Few Armenians Would Qualify for U.S. Refugee Status, Official Says : Immigration: Applications expected to increase. Many will be unable to prove political persecution.

Administrator Gene McNary of the Immigration and Naturalization Service said Thursday that he expects more Armenians to seek refugee status in the United States, but he doubts that many could qualify by proving they were fleeing political persecution.

“Armenians have been coming saying they’re looking for a better way of life,” he said, noting long lines of people at the U.S. Embassy in Moscow. “But they haven’t said the magic words or made the case.”

Speaking to reporters at a news conference, McNary, who recently returned from a fact-finding trip to the Soviet Union, said Armenians would have to convince U.S. authorities that they hold “a well-founded fear of persecution” to qualify as refugees. If they fail to demonstrate persecution, “it takes them out of that particular category,” he added.

INS officials said Armenians rejected as refugees could apply to enter the country under humanitarian parole. Atty. Gen. Dick Thornburgh’s office has said that up to 2,000 Soviet citizens per month could enter the nation under that category.

Vern Jervis, assistant director for public relations at INS, said those Soviets who enter as humanitarian parolees would have no official status in this country.

“They would come in in a kind of limbo,” he said. “They couldn’t get a passport and couldn’t leave the country without obtaining a re-entry document.”

McNary said he spent last week in Moscow and Rome to assess the agency’s ability to process the large numbers of Soviets who are seeking to enter the United States. He said the Moscow INS office will grow from 18 to 22 people by June, when officials will be shifted from Rome to process the increasing load of applications.

“There are a lot of people who want to come to this country,” he said. “We’re sensitive to their issues.”

Calling the liberal changes taking place in the Soviet Union “amazing,” McNary said Soviet officials are considering immigration laws and bilateral agreements that would make it easier for Soviets to leave the country.

However, he said it is “difficult” for him to determine from his seven-day visit exactly how much political intimidation was taking place in the country.

“So far as we could tell, there are situations which would indicate a well-founded fear of persecution . . . for Soviet Jews and evangelical Christians in almost every case,” he said. “That results from a requirement that the Soviets have that religions must register. Some are fearful of registering because they anticipate being identified then and singled out for persecution.”

McNary said the trip convinced him that the Soviet people were free to apply for refugee status. “The crowds outside the (U.S.) embassy would indicate that’s true,” he said, adding the INS would consider granting refugee status to applicants on a “case-by-case basis.”

Under U.S. guidelines, the INS has an allocation for up to 50,000 Soviets to enter the country as refugees in 1991. McNary said those Soviets who have applied from the U.S. Embassy in Rome would be given first preference for admittance because “they were already in the pipeline.”

In other issues addressed during the news conference, McNary criticized a report released last week by the California Fair Employment and Housing Commission that accused the INS of ineffectively enforcing laws to prevent discrimination against “foreign-looking” citizens seeking work in the state.

The law requires that employers prove they are not intentionally hiring illegal aliens and provides for fines of up to $10,000. The commission recommended that the INS suspend enforcement of employer sanctions.

“The California report was not a survey,” McNary said. “It was based on testimony of people who went in with a preconceived notion.”

McNary said he continues to support the employer sanctions provisions of the 1986 immigration reform law and denied the law contributes to discrimination. “There is discrimination,” he said. “But the discrimination was there before (the law went into effect). There’s no way to prove that the law causes discrimination.”