U.S. to Resume Visa Program for Armenians

Making an about-face to end an embarrassing bureaucratic impasse, U.S. Embassy officials said Saturday that they will immediately resume processing visas for Soviet Armenians applying to emigrate to the United States.

“They have been told informally we would begin seeing them in the consular section Monday morning,” an embassy official told reporters.

The decision is expected to involve about 3,400 individuals, embassy officials said.

Visa processing was suspended without warning earlier this month after U.S. officials said they had run out of money to operate the refugee program and could only restart it with the beginning of the new budget year Oct. 1.

A formal statement issued by the embassy Saturday said that private funds, including money available from the emigrant families themselves and relatives in the United States, would now be used to keep the program going.

Elaborating on the statement, embassy officials indicated that some government money, drawn either from other programs or from emergency funds, would also be used.

Hundreds of distraught Armenians, many of whom had quit their jobs and sold most of their possessions after receiving letters from the embassy to travel to Moscow for a final pre-departure interview, were effectively stranded by the sudden announcement about the halt in visa processing.

They have gathered daily outside the embassy’s consular section, stunned and angered by the decision, yet uncertain where to go or what to do next. Many said they were sleeping in parks and railroad stations.

For some, the halt meant an apparent end to any hope of emigration since their exit permits issued by Soviet authorities expire before Oct. 1.

The 100 or so Armenians who had gathered again outside the embassy’s consular section Saturday, despite the fact it was closed for the weekend, grinned happily about the decision to resume visa processing.

‘I Really Am Pleased’

“I’m very pleased, I really am pleased,” said Asharvir Agayan, a carpenter from the Armenian capital of Yerevan.

Other faces beamed around him.

Agayan said that he, his wife and four children hoped to join his sister, who lives in Glendale, Calif.

Embassy officials said they would begin immediately to process the estimated 400 applicants already in Moscow in response to embassy letters notifying them of pre-departure interview appointments.

Another 3,000 persons with interview appointments scheduled before Sept. 30 would also be processed, although those whose exit permission does not expire until after Oct. 1, would be urged not to depart for Moscow until they had been notified, embassy officials said.

Under terms of the refugee resettlement program, the U.S. government pays for transportation and other resettlement costs, such as housing.

Embassy officials said the idea of families and their relatives helping pay for the emigration came from the Armenians themselves.

‘Can We Help?’

“A great number of them, when we talked to them and explained the situation, said, ‘Can we help, can we pay our own way?’ ” a U.S. diplomat said.

The diplomat said it was unclear whether these families would eventually be reimbursed from government funds.

In Washington, 22 U.S. senators had petitioned President Reagan on Friday, urging him to break the impasse by transferring funds from other programs to take care of those who had already broken most of their ties with their Soviet homeland.

“This decision (to suspend visa processing) sends a terrible signal to those seeking freedom all over the world and could give the Soviets the opportunity to claim that it is America and not the Soviet Union which is impeding emigration,” the senators said.

Traditionally, the Soviet authorities granted exit permits to emigrate only rarely, and as recently as last year, the U.S. Embassy here processed only 1,800 immigrant visa applications.

However, an easing of these restrictions by the Soviets last year, especially in cases of family reunification, unleashed a flood of applicants that has swamped the consulate here and, eventually, exhausted available funds for the program.

10,000 to 13,000 Applications

U.S. Embassy officials estimated that between 10,000 and 13,000 applications will have been processed during the year that ends Sept. 30.

(Another 8,500 Soviet Jews are also expected to leave for the United States this year, but they depart with Israeli visas.)

Because of the large Armenian population in the United States, 90% to 95% of all Soviets applying for U.S. visas under the refugee program come from Armenia.

An embassy official said there was no evidence that recent civil unrest in Armenia was a cause of the increase in visa applications.

In addition to the refugee program, another 400 to 500 Soviet citizens, representing a broader spectrum of the country’s more than 100 nationalities, are expected to have been given routine immigrant visas by the time the current fiscal year ends.

A surge in the number of Armenians applying for refugee status and the priority visa that goes with it, has raised questions within the U.S. government over whether they fulfill the requirement of U.S. law that they have a “well-founded fear of persecution.”

Aim for Better Life

Last May, State Department lawyers said that many Armenian applicants seemed motivated more by a desire for family reunification and a better life than a need to get away from political persecution.

Last week, Richard Shift, assistant secretary of state for human rights, said that merely applying for an exit permit effectively isolates a Soviet citizen from the society around him and thus refugee status was granted almost automatically.

However, an embassy official in Moscow said the refugee program is currently under review.

“There’s a sense that, given the large numbers of people involved, we want to make sure it’s operating within the law,” the official said.