SENATOR SIMPSON QUESTION TO AMBASSADOR ZIMMERMAN AMBASSADOR ZIMMERMAN, THE FRONT PAGES OF OUR NEWSPAPERS TELL US THAT THERE IS AS MUCH, OR MORE, REFUGEE-CREATING TURMOIL IN EASTERN EUROPE AS ANYWHERE IN THE WORLD. NO ONE KNOWS THIS BETTER THAN YOU. NEVERTHELESS, THE PROPOSED ADMISSIONS CEILING FOR EASTERN EUROPE IS ONLY 1,500, THE LOWEST FOR ANY AREA OF THE WORLD. I NOTE THAT 30% OF THOSE VISAS ARE TO BE SET ASIDE FOR FAMILIES TO JOIN REFUGEES WHO ARE ALREADY IN THE UNITED STATES. THIS LEAVES ONLY ABOUT 1,000 ADMISSIONS FOR REFUGEES FROM ALL OF EASTERN EUROPE. DO YOU BELIEVE THAT THE EUROPEAN COMMUNITY WILL ABSORB THOSE REFUGEES WHO FLEE THE ETHNIC CONFLICT THAT WE ARE NOW WITNESSING? DO YOU THINK 1,000 IS A REALISTIC NUMBER FOR EASTERN EUROPE? SENATOR SIMPSON QUESTION TO MS. GIVENS MS. GIVENS, AS WE HAVE ALREADY HEARD TODAY, THERE IS SOME CONCERN ABOUT ORR'S PROPOSED NEW PROGRAM WHERE SOME OF THE REFUGEE FUNDING WILL NO LONGER BE DISTRIBUTED BY THE STATES. I WOULD APPRECIATE YOUR VIEWS ON HOW THIS MIGHT AFFECT THE REFUGEE DEPENDENCY RATE, PARTICULARLY IN CALIFORNIA WHICH HAS ALWAYS BEEN MUCH HIGHER THAN MOST OF THE REST OF THE COUNTRY. DO YOU EXPECT IT WILL RESULT IN A SIGNIFICANT REDUCTION IN THE DEPENDENCY RATE? Senator KENNEDY. Thank you very much. Senator Simon. Senator SIMON. Thank you. I join in welcoming Ambassador Zimmerman. I hope you have better luck in your present post than as ambassador to Yugoslavia. [Laughter.] Because my friend and constituent, Ambassador Lafontant, has said that you are going to be admitting 6,000-and I am not one who says if we have a 6,000 quota, it has to be filled, but when you look at the numbers of refugees around the world, the quota of 6,000 for Africa is clearly a disproportionately small number. ADMISSIONS FROM AFRICA For fiscal year 1991, with a 6,000 ceiling, you admitted 4,424, compared to East Asia, for example, had a 52,000 ceiling, 52,486 were admitted; Eastern Europe, a 3,000 ceiling, 6,855 were admitted. As I take your numbers, 2,303 were admitted through April are the figures that I have, and my rough math I did last night at home would indicate that 3,990 would be admitted, or fewer than in 1991. You mentioned Liberia. We are phasing out the Liberian Program there, as I understand it. You mentioned Malawi. They have a million refugees in that desperately poor country that you visited and I have visited. And, Commissioner McNary, as I understand it, we have two INS people for all of Africa. Now, if people want to go home and they can go home, obviously, that is in everyone's best interests, but I hope we are sensitive to Africa, and when I just look at the numbers, I don't get that feeling. I wonder if you would want to respond and Commissioner McNary would want to respond. Ambassador LAFONTANT-MANKARIOUS. Thank you very much. Not to butter the apple, but you weren't here when I thanked you personally for your help in sponsoring the resolution through for our Refugee Day. Senator SIMON. Well, thank you. Ambassador LAFONTANT-MANKARIOUS. So you can go easy on me now. Senator SIMON. All right. [Laughter.] Ambassador LAFONTANT-MANKARIOUS. As I have indicated, I think your figures from what I have here are a little off. Our fiscal year 1991 ceiling for Africa was 4,900, and the ceiling for 1992 is 6,000. With all of our consultations and visitations and working with INS, we are comfortable with the fact that we are going to bring in 6,000. Next year, for fiscal year 1993, we envision 7,000. Numbers don't always reveal truth, but I agree with you. When you look at the vast numbers coming from the Soviet Union, from Vietnam, they take up 80 percent of the total admissions numbers. You say, well, what is wrong with the rest of the world, especially Africa where you say, well-we can also say Afghanistan, where we have so many millions. Of course, in Afghanistan, the Afghans are going back. In Mozambique, as you know, we have been working very hard to help the peace process in Mozambique and we are hopeful that those refugees will be able to go home. But the Mozambicans that I met with, as sick as they were and as destitute and hungry as they were, they all said we want to go home. Senator SIMON. I understand. Ambassador LAFONTANT-MANKARIOUS. Now, if the peace process fails, we don't know. We will have to look at our situation, and we can always, for the next term, adjust and ask for more. It disturbed me very much, the vast difference in numbers. We have been bringing those numbers up, from 2,000 in 1989 to 7,000 for 1993. Hopefully, it will be sufficient; that peace will break out all over and you won't have the need to even increase those numbers. I would think, with these annual consultations, we will have an opportunity to look at the African situation and the whole world situation again and come in with a new request. But as of now, we are satisfied with what the numbers are and with what we have had to work with. INS has been very responsive. When we pointed up the problems with the interview process in Kenya and not having sufficient INS officers there and all that, they have done a pretty credible job in trying to cover the waterfront. But I am not as unhappy or as suspicious as I was when I first came on board that these numbers really said that people were being treated unfairly. As the Acting Secretary has said, the Lautenberg amendment insists that we do things a little differently, and that will account for an additional number. Vietnam, we have been wed to for a long, long time, and promised to bring all of these people over to the United States. So we are living up to our commitment. Hopefully, that need will decrease, too. INS PROCESSING IN AFRICA Senator SIMON. Commissioner? Mr. McNARY. Senator, I am glad to hear what Ambassador Lafontant said because we think that we are going to measure up and meet the 6,000 number. We have two officers in Nairobi, but we supplement that and a number of adjudications have taken place with circuit riders out of the Rome district. These circuit riders have been to West Africa in November and June. They are going back again in September, and they have screened in 800 Liberians and intend to reach the 1,000 mark. During February, we interviewed 1,000 Ethiopian refugee applicants in the Sudan, and we are ready to conduct another circuit ride to Khartoum as soon as we get permission from the Sudanese Government. We think that we are on target to reach 1,000 Liberians, 4,000 Ethiopians, and 1,000 Somalis and others in that last group. So we really believe that we are going to be able to reach our targets. Senator KENNEDY. Would the Senator yield? Senator SIMON. Yes. Senator KENNEDY. In the pending refugee reauthorization bill, we permit State Department officials to fill in where the INS is not available. As I understand it, the administration could also move in that direction by Executive order. Why don't we write a letter to the Secretary and just highlight that particular provision? It has bipartisan support up here and it may very well help to meet some of these immediate problems that exist in some of these areas of Africa. Ambassador ZIMMERMAN. Senator, could I say a word about the other important aspect of our Africa program, which is how we deal with the problems of refugees in Africa, in Africa, our assistance program in Africa? Senator SIMON. Yes. Ambassador ZIMMERMAN. It is growing enormously in response to the catastrophes in Mozambique and the Horn. It is now becoming, I think, the largest single area for all of our assistance projects around the world. And I think by the end of this fiscal year, with the emergency money we are going to have to put into Angola in repatriation and to the Somali and Horn problem, Africa will probably be the major target of our assistance money of all the places in the world. Senator SIMON. Well, I am pleased to hear it because I don't think there is any question in terms of need. When you look at the Somalian situation and some of these others, it is really desperate. One final question. The Assyrian Christian community is a very small community. They feel-and I suppose this is true of a great many others—they feel that there is a lack of sensitivity to their somewhat unusual problems. I don't know if anyone cares to comment on that. Ambassador LAFONTANT-MANKARIOUS. Well, I could say something first. I know a little bit about the Assyrian Christian community, and I will tell you they named me the Assyrian Christian of the Year because they had been ignored and had not had anyone hear their plight and talk with them, so we have had them in to the State Department. We have also gone out to Chicago and met with the whole international organization, and we are in the process of trying to get a private sector initiative going with the Assyrian Christians. So they are on board and I don't think they feel that they have been left out now. Senator SIMON. OK. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. SOVIET JEWS Senator GRASSLEY. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I think I would like to ask Mr. Eagleburger some questions. First of all, we have approximately 50,000 slots that are reserved for Soviet refugees coming in, mostly Soviet Jewish people, but other minorities as well. What is your assessment of the status of religious freedom in the republics of the former Soviet Union? And then maybe while you are thinking about that, I'd like you also to consider whether you believe we need to redefine who is eligible to come to this country as a refugee, particularly from that part of the world. Mr. EAGLEBURGER. Let me try to answer the first question, but recognizing any answer I give is very general and with all sorts of exceptions. I don't think you could say that religious freedom in any of the republics is equivalent to what we are used to. I do think there is no question, however, that in Russia, specifically, and probably in Ukraine, there is a fairly substantial changewell, there is clearly a substantial change in the attitude toward religious freedom, particularly with regard to the Orthodox Church in Russia and the Orthodox and Uniate church in the Ukraine. There has been a real change there. With regard, however, to things like anti-Semitism, while it is, I would think, obvious that this is not a policy of either of those two governments, there is no question that there are parts of those countries where local authorities still are clearly anti-Semitic and where you will find, for instance, when a Jewish intending immigrant wants to get his documents, there are still substantial delays, and so forth. When we hear about those, we have, in fact, raised them specifically in Moscow and in Kiev. But in both of those Republics, I would have to tell you that while I think the incidents of anti-Semitism are still there, locally directed, usually, there has been a substantial change for the better. When you go into the other republics, and particularly when you get into the central Asian republics, it is far harder to give you any answer that makes any sense, in part because the central authority is in many respects far less able to have its writ carried out throughout the republic; in part because there are in some areas Muslim religious groups who are clearly not prepared to accept religious freedom for others. It is a very mixed picture. Again, I think in almost every respect, in almost all of these republics, it is better than was the case 5 or 10 years ago, but I do not think we could yet say that religious freedom has broken out all over what was the Soviet Union. With regard to the second question, I think there is no question that you give it another year or so and, yes, the criteria really ought to change. But I do believe that at this stage we are right and the congressional legislation under which we operate is correct that at this point there is still an obligation from some years back to offer particularly to the Pentecostalists and the Jewish citizens of Russia, and so forth, an opportunity to proceed to depart. I think that will change in the coming years, but for now I think we are still right to continue where we are. Senator GRASSLEY. Well, of course, we hope it changes, and thank you for monitoring that. I believe I would agree with you at this point; we ought to wait for changes in that policy. Now, our policy is to have this free emigration and freedom of religion, and part of that has been to open up the doors of America to some of these refugees, but also some of those doors have opened up to Israel. Now, this brings me, then, to a followup on America's responsibility in regard to this and probably a more controversial point, and that is in regard to the changes in the Israeli political scene, and particularly the announcements of new President Rabin in regard to a halt on settlement activities. What are the prospects for loan guarantees for Israel? Mr. EAGLEBURGER. Senator, obviously this is a subject that was substantially discussed between Secretary Baker and the new Prime Minister. I suspect it will be discussed further when Mr. Rabin comes here to the United States in early August. I think you will understand if I-other than to say that this is a subject that is clearly on everybody's mind and has been discussed in some detail between those two authorities, I think you will understand that I would prefer to leave it at that until Mr. Baker |