The Court Offers Refuge

By holding that the Immigration and Naturalization Service was applying too tough a standard in deciding which refugees should be allowed to remain in this country, the U.S. Supreme Court has brought enforcement of the law into line with what Congress intended. The Reagan Administration’s insistence that refugees show a “clear probability” that they themselves would be mistreated if they returned to their homeland was a standard that was nearly impossible to meet, and it condemned countless refugees to arrest and persecution after they were deported.

More than any other country in the world, the United States is now and always has been a nation of immigrants, though the immigrants have not always been welcomed with open arms when they arrived. In particular, this country has a long and proud tradition of taking in people fleeing oppression as well as those seeking economic betterment.

In recognition of this country’s unique role among nations, Congress passed the Refugee Act in 1980 laying out the legal standard that people seeking asylum must meet to be allowed to remain here. “A well-founded fear of persecution” was enough, Congress said. But the Immigration and Naturalization Service insisted that that phrase meant that each individual had to show that he would be persecuted in his home country. The case before the court involved Luz Marina Cardoza-Fonseca, a refugee from Nicaragua, but the facts and human tragedy apply to refugees from many countries. In the last decade, for example, the people fleeing Haiti and the murderous secret police of former dictator Jean-Claude Duvalier were regularly turned back because they could not show a specific personal danger to themselves.

Monday’s 6-3 Supreme Court ruling will directly affect thousands of immigration cases now on appeal, and will also serve notice to the Immigration and Naturalization Service and its agents at border crossings and ports of entry that they are to apply the law with compassion and high regard for this country’s tradition of taking in those huddled masses yearning to breathe free who have nowhere else to turn.