Rohrabacher, Dornan Seek to Aid Boat People

Two Orange County congressmen are moving to stave off the collapse of a fragile international agreement governing the fate of tens of thousands of Vietnamese boat people, but they are attacking the problem from nearly opposite perspectives.

“It’s good cop, bad cop,” said Rep. Robert K. Dornan (R-Garden Grove), who represents more Vietnamese-Americans than any other member of Congress.

Dornan is seeking to establish a regional refugee holding center somewhere in Southeast Asia to relieve the unrelenting financial and social pressure that 125,000 Vietnamese boat people have placed on the half-dozen nations that are acting as their temporary hosts.

The “countries of first asylum”--Singapore, Thailand, Indonesia, Malaysia, the Philippines and Brunei, as well as the British colony of Hong Kong--have threatened to begin turning back the thousands of Vietnamese who annually land on their shores. Malaysia already has “pushed off” an estimated 8,700 refugees, abrogating an agreement reached only a year ago.

While Dornan is holding out a carrot, Rep. Dana Rohrabacher (R-Long Beach) is wielding a stick.

Rohrabacher is a co-sponsor of legislation authored by Rep. Duncan Hunter (R-San Diego) that would cut off all U.S. government assistance to Malaysia, including loans, credits and leases, until the country again allows Vietnamese refugees to land on its shores.

“We’re coming at the same problem from different directions,” Rohrabacher said. “It’s not contradictory. . . . We’ve got to keep pressure on Vietnam to democratize, but at the same time, we’ve got to find areas where those escaping tyranny in Vietnam can find refuge.”

The first-asylum nations are threatening to turn away boat people to underscore their demand that the United States accept a plan to involuntarily return to Vietnam those emigrants who, in the eyes of the host countries, are not the victims of genuine political persecution.

The Bush Administration is against forced repatriation of any Vietnamese refugees. Vietnam also opposes the policy.

In June of last year, the first-asylum nations, the United States, Great Britain, Vietnam and other countries signed an agreement known as the Comprehensive Plan of Action, in which the six Southeast Asian countries agreed to provide temporary shelter for boat people landing on their shores.

But the agreement also allowed the nations to screen the immigrants to determine whether they are victims of political persecution, or whether they are “economic emigres” who want to improve their financial fortunes in a new country.

Those found to be political refugees are eligible for resettlement in the United States, Australia, Canada and other countries.

But the economic emigres are not, and they continue to live in a twilight zone in the refugee camps. The host countries are anxious to deport them. But so far, only a handful have been forcefully returned to Vietnam because of U.S. opposition.

That is certain to change, however, if the 1989 agreement collapses, and Vietnamese immigrants in the United States are concerned.

“This is no time to talk about involuntary repatriation,” said Thang Ngyuen, director of the Boat People SOS Committee. Charging that the screening process is flawed, Ngyuen said the first-asylum nations “would send back thousands of genuine refugees to Vietnam,” where they would face renewed persecution.

Added Dornan: “Forced repatriation is breaking up families and dragging screaming women back to starvation and deprivation.”

The United States has never been comfortable with the legal distinction between economic and political refugees. “People are not motivated 100% by economic things and 100% by political things,” an Administration official said. “It’s a hell of a distinction to draw.”

The screening process is suspect, he added, because the host nation has an interest in reducing the number of refugees on its territory. As a result, the United States will not “back a program which would force these people onto airplanes for a trip back to Vietnam.”

Dornan and others support the creation of a “holding center” for those who do not meet the political refugee test. They would be told that they are not eligible for resettlement in any country, including the United States, and would be given a choice between remaining in the holding center indefinitely or returning to Vietnam voluntarily.

Some have suggested that the holding center should be built on a U.S. territory such as Guam, but Dornan strongly opposes that idea.

The issue of the center’s location “has to be solved by the people who are in the (first-asylum) countries,” Dornan said.

However, the congressman said he may have a line on an organization willing to build and operate such a center. Dornan and his aides said the congressman has been in touch with the International Organization for Migration, a privately funded group in Geneva that is considering a plan to build a holding center for 20,000 refugees, if a site is found.

“We definitely need a regional holding center to keep people from dying at sea,” Dornan said.

Dornan aides indicated the congressman is reluctant to sign on with the Hunter and Rohrabacher plan to punish Malaysia because it might compromise his efforts to find a site for the holding center.

Rohrabacher said he, too, has been working on the problem.

“I’ve been putting a lot of effort into trying to find third countries which will accept the Vietnamese and which will offer an escape valve for the situation. The work is going on, and I can’t talk about it in detail right now,” he said.

To underscore the seriousness of the crisis, the United Nations high commissioner for refugees made his first visit to the United States last month. He met with President Bush and National Security Adviser Brent Scowcroft, reportedly seeking, but failing, to soften the Administration’s opposition to repatriation.

“There is no easy way out of this one,” the Administration official said. “We basically reject the concept that the only alternatives are A: forced repatriation and B: drown the refugees. Obviously we have to find a third alternative.”

But some claim that waiting for a third alternative is the worst alternative of all. Court Robinson, a policy analyst at the U.S. Committee for Refugees, says that the situation “is going to take a swift and very hasty downturn if the U.S. is going to sit on its hands.”