Date: 2002-06-20
Speaker: EDDIE BERNICE JOHNSON (democrat)
Chamber: H
State: Texas

Mr. Speaker. I rise to commemorate World Refugee Day. which is being celebrated today in the United States and in almost 90 countries around the globe. The theme for this years World Refugee Day is "Refugee Women." which is very appropriate since almost 80 percent of the refugees worldwide are women and children. World Refugee Day gives us a chance to reflect upon the almost 50 million uprooted people in the world and to think about what the United States is doing to help alleviate their suffering. In fiscal year 2001. the U.S. welcomed 68.426 refugees to its shores and gave those disparate people the chance .to seek a new life. While there are some encouraging aspects to our Nations refugee policy. there is much more to be concerned about. An extreme regional inequity exists in our Nations refugee admissions process regarding African refugees. On November 21. 2001. President Bush authorized the admission of 70.000 refu-. gees into the United States for fiscal year 2002. Yet. as of May 31. 2002. slightly more than 13.800 refugees have been admitted. Of these admitted by the end of May 8. 933 were from the former Soviet Union and Eastern Europe. whereas only 891 refugees were from Africa. When the Congressional Black Caucus asked the Immigration and Naturalization Service and the State Department in March why so few refugees from Africa had been admitted this fiscal year. they replied that security concerns prevented them from admitting the refugees. Yet if security is a reason for the delay. why is it that almost 1.500 refugees from the Near East and South Asia have been admitted when the region is known to have much more serious. security concerns than Africa? Mr. Speaker. I am asking for an equitable refugee admission process. Worldwide. 28 percent of the refugees are from Africa. and I believe that 28 percent of refugees resettled in the U.S. should be African in origin. But to date. less than 7 percent of the refugees admitted this fiscal year to the United States are from Africa. This imbalance really cannot continue. What can we do to correct these regional inequities? We can roll over fiscal year 2002 admission numbers into fiscal year 2003 numbers so that a precious chance to rebuild a life does not expire. We can institute direct flights from refugee camps to a facility in the United States so that the refugees can be processed within the U.S.. as was done for Kosovo Albanians during the Balkan war at Fort Dix in New Jersey. We could give preferential treatment to African refugees into very safe settings. as was done for the Montagnards from Vietnam. and we can increase circuit rides so that refugees can be interviewed where they actually live. Mr. Speaker. where there is a will. there is a way. The statistics that I have cited are useful in understanding the severity .of the refugee admissions crisis that is taking place. but they also obscure the fact that we are talking about des.perate. suffering people. Each fraction of a percentage point represents a family that has been united and given a new lease .on life. each number represents someone who has escaped a hopeless refugee camp or a violent urban detention center. * Each number represents someone like Rose. a refugee from the Democratic Republic of the Congo. who has resettled in Dallas. Texas. the district that I am proud to represent here in Congress. Roses husband. an ethnic Tutsi. fled the violence and chaos under the former Zaire to Rwanda to escape persecution. At that time. Rose was expecting her second child. As the war and violence of the Great Lakes Region raged around them. Rose and her children were forced to leave. They found temporary refuge in Benin. In February 2000. Rose and her two children arrived in Dallas. Rose quickly found a job at a photo processing lab that enabled her. to. support her two children. Although she was selfsufficient. her life was incomplete without her husband. But by working with resettlement agencies. Rose was able to unite her family in March of this year. Mr. Speaker. the story of Rose from my district has a happy ending. and it demonstrates the hope and opportunity that we can offer if we will.