[Congressional Record Volume 141, Number 91 (Tuesday, June 6, 1995)]
[Extensions of Remarks]
[Pages E1162-E1163]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]


         SOUTHEAST ASIA BOAT PEOPLE: RETURN IS THE ONLY OPTION

                                 ______


                           HON. DOUG BEREUTER

                              of nebraska

                    in the house of representatives

                         Tuesday, June 6, 1995
  Mr. BEREUTER. Mr. Speaker, recently this body voted in section 2104 
of H.R. 1561 to withdraw its support from the Comprehensive Plan of 
Action, the international agreement on the Indochinese boat people in 
Southeast Asian refugee camps. This Member's effort, along with Mr. 
Obey of Wisconsin and Mr. Lamar Smith of Texas, to strike this 
dangerous and irresponsible provision was unsuccessful.
  While this Member fully understands and shares the desire to provide 
fair and humane treatment to those in the refugee camps, the action of 
this body could well have the opposite effect. By giving these asylum 
seekers false hope of resettlement in the United States, this 
legislation presents the following dangers. It will likely encourage 
another wave of boat departures from Vietnam, putting people at risk on 
the high seas and swelling the refugee camp population at a time when 
the first asylum countries are attempting to close the camps.
  The legislation also increases the chance for violence in the refugee 
camps by causing discontent among the camp residents when their hopes 
of resettlement in the West are not realized. Finally, the bill has 
caused the collapse of voluntary repatriation, through which 72,000 
Indochinese have already returned home without evidence of persecution, 
according to U.N. and American nongovernment monitors in Vietnam. 
Already there have been riots and violence in the camps of Hong Kong 
and several hundred camp residents have changed their minds and are 
refusing to return to Vietnam.
  For these reasons, this Member believes that, for the 40,000 camp 
residents whom the United Nations has determined to be economic 
migrants rather than political refugees, voluntary return to their 
countries of origin is not only the sole option available, it is also 
the most humane option.
  Mr. Speaker, this Member would ask to insert into the Record an 
article from the May 24, 1995 edition of the New York Times, entitled, 
``U.N. Links G.O.P. to Boat People's Riots,'' and an excellent letter 
analyzing the problems in section 2104 from the Refugee Policy Group, a 
nongovernment organization with much experience dealing with 
Indochinese refugees.
                U.N. Links G.O.P. to Boat People's Riots

                           (By Philip Shenon)

       Bangkok, Thailand, May 23.--United Nations officials 
     asserted today that a Republican-sponsored proposal to offer 
     asylum to thousands of Vietnamese boat people in the United 
     States set off riots last weekend that left more than 200 
     wounded in Hong Kong.
       They also warned that the bill could lead to a new exodus 
     from Vietnam.
       Refugee officials say the riots last Saturday began when 
     1,500 Vietnamese, many of them carrying handmade metal 
     spears, refused to be transferred from one detention camp in 
     Hong Kong to another in preparation for their deportation to 
     Vietnam. It was the most violent clash in years between the 
     boat people and the Hong Kong police.
       The Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for 
     Refugees, which oversees the detention camps in Hong Kong, 
     said the Vietnamese were emboldened to riot by the recent 
     move by Republicans in the House of Representatives to offer 
     asylum to as many as half of the 40,000 Vietnamese still held 
     in detention camps in Asia.
       ``Absolutely,'' said Jahanshah Assadi, head of mission for 
     the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees, when asked 
     if there was a connection between the legislation and the 
     riots. During the riots, he said, ``you saw U.S. flags all 
     over the place, you saw portraits of President Clinton all 
     over the place.''
       At least 180 Hong Kong firemen, police and corrections 
     officers were hurt in the clashes on Saturday in the 
     Whitehead detention center, the largest of the Hong Kong 
     camps used to detain the Vietnamese. Dozens of Vietnamese 
     were also hurt in battles in which the camp was blanketed by 
     thick clouds of tear gas.
       Representative Chris H. Smith, a New Jersey Republican who 
     is a key sponsor of the legislation, said in a statement 
     today in Washington that there was no evidence of a 
     connection between the legislation and the violence in Hong 
     Kong. It is ``grossly unfair to blame resistance to forced 
     repatriation on the very people who are trying to come up 
     with a peaceful and gentle solution to the problem of these 
     refugees,'' he declared.
       Mr. Smith has said that many of the Vietnamese residents of 
     the camps, including Buddhist monks and former soldiers of 
     the American-backed South Vietnamese Government, are 
     legitimate political refugees who could be persecuted by 
     Vietnam's Communist Government if sent home.
       While the Republican-drafted legislation is opposed by the 
     Clinton Administration and faces an uncertain fate in 
     Congress, word of the Republican plan is already circulating 
     in the camps in Hong Kong, where nearly 21,000 Vietnamese are 
     now detained. Mr. Assadi said in a telephone interview that 
     the Vietnamese who joined in the riots ``have the false hope 
     of going to the United States.''
       Even if the bill is defeated in Congress or vetoed by 
     President Clinton, he said, ``the damage has been done,'' 
     since many Vietnamese now believe that they can resist 
     deportation because ``they have strong support from 
     influential members of Congress.''
       Mr. Assadi said the American asylum proposal could also 
     lead to a new exodus of Vietnamese, taking to rickety boats 
     and pushing off into the dangerous waters of the South China 
     Sea in the hope of becoming one of the lucky 20,000 who might 
     be offered resettlement in the United States.
       ``That risk is definitely there now,'' he said. The $30 
     million asylum plan is part of a foreign affairs 
     appropriations bill now before the full House of 
     Representatives. The bill, opposed by the Clinton 
     Administration, has already been approved by the House 
     International Relations Committee.
       While some of the Vietnamese rioters waved photographs of 
     President Clinton last weekend, the Clinton Administration is 
     in fact a strong advocate of a United Nations-backed plan to 
     send virtually all of them home to Vietnam.
       While the United States granted asylum to most of the more 
     than one million Vietnamese who fled their homeland after the 
     Vietnam War, sympathy for the boat people has mostly run out. 
     The State Department says that virtually all of the 
     Vietnamese who remain in Asian detention camps are economic 
     migrants who have no legitimate fear of persecution in 
     Vietnam and are not entitled to asylum.
       The deportation program, known as the Comprehensive Plan of 
     Action, was supposed to empty most of the detention camps 
     around Asia--there are also large camps in Indonesia, 
     Malaysia, the Philippines and Thailand--by the end of the 
     year.
       The Hong Kong Government is clearly outraged that the moves 
     in Congress may have contributed to the violence in the 
     camps.
                                                                    ____


                       [From The New York Times]

                         Rebuke by White House

       Washington, May 23.--Administration officials said today 
     that they had predicted that the proposed Republican measure 
     would encourage thousands of boat people who were not 
     qualified for refugee status to refuse to be returned to 
     Vietnam.
       ``We are opposed to the proposed legislation which, at the 
     11th hour, seeks to abrogate an international undertaking,'' 
     said one State Department official. ``The proposed 
     legislation would reopen large-scale screening of those 
     already found to be ineligible for refugee status.''
       Administration officials predicted the bill would encourage 
     further riots like the one that occurred on Saturday in Hong 
     Kong.
       ``The proposed legislation will end voluntary return to 
     Vietnam and create new levels of false hope and result in 
     further disturbances,'' a State Department official said.
       Administration officials assert that the $30 million the 
     bill sets aside to handle the Vietnamese migrants would mean 
     less money would be available to handle those found to be 
     legitimate refugees from Vietnam, Cuba, Bosnia and Russia.
                                                                    ____

                                         Refugee Policy Group,

                                                     May 26, 1995.
     Hon. Doug Bereuter,
     Chair, Asia Subcommittee, International Relations Committee, 
         Washington, DC.
       Dear Congressman Bereuter: Your office contacted me, asking 
     for my views on Section 2104(4) of HR 1561 entitled, 
     ``Resettlement of Vietnamese, Laotians and Cambodians.'' This 
     provision essentially turns the clock back undermining the 
     agreements that were reached with great effort and have been 
     reflected in the comprehensive plan of action.
       I can only speculate on the basis for this proposal which 
     would be tantamount to a significant and far reaching policy 
     reversal. Politically it's a step back toward an ideological 
     divide that has possible implications for how movements of 
     people from places such as Cuba and China would be addressed. 
     [[Page E1163]] 
       On the humanitarian front this policy reversal would 
     represent a death knell to future efforts on the part of the 
     U.S. to get the U.N. and other countries to cooperate with us 
     in addressing a migration flow where there is belief that 
     some, but not all, the members of that population may be 
     refugees.
       This policy reversal is based on a misapprehension that the 
     screening procedures in the region have been basically 
     flawed. The fact is that massive international effort and 
     resources have gone into screening the applicants in this 
     region. Indeed, more effort has been made in southeast Asia 
     to determine whether someone meets the refugee definition 
     than in any other part of the world. The international 
     standard of who is a refugee is incorporated in this review 
     process. This international standard was incorporated in the 
     Refugee Act of 1980 into U.S. law and in turn into the 
     Worldwide Processing Guidelines of the INS.
       The implementation of this standard is subjective. In order 
     to protect against errors reviews of problematic cases are 
     possible under current arrangements. If there is reasonable 
     doubt regarding some of the recent decisions a more effective 
     way to address these concerns would be to encourage a re-
     review of the few cases where there is an issue. It is an 
     overreaction to scuttle the CPA when problems can be worked 
     out within its framework and procedures.
       Significant effort has been made to promote voluntary 
     repatriation of those determined not be refugees and to 
     provide monitoring of their situation back in Vietnam once 
     they return. So far as I know, UNHCR has not reported any 
     instances of situations where Vietnamese who have returned 
     have been persecuted or been maltreated. The effects of this 
     provision, of course, would be to cut funds which can support 
     the return, monitoring, and assistance to the Vietnamese who 
     go back either voluntarily or involuntarily.
       The intention may be to reserve funds for the resettlement 
     of a larger number of Vietnamese or Laotians. So long, 
     however, as the refugee definition is the standard that is 
     used to adjudicate claims, the reality is going to be that 
     very few of the people in the camps will meet the standard.
       While I would be against it, we can, of course, decide, 
     bilaterally, to admit Vietnamese and Laotians under the terms 
     of the Lautenberg Amendment. It is, however, unreasonable to 
     expect that the countries in the region who are adjudicating 
     these claims with UNHCR oversight would be willing to apply 
     this standard to their own review of these cases.
       Given strong sentiments in this country to restrict the 
     numbers of new immigrants, my guess is that there would be 
     strong opposition to bringing substantial numbers of 
     Vietnamese and Laotians to the U.S., either as refugees or 
     special humanitarian entrants. It is also unlikely that 
     normal immigration numbers would be allocated to this group 
     as there has been an effort to get Vietnamese to apply for 
     immigration to the U.S. from within Vietnam. If these 
     assumptions are true then the result of this expression of 
     sympathy for the Vietnamese in the camps that have been 
     screened out can be to provide them with a false hope. At 
     best, it could lead to a situation where people who were 
     becoming reconciled to returning to their country would re-
     commit themselves to remaining in the camps. Worse outcomes 
     could be a renewed flow of boat people and even worse riots 
     or other disruptions and violence in the camps.
       As a former official with the Office of Refugee 
     Resettlement during the peak of the Indochinese refugee 
     resettlement program, I cannot personally be accused of lack 
     of sympathy or concern for the plight of the Indochinese. I 
     feel the decisions made around the Comprehensive Plan of 
     Action were the right decisions, both for the countries 
     concerned and the migrants involved. To reverse course now 
     will have negative effects on efforts to address the plight 
     of refugees everywhere.
       Thank you for seeking my comments on this matter.
           Sincerely,
                                                 Dennis Gallagher,
                                               Executive Director.
     

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