AGENDA ITEMS A, I and II
LAND & BOAT REFUGEES
The international community can take a measure of
2.
pride in the preservation of asylum for the significant
numbers of refugees who have fled Laos, Cambodia and
Vietnam over the past 7 years. The generous resettlement
response from the international community has been the
foundation for the continued provision of first asylum
by countries of the region. Countless lives have been
saved:
In
7 years after the change of regimes in Indochina
we need to examine carefully ways to preserve åsylum for
those who really need to flee, while discouraging before
flight those fleeing for less compelling reasons.
this connection, of those refugees arriving in first
asylum after April 30, 1982, we intend to consider for
resettlement in the United States only those refugees
who have demonstrably close links to the United States.
Simultaneously, we are hopeful that a greater number
of persons with such connections will be able to
consider waiting in Vietnam to depart under the Orderly
Departure Program. To the extent that this program grows,
it will be seen increasingly as a choice preferable to
risky flight by sea in small boats.
2.
In a