Washington Update
February 2002

Hard Times Ahead for World’s Refugees
By Merrill Smith, LIRS Washington Representative

The U.S. Refugee Program has suffered a body blow in the aftermath of September 11. So have the prospects for new hope and new life for thousands of refugees around the world. Admissions to the United States for 2002 were projected to be cut to 70,000 even before the crisis. Now it seems likely that only a fraction of these will actually be admitted. This is bad news not only for refugees but for also those who help them. By year's end LIRS resettlement affiliates had to reduce their casework staff by 61 percent.

More time-consuming security processes were developed for everyone, but refugees were the only immigrants completely shut out after September 11. This is more than ironic. Refugees are victims of just the sort of intolerance terrorists promote. None of the hijackers came in through the refugee program and for good reason-refugees are among the most laboriously screened immigrants admitted to this country.

But refugees are easy to single out. Unlike every other kind of immigration, refugee admissions must be approved in advance by a presidential determination by September 30 for the start of the new fiscal year. The current determination was not issued until November 21. Also, U.S. immigration officials, who must interview and evaluate each case, were withdrawn from embassies after September 11.

But the State Department has regularly failed to admit the number of refugees set by the president. The department eliminated interview priorities based on reunifying refugees with family members in the United States and narrowed its recognition of groups facing persecution. It depends on individual referrals by the U.N. High Commissioner for Refugees, an agency already under-resourced and overwhelmed with immediate protection responsibilities. Even in a world with more than 14 million refugees, the State Department is perennially unable to "find" enough who can jump through its hoops.

This year's ceiling will be impossible to fulfill without a major effort including specific steps:

1) Immigration and Naturalization Service (INS) asylum officers must be deployed as soon as possible and in greater numbers to make up for lost time.
2) The State Department must make increased use of joint voluntary agencies-private sector specialists such as LIRS-to help identify and prepare the cases for the INS.
3) The State Department must broaden its recognition of priority categories of people facing persecution including refugees with family in the United States.

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