U.S. to Cut Viet Refugee Quota, Raise Soviets’

President Reagan, acting to ease the backlog of Soviet refugees, has decided to increase this year’s Soviet quota by 5,500 to a total of 30,000 who will be permitted to enter the United States, a senior U.S. official said Wednesday night.

The slots will be taken from the 25,000 ceiling set for refugees from Vietnam. But, the official said, the United States has considerable flexibility to alter the totals later on.

Thousands of Soviet refugees, many of them Jews, are temporarily residing in Vienna and Rome, waiting for permission to come to the United States.

But the quota for the Soviet Union and Eastern Europe is full, while many of the Vietnamese who were expected to come here this year have not been cleared by Hanoi authorities.

A number of them are former political prisoners for whom the executive branch and Congress jointly gave special priority when they established the U.S. ceiling for Vietnamese refugees at 25,000.

As a result of the delay by Hanoi, said the official, who demanded anonymity, 5,500 slots are being transferred to raise the ceiling for the Soviet Union and Eastern Europe by that amount.

The Reagan Administration, after pressuring the Soviet Union to step up Jewish emigration, finds itself in a paradoxical position. The Jewish exodus is at a nine-year high. However, the United States finds itself unable to process all those who left the Soviet Union with exit permits for Israel--but who then sought entry here once they reached Vienna and Rome.

“The ceilings are not set in concrete,” the official said. He explained that the current fiscal year has more than eight months to go. Over that period, he said, the ceilings can be adjusted.

Soviet Jews were routinely admitted as political refugees, but late last year, the Reagan Administration required individuals to prove they were victims of persecution.