On September 20, 2002, President Bush announced that the Administration plans to admit 5,000 to 25,000 fewer refugees in fiscal year 2003 than earlier indicated. Due to the new restrictions implemented after September 11 many who had already been classified as refugees were not able to enter the United States in 2002. According to Lavinia Limon, the executive director of the Immigration and Refugee Services of America (IRSA), more than 40,000 refugees already approved for admission to the United States could not make it here this year because of bureaucratic delays in implementing new security measures. In fact, in 2002 fewer refugees have arrived in the United States than in any year in the past two decades.
So, what has happened? In order to clarify the situation let’s take a look at the process by which refugees are admitted to the United States. To begin with, it should be noted that there is a limit on the number of refugees that are admitted to the United States. It is also a good idea to clarify at this point the distinction between a refugee and an asylee. Both refer to an individual who has a credible fear of persecution as a result of membership in a particular group. But a refugee applies to settle in the United States while outside the United States, whereas an asylee first enters the United States and then requests permission to remain. There is no limit on the number of asylums granted by the U.S. in a year, but there is a limit on the number of people who are admitted under the refugee program during every fiscal year.
Those who flee their own homelands and settle elsewhere as refugees make an initial application with the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees. The UNHCR decides which applicants go to the United States. Every country has it’s own allotment for acceptance of refugees. For fiscal year 2002 (October 1, 2001 to September 30, 2002) the United States agreed to take 70,000 refugees, but after the events of September 11 refugee admissions dropped to nearly zero for a few months. The result was that so far in 2002 only 28,000 refugees have been allowed to resettle into the United States. The others, who were held by the delays in processing and security checks, will have to try to gain entry in 2003, when the White House wants to again set the admission level at 70,000.
Refugee advocates had been hoped that the 42,000 (out of the 70,000) allotments that went unused because of delays in caused by increased security measures would be added to the 70,000 allotments for the fiscal year 2003. Unfortunately this will not be the case. In fact while Greg Siskind, one of the partners at the immigration law firm of Siskind, Susser, Haas and Devine, was in Washington lobbying for this cause, well-informed administration officials admitted privately that no more than 50,000 applications are likely to be processed in 2003. This is despite the fact that the officials are hoping that the security vetting procedures will improve. At the moment the huge number of cases that have to go to agencies, such as the FBI, for background checks does lead to backlogs.
The administration maintains that conducting the strictest background checks of refugees is a necessary element of national security. But it should be noted that no refugee has ever been connected to terrorism, no public documents exist that a refugee has taken part in terrorist activity in the United States, and none of the people who have been arrested in the United States for terrorist activity came in under the refugee program.
Senator Edward Kennedy (D-MA), chairman of the Senate immigration committee, recently met with Secretary of State Colin Powell about increasing the annual refugee admission number. He also suggested a number of improvements that should be made to the ways the United States locates and processes UNHCR designated refugees. According to Kennedy “considering the enormity of the world refugee population and the gravity of our humanitarian obligations, not a single refugee slot should go to waste.”
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