Cash In the ‘Asylum Dividend’ : Immigration: With Communist parties folding their tents, those fleeing repressive but friendly regimes should get a better chance.

OK. Some of us got it wrong about the “peace dividend.” The fall of communist governments throughout Eastern Europe does not mean a reduction in military spending freeing up money for social programs in the United States. There are no real savings because we still need a big army, expensive military hardware is already in the contractual pipeline and any budgetary reduction only scales back inflated, hypothetical Pentagon projections.

There is, however, one area of domestic policy in which the dramatic and welcome changes in regimes can provide a real and non-economic benefit. That area is refugee admissions, and I call the benefit the “asylum dividend.” It works like this.

Since 1980 American immigration law has provided for asylum to be granted to individuals who fear persecution because of race, religion, nationality, membership in a social group or political opinion. The 1980 law replaced the earlier Cold War standard that granted refugee status to anyone fleeing a communist country. The new law established politically neutral standards of eligibility based not on country of origin but on individualized showings of persecution.

But despite the change in 1980, who gets asylum still depends on political relations between the U.S. government and the asylum-seeker’s country. If granting asylum would embarrass a country with which we have friendly relations--such as El Salvador--asylum is rarely granted. If, on the other hand, the asylum-seeker comes from a communist country, the chances of getting asylum are much better. For example, in 1989, the asylum acceptance rate for El Salvador was 2.3% of applicants; for the Soviet Union, 81.6%.

But what happens to asylum adjudications now that ruling Communist parties are folding their tents?

Enter the asylum dividend. It works on the same principle as the peace dividend--a reallocation of resources suddenly available; instead of defense dollars, there are asylum slots that formerly would have been granted to Eastern Europeans or Nicaraguan “freedom fighters” who can now stay put. In short, a glut of unused humanitarian opportunity.

The law should be applied using the politically neutral standards it already contains. If an asylum-seeker makes a showing of persecution based on race, religion, nationality, membership in a social group or political opinion, asylum should be granted. Applicants from Central America should not be doubted or characterized as “economic migrants” solely because they flee countries that identify themselves as democratic but may in fact be quite repressive. Applicants from Eastern Europe should no longer be privileged within the immigration system because they come from countries once considered satellites of the Evil Empire.

The asylum dividend does not mean that asylum should be granted to all Guatemalans or denied to all Czechs. There is growing evidence, for example, of attacks against Jews in the Soviet Union and Eastern Europe. Such claims would clearly come within the existing criteria regarding persecution, as have past claims of Polish labor union activists or Soviet Christian fundamentalists.

Of course, in one important sense the asylum dividend is not like the unrealized peace dividend. Unlike the conveniently evaporated dollars in the peace dividend, there is no numerical limit on the number of asylum applications that can be granted.

But the asylum dividend provides a way of thinking about choices we make as a nation. The important changes in governments worldwide and in the policies of governments toward their citizens ought to have meaning and benefit to Americans beyond the grand opening of a McDonald’s in Moscow. The asylum dividend suggests two such benefits: a renewed commitment to the protection of persecuted people and the return of integrity in the application of American refugee law.