resettlement countries and the UNHCR
have made in recent years in their joint resettlement efforts.
Consequently, we urge the United States to set an example for the
rest of the world by enhancing its resettlement capacity. This would
encourage the UNHCR to initiate referrals of more sizable groups (such
as the Mushunguli and Bosnian refugees, or the ``Lost Boys'' group of
Sudanese youth in Kenya's Kakuma camp) for whom resettlement appears to
be the best durable solution. With its limited resources and
overwhelming protection and assistance needs, the UNHCR cannot
reasonably be expected to be the primary gatekeeper for the admissions
programs of major resettlement countries. Such group designations are a
more efficient, and useful, way for UNHCR to assist refugees in need of
resettlement and those countries that are willing to accept them. The
responsibility of individual referrals, on the other hand, should be
shared by the UNHCR and NGO refugee processing agencies using criteria
(such as the Priority Two) developed with PRM.
Finally, the United States should re-enforce efforts by the UNHCR
to open resettlement opportunities to new populations of refugees for
whom this durable solution was, in spite of needs, not previously
considered. For example, UNHCR's recent initiative to promote
consideration of resettlement for durable solution cases in the Middle
East and the Newly Independent States (NIS) requires support from the
resettlement countries. Words of support, however, need to be
supplemented by action. Resettlement countries should ensure that in
the NIS, officials are available to adjudicate refugee claims at sites
accessible to refugees and with the case support necessary to carry
refugees through the process. The U.S. program now requires that
refugees residing in any of the fifteen NIS states travel to Moscow for
their interview (though such travel may not even be permitted by the
Russian Federation) and provides refugees with no caseworkers to assist
them with the application. The NIS initiative, and others like it, will
not succeed unless the United States and other resettlement countries
are willing to provide their programs with more resources and
flexibility.
the principle of family unity
In spite of the positive approach taken by the UNHCR Resettlement
Handbook on the issue, the Administration has become increasingly
critical of ``family'' refugee categories. Some of these critics assert
that the family categories transform the refugee programs into an
immigration program, rather than one of rescue. Indeed, last year the
United States eliminated the Priority Five category altogether (for
cousins, aunts and uncles) and has now indicated it intends to sunset
Priority Four (grandparents, grandchildren, married sons and daughters,
and siblings) processing as well. This does not mean that the UNHCR
cannot refer such relatives, only that such refugee applicants will not
be interviewed by INS unless the UNHCR refers them for an interview or
unless the relatives happen to fall into a category which makes them of
special concern to the United States.
An applicant for resettlement who is seeking to join a relative
must still establish that he/she meets refugee criteria, such as that
he/she has a well-founded fear of persecution based on race, religion,
membership in a particular social group, political opinion, or
nationality. He/She is every bit a refugee. Furthermore, he/she is a
refugee with a family in the resettlement country who can assist him/
her in building a new life. Family based resettlement is good refugee
policy, and should be sustained. Finally, and perhaps most importantly
is the vital humanitarian principle of promoting family unity, a value
which most Americans hold dear.
The UNHCR should be encouraged to refer refugees for resettlement
to countries where they have relatives, especially when the
relationship would not, absent a UNHCR referral, render the applicant
eligible for consideration for resettlement. At the same time,
resettlement countries should respect the concept of family unity, and
the support network which it provides newly resettled refugees, by
looking beyond the nuclear family for relationships which render
individuals eligible for the program without a UNHCR referral.
refugee women at risk
Approximately 80 percent of the world's refugees are women and
children, who are particularly vulnerable during upheaval and
displacement that characterize refugee movements. Women at risk may be
single heads of families or may have suffered rape, sexual violence,
abuse, torture, and exploitation. The trauma of being uprooted,
deprived of family or community support, and an abrupt change in role
or status render some women particularly vulnerable in the country of
origin, during flight, or in the country of asylum.
Other leading resettlement countries, including Canada, Denmark,
New Zealand, and Australia, have established specific programs to
resettle women and are working with UNHCR to provide alternatives to
women for whom return or integration in the country of asylum are not
viable options. The United States, with its long commitment to
defending the rights of women, should join with these countries and
include in its resettlement efforts women who desperately need
protection and assistance. Such women should be systematically
identified, processed quickly, resettled, and offered the comprehensive
psychosocial services they may need once they are resettled in the
United States.
unaccompanied refugee minors
Unaccompanied refugee minors are among the most vulnerable refugees
and at-risk of neglect, violence, forced military recruitment, sexual
assault and other abuses and therefore require special assistance and
care. (UN General Assembly Resolution A/RES/53/122, 2/10/99.) Estimates
of the proportion of refugees who are unaccompanied minors range from
one to five percent of any refugee outflow. In some circumstances, such
as the conflict in Southern Sudan, this proportion of unaccompanied
minors can be greater due to the specific targeting of children for
conscription, flight, forced servitude, or the creation of a large
orphan population. By conservative estimate, if unaccompanied minors
make up at least one percent of the world's estimated 13.5 million
refugees (not including internally displaced persons), there are at
least 130,000 unaccompanied refugee minors in the world. If we
optimistically assume that one-third of this population will be
reunified with family, as was achieved in Rwanda, there remain over
85,000 unaccompanied refugee minors in need of long-term care and
durable solutions.
Resettling merely one percent of this residual population would be
850 minors. Yet in Fiscal Year 1997 the United States resettled only
one unaccompanied minor through the unaccompanied refugee minor foster
care program, and in Fiscal Year 1998 resettled only four unaccompanied
refugee minors. Unaccompanied refugee minors have been victims of
neglect even in the refugee program. Efforts to overcome this neglect
are underway at the UNHCR and the State Department. These efforts must
be sustained and intensified.
the internally displaced (idp's)
Resettlement may be the preferred solution for refugees who have
suffered such severe levels of persecution in the past that they cannot
face returning to their country of nationality. Unfortunately, while
resettlement might also be the best solution for internally displaced
persons, IDP's now have no access to the UNHCR resettlement referrals
or, with minimal exceptions, to the U.S. resettlement program.
We urge the United States to engage the international community on
how resettlement countries can be more responsive to the rescue needs--
including, but not limited to, resettlement--of the internally
displaced. We note that Canada, for example, has a small but important
program for a limited few internally displaced Colombians affected by
the forced displacement, human rights violations, and other pressures
of the war. Similarly, the U.S. government rescued such victims
directly from their countries in cases such as Chile and Argentina in
the 1970's.
the relationship between resettlement and first asylum
Finally, so long as resettlement remains the ``least available'' of
the three durable solutions, the United States must lead the
international community by supporting its resettlement program with an
effort to provide political solutions to permit voluntary returns and,
equally importantly, to support and ensure the right of first asylum
and the facilitation of local integration.
It is well known that the United States made great efforts to
convince Macedonia to keep its borders open for Kosovar refugees. The
credibility of these efforts, however, was undermined by the ongoing
deterioration of our domestic asylum policy. For example, the following
policies have all been enacted within the last six years:
(1) ``expedited removal'' procedures that empower low level
immigration inspectors to refer or summarily deport potential
asylum seekers and other aliens through unreviewable discretion
and invisible proceedings;
(2) denials of asylum claims based solely on whether they
were filed in a timely fashion;
(3) a policy of denying work authorization for asylum seekers
until their claims have been approved, making it unlawful for
them to accept employment, blocking their ability to integrate
or even to support themselves and their families for many
months;
(4) the routine and prolonged detention of aliens in prisons,
even when their only ``crime'' is coming to the United States
to seek asylum;
(5) the policy determination that the United States may
return asylum seekers without determining the validity of their
claims, so long as they are interdicted outside of the United
States;
(6) the use of pre-flight inspection by INS at foreign
airports, to screen-out would-be asylum seekers before they can
come to the United States, thereby depriving them of any access
to U.S. asylum; and
(7) a proposed INS regulation published on June 11, 1998 (63
Fed. Reg. 31945), which would prevent many asylum seekers from
being granted asylum if their claims were based on past
persecution or if the INS determines that they could have fled
within their country of persecution, rather than from their
country of persecution, without facing ``severe harm.''
Refugee resettlement agencies, the UNHCR, and human rights groups
have all submitted formal comments objecting to this proposed rule.
On the positive side, we welcome the recent codification of the
United States' treaty obligations under the Convention Against Torture,
in an effort to ensure that those who have fled persecution will not be
returned to authorities who would be likely to torture them.
Nonetheless, this represents one bright spot on a very dim landscape.
To reassert leadership in refugee protection, the United States
must first restore its own commitment to the concept of first asylum
and integration.
the public-private partnership of the u.s. refugee program
One of the most unique, valuable and yet challenging aspects of the
U.S. Refugee Program is its cornerstone--the public-private
partnership.
Domestically, the DOS/PRM and ORR work through national voluntary
refugee resettlement agencies to involve local community based
organizations in personally welcoming refugees, and getting them
acclimated to live in the United States. Overseas, DOS/PRM contracts
with NGO partners, many of whom are known as Joint Voluntary Agencies
(JVA's), to assist with the administration of the refugee program, and
to prepare casework for INS adjudicators.
In this relationship, the government closely monitors the NGO's,
and the NGO's keep an eye on the government. The result is a refugee
program that is uniquely transparent, extremely cost-effective, and
community oriented and this facilitates the transition of resettlement
for the refugee through the links of the domestic resettlement agencies
to the JVA's overseas.
This is not to say that the relationship is always an easy one.
While this public-private partnership is modestly moving ahead with
plans to establish a small NGO counseling presence in Moscow, DOS/PRM
has decided to terminate the use of the JVA in the next phase of
refugee processing in Vietnam. In addition, DOS/PRM decided not to use
voluntary agencies as the JVA for processing in Albania, Macedonia, or
Egypt.
JVA's allow the INS to do its job better through the quality
preparation of cases; they serve refugees by helping them articulate
their case and making them feel more at ease for the INS interview;
they assist the program through their ability to expand more quickly
and cost effectively than would generally be possible with a government
operation; and they improve the accountability of the program by
facilitating transparency. They also save the government money. For
these reasons, we urge the State Department to reaffirm and revitalize
its commitment to the JVA, starting with the program in Southeast Asia,
and to examine establishing JVA posts at new sites to facilitate UNHCR
referrals and allow for the expansion of the very effective P-2
processing categories.
conclusion
Unlike in years past, for Fiscal Year 2000 the CMRA will not
attempt to articulate a magic total admission level for refugees who
need resettlement in the United States. With approximately 13.5 million
refugees and asylum seekers and 18 million IDP's in the world, many
more refugees could benefit from resettlement than the United States
could process and absorb. In spite of this great need, however, the
United States has managed down its refugee admissions program and
reduced its commitment to resettlement by over 40 percent since 1993
though we are hopeful that the program for Kosovar Albanians may mark
the reversal of this trend.
The United States still claims to be the world leader in refugee
protection. I wish to emphasize that with tumbling refugee admissions
and increasing restrictions on asylum seekers, how can the United
States credibly call on other nations to do more ``responsibility
sharing'' when it is doing so much less?
A renewed commitment to resettle no less than 132,000 refugees, the
level in place when President Clinton took office, together with a
restoration of basic protections for asylum seekers in the United
States, would demonstrate to the world that the United States is
willing to lead by example.
Senator Abraham. Thank you all. I just would comment on a
couple of points that have been made by our last two panelists
in that we, too, hope that the proposal for the 2000 fiscal
year is, in fact, a consistent pattern, not because of the way
it is structured. It obviously includes a substantial number of
Kosovo refugees. We will have to wait and see. Hopefully, we
can encourage that that be a priority, not just for 1 year but
into the future.
I just want to say that both of you, I think, have made
excellent points for us to follow up on and we will try to do
so.
To Mrs. Kortenhoven, I just want to thank you and not just
your church, although I am familiar with the efforts of the
Christian Reformed Church, but of all of the church communities
of this country who do so many things, not only to assist
refugees for the refugee process, but also to assist people
once they arrive here to help refugees to better assimilate and
be able to be productive people. Whether it is the Catholic
Church or the Christian Reformed or Lutheran Services or
others, we really appreciate that, as well.
The point I was hoping to make earlier when Secretary Taft
was here is that this really is a well-coordinated process that
we have enjoyed in this country between government
organizations and the non-government organizations, the private
sector, the religious community, in particular. So we really
appreciate that, too.
Let me just open it up, really, for one question for this
panel, and then because of the time and the fact that I think
we are going to have a vote fairly soon, we may have to bring
the hearing officially to an end. But do any of you have any
specific comments you would like to make in response to or
relation to some of the comments that were made in the first
panel with regard to current policy, beyond that which has
already been stated, if there is any response or comments. We
will start with you, Mr. Deffenbaugh.
Mr. Deffenbaugh. Yes. Thank you very much, Senator. I think
that Secretary Taft may have misspoken when she was responding
to the question about circuit rides in the former Soviet Union.
Our information is that the 7,000 individuals who were surveyed
by the State Department had already been interviewed and
approved by INS and that the call for circuit rides is not for
those who have already been interviewed but for those who have
applied and not yet been interviewed and for whom travel to
Moscow would be either impossible or difficult. This includes
not only those who qualify under the Lautenberg amendment, but
also those who are referred by UNHCR. So we hope that the INS
will be able, as Jeff Weiss said, to undertake that great
Central Asian adventure and begin traveling to some remote
parts of the former Soviet Union.
Senator Abraham. That is helpful. I appreciate that
information, because if that is the case, we will do an
appropriate follow-up question that I will submit to try to see
what further reply we get.
Mr. Deffenbaugh. Thank you.
Senator Abraham. As you know, I have asked this question
now on more than one occasion to try to move things in that
direction. If, in fact, the circumstances that you have just
described are what, in fact, is the case with those 7,000, then
I do not think we have really addressed the problem.
Are there any other comments? Bishop DiMarzio.
Bishop DiMarzio. I just might follow up a little bit on the
relationship between the State Department and the joint
voluntary agencies and the voluntary agencies in general.
Senator Abraham. Yes.
Bishop DiMarzio. I think, in the Kosovo situation, for
example, the State Department chose to use the International
Organization for Migration instead of the joint voluntary
agencies. I think the Secretary tried to describe that because
they are probably going to take everybody anyhow. But if this
habit continues, we are going to run into problems, because
what in effect happens is that the Federal Government becomes
both the judge and the jury in the cases of adjudicating. We,
as the voluntary agencies, serve as the jury. We try to look at
the facts. We present the case a little bit more like lawyers,
in fact. And then, again, the adjudication is by the INS.
But, again, if this pattern continues, I am afraid that we
are going to see less accuracy and less advocacy on behalf of
the refugees if that continues. I think the relationship as the
Secretary described it is creative tension. I think that
already tells us something about how this is viewed. I think we
need to improve it. I think the refugee resettlement program in
this country could not happen without the voluntary sector and
I think we have to go beyond creative tension to some real
collaboration.
Senator Abraham. Thank you. Are there any other comments?
[No response.]
Senator Abraham. I want to thank all of you, particularly
you, Mrs. Bah. We appreciate you being here with us and for
your contributions.
We will keep the record open for other members to submit
questions and additional statements and we will include the
statements of everyone who is here in full.
Thank you very much, and the hearing is adjourned.
[Whereupon, at 3:32 p.m., the subcommittee was adjourned.]