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PR NO. 196
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Two fundamental issues have emerged from this experience with Soviet resettlement. One is budgetary in a time of severel constrained budgets, how do we ensure that we will have adequace resources to support an unexpected outflow of emigrants from the Soviet Union without damaging other critical foreign policy programs? The second is legal can all Soviet emigrants be admitted under the refugee provisions of the Immigration and Nationality Act (INA)? With the commencement of INS processing in Moscow, INS has confirmed that not all potential emigrants meet the statutory definition of refugee under the INA. We must, therefore, seek alternate immigration channels for those who do not meet the statutory definition in order to offer realistic options to such persons.
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We learned this year that there are occasions when our foreign policy goals encouragement of liberalized emigration policy, for one dictate a need for flexibility in order to admit groups of people who do not immediately or neatly fit into current immigrant or refugee categories. Unfortunately, such flexibility is not currently available in immigration law. believe that greater flexibility is an urgent foreign policy and humanitarian need, which we would like to address, together with Congress, over the coming months. One possibility would be a new category of immigrant visa. This is described in greater detail in my extened testimony.
PROPOSED REFUGEE ADMISSIONS FOR FY 1989
Mr. Chairman, we are here this morning to address the President's proposed ceilings for refugee admissions for Fiscal Year 1989.
The Refugee Act of 1980, which established this consultative process, states, "the President shall report to the Committees on the Judiciary of the House of Representatives and of the Senate regarding the foreseeable number of refugees who will be in need of resettlement during the fiscal year and the anticipated allocation of refugee admissions during the fiscal year."
Last year, during both the regular and the emergency consultations, we set refugee admissions numbers that were higher than the funds available for the admissions program. This led to confusion and disappointment as the year went on and the money ran out. I am, therefore, very reluctant to begin the fiscal year with an admissions ceiling higher than that for which funds will be available.
Unfortunately, we do not yet know what funds we will have available for FY 1989. Neither the appropriations for HHS nor for the State Department has been enacted. The HHS FY 1989 appropriations bill provides funding to support up to 90,000 refugee and Amerasian admissions for 24 months.
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