[Congressional Record Volume 148, Number 83 (Thursday, June 20, 2002)]
[House]
[Page H3752]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]


[[Page H3752]]
                              {time}  1530
                           WORLD REFUGEE DAY

  The SPEAKER pro tempore (Mr. Kennedy of Minnesota). Under a previous 
order of the House, the gentlewoman from Texas (Ms. Eddie Bernice 
Johnson) is recognized for 5 minutes.
  Ms. EDDIE BERNICE JOHNSON of 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 year's 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 Nation's refugee policy, there is much more 
to be concerned about.
  An extreme regional inequity exists in our Nation's refugee 
admissions process regarding African refugees. On November 21, 2001, 
President Bush authorized the admission of 70,000 refugees 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 desperate, 
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. Rose's 
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 self-sufficient, 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.

                          ____________________