Fading Beacon

In his farewell address to the nation last week, President Reagan spoke movingly of the United States as “a beacon . . . for all who must have freedom, for all the pilgrims from all the lost places.” What the President didn’t mention is that the United States no longer welcomes all the world’s pilgrims and refugees; there are too many. The hard realities of U.S. refugee policy were underscored a day after the President’s speech, when his Administration announced that, to make room for more refugees from the Soviet Union, mostly Jews and Armenians, it was slashing by 6,500 the places earmarked for Southeast Asians.

This so-called “quota reallocation” solves one immediate problem: It will speed up the processing of the thousands of Soviet citizens who finally have been granted exit permits after years of campaigning by the United States. But the move may exacerbate other problems. About 5,500 of the reallocated slots came from the Orderly Departure Program for Vietnam, which has permitted Vietnamese with U.S. connections, including political prisoners, to seek haven in the United States without risking their lives in leaky little boats. Vietnam has been slow to process refugees for this program; that’s why the 5,500 places could be reassigned to the Soviet Union, the State Department said. But many Vietnamese-Americans are dismayed by the U.S. action, fearing that it will ease the pressure on Vietnam to release refugees through the Orderly Departure Program and will encourage thousands more Vietnamese to set out to sea. And there’s no justification at all, they say, for taking another 1,000 places from boat people already crowded into relocation centers in Hong Kong, Malaysia and Thailand, where some have waited for five years.

Under the 1980 Refugee Act, Reagan could simply have raised the overall quota for 1989 to make room for the sudden influx of Soviet refugees without compromising the places for the Vietnamese. That would have cost the American taxpayers as much as $45 million for transportation and social services but would have been the more compassionate and equitable course. And it would have averted the charges that are now being voiced that, once again, the United States has shown its preference for Europeans over dark-skinned refugees from the Third World.

Other aspects of U.S. refugee policy also are under attack: Central Americans are convinced that their chances of qualifying as refugees are practically nil. Indochinese worry that “compassion fatigue” has hardened Americans to their plight. The countries of Southeast Asia that have provided temporary shelters for boat people fear that those bulging refugee camps may become permanent fixtures. And, while thousands of Vietnamese remain in those camps, their hopes for resettlement in the United States dwindling, refugee organizations are warning of another possible exodus of refugees--from Afghanistan, if civil war breaks out there as Soviet forces withdraw.

Traditionally the United States has offered a safe haven on a scale unmatched by the world’s other powers; 90,000 refugees will be given asylum in 1989 alone. Yet as the demand for asylum grows, as more stateless people languish in Vienna and southern Mexico and Hong Kong, it is clear that their sheer numbers make it impossible for the United States alone to cope. The 1979 Geneva agreement that called for Vietnamese boat people to be housed in Southeast Asia while they awaited permanent resettlement elsewhere has broken down. The 1980 Refugee Act, with its requirement that would-be refugees show “a well-founded fear of persecution” in their home countries, has been unevenly applied in Central America and threatens immense tragedy in Asia, where Vietnamese rejected by the United States as “economic refugees” may be repatriated to Hanoi. If President-elect Bush is looking for causes that demand immediate global attention, he need look no further than refugee policy.