TNAG-1275-FCO40-1625-Resettlement-of-Vietnamese-refugees-from-Hong-Kong-1983 — Page 63

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United Kingdom Mission

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· 8 JUN 1983

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Telex 22956

Telephone 34 38 00 33 23 85

Telegrams Prodrome Geneva

12.

LAR Murray Esq

United Nations Department

Foreign and Commonwealth Office LONDON SW1

Your reference

Our reference

10 May 1983

Dear Anfrew,

US REFUGEE POLICY

1. I enclose a paper-produced by the Lawyers Committee for International Human Rights in New York which records some interesting statistics on US refugee admissions drawn from official US returns. This was given to me by Michael Posner, Executive Director of the Committee and a Director of Amnesty International USA and the Inter- national League for Human Rights, whom I met at the Ditchley Conference on Refugees of 6 to 8 May 1983.

2. You will note in particular that the 1981 overall ceiling of 217,000 was under-utilised as to 58,000 and the 1982 ceiling of 140,000 by 43,000. Within these overall ceilings, the Asian ceiling was under-utilised by 34,000 in 1981 and by 23,000 in 1982. This could have solved the Hong Kong problem several times over.

3. Leo Cherne of the International Rescue Committee and the Citizens' Commission on Indo-Chinese Refugees made the striking point that refugee admissions to the United States of under 100,000 in 1982 were a flea-bite compared with the 500,000 legal immigrants, the uncounted illegal immigrants, and the 1 million legal visitors to the United States who fail to leave after their authorised stay each year.

4.

The second detailed table shows that of some 18,500 outstanding applications from El Salvador, which are increasing by 10,000 a year, no more than 65 were granted and only 1,000 rejected. Of the Iranian cases 21,000 were outstanding, 2,500 were granted and 1,600 refused. For Nicaragua 15,000 were outstanding, 330 were granted and 1,000 refused. The pressures on the bureaucracy must be great. The analogy of a pressure cooker was cited.

что ем

Christopher

C W Long

CC:

Chancery Washington

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