SPEAKERS CONTENTS INSERTS
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27–479PDF
2006
CURRENT ISSUES IN U.S. REFUGEE PROTECTION AND RESETTLEMENT
HEARING
BEFORE THE
SUBCOMMITTEE ON AFRICA, GLOBAL HUMAN RIGHTS AND INTERNATIONAL OPERATIONS
OF THE
COMMITTEE ON
INTERNATIONAL RELATIONS
HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES
ONE HUNDRED NINTH CONGRESS
SECOND SESSION
MAY 10, 2006
Serial No. 109–199
Printed for the use of the Committee on International Relations
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Available via the World Wide Web: http://www.house.gov/international—relations
COMMITTEE ON INTERNATIONAL RELATIONS
HENRY J. HYDE, Illinois, Chairman
JAMES A. LEACH, Iowa
CHRISTOPHER H. SMITH, New Jersey,
Vice Chairman
DAN BURTON, Indiana
ELTON GALLEGLY, California
ILEANA ROS-LEHTINEN, Florida
DANA ROHRABACHER, California
EDWARD R. ROYCE, California
PETER T. KING, New York
STEVE CHABOT, Ohio
THOMAS G. TANCREDO, Colorado
RON PAUL, Texas
DARRELL ISSA, California
JEFF FLAKE, Arizona
JO ANN DAVIS, Virginia
MARK GREEN, Wisconsin
JERRY WELLER, Illinois
MIKE PENCE, Indiana
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THADDEUS G. McCOTTER, Michigan
KATHERINE HARRIS, Florida
JOE WILSON, South Carolina
JOHN BOOZMAN, Arkansas
J. GRESHAM BARRETT, South Carolina
CONNIE MACK, Florida
JEFF FORTENBERRY, Nebraska
MICHAEL McCAUL, Texas
TED POE, Texas
TOM LANTOS, California
HOWARD L. BERMAN, California
GARY L. ACKERMAN, New York
ENI F.H. FALEOMAVAEGA, American Samoa
DONALD M. PAYNE, New Jersey
SHERROD BROWN, Ohio
BRAD SHERMAN, California
ROBERT WEXLER, Florida
ELIOT L. ENGEL, New York
WILLIAM D. DELAHUNT, Massachusetts
GREGORY W. MEEKS, New York
BARBARA LEE, California
JOSEPH CROWLEY, New York
EARL BLUMENAUER, Oregon
SHELLEY BERKLEY, Nevada
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GRACE F. NAPOLITANO, California
ADAM B. SCHIFF, California
DIANE E. WATSON, California
ADAM SMITH, Washington
BETTY McCOLLUM, Minnesota
BEN CHANDLER, Kentucky
DENNIS A. CARDOZA, California
RUSS CARNAHAN, Missouri
THOMAS E. MOONEY, SR., Staff Director/General Counsel
ROBERT R. KING, Democratic Staff Director
Subcommittee on Africa, Global Human Rights and International Operations
CHRISTOPHER H. SMITH, New Jersey, Chairman
THOMAS G. TANCREDO, Colorado
JEFF FLAKE, Arizona
MARK GREEN, Wisconsin
JOHN BOOZMAN, Arkansas
JEFF FORTENBERRY, Nebraska
EDWARD R. ROYCE, California,
Vice Chairman
DONALD M. PAYNE, New Jersey
GREGORY W. MEEKS, New York
BARBARA LEE, California
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DIANE E. WATSON, California
BETTY McCOLLUM, Minnesota
EARL BLUMENAUER, Oregon
MARY M. NOONAN, Subcommittee Staff Director
GREG SIMPKINS, Subcommittee Professional Staff Member
NOELLE LUSANE, Democratic Professional Staff Member
SHERI A. RICKERT, Subcommittee Professional Staff Member and Counsel
LINDSEY M. PLUMLEY, Staff Associate
C O N T E N T S
WITNESSES
The Honorable Ellen R. Sauerbrey, Assistant Secretary, Bureau of Population, Refugees and Migration, U.S. Department of State
Ms. Rachel Brand, Assistant Attorney General for the Office of Legal Policy, U.S. Department of Justice
Mr. Paul Rosenzweig, Acting Assistant Secretary for Policy Development, U.S. Department of Homeland Security
Mr. Michael Cromartie, Chair, U.S. Commission on International Religious Freedom (USCIRF)
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Ms. Anastasia Brown, Director of Refugee Programs, U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops (MRS/USCCB)
Ms. Lavinia Limón, President, U.S. Committee for Refugees and Immigrants
Mr. Kenneth H. Bacon, President Refugees International
LETTERS, STATEMENTS, ETC., SUBMITTED FOR THE HEARING
The Honorable Christopher H. Smith, a Representative in Congress from the State of New Jersey, and Chairman, Subcommittee on Africa, Global Human Rights and International Operations: Prepared statement
The Honorable Ellen R. Sauerbrey: Prepared statement
Ms. Rachel Brand: Prepared statement
Mr. Paul Rosenzweig: Prepared statement
Mr. Michael Cromartie: Prepared statement
Ms. Anastasia Brown: Prepared statement
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Ms. Lavinia Limón: Prepared statement
Mr. Kenneth H. Bacon: Prepared statement
APPENDIX
Material Submitted for the Hearing Record
CURRENT ISSUES IN U.S. REFUGEE PROTECTION AND RESETTLEMENT
WEDNESDAY, MAY 10, 2006
House of Representatives,
Subcommittee on Africa, Global Human Rights
and International Operations,
Committee on International Relations,
Washington, DC.
The Subcommittee met, pursuant to notice, at 2 o'clock p.m. in room 2172, Rayburn House Office Building, Hon. Christopher H. Smith (Chairman of the Subcommittee) presiding.
Mr. SMITH OF NEW JERSEY. The Subcommittee will come to order. Good afternoon. Today, the Subcommittee on Africa, Global Human Rights and International Operations will hold an oversight hearing on current issues in U.S. refugee protection and resettlement.
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The hearing will focus on the major current challenges facing U.S. refugee protection and resettlement policy and programs. This includes levels of funding, implementation of procedures to waive application of ''material support'' grounds for inadmissibility, application for the definition of ''membership in a terrorist organization,'' current status and implementation of the ''wet foot/dry foot'' policy, and status of implementation of the refugee provisions of the International Religious Freedom Act of 1998. The Subcommittee will consider what the United States has done in the past year to address these issues and what it intends to do in the coming year.
I would like to start by mentioning some of the encouraging progress concerning refugees and displaced persons. The peace deal recently signed by the largest Darfur rebel group and the Government of Sudan is the first step toward peace and stability in the region. I wish to commend President Bush's strong leadership on Darfur. Our first priority must be to help create a sense of security so that refugees and Internally Displaced Persons can return to their homes and rebuild. President Bush's call for more peacekeepers is absolutely timely and important.
I would note parenthetically that on a trip in August, I visited some of those camps, Mukjar and Kalma, and I was proud of the work that the United States Government was doing in providing sustenance, food, medicine, shelter, and—with the help of the African Union troops—protection for those who were internally displaced. I would say the same for those people in Chad. We did make and are making a difference and I think the Bush Administration deserves very high praise for what it has done and continues to do.
We need to give more humanitarian assistance to those who are suffering, and President Bush is right on point when he says he needs an additional $225 million in emergency food aid for Darfur. His announcement that he has directed five ships loaded with food to Sudan and has ordered the emergency purchase of another 40,000 metric tons of food for rapid shipment is certainly deeply appreciated by those of us on the Hill. This is on top of the more than $616 million in humanitarian aid we have already given to help ease the suffering of those afflicted by the conflict and more than $150 million that we have contributed to support the AU peace mission in Darfur.
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It has been American aid, first, second, and third, that has fed and cared for the refugees. Other major donors have not yet come through, and we must do so now. I believe the President's decisive steps will help convince the international community to give more, do more, and end the misery for those who have suffered in Darfur.
On Friday, the first of six North Korean refugees processed for resettlement in the United States have finally arrived. I am pleased that the refugee provisions of the North Korean Freedom Act of 2004 are, at long last, being implemented.
We welcome today Assistant Secretary of State for Population, Refugees, and Migration, Ellen Sauerbrey for her first appearance before this Subcommittee and the House. We hope and trust that this will be part of a constructive collaboration on the vital issues that you handle for our country and for the Department of State. I want to also commend you and PRM for the outstanding work you do to fulfill our commitment to victims of trafficking and to combat this modern version of slavery. I look forward to hearing your view on the most pressing challenges facing refugees worldwide and what help you need from us to do your work.
I note that in 2005 some $996 million from all sources was spent or obligated from your bureau, and this is projected to decrease to $914 million from all sources for 2006, and perhaps $950 million, counting the supplemental request. Further, for 2007, the President has requested only $888 million. This is a large decrease from 2005 and 2006; $330 million was obligated for overseas assistance to Africa in 2005, yet the President is only asking for $236 million in 2007. How will this affect our ability to cope with the increasing crises of refugee protection worldwide and especially in Africa? Will some of that be made up in other ways? I think that is a question that we hope to be answered in whole or in part today.
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I and many of the Members of Congress have long opposed the exaggerated emphasis on repatriation rather than resettlement of refugees. This policy harms not only the refugees we have repatriated but also countless thousands of others because it reduces the moral authority which the United States can exercise in persuading other countries not to force people back to danger.
Likewise, I have long supported higher numbers for refugee admissions. Even in the years of highest refugee admissions, when there were over 100,000, they represented only a tiny fraction of total immigrants. Not only is this year's ceiling of 70,000 too low; the actual projected intake is lower still, 54,000, and there are serious doubts that even that number can be reached.
Finally, I ask the State Department to reopen the consideration of the cases of those stateless Vietnamese refugees who remain in the Philippines. A large number were promised Philippine residence. This has not been granted and is never likely to be. A small number attempted to enter the United States fraudulently and have been forever barred. I would ask that their cases be reexamined. If the fraud they committed was minor and only due to their desperate situation, I would ask that they be shown compassion and allowed to reunite with their families.
We also welcome the distinguished witness, Rachel Brand, Assistant Attorney General for the Office of Legal Policy for the Department of Justice, and Paul Rosenzweig, Acting Assistant Secretary for Policy Development, Department of Homeland Security. I hope that they and Secretary Sauerbrey can deal with several other pressing issues.
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The United States is the acknowledged world leader on refugee issues. No nation contributes more to help refugees. No nation accepts more refugees for resettlement than the United States, even if it is true that we should do more. Our defense of refugees is one of our proudest answers to those who would denigrate the role of our nation in world affairs.
But two major problems are wreaking havoc with our immigrant resettlement program. Our immigration laws, amended by the Patriot Act and the Real ID Act, seek to exclude from our shores all terrorists and those who would aid and abet them. It, therefore, renders inadmissible all of those who have knowingly given support to terrorist groups, not just those who pull the trigger or plant the bomb, but all of those who facilitate terrorism ought to be excluded from the blessings of life in America.
Congress knew that there would be situations where an otherwise qualified refugee should not be excluded because his or her support was unwilling, involuntary, or so minor or inconsequential that no reasonable person could conclude that they had facilitated a terrorist act. Congress, therefore, gave the Executive Branch the authority to waive material support grounds for inadmissibility and charged the Secretaries of State and Homeland Security and the Attorney General to come up with procedures and guidelines to make such waivers.
The Real ID Act became law just over a year ago, yet the guidelines have not been issued despite repeated promises that they are imminent. We are more than halfway through the fiscal year. Without quick action, we will not be able to come close to our immigration target of 54,000 refugees resettled.
We all welcomed the Secretary of State's recent waiver, on Friday, May 5, of the material support provision for some 10,000 Burmese refugees in Tham Hin refugee camp, but that waiver, unfortunately, only applies to this particular group; and although it is very much welcomed, it would not apply to thousands of others: Colombians, other Burmese, Cubans who offered support to armed opponents of Castro in the sixties, Mong refugees in Thailand, Vietnamese Montagnard refugees in Cambodia, Liberians, and Somalis. It has reportedly also prevented some 500 asylum seekers in the United States from being granted permanent refuge here. The State Department or the Attorney General will have to seek separate waivers for each of those individual groups.
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It would also not help many of the refugees at the Tham Hin camp who have been members of the Karen National Union, the KNU, the resistant group which defends these persecuted ethnic groups from the murderous Burmese junta.
Here we come to the second major problem: The definition of a ''terrorist group.'' Most of us think we know what terrorism, terrorists, and terrorist groups are. Terrorism is violence directed against innocent civilians to further some political aim, and terrorists and terrorist groups do just that. Our laws call on the Secretary of State to designate certain groups as terrorist groups. Other groups take up arms to resist tyrannical regimes, just as our founding fathers engaged in armed resistance to a relatively benign despotism. While we have been told that the current law does not allow such distinctions, there must be a way to distinguish between genuine terrorists and legitimate resistance groups. If current law does not do so, then we need to fix it.
I would welcome suggestions from our panelists as to how we may need to change the law so that it no longer reaches such absurd results.
Let me move from the abstract provisions of law and numbers to real cases. I hope these are exaggerations, but I fear they are not.
In Sierra Leone, a woman was kept captive in her house for 4 days by guerrillas. The rebels raped her and her daughter and cut them with machetes. She would be eligible to come to safety in the United States, but she has been put on indefinite hold because American law says that she provided material support to terrorists by giving them shelter.
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In Colombia, the leftist guerrilla group, FARC, often kidnaps civilians and demands ransoms from their relatives. FARC extracts a war tax in the regions it controls upon threat of serious harm. Nearly 2,000 Colombians facing death or violence who pay such ransoms or taxes were determined by the UN to be refugees, but they have been denied United States resettlement for providing material support to terrorists.
In his second inaugural address, President Bush made a stirring commitment to oppressed people yearning to be free, and he said, and I quote:
''All who live in tyranny and hopelessness can know that the United States will not ignore your oppression or excuse your oppressors. When you stand for your liberty, we will stand with you.''
Now is the time to make good on these words. We must not abandon to death, squalor, and hopelessness those who have heeded our words and stood up for their liberty. After years of effort and with great bipartisan support, the International Religious Freedom Act of 1998 became law. It recognized the crucial importance of religious liberty in our foreign policy. It also recognized that claims of religious persecution and their adjudication raise many complicated issues and dealt specifically with such issues. Sections 602 and 603 call for specific training for all who deal with refugee admissions and asylum cases.
Congress also mandated that guidelines be developed to guarantee that contractors and foreign hired personnel who deal with immigration issues not have biases which would prejudice them against proper evaluation of refugee claims of religious persecution.
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We would like to hear from each of our Government witnesses how their departments have complied with these sections of the law. We are concerned that serious deficiencies exist with such training, not the least because of the embarrassing reports surrounding the case of Li v. Gonzales.
Mr. Li, a Chinese Christian, was arrested and tortured and faced a prison sentence for belonging to an unregistered church. He escaped to the United States and applied for asylum as a refugee. The immigration judge who tried his case found that Li was credible and had suffered persecution and should be allowed to stay. But the INS appealed, and the 2003 Board of Immigration Appeals reversed the judge's decision.
The BIA found that Li had honestly described how the police beat and tortured him with an electronic shock device, forced him to sign a confession, and then required him to clean public toilets without pay after his release. But it then, incredibly, ruled that Li was punished for violating laws on unregistered churches that China had a legitimate right to enforce. A Federal appeals court upheld the BIA just last fall after protests by religious and other human rights groups, including the U.S. Commission on International Religious Freedom and the Office of the United Nations High Commission for Refugees. DHS asked BIA to vacate its decision, which it did so 2 days later. In November, the Fifth Circuit followed suit and vacated its decision.
Justice finally triumphed, but this case betrays the almost complete ignorance of IRFA of the standards it mandates in judging religious persecution on the part of many officials. I would like to hear perhaps what has been done to avoid such travesties in the future.
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I would point out parenthetically that that legislation was bipartisan, but it was difficult to get passed. It was opposed on the record by the Clinton Administration, who said that such legislation would create a hierarchy of human rights and that somehow religious freedom was trumping other human rights issues, which turned out to be unmitigated nonsense.
So those sections were fought tenaciously for, and we hope that they will be faithfully implemented. Section 604 of IRFA bars the entry into the U.S. of any alien who, while serving as a foreign government official, was responsible for or directly carried out particularly severe violations of religious freedom. In March of last year, we had a tremendous controversy over the governor of a state in India who had been complicit in murderous persecution of Muslims in his state. The outcry in Congress and throughout the country led to the revocation of his visa. I would be interested in knowing what policies are in place to deny visas and to deny entry to those who are consistent violators of religious freedom.
I am also concerned how expedited removals and interdictions at sea may be affecting genuine refugees. I would like to ask unanimous consent that my entire statement be made a part of the record.
[The prepared statement of Mr. Smith of New Jersey follows:]
PREPARED STATEMENT OF THE HONORABLE CHRISTOPHER H. SMITH, A REPRESENTATIVE IN CONGRESS FROM THE STATE OF NEW JERSEY AND CHAIRMAN, SUBCOMMITTEE ON AFRICA, GLOBAL HUMAN RIGHTS AND INTERNATIONAL OPERATIONS
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The Subcommittee will come to order, and good morning to everyone.
Today the Subcommittee on Africa, Global Human Rights and International Operations will hold an oversight hearing on Current Issues in U.S. Refugee Protection and Resettlement. The hearing will focus on the major current challenges facing U.S.refugee protection and resettlement policy and programs, such as levels of funding, implementation of procedures to waive application of ''material support'' grounds for inadmissibility, application of the definition of ''membership in a terrorist organization'' and its affect on refugee resettlement, current status and implementation of the ''wet foot/dry foot'' policy, and status of implementation of the refugee provisions of the International Religious Freedom Act (IRFA) of 1998. The Subcommittee will consider what the U.S. has done in the past year to address these issues and what it intends to do in the coming year.
I would like to start by mentioning some of the encouraging progress concerning refugees and displaced persons. The peace deal recently signed by the largest Darfur rebel group and the government of Sudan can be the first step toward peace and stability in the region. I wish to commend President Bush's strong leadership on Darfur. Our first priority must be to help create a sense of security so that refugees and IDPs (internally displaced persons) can return to their homes and rebuild. President Bush's call for more peacekeepers is absolutely timely. But right now we need to get more humanitarian assistance and food to those suffering, and I welcome the President's intention to ask Congress for an additional $225 million in emergency food aid for Darfur, and his announcement that he has directed five US ships loaded with food to head to Port Sudan and that he has ordered the emergency purchase of another 40,000 metric tons of food for rapid shipment. This is on top of the more than $617 million in humanitarian assistance we have already given to help ease the suffering of those most affected by the conflict, and more than $150 million we have contributed to support the African Union mission in Darfur. It has been American aid, first, second and third that has fed and cared for the refugees. Other major donors have not yet come through, and must do so now. The President's decisive actions will help convince the international community to give more, and do more, to end the misery in Darfur. I led a mission to the IDP camps in Darfur and met face-to-face with President Bashir this past August. No one who has been to Darfur can doubt the urgency of decisive action.
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On Friday, Secretary of State Rice announced the long-awaited waiver, which will allow us to finally begin the resettlement of the Burmese refugees in Thailand. Much more needs to be done, to protect and resettle the refugees, but most of all to convince the Burmese Junta to desist from its brutal practices. In defiance of the world community, it has again begun murderous campaigns against its ethnic minorities, and produced even more refugees and IDPs. The UN needs to act, and to act now.
And finally, the first six North Korean refugees processed for resettlement in the U.S. have arrived. I am pleased that the refugee provisions of the North Korea Freedom Act of 2004 are at long last being implemented.
We welcome today Assistant Secretary of State for Population, Refugees and Migration (PRM) Ellen Sauerbrey to her first appearance before the House of Representatives. We hope and trust this will part of a constructive collaboration on the vital issues you handle for our country at the Department of State. I want at the outset to commend you and PRM for the outstanding work you have been doing to fulfill our commitment to victims of trafficking and to combat this modern version of slavery. I look forward to hearing your view of the most pressing challenges facing refugees worldwide, and what help you need from us to do your work.
I note that in 2005, some 996 million from all sources was spent or obligated for your bureau, and that this is projected to decrease to 914 million from all sources USDOL for 2006, with perhaps 950 million counting the supplemental request. Further, for 2007, the President has requested only 888 million USDOL. This is a large decrease from 2005 and 2006. About 330 million was obligated for overseas assistance to Africa in 2005, yet the President is only asking for 236 million for 2007. How will this affect our ability to cope with the increasing crises of refugee protection worldwide, and especially in Africa? Will some of this be made up in other ways?
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I and many other members of Congress have long opposed the exaggerated emphasis on repatriation, rather than resettlement of refugees. This policy harms not only the refugees we have repatriated, but also countless thousands of others, because it reduces the moral authority which the United States can exercise in persuading other countries not to force people back to danger. Likewise I have long supported higher numbers for refugee admissions. Even in the years of highest refugee admissions (over 100,000), they represented only a tiny fraction of total immigrants. Yet not only is this year's ceiling of 70,000 too low, the actual projected intake is lower still, 54,000, and there are serious doubts that even that number can be reached.
I must also express my concern that we are not doing enough to protect and resettle Montagnard refugees who have fled to Cambodia, or to protect those who have been repatriated to Vietnam, often involuntarily. There is ample evidence that Montagnards who attempt to flee Vietnam, even if not persecuted before, will be persecuted after forced repatriation. They are subject, at the least, to constant surveillance and harassment, often to physical abuse, torture and imprisonment. Right now there are several dozen Montagnards in Cambodia who have been turned down by UNHCR, but referred to us for further consideration. I urge that their cases be given full consideration, and that they not be repatriated involuntarily.
Finally, I ask the State Department to reopen for consideration the cases of those remaining stateless Vietnamese refugees in the Philippines. A large number were promised Philippine residence. This has not been granted, and is never likely to be. A smaller number attempted to enter the U.S. fraudulently, and have been forever barred. I would ask that their cases be re-examined. If the fraud they committed was minor and only due to their desperate situation, I would ask that they be shown compassion and be allowed to reunite with their families.
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We also welcome distinguished witnesses Rachel Brand, Assistant Attorney General for the Office of Legal Policy, the Department of Justice (DOJ), and Paul Rosenzweig, Acting Assistant Secretary for Policy Development, Department of Homeland Security (DHS). I hope that they and Ms. Sauerbrey can deal with several other pressing issues.
The United States is the acknowledged world leader on refugee issues. No nation contributes more to help refugees, no nation accepts more refugees for resettlement than the U.S., even if it is true that we should do more. Our defense of refugees is one of our proudest answers to those who would denigrate the role of our nation in world affairs.
But two major problems are wreaking havoc with our immigrant resettlement program. Our immigration law (INA—Immigration and Naturalization Act), as amended by the Patriot act and the Real ID Act, seeks to exclude from our shores all terrorists, and all those who would aid and abet them. It therefore renders inadmissible all those who have knowingly given material support to terrorist groups. Not just those who pull the trigger or plant the bomb, but all those who facilitate terrorism ought to be excluded from the blessings of life in America.
But Congress knew that there would be situations where an otherwise qualified refugee should not be excluded because his or her support was unwitting, involuntary, or so minor or inconsequential that no reasonable person could conclude that it had facilitated a terrorist act. Congress therefore gave the executive branch the authority to waive material support grounds for inadmissibility, and charged the Secretaries of States and Homeland Security, and the Attorney-General, to come up with procedures and guidelines to make such waivers. The Real ID Act became law just over a year ago (May 11, 2005). Yet no such guidelines have been issued, despite repeated promises that they were imminent. We are more than half-way through the fiscal year; without quick action, we will not be able to come close to our immigration target of 54,000 refugees resettled.
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As I mentioned previously, we all welcomed the Secretary of State's recent waiver on Friday May 5 of the ''material support'' provision for some 10,000 Burmese refugees in the Tham Hin (TOM HIN) refugee camp. But that waiver, unfortunately, only applies to this particular group of refugees, and will not apply to thousands of others: Colombians, other Burmese, Cubans who offered support to armed opponents of Castro in the 1960's; Hmong refugees in Thailand; Vietnamese Montagnard refugees in Cambodia; Liberians and Somalis. It has reportedly also prevented some 500 asylum seekers in the United States from being granted permanent refuge here. The State Department or the Attorney General will have to seek separate waivers for each of those individuals or groups.
It will also not help many of the refugees even at Tham Hin (TOM HIN) who have been members of the Karen National Union, the armed resistance group which defends this persecuted ethnic group from the murderous Burmese junta. And here we come to the second major problem, the definition of a ''terrorist group.''
Most of us think we know what terrorism, terrorists and terrorist groups are. Terrorism is violence directed against innocent civilians to further some political aim, and terrorist and terrorist groups do just that. Our law calls on the Secretary of State to designate certain groups as terrorist. Other groups take up arms to resist tyrannical regimes, just as our Founding Fathers engaged in armed resistance to a relatively benign despotism. But we have been told that the current law does not allow such distinctions. There must be a way to distinguish between genuine terrorists, and legitimate resistance groups. If current law does not do so, then we need to fix it. I would welcome suggestions from our panelists as to how we need to change the law so that it no longer reaches such absurd results.
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But let me move from abstract provisions of law and numbers to real cases. I hope these are exaggerations, but I fear that they are not
In Sierra Leone a woman was kept captive in her house for four days by guerrillas. The rebels raped her and her daughter and cut them with machetes. She would normally be eligible to come to safety in the United States. But she has been put on indefinite hold—because American law says that she provided ''material support'' to terrorists by giving them shelter.
During the war in Liberia, rebels came to a woman's home, murdered her father in front of her and then raped her repeatedly. The rebels then abducted her, held her hostage, and forced her to cook and wash for them. After she escaped to a refugee camp, the DHS considered the tasks she had performed for the rebels as ''material support,'' and she is on hold.
In Colombia, a paramilitary group kidnapped a young man and forced him to dig graves along with other captives. The victims, many of whom were shot when their work was finished, never knew if one of the graves would become their own. This man escaped, but he would be barred from resettlement in the United States under the ''material support'' provision because he provided ''services'' to a terrorist organization when the paramilitaries forced him to dig graves, including possibly his own.
In Colombia, the leftist guerrilla group FARC (Fuerzas Armadas Revolucionarios de Colombia) often kidnaps civilians and demands ransom from their relatives. FARC also requires the payment of a ''war tax'' from Colombians in the regions it controls, upon threat of serious harm. Nearly 2,000 Colombians facing death or violence who paid such ransoms or ''taxes'' were determined by the United Nations to be refugees, but they have been denied U.S. resettlement for providing ''material support'' to terrorists.
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FARC guerrillas killed a farmer who couldn't pay the $250 they demanded. They raped his wife and her sister. Because the FARC had taken livestock from the farm, U.N. refugee officers feared the women would be rejected by the United States for providing support to terrorists. Fortunately, the UN settled the women in another country, as it does now with all Colombian refugees.
It has been reported that DHS has interpreted the laws so rigidly that one DHS lawyer argued in an immigration appeals case that any level of support—as little as a dime provided under duress or unwittingly—would bar a deserving refugee from U.S. entry. A judge noted that, under this interpretation, an Afghan who aided the Northern Alliance against the Taliban would be denied refuge. The fact that the U.S. was allied to the Northern Alliance to defeat the Taliban and al-Quaeda would make no difference. I sincerely hope our witnesses can refute me on this point.
The Northern Alliance are not the only U.S. allies who are barred. Many Vietnamese Montagnards fought alongside U.S. forces during the Vietnam War and were then murderously oppressed by the Vietnamese government. During the war, the United States helped arm a Montagnard group called the United Front for the Liberation of Oppressed Races (FULRO), which continued to struggle for autonomy after the war ended. This group ceased to exist in 1992, when a band of nearly 400 fighters disarmed and were resettled in North Carolina. Now the group is being treated as a terrorist organization, and 11 Montagnards still stuck in Cambodia would be denied refugee status because in the past they had offered the group ''material support.'' Tibetan refugees in Nepal, who were trained by the CIA to try and liberate Tibet from China, Cubans who fought against Castro, or aided those who did, all would be barred from the U.S. Jews who bravely resisted Nazi terror and survived to tell about it would have faced exclusion if the law were interpreted in the past as it is now.
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In his second inaugural address, President Bush made a stirring commitment to oppressed people yearning to be free: ''All who live in tyranny and hopelessness can know: the United States will not ignore your oppression, or excuse your oppressors. When you stand for your liberty, we will stand with you.'' Now is the time to make good on these words: we must not abandon to death, squalor and hopelessness those who have heeded our words and ''stood up for their liberty.''
After years of effort, and with great bipartisan support, the International Religious Freedom Act (IRFA) of 1998 became law. It recognized the crucial importance of religious liberty in our foreign policy. IRFA recognized that claims of religious persecution and their adjudication raised many complicated issues, and dealt specifically with such issues. Sections 602 and 603 called for specific training for all consular officers, indeed for all Foreign Service Officers who deal with refugee admissions, all officers of the Justice Department (and now the Department of Homeland Security as well), who adjudicate asylum cases, and all immigration judges. Such training was to ''include country-specific conditions, instruction on the internationally recognized right to freedom of religion, instruction on methods of religious persecution practiced in foreign countries, and applicable distinctions within a country between the nature of and treatment of various religious practices.'' Congress also mandated that guidelines be developed to guarantee that contractors and foreign-hired personnel who deal with immigration issues not have biases which would prejudice them against proper evaluation of refugees' claims of religious persecution.
We would like to hear from each of our government witnesses how their departments have complied with these sections of the legislation. We are concerned that serious deficiencies exist with such training, not least because of the embarrassing reports surrounding the case of Li vs. Gonzales.
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Mr. Li, a Chinese Christian, was arrested and tortured, and faced a prison sentence for belonging to an unregistered ''house church.'' He escaped to the U.S. and applied for asylum as a refugee. The immigration judge who tried his case found that Li was credible and had suffered persecution, and should be allowed to stay.
But the INS appealed. In 2003, the Board of Immigration Appeals (BIA) reversed the judge's decision. The BIA found that Li had honestly described how police beat and tortured him with an electric shock device, forced him to sign a confession, and required him to clean public toilets without pay after his release. But it then, incredibly, ruled that Li was punished for violating laws on unregistered churches that it said China has a legitimate right to enforce. Li, the BIA concluded, feared legal action or prosecution, not persecution. Even worse, in August 2005, a three-judge panel of the federal Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals affirmed the BIA's ruling. The U.S. Attorney's Office argued that China was simply motivated by a desire to maintain social order, not to persecute based on his religious beliefs. According to the Fifth Circuit judge writing the opinion in the case, ''While we may abhor China's practice of restricting its citizens from gathering in a private home to read the gospel and sing hymns, and abusing offenders, like Li, who commit such acts, that is a moral judgment, not a legal one,'' he wrote. Because the Chinese government tolerates Christianity, so long as it's practiced in a registered group, the Fifth Circuit concluded that reasonable and substantial evidence supported the BIA's decision that Li was punished for illegal activities and not for his religion.
After protests by religious and other human rights groups, including by the US Commission on International Religious Freedom (USCIRF) and the office of the United Nations High Commission for Refugees (UNHCR), DHS on October 4, 2005 asked the BIA to vacate its decision, which it did two days later. In November, the Fifth Circuit followed suit and vacated its decision. Justice finally triumphed, but this case betrays almost complete ignorance of IRFA (the Appeals Court decision does not even mention IRFA in its decision) and of the standards it mandates in judging religious persecution on the part of many officials. I would like to hear what has been done to avoid such travesties in the future.
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Section 604 of the IRFA bars the entry into the United States of any alien who, while serving as a foreign government official, was responsible for or directly carried out particularly severe violations of religious freedom. In March last year we had a tremendous controversy over the visa of Governor Modi of Gujarat State in India, who had been complicit in the murderous persecution of Muslims in his state. The outcry in Congress and throughout the country led to the revocation of his visa. I would be interested in knowing what policies are in place to deny visas, and to deny entry, to those who are consistent violators of religious freedom.
I am also concerned with how expedited removals and interdiction at sea may be affecting genuine refugees. I am concerned that the USCIS Asylum Corps, who have the expertise and training to deal with refugees, may lose its refugee protection functions in the expedited removal process. This would be unfortunate, to say the least. The so-called ''wet foot/dry foot'' policy, whereby Cuban refugees who make it to dry land in the U.S. are given full consideration for U.S. resettlement, but those interdicted at sea are subject to almost certain repatriation to one of the most odious regimes on earth, is deeply troubling. According to the Congressional Research Service, in 2005, 2,700 Cubans were interdicted at sea. Approximately 2,400 expressed a fear of return. Of those, DHS determined that about 60 had a credible fear of return to Cuba. They were taken to the Guantanamo Bay detention center for further screening. At Guantanamo, some 19 were found to have a wellfounded fear and were referred to DOS for third country resettlement. That is less than a tenth of a percent. Something has got to be dreadfully wrong in the process. That people would try so desperately and at such high risk to leave Cuba, yet nearly none had any fear of persecution, is so unique a phenomenon that it is scarcely credible. I will be interested in hearing how this could be happening.
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We shall now hear from our panel of government witnesses.
Mr. SMITH OF NEW JERSEY. At this point, I yield to Mr. Payne for any opening comments he might have.
Mr. PAYNE. Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman, for calling this very important meeting on the current issue of U.S. refugee protection and resettlement. This whole question of the refugee situation is a very serious question, and I am glad that we are focusing on refugee protection and resettlement programs in the U.S.
The refugee situation, particularly in Africa, is still a major challenge facing our world today. According to the Congressional Research Service, the United Nations High Commission for Refugees (UNHCR) reports that, beginning in 2005, the total number of people of concern totaled 19.2 million, which includes 9.2 million refugees, more than 389,000 asylum seekers, 1.5 million returnees, 5.6 million IDPs, and more than 2 million others who remain vulnerable. The overall figure of 19.2 million increased by 2.2 million from 2004 to 2005; however, the number of refugees dropped. In 2005, the number of new refugees was 232,100, with the major displacement coming from Africa.
While these conflicts on the continent of Africa still remain, overall, in Africa, it is much more peaceful than it has ever been before and more peaceful than it was in the 90s. Of course, following World War II and the Cold War, there were many conflicts in Africa because the Cold War was fought on the soil there, but in the 90s it was more peaceful than ever, therefore, of course, creating less refugees than what we had previously.
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The 1990s were marred by civil war and ethnic clashes, including the civil war in Sudan against the people of the south, a war that went on for 21 years, displacing 4 million people and resulting in the death of over 2 million people in that north-south conflict, which was brought to a conclusion with the comprehensive peace agreement in Navashna that was signed to end that strife. However, of course, we know that in Darfur, leading to the conclusion of the north-south conflict, the Government of Sudan attacked the Darfurians, and we know about the tragic situation there, with several million people displaced and 250,000 living in Chad.
We know, in the 90s, there was the Rwandanian genocide; the ghastly war in the DRC where millions died; Liberia's civil strife where we are finally seeing the trial to come soon of Charles Taylor, infamous murderer from Liberia; and the Ethiopian and Eritrea border dispute. These conflicts caused the flight of millions of people from their communities and from their countries. Millions of refugees and internally displaced people, IDP, still languish in camps, and others struggle to survive in foreign communities where they hope for the day when they can return to their homes but to live there in safety.
As we know, several conflicts currently exist in Africa, including the genocide in Darfur, Sudan, which accounts for 146,900 refugees in 2005; the crisis in the Eastern Democratic Republic of the Congo, which accounted for 38,100; and the continuing strife and lawlessness in Somalia, where 9,100 refugees exist. Africa hosted more than 25 percent, roughly 4.9 million, of people of concern reported by the UNHCR, and Africa is only second to Asia, where the numbers are greater.
So while there are few shooting wars left in Africa, we have to increase efforts toward ending those conflicts, build on the progress that has been made, and remain engaged to ensure a lasting peace while protecting refugees and IDPs that fled during those crises.
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The next challenge is ensuring the safe return of refugees and IDPs. IDPs often receive less attention than refugees. As you know, the UNHCR may not deal with IDPs because IDPs are generally people who are displaced in their own country, and the UNHCR may only deal with people who are refuged in a foreign land, and so, internally, it is difficult for the UNHCR to be officially involved. There are an estimated 25 million IDPs worldwide, many of which are in Africa. UNHCR provides assistance on only roughly 6 million indirectly of the 25 million worldwide due to the legal circumstances surrounding it.
Donor fatigue is another problem. As we have heard, even in Sudan, the daily rations of calories in the Darfurian region has been reduced by the UNHCR from 2,100 calories per day to 1,050. Of course, the 2,100 was totally insufficient, but half of that now is going to really create a very serious problem.
So donor fatigue and insufficient contributions to UNHCR from donor nations for the refugees and IDP crisis worldwide is also inhibiting more assistance. The U.S., which has already been indicated by the Chairman, is certainly the largest donor toward humanitarian issues, but we still will have to do more and push our allies to do more.
The issue of asylum and resettlement in the United States is of great concern to me. Over the last 5 years, the levels of asylum seekers granted assistance and refugee resettlement in the United States has actually dropped significantly while the numbers are growing by leaps and bounds. Although U.S. refugee admissions have increased from the post-9/11 historic low in Fiscal Year 2002 of only 27,100 and Fiscal Year 2003 of 28,422, they still remain well below the pre-2002 level. Admissions in Fiscal Year 2004 and Fiscal Year 2005 were below 54,000, compared to a refugee ceiling of 70,000 each year. We are not living up to the quotas, which I think are even low, but we are only coming up with 60 to 70 percent of what we are allocating, and as we have indicated, this has happened particularly since 9/11.
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I still have serious concerns about the ''wet foot/dry foot'' policy we apply toward Cuban refugees seeking assistance in resettlement in the United States while we turn away refugees fleeing from Haiti, whose economic, political, and social conditions have been extremely more dire than that of Cuba, certainly much more dire than that of Mexico, where we are looking at policies where we will allow guest workers, and we will perhaps have amnesty, and we will perhaps have the 12 million that are undocumented and illegal in the country, looking at ways to accommodate them.
But a person from Haiti who comes in a boat, who comes across the ocean coming for the same kind of economic asylum as Mexicans, as Cubans, a Haitian is arrested, put in handcuffs, and taken back to their country. It is simply racial discrimination, period, no other way to describe it, but it continues as we sit here today.
We must also ensure that asylum seekers are detained while awaiting trial in detention centers. We must have better conditions. It is absolutely criminal that asylum seekers are treated like criminals. In a detention center in Elizabeth, New Jersey, 4 or 5 years ago, there was actually a disturbance there because of the poor treatment of these people who are not convicted of anything. I even tried to get into a hearing, and I was kept out for about 25 minutes before the judge allowed me, as the congressman, to sit in the court.
We have a human rights commission from the city of Elizabeth, New Jersey, so incensed that the entire commission came into my office to meet about 3 weeks ago because of the inhumane treatment and the disrespect that these judges have for people who are there in these courts.
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As a matter of fact, it was even mentioned by one of the high courts that the immigration courts have to be more fair. The working conditions are poor. Salaries are $6.50 an hour for corrections officers or whatever they are called. As a result, these institutions are getting what they are paying for, and it is wrong, and I think that we should have a hearing at least looking into the manner in which these courts are held and the treatment that these folks are given. It is wrong. Like I said, a person who comes here is not a criminal. They should have due process. If they are here illegally, then they must be sent back, but they should not be treated like criminals during that period of time.
So with that, Mr. Chairman, I look forward to hearing the testimony of our witnesses. Thank you very much.
Mr. SMITH OF NEW JERSEY. Thank you, Mr. Payne.
Mr. Tancredo?
Mr. TANCREDO. Just briefly, Mr. Chairman, I, of course, want to add my support for the position taken by the Chairman and Ranking Member in regard to what seems to be arbitrary, not necessarily capricious, but certainly a bureaucratic confusion that exists when attempting to determine who exactly is or is not aiding and abetting a terrorist organization. However, I must also say that I, on the other hand, would be concerned that we would go too far the other way and accept any claim of refugee status as an automatic admission into the United States.
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I know that it is a difficult task to determine the validity of some of the cases that are brought in front of you. It makes it more difficult to support you when there are these cases like the Burmese and others where it seems incredibly clear that their support, if anything, was for an organization that we would have sympathy with. So that is why I want to make sure that those things do not happen because then the push will be to make sure that everybody who claims that status will get it, and it certainly is not what I want to see happen. So I will be happy to hear the testimony. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
Mr. SMITH OF NEW JERSEY. Ms. McCollum?
Ms. MCCOLLUM. Thank you. I am very pleased that we are having this hearing today. Having had the opportunity to visit refugee camps, I am particularly concerned about the issue of gender-based violence, having spoken to many women and also women who are providing those services in the refugee populations.
The women that I met with in Darfur, northern Uganda, the Democratic Republic of the Congo, and other victims of violent conflict that I have had an opportunity to meet; all of these women, when they share their stories of rape, on the gender-based violence and attacks against them, and how it is used as a work paper, these women, and quite often girls, as we will hear, I am sure, from some of the testimony that has been provided in writing as well as orally, after they have been raped or victimized, quite often the help that they receive is very little, if any at all.
That also includes when they are in the refugee camps and when they are being attacked, repeatedly sometimes, within the refugee camps. I am interested in knowing how we are saying that we as a country are doing a lot in responding to gender-based violence when I look at the number of refugees and the number of dollars that we are putting into the program, and from the letter that I have, a background letter that I have, in my information here, the United States is relying on NGOs to address this critical issue. But how much are we prompting the NGOs to do already out of a limited supply and a short budget that they are receiving to already do the jobs that they have here?
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Then when it comes to women's access to health care, not only emotional counseling and the sensitivity training that people are trying to do in the camps to make this gender-based violence stop, what are we doing to provide women adequate health care, including the women who were afraid that they once again would be subjected to rape, access to birth control?
So I look forward to hearing the testimony before us and thank the Chairman very much for having this hearing. I would also like to comment on Mr. Payne's remarks on Haitian refugees and fully agree with that.
Mr. SMITH OF NEW JERSEY. Thank you very much. Ms. Lee?
Ms. LEE. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I want to thank you also for the hearing, and all of our witnesses, hello and thank you for being here.
I guess I would just like to say a couple of things. First of all, I think really it is a moral obligation to the world that we protect refugees and asylum seekers. We have got to do that. The President has set aside, I guess, 70,000 slots for refugees seeking entrance into the United States, but there are over 19 million refugees worldwide seeking safe haven. So I think we have got to do more, and I am not sure what it is we need to do, but we have got to do more to extend a safe place and a new life for refugees by clearing backlogged cases, reuniting families, increasing the entry ceiling for countries in conflict.
Of course, some areas are especially of concern and of interest to me—Africa, Haiti—and also refugees living with HIV and AIDS. Africa has seven peacekeeping missions now. There are millions of African men, women, and children who are in dire need of refugee assistance in terms of their flee from political, religious, and social persecution, yet we have only opened our doors to about 20,000 refugees annually.
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In addition to the needs of Africans, there is a tremendous need in terms of the Caribbean—Haiti, for example. Again, we watched Haiti's democracy really deteriorate right in front of our eyes, and in the United States, only 535 asylum seekers were allowed out of 5,057 cases. That was, I think, outrageous. Since 2000 there has been a total of about 23,000 Haitian asylum cases and more than 2,600 approved. Again, contrast that to the 5,600 Cuban refugees in 2003 and 4,900 in 2004.
So I think that there, quite frankly, is a double standard in our immigration policy that needs to be looked at, reviewed, and revised. So I look forward to hearing from you today on those specific issues. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
Mr. SMITH OF NEW JERSEY. Thank you. Ambassador Watson?
Ms. WATSON. Thank you so much, Mr. Chairman, and, again, we want to thank you for convening this hearing.
The experience of refugees is central to the American experience. From the beginning of our nation, people fleeing tyranny and poverty have helped shape America's character and values. Whether they arrived 400 years ago or 4 days ago, the continuing contributions of refugees are fundamental to the America we know and love. For this reason, we have a sacred obligation as Americans to support people fleeing persecution and want in their hour of need, and this obligation is as much to ourselves as to the people we seek to help.
America is stronger when people fleeing conflict get the support they need so that they can return home ready to rebuild their shattered societies, and America is stronger when those who choose to make their life in America find their new neighbors welcoming and appreciative of their new contributions. I hope we will hear from our Government witnesses about some of the challenges they are facing in their efforts to conduct our refugee relief efforts. I have a number of concerns, particularly about the human cost of our constrained refugee-relief budget, as well as how we can address the number of deserving asylum seekers who face huge challenges trying to enter into our country.
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I also would like to ask about efforts to provide education to children in refugee populations to ensure that the time children spend in refugee camps is not deducted from their futures.
But I hope to bring up one issue in particular because it often gets neglected in discussions about refugees, and that is the issue of statelessness: The plight of people who lack effective citizenship in any country. Stateless persons are a highly vulnerable group that is likely ignored and too often falls between the cracks of government and refugee relief bureaucracies.
Mr. Chairman, I would ask unanimous consent that three reports by Refugees International on stateless persons be included in the hearing record.
Mr. SMITH OF NEW JERSEY. Without objection, so ordered.
[The information referred to follows:]
[Note: Image(s) not available in this format. See PDF version of this file.]
Ms. WATSON. I am happy to see, and I think I see him, that one of our witnesses today is former Assistant Secretary of Defense Ken Bacon from Refugees International, who will likely, I hope, include some you are information on the plight of these stateless people in his testimony, and I want to thank Mr. Bacon for taking time out to join us today, as well as thanks to my colleague, Mr. Payne, for ensuring that we could have him here today speaking on our panel. We appreciate that.
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Secretary Sauerbrey, in January, I wrote to you, upon your confirmation as assistant secretary, to inquire about your strategy for addressing the plight of these stateless persons. In that letter, I asked you to consider designating a full-time point person on statelessness within your bureaucracy. Furthermore, I asked that the Bureau consider providing new resources to both the UN and nongovernmental agency work on behalf of stateless persons. This letter would have arrived just as you were moving into your new offices in January, so I can understand why there might be some delay.
My staff contacted your office in late February and faxed over another copy, and I do know that you have a full plate in your new position, but I hope you could maybe use some of your time today to respond to the issues I raised in that letter, and I have another copy here if you did not receive it, and you need one.
So I am looking forward to hearing your testimony, and, again, I want to thank our Chairman, and I yield back the remainder of my time.
Mr. SMITH OF NEW JERSEY. Thank you very much.
Thank you, and let me just now introduce our distinguished panel, beginning with Secretary Ellen Sauerbrey, who became Assistant Secretary of State for Population, Refugees, and Migration in January 2006. Secretary Sauerbrey previously served as U.S. Representative to the UN Commission on the Status of Women. Before that, she served in the Maryland House of Delegates and was the 1994 and 1998 Republican nominee for governor of Maryland. A former teacher, she was elected to represent her northern Maryland district in the Maryland legislature from 1978 to 1994 and served as minority leader from 1986 to 1994.
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We will then hear from Ms. Rachel Brand, who was confirmed by the U.S. Senate as the Assistant Attorney General for Legal Policy at the U.S. Department of Justice in July 2005. Previously, Ms. Brand served as principal Deputy Assistant Attorney General in the Office of Legal Policy. Ms. Brand also clerked for U.S. Supreme Court Justice Anthony Kennedy and Massachusetts Supreme Court Justice Charles Fried.
We will then hear from Secretary Paul Rosenzweig, who serves as Counselor to the Assistant Secretary for the Policy Directorate in the Department of Homeland Security. He also currently serves as Acting Assistant Secretary for Policy Development. Prior to joining the Department, he served as senior legal research fellow at the Heritage Foundation and co-authored the book, Winning the Long War: Lessons from the Cold War for Defeating Terrorism and Preserving Freedom.
Secretary Sauerbrey, if you could begin.
STATEMENT OF THE HONORABLE ELLEN R. SAUERBREY, ASSISTANT SECRETARY, BUREAU OF POPULATION, REFUGEES AND MIGRATION, U.S. DEPARTMENT OF STATE
Ms. SAUERBREY. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. It is an honor to appear before you today and have the opportunity to discuss the U.S. refugee program and some of the challenges that we face. I know your primary focus is on a lot of the challenges in admissions, but also we would like to be able to talk about some other aspects of the Bureau's work.
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Since I took office in January, I have been working very hard to get a grasp on the issues. I have had over 100 meetings with NGOs, representatives of state, local, and foreign governments, international organizations. I visited a resettlement agency in Rhode Island. I have met with UN and nongovernmental agencies in New York and Geneva. I attended a senior migration leadership seminar in Florida, and I visited refugee camps in Kenya and Uganda and also the U.S. Migrant Center in Guantanamo.
My trip to refugee camps in Kenya and Uganda in March gave me an invaluable opportunity to see some aspect of nearly everything that our Bureau does involving both refugee protection, assistance, and admissions to the United States, and I was able to meet with and travel with all of our international partners—UNHCR, ICRC, IOM, the World Food Program—as well as the NGOs that we are funding in these two countries.
Some of the challenges that we face in our refugee program, I would like to focus on. For the 5 years prior to September 11, the program had averaged 75,000 admissions annually, and that number dropped to 27,000 in Fiscal Year 2002 and 28,000 in Fiscal Year 2003 as certainly necessary security requirements were put into place after 9/11. We have struggled through extraordinarily difficult years, but due to a lot of hard work by PRM, strengthening the admissions office, and implementing the Worldwide Refugee Admissions Processing System, known as WRAPS, the program rebounded, and 53,000 to 54,000 refugees were admitted in both 2004 and 2005.
We also recognize the efforts of our principal United States Government partners—U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services at DHS and the Office of Refugee Resettlement at HHS—as well as their NGO and IO partners here and abroad who helped to make this recovery possible.
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In addition to the focus on improving the security-related components of the program, considerable attention has been given to expanding its reach to those most in need. We receive regular inputs from NGOs and other partners on possible new caseloads. We have redoubled our efforts to enhance UNHCR's capacity to identify and refer refugees for whom resettlement is the appropriate solution. We expect at least 25,000 referrals from UNHCR this year for refugees in Africa and Asia alone.
It is the Administration's view that important national security interests and counterterrorism efforts are not incompatible with our nation's historic role as the world's leader in refugee resettlement. While we must keep out terrorists, we can continue to provide safe haven to legitimate refugees. Due to national security imperatives, there have been recent changes to the law as well as to the process, and we continue to work on ways to harmonize these two important policy interests.
It was an important step to have moved forward on the ethnic Karen Burmese refugees in Thailand, and we are continuing to look at further steps necessary to ensure the harmonization of national security interests with the refugee program.
The precarious situation in Nepal is also affecting United States refugee admissions. We had hoped to have initiated by now a program for certain Tibetans as well as the sizeable population of Bhutanese who have been in camps there for 15 years. We are closely watching developments in Nepal, and we hope to be able to report progress on this very important humanitarian initiative very soon.
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The Administration remains deeply concerned about the hardships suffered by the North Korean people and the plight of those North Koreans who have reached this country in search of asylum. Consistent with the intent of the North Korean Human Rights Act, we have been working with other governments and refugee organizations to find ways to effectively deal with cases of individual North Korean asylum seekers as they arise. However, as we highlighted in our October 2005 report to Congress on the subject, many host governments are reluctant to allow us to process cases of North Korean asylum seekers on their territory.
These countries, however, facilitate the quiet transit of North Korean refugees to South Korea. You would be interested to know that nearly 1,400 made it in 2005, and 449 so far in 2006. But these countries fear that United States Government involvement could disrupt this mechanism by generating publicity that is unwanted and complicating bilateral relations for them. Despite these concerns, we are pleased to note that recently we were able to successfully resettle six North Koreans in the United States.
In order to protect the integrity of the program, and because we do not normally comment on refugees, I cannot publicly provide further details about where they came from and where they are being resettled, but we would be more than happy to provide a classified briefing to share more information about our efforts in this area.
Mr. Chairman, we very much value and appreciate your leadership on refugee issues, and I look forward to working closely with you during my tenure as Assistant Secretary. I believe American taxpayers can and should be very proud about the great work that our Government does for people in need worldwide, and one of my missions is to ensure that this awareness is increased. I would be happy to take your questions.
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[The prepared statement of Ms. Sauerbrey follows:]
PREPARED STATEMENT OF THE HONORABLE ELLEN R. SAUERBREY, ASSISTANT SECRETARY, BUREAU OF POPULATION, REFUGEES AND MIGRATION, U.S. DEPARTMENT OF STATE
Mr. Chairman:
It is an honor to appear before you today to discuss the United States refugee program and some of the challenges facing it. As you may be aware, this is my first formal appearance before the Congress since being sworn in as the Department of State's Assistant Secretary in the Bureau of Population, Refugees, and Migration three and one half short—but action packed—months ago. I understand that your primary focus today will be issues related to refugee admissions but hope that we will also have the opportunity to touch on other aspects of the Bureau's work.
Since receiving the President's call late last summer, I have devoted myself to learning about the myriad complex issues the United States and other concerned governments and international organizations grapple with on a daily basis in striving to assist some of the world's most vulnerable people. With the assistance of the dedicated professionals in PRM, I entered the job well-briefed on these issues and aware of the magnitude of the task that lay ahead. In addition to establishing contacts within the government, since taking office I have had over 100 meetings with NGOs, representatives of state, local and foreign governments and international organizations. I have visited with a resettlement agency in Rhode Island, met with UN and non-governmental agencies in New York and Geneva, attended a senior migration leadership seminar in Florida, and visited refugee camps in Kenya and Uganda as well as the Migrant Center in Guantanamo Bay, Cuba.
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My trip to refugee camps in Kenya and Uganda in March gave me an invaluable opportunity to see some aspect of nearly every activity in which the Bureau is involved in terms of refugee protection/assistance and admissions to the United States. I was able to meet and travel with all of our international partners—UNHCR, ICRC, IOM, and WFP—as well as the NGOs that we are funding in the two countries. I talked with refugees, particularly women, to hear their views on camp concerns and plans for return to Sudan. I heard the stories of women who were not yet convinced that it was safe to go home to southern Sudan; I heard the songs of young girls who had been exploited for their labor and/or for sex. I was able to see first hand the challenges of balancing our admissions and assistance programs and of balancing funding for life-sustaining assistance for refugees and conflict victims vs. investing in returnee reintegration where that is possible. In particular, I was a bit chagrined to see where education for refugees—one of my passions—could actually undercut the momentum for return, or even act as a magnet for new arrivals.
In Providence, I met staff dedicated to unraveling the myriad complexities facing newcomers each day. I ate lunch in a restaurant owned by a family of Cambodian refugees whose daughter is now in the National Guard. I visited a Liberian refugee woman longing for her children who remain in Africa, and met the owner of a small business who could not say enough about the work ethic of his refugee employees. As a result of all of this invaluable interaction and first-hand exposure to the problems of refugees and displaced persons, I can report to you that I am deeply impressed by the magnitude and complexity of PRM's work. Let me highlight some of the challenges that we face.
On September 11, 2001, I was a private American citizen who, like everyone, was overwhelmed by the magnitude of this violent attack on our country and concerned that our national security be restored quickly. While I read about the struggles of various agencies, I was unaware of the impact these heinous events had had on immigration to the United States.
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One small but important component of our overall immigration program—refugee admissions—involves several federal agencies but is coordinate and managed by PRM. For the five years prior to September 11, the program had averaged 75,000 admissions annually. That number dropped to 27,000 in FY 2002 and 28,000 in FY 2003 as new but necessary security requirements were put into place after 9-11. After struggling through two extraordinarily difficult years, through much hard work by PRM, the expansion of the addition of a few new positions in the Admissions Office and implementation of the Worldwide Refugee Admissions Processing System know as ''WRAPS'', the program rebounded and 53-54,000 refugees were admitted in both FY 2004 and 2005. We also must recognize the efforts of staff at our principal USG partners—US Citizenship and Immigration Services at DHS and the Office of Refugee Resettlement at HHS—as well as our NGO and IO partners both here and abroad who all helped make this recovery possible.
In addition to the focus on improving the Admissions program's security-related components, considerable attention has been given to expanding its reach to those most in need. We receive regular inputs from NGO and other partners on possible new caseloads—some of which have been evaluated during inter-agency visits to refugee locations—particularly in Africa. We have also redoubled our efforts to enhance UNHCR's capacity to identify and refer refugees for whom resettlement is the appropriate solution by supplementing its funding for this purpose. We expect at least 25,000 referrals from UNHCR this year for refugees in Africa and Asia alone.
It is the Administration's view that important national security interests and counter-terrorism efforts are not incompatible with our nation's historic role as the world's leader in refugee resettlement. While we must keep out terrorists, we can continue to provide safe haven to legitimate refugees. Due to national security imperatives, there have been recent changes to the law as well as to the process and we continue to work on ways to harmonize these two important policy interests. It was an important step to have moved forward on the ethnic Karen Burmese refugees in Thailand, and we are continuing to look at further steps necessary to ensuring the harmonization of national security interests with the refugee program.
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The precarious situation in Nepal is also affecting U.S. refugee admissions. We had hoped to have initiated by now a program for certain Tibetans as well as the sizeable population of Bhutanese who have been in camps there for fifteen years. We are watching developments in Nepal very closely and hope to be able to report progress on this important humanitarian initiative very soon.
The Administration remains deeply concerned about the hardships suffered by the North Korean people and the plight of those North Koreans who have fled their country in search of asylum. We have been working with other governments and refugee organizations to find ways to effectively deal with cases of individual North Korean asylum seekers as they arise. Consistent with the intent of the North Korean Human Rights Act, I am pleased to report that we recently have resettled some North Korean refugees in the U.S. However, as we highlighted in our October 2005 Report to Congress on the subject, many host governments are reluctant to allow us to process cases of North Korean asylum seekers on their territory. These countries facilitate the quiet transit of North Korean refugees to South Korea (nearly 1,400 in 2005; 449 so far in 2006), but they fear that USG involvement could disrupt this mechanism by generating unwanted publicity and complicating bilateral relations. Despite these concerns we are pleased to note that recently we were able to successfully resettle six North Koreans in the United States. In order to protect the integrity of this program, and because we do not normally comment on refugees, I cannot provide further details about where they came from and where they are being resettled. We would be happy to provide a classified briefing to share more information about our efforts in this area.
Mr. Chairman, we very much value and appreciate your leadership on refugee issues and I look forward to working closely with you during my tenure as Assistant Secretary. While we are focusing on Admissions issues today, as you know, there are many other aspects of this vital humanitarian undertaking that deserve attention. I know that the American taxpayers would be proud to learn about the great work that our government does for people in need worldwide and I plan to spare no effort in expanding their awareness. I would be happy to take your questions.
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Mr. SMITH OF NEW JERSEY. Thank you very much, Madam Secretary. Ms. Brand?
STATEMENT OF MS. RACHEL BRAND, ASSISTANT ATTORNEY GENERAL FOR THE OFFICE OF LEGAL POLICY, U.S. DEPARTMENT OF JUSTICE
Ms. BRAND. Thank you, Chairman Smith, Ranking Member Payne, and Members of the Subcommittee. I appreciate the opportunity to be here to testify today on behalf of the Department of Justice.
I have provided the Subcommittee with written testimony that goes into more detail on the issue of material support to terrorist organizations as it relates to the admission of refugees and also on the issue of training under the International Religious Freedom Act. I am going to focus now in my oral statement more on the material support issue.
The Attorney General has made clear that the first priority of the Department of Justice is protecting the American people from the threat of terrorism. At the same time, we strongly support continuing the great American tradition of serving as a safe haven for refugees from all around the world. These two goals do not have to be contradictory, and we are committed to ensuring that neither one of them is given short shrift.
The Department's counterterrorism efforts are, and must be, proactive. It is not enough to apprehend terrorists after they attack. We at the Department of Justice and throughout the government have an obligation to the American people to work to thwart terrorists' plans before they can be carried out. So, in addition to prosecuting those who commit acts of terrorism or those who plan acts of terrorism, we must also prosecute those who provide material support to terrorists.
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We know from experience that terrorists need infrastructure to operate. They need to raise funds, maintain bank accounts, transfer money, train personnel, communicate with each other, and procure equipment. The people who perform these functions may not be committing terrorist acts themselves, but the terrorists could not operate without them. The material support statutes are designed to shut down the flow of resources to terrorists and to terrorist organizations, and these statutes are critical to our overall counterterrorism strategy. Just as after-the-fact remedies are not sufficient in the criminal context, they are not sufficient in the immigration context either.
The legislative structure for admitting aliens to the United States has historically been preventive. These statutes serve a homeland security purpose by preventing the admission to the United States of aliens who pose a security risk to our country, even if their activities are not criminal under the narrower definitions in the criminal code and not prosecutable under the harder-to-prove burden of proof in the criminal context. Any actions we take with regard to admission of refugees, therefore, must not conflict with or undermine our counterterrorism strategy either by admitting persons who pose a security threat to this country, by complicating positions that the government takes in criminal litigation, or by sending inconsistent messages to the world about our policy against acts of terror. Having said that, as I mentioned previously, national security interests and counterterrorism efforts are not incompatible with the United States' tradition of welcoming immigrants and refugees.
The United States is, and always has been, a compassionate nation. Therefore, we continue to look at further steps that are necessary to ensure the harmonization of our national security interests and our obligation to protect refugees. Thank you, and I would be happy to take your questions.
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[The prepared statement of Ms. Brand follows:]
PREPARED STATEMENT OF MS. RACHEL BRAND, ASSISTANT ATTORNEY GENERAL FOR THE OFFICE OF LEGAL POLICY, U.S. DEPARTMENT OF JUSTICE
Dear Chairman Smith, Ranking Member Payne, and members of the Subcommittee:
Thank you for inviting me to testify on the subject of the admission of refugees who have provided material support to terrorist organizations as defined in the Immigration and Nationality Act (''INA'') and on the implementation of the training provisions of the International Religious Freedom Act of 1998. In major part, my testimony will address the material support issue, although I will briefly discuss the training implementation at the end of my remarks. As an initial matter, let me put the question of admission of refugees who have provided material support under the INA in context. Attorney General Gonzales has stated on many occasions that the fight against terrorism is the number one priority of the Department of Justice. Congress has contributed greatly to our successes, first with the enactment of, and then with the recent reauthorization of, the USA PATRIOT Act.
The Department's counter-terrorism efforts are proactive. Thus, in addition to prosecuting those who commit acts of terrorism or plan terrorist attacks, the Department prosecutes those who provide material support to terrorists. We know from experience that terrorists need an infrastructure to operate. They need to raise funds, maintain bank accounts and transfer money, communicate with each other, obtain travel documents, train personnel, and procure equipment. The people who perform these functions may not commit terrorist acts themselves, but the front-line terrorists could not operate without them. The material support statutes in the criminal and immigration contexts are designed to reach these individuals and shut down the terrorist infrastructure. Our fight against material support for terrorism is thus part and parcel of our overall counterterrorism strategy.
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With this in mind, we can more fully appreciate the interests at stake in considering the admission of refugees who have provided material support to a terrorist organization or an individual that has engaged in terrorist activity as defined in the INA. The United States is, of course, a compassionate nation. We are a nation of immigrants and a nation of refugees. In fact, I understand that the United States currently admits far more refugees each year than any other country. Having said that, we are also engaged in a long war against terrorism. Any actions we take with regard to the admission of refugees must not conflict with or undermine our counter-terrorism strategy-by admitting persons who pose a security threat to this country, by complicating positions the government takes in litigation, or by sending inconsistent messages to the world about our policy toward acts of terror. I do not mean to diminish the importance of admitting bone fide refugees into the United States. Rather, my goal is to explain the full scope of considerations at stake.
Just as we have a proactive counter-terrorism strategy, the existing legislative scheme for admissions is, and historically has been, preventive-that is, designed to prevent undesirable aliens from entering the United States. Congress strengthened that scheme in the USA PATRIOT and REAL ID Acts, with objective standards and a presumption against the admission of aliens involved with terrorist organizations or individuals engaged in terrorist activities. As you are aware, the INA now contains broad definitions of some relevant terms, particularly ''terrorist activity,'' ''engaged in terrorist activity'' (which includes provision of material support) and ''organization [that has engaged in terrorist activity]''.
The definitions are broad, however, for good reasons. They can be used for homeland security and immigration litigation purposes to prevent aliens who present risks to the United States or its citizens from entering or staying in the United States even if their activities are not criminal under the narrower definitions in the criminal code and not prosecutable under the harder-to-meet criminal burden of proof. They provide alternative courses of action positions for government authorities to protect U.S. citizens' safety in cases where the after-the-fact remedy of criminal prosecution is not sufficient.
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We recogmze that the breadth of these provisions may in some instances bar admission of individuals and groups who do not present such risks and to whom the United States is sympathetic. Congress addressed these concerns to some extent by providing the Secretaries of State and Homeland Security the authority to exercise their sole and unreviewable discretion, on a case-by-case basis, that the provision barring persons who have provided material support to terrorist organizations, as defined in the INA, does not apply to a particular alien. Exercising this authority would permit that alien to enter the United States so long as he met all other requirements for admission.
The law also requires that the relevant Secretary must consult with the other Secretary and the Attorney General. This scheme allows for the broadest consideration of all factors relevant to the case-the foreign policy considerations, the counter-terrorist strategy considerations, the immigration considerations, and the litigation risks. It properly includes the Department of State, the Department of Homeland Security, and the Department of Justice, each of which has an important, and different role, in protecting national security, promoting foreign policy, and implementing immigration law and refugee policy.
As you are aware, last week the Secretary of State did exercise her authority under the statute, after consultation with the Attorney General and Secretary of Homeland Security, to allow for admission of certain Karen refugees from the Tham Hin camp in Thailand, so long as they meet all other requirements for admission. Through the interagency process, the Attorney General was satisfied that the Karen National Union did not pose a threat to the United States and that exercising the statutory authority on the behalf of certain refugee applicants who provided material support to the KNU would not unduly compromise other U.S. government interests.
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In sum, it is the Administration's view that important national security interests and counter-terrorism efforts are not incompatible with our nation's historic role as the world's leader in refugee resettlement. While we must keep out terrorists, we can continue to provide safe haven to legitimate refugees. Due to national security imperatives, there have been recent changes to the law as well as to the process and we continue to work on ways to harmonize these two important policy interests. It was an important step to have moved forward on the ethnic Karen Burmese refugees in Thailand, and we are continuing to look at further steps necessary to ensuring the harmonization of national security interests with the refugee program.
With regard to the training required by International Religious Freedom Act of 1998 (IRFA), the Department is pleased to report that they have been fully implemented. Since enactment of IWA, the Executive Office for Immigration Review has completed the required training on religious persecution in accordance with the Act. For example, at this year's upcoming Immigration Judge training conference, the panel on religious freedom will include the Director for International Refugee Issues and the Deputy Director for Policy from the United States Commission on International Religious Freedom and a representative from the Office of International Religious Freedom from the State Department. A similar training was held in October 2005 for the Board of Immigration Appeals. Additionally, all staff is kept up to date on current asylum and refugee law by various means including coursework for incoming Immigration Judges, internet library updates, and relevant case law summaries.
In addition to the statutorily required training of Immigration Judges, the Civil Division's Office of Immigration Litigation (OIL) provides training of government personnel through conferences and seminars on immigration law that routinely address the statutory and regulatory provisions that govern asylum and refugee status. Last month, for example, at OIL'S Tenth Annual Immigration Litigation Conference, the program including presentations by the staff of the United States Commission on International Religious Freedom. Such training is available to all government personnel, including the staff and adjudicators of the Executive Office for Immigration Review and the Department of Homeland Security. OIL also provides training through websites, monthly bulletins, and case-specific counseling.
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Mr. Chairman, that concludes my prepared statement. I would be pleased to take the Subcommittee members' questions at this time.
Mr. SMITH OF NEW JERSEY. Thank you very much. Mr. Rosenzweig?
STATEMENT OF MR. PAUL ROSENZWEIG, ACTING ASSISTANT SECRETARY FOR POLICY DEVELOPMENT, U.S. DEPARTMENT OF HOMELAND SECURITY
Mr. ROSENZWEIG. Chairman Smith, Congressman Payne, Members of the Subcommittee, first, let me thank you for the opportunity to appear before you today to examine current issues related to the United States' protection and resettlement of refugees. I very much appreciate your attention to this important issue, and I want to assure you that the Department of Homeland Security is firmly committed to fulfilling its mission of providing protection to deserving refugees while also safeguarding our nation's security. Let me turn to some of the topics you have asked me to address.
The North Korean Human Rights Act of 2004 requires the United States Government to facilitate the filing of applications for refugee resettlement by North Korean citizens in need of protection abroad. DHS, through its component agency, the U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services, interviews North Korean refugee applicants granted access to the U.S. Refugee Admissions Program by the Department of State and adjudicates their eligibility for resettlement in the United States. We will begin that process for the recent refugees in the near future.
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In addition, the Asylum Division has fully implemented the asylum-related provisions of the act by issuing clarifying guidance to all of its asylum officers that they shall not automatically treat a North Korean national as also being a national of South Korea and by making corresponding changes in our training courses.
The International Religious Freedom of Act of 1998 mandates, as you said, Chairman, specialized training for refugee adjudicators, asylum officers, and any immigration officer working in the expedited removal context. With the creation of the Refugee Corps in the fall of 2005, USCIS has expanded and approved its previous training programs and developed a 3-week, refugee officer training course. During this course, students receive specialized instruction on religious persecution issues. The 5-week, asylum officer training course has also been expanded to incorporate information about the IRFA and specialized training on religious persecution issues, and continuing education on religious persecution is carried out on an as-needed basis at the local asylum offices during their weekly, 4-hour training sessions.
The U.S. Customs and Border Protection has also developed specialized training to ensure that all CBP officers in the expedited removal process understand the need for sensitivity in handling cases of individuals who claim a fear of persecution, including religious-based persecution. With the expansion of expedited removal between ports of entry, CBP developed specialized training for Border Patrol agents that provides an overview of the IRFA.
Additionally, in response to the recommendation of the U.S. Commission on International Religious Freedom in its report on asylum seekers and the credible fear process, the Department's Office of Civil Rights and Civil Liberties is developing a basic training program for immigration officers who interact with detained asylum seekers in expedited removal.
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The IRFA also created a new ground for inadmissibility for foreign government officials who have committed particularly severe violations of religious freedom. Implementation of this authority requires close coordination between the Department and the Department of State and is most often invoked by consular officers considering visa applications. In such cases, DHS enters the necessary information into its look-out system.
The creation in 2003 of the Enforcement Human Rights Violators and Public Safety Unit in our Immigration and Customs Enforcement component dedicates resources to preventing human rights abusers, including those who have committed violations of religious freedom, from finding safe haven in the United States.
In the context of maritime migration, one often hears about the ''wet foot/dry foot'' policy. This is not a policy, per se, but rather a shorthand description of the jurisdictional reach of the Immigration and Nationality Act, the INA. Migrants who make landfall in the United States, regardless of nationality, are eligible to seek asylum and other immigration benefits that migrants who remain offshore may not seek. As a matter of policy, the United States Government affords migrants interdicted at sea an opportunity to seek and receive protection from persecution or torture.
The ''wet foot/dry foot'' distinction does not flow from the Cuban Adjustment Act or the so-called Cuban Migration Accords. The act and the accords merely set forth the immigration law consequences of a feet wet or feet dry determination. The Adjustment Act itself is what allows Cubans to apply for lawful permanent residence 1 year after being admitted or paroled, and the Migration Accords facilitate lawful migration from Cuba and repatriation of Cuban migrants intercepted at sea.
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Aliens who provide material support to individuals or organizations that engage in terrorist activity are inadmissible to the United States. The INA defines terrorist activity quite broadly, and the definition of ''terrorist organization'' refers not only to officially designated, organized groups but also to one or more individuals who engaged in terrorist activity. The INA contains a provision under which the Secretary of Homeland Security or the Secretary of State, acting in consultation with each other and with the Attorney General, may determine that the terrorism inapplicability provision does not apply in certain cases.
Extensive interagency consultation recently culminated in an agreement for the Secretary of State to exercise her discretionary authority to not apply the material support inadmissibility provisions to certain Burmese Karen refugees of the Tham Hin camp in Thailand who provided material support to the Karen National Union and its armed wing, the Karen National Liberation Army. Both groups qualify as terrorist organizations under the expanded inadmissibility provisions of the INA. These refugees have, however, been identified as a population of special humanitarian concern to the United States, and the decision to exercise the material support inapplicability provision is based upon our collective assessment that this exercise of discretion serves U.S. foreign policy interests and will not compromise our national security.
I agree with Secretary Sauerbrey and Assistant Attorney General Brand that this was an important step to move forward on the ethnic Karen Burmese refugees in Thailand, and we are continuing to look at further steps necessary to ensure that we rationalize and harmonize our national security interests with our refugee program.
I thank you for the opportunity to speak with you today, and I look forward to answering your questions.
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[The prepared statement of Mr. Rosenzweig follows:]
PREPARED STATEMENT OF MR. PAUL ROSENZWEIG, ACTING ASSISTANT SECRETARY FOR POLICY DEVELOPMENT, U.S. DEPARTMENT OF HOMELAND SECURITY
Chairman Smith, Ranking Member Payne and Members of the Subcommittee on Africa, Global Human Rights and International Operations: I would like to thank you for the opportunity to appear before you today as you examine current issues related to the United States' protection and settlement of refugees. I appreciate the Subcommittee's attention to this important issue, and I would like to assure Members of the Subcommittee that the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) is steadfastly committed to fulfilling its mission of providing protection to deserving refugees while safeguarding our Nation's security.
I now would like to turn to the specific issues that the Subcommittee listed in its invitation for this hearing.
IMPLEMENTATION OF THE REFUGEE PROVISIONS OF THE NORTH KOREAN HUMAN RIGHTS ACT OF 2004
The North Korean Human Rights Act of 2004 requires the U.S. Government to facilitate the filing of applications for refugee resettlement by North Korean citizens in need of protection abroad. DHS, through its component agency, U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS), plays an important role in adjudicating eligibility for refugee resettlement. DHS interviews North Korean refugee applicants granted access to the United States Refugee Admissions Program by the Department of State and adjudicates these applicants' eligibility for resettlement in the United States.
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In addition, the USCIS Asylum Division fully implemented the asylum-related provisions of the North Korean Human Rights Act in October 2004, the same month the legislation became effective. In accordance with Section 302 of the Act, which provides that asylum applicants from North Korea are not to be rendered ineligible for asylum in the United States on account of ''any legal right to citizenship they may enjoy under the Constitution of the Republic of Korea,'' (Section 302(a)), the Asylum Division issued clarifying guidance that Asylum Officers shall not automatically treat a national of North Korea as also being a national of South Korea. In addition, in accordance with Section 305 of the Act, which requires DHS to report annually for the next five years ''the number of aliens who are nationals or citizens of North Korea who applied for political asylum and the number who were granted political asylum,'' the Asylum Division established a new protocol for entering nationality and country codes into its case management system to clearly differentiate between North and South Korean citizens. The Asylum Division has also made corresponding changes to its Asylum Officer Basic Training Course.
IMPLEMENTATION OF THE TRAINING PROVISIONS MANDATED BY THE INTERNATIONAL RELIGIOUS FREEDOM ACT OF 1998
Several sections of Title VI of the International Religious Freedom Act of 1998 (IRFA) mandate training on international religious freedom issues for various DHS officers. Specialized training is required for refugee adjudicators (section 602), asylum officers (section 603), and any immigration officers working in the expedited removal context (section 603).
Training of USCIS Refugee Adjudicators
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IRFA amended Section 207 of the Immigration and Nationality Act (INA) to require that USCIS ''provide all United States officials adjudicating refugee cases under this section with the same training as that provided to officers adjudicating asylum cases under section 208.'' The training must include ''country-specific conditions, instruction on the internationally recognized right to freedom of religion, instruction on methods of religious persecution practiced in foreign countries, and applicable distinctions within a country between the nature of and treatment of various religious practices and believers.''
To comply with IRFA, USCIS considered various long-term and short-term solutions for ensuring that all Immigration Officers who adjudicate refugee applications receive training equivalent to that of Asylum Officers. Asylum Officers usually receive approximately five weeks of specialized training related to U.S. asylum law, international human rights law, non-adversarial interview techniques, and other relevant national and international refugee laws and principles. As an interim measure, selected overseas Immigration Officers attended the Asylum Officer Basic Training Course in October of 1999 and May of 2000. After careful evaluation, the Office of International Affairs determined that the differences between asylum and refugee processing were significant and that a specialized training program was needed to train personnel for refugee adjudications. This resulted in the development of the Refugee Application Adjudication Course (RAAC), first held in Vienna, Austria in July–August 2001, and repeated twice in the spring of 2002.
Most recently, with the creation of the Refugee Corps and hiring of full-time Headquarters staff dedicated to refugee adjudications in the fall of 2005, the refugee training was again expanded and improved. New refugee officers must successfully complete the Refugee Officer Training Course to conduct overseas refugee adjudications. The course consists of in-depth training on refugee law, and much of the material is drawn from the Asylum Officer Basic Training Course. This three-week training covers all grounds, including religion, on which a refugee claim may be based, and involves specialized training on international human rights law, non-adversarial interview techniques, and other relevant national and international refugee laws and principles. During the training, students receive specialized instruction on religious persecution issues. For example, as part of the last two sessions, members of the United States Commission on International Religious Freedom (CIRF) conducted presentations on IRFA. In addition, the training encourages further discussion of religious persecution whenever possible. USCIS has updated the primary lesson plan to reflect recent guidelines issued by the Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) on religious persecution claims, as well as recent developments in refugee law. More than 30 officers have completed the training to date.
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In addition, USCIS provides preparatory training to volunteer officers who are embarking on short-term overseas assignments for refugee adjudications. This ''circuit ride'' training includes detailed information on religious topics that will be encountered during the overseas assignment and, like the training, encourages further discussion of religious persecution whenever possible.
Training of USCIS Asylum Officers
USCIS also provides extensive training to Asylum Officers to prepare them to perform their duties of adjudicating asylum claims. As previously noted, the training covers all grounds on which an asylum claim may be based, including religion. Asylum Officers receive approximately five weeks of specialized training related to international human rights law, non-adversarial interview techniques, and other relevant national and international refugee laws and principles.
With the passage of IRFA, the training program expanded to incorporate information about IRFA, as well as specialized training on religious persecution issues. The lesson on religious persecution includes an overview of IRFA with a focus on the provisions relating to refugee, asylum, and consular matters, a discussion of violations of religious freedom as identified in IRFA, an examination of legal precedent regarding asylum eligibility based on religious persecution, and an overview of resources on country conditions relating to religious freedom. The lesson plan is updated regularly to include developments in policy and case law and has incorporated UNHCR's guidelines on the adjudication of religious-based protection claims issued in April 2004. Further discussion of religious persecution is included whenever relevant throughout the five-week training. Additionally, continuing education on religious persecution is carried out at the local asylum offices during their mandatory four-hour weekly training sessions. Most recently, the Asylum Division and the Office of the Chief Counsel initiated efforts to conduct updated training on IRFA and religious persecution for USCIS Asylum Officers. This collaborative effort will be piloted in the one of the field offices and will then be conducted in the other Asylum Offices.
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Training of Customs and Border Protection (CBP) Officers
Section 603 of IRFA mandates training of immigration officers working in the expedited removal context concerning the nature of religious persecution abroad and the right to freedom of religion. CBP has developed standardized training, as part of its larger asylum/credible fear training, in order to comply with IRFA's guidelines.
CBP designed a comprehensive and standardized basic training course for secondary processing by inspectors. The training includes a module on ''Referring Credible Fear Cases,'' and is presented to CBP officers at the Federal Law Enforcement Training Center who will be working on Advanced Admissibility Teams. This hour-long training, which was first presented in January 2006, has been provided to 200 CBP officers to date. This course was designed to ensure that all officers who may be involved in the expedited removal/credible fear process under INA section 235(b) understand the need for sensitivity in handling the cases of individuals who claim a fear of persecution, including persecution based on religion. The module has also been added into the curriculum a new CBP officer receives during basic training at the academy.
Prior to the expansion of expedited removal to certain aliens apprehended between ports of entry, CBP developed specialized training for Border Patrol agents on expedited removal and the credible fear process. This training was based on earlier programs developed for CBP inspectors and benefited from the lessons learned by DHS in implementing the expedited removal program at the ports of entry. The Border Patrol training explains that while expedited removal grants Border Patrol the authority to formally remove certain aliens from the United States without further hearing or review, this authority also carries with it the critical responsibility of identifying those individuals who have invoked access to protection mechanisms through an expression of fear or intention to apply for asylum and thus require a credible fear interview by an Asylum Officer. CBP relies on USCIS Asylum Officers to present to Border Patrol agents the credible fear portion of the expedited removal syllabus. Border Patrol training also provides an overview of IRFA.
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Additionally, throughout the training, Border Patrol agents are taught not to attempt to evaluate the credibility or probity of the alien's claim, but are trained to take special care to ensure that every indication of fear of return is explored and recorded before proceeding. In the expedited removal context, Border Patrol agents are responsible for ensuring that anyone who indicates an intention to apply for asylum, or expresses a fear of persecution, a fear of torture, or a fear of returning to his or her country is referred to an asylum officer. The mandatory closing questions contained on Form I–867B are designed to help the agent determine whether the alien has such a fear. If an alien asserts a fear or concern that appears unrelated to an intention to seek asylum or a fear of persecution, the agent is taught to consult with an asylum officer to determine whether to refer the alien. Agents are taught to err on the side of caution and refer to the asylum officer any questionable cases.
ASYLUM OVERVIEW TRAINING FOR DHS IMMIGRATION OFFICERS
The Office for Civil Rights and Civil Liberties within DHS is currently developing a basic training Asylum Overview Course, which will be provided on-line or through CD–ROM to a range of immigration officers who interact with asylum seekers. This includes officers and staff in detention facilities and CBP officers and Border Patrol agents in the expedited removal context.
The training will address a recommendation of the CIRF in its Report on Asylum Seekers in Expedited Removal, issued in February 2005. The CIRF recommendation was that DHS ensure that personnel in institutions where asylum seekers are detained are given specialized training to better understand and work with a population of asylum seekers, many of whom may be psychologically vulnerable due to the conditions from which they are fleeing.
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Having completed the course, DHS immigration officers will be able to: explain the U.S. Government's responsibilities to asylum seekers; identify common characteristics of asylum seekers; recognize behaviors that may be responses to persecution; and identify effective strategies to facilitate communication with asylum seekers.
The course will be designed to assist DHS personnel in carrying out their law enforcement duties in a way that is mindful of U.S. obligations toward asylum seekers.
INADMISSIBILITY PROVISION FOR FOREIGN GOVERNMENT OFFICIALS WHO HAVE COMMITTED PARTICULARLY SEVERE VIOLATIONS OF RELIGIOUS FREEDOM
Section 604 of IRFA created a new ground of inadmissibility applicable to foreign government officials who have committed particularly severe violations of religious freedom. The applicability of this charge was enhanced with the passage of the Intelligence Reform and Terrorism Prevention Act in December 2004. This Act eliminated the requirement that the prohibited activity must have occurred within two years of entry.
Because this inadmissibility ground applies to foreign government officials, the implementation of this authority requires close coordination between DHS and the Department of State. This authority is most often invoked at the time of consideration of a visa application by Department of State consular officials posted overseas. For example, DHS worked in conjunction with the Department of State, Office of International Religious Freedom to prevent the issuance of a visa to the Chief Minister of the State of Gujarat, India in March 2005. That individual was inadmissible under the IRFA provision because he failed to stop or prevent the deaths of 2,500 Muslims during religious riots in 2002. In cases in which there is credible evidence to suspect applicability of this ground of inadmissibility, DHS enters the information into the lookout system.
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The Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) Human Rights Violators and Public Safety Unit within the Office of Investigations and of the Human Rights Law Division within the ICE Office of the Principal Legal Advisor provides DHS with dedicated resources to prevent human rights abusers from finding safe haven in the United States, including those who have committed violations of religious freedom. In April, ICE held a Human Rights Conference to provide training to 130 attorneys and special agents designated nationwide to handle cases involving persecutors and human rights abusers. Discussions regarding the legal authorities available to assist in the removal of human rights abusers from the United States included an overview of the inadmissibility ground for foreign government officials who have committed particularly severe violations of religious freedom.
IMPLEMENTATION OF ''WET FOOT/DRY FOOT'' POLICY
The ''wet foot / dry foot'' policy describes the jurisdictional reach of certain provisions of the INA, namely provisions that define who is treated as an applicant for admission to the United States. Migrants that make landfall in the United States, regardless of nationality, are eligible to seek asylum and other immigration benefits that migrants who remain offshore may not seek. So, when people speak about changing the ''wet foot / dry foot'' policy, they are actually speaking about changing the way in which the U.S. government interprets and enforces the law.
In 1993, the U.S. Supreme Court held that neither the protection-related provisions of the INA nor Article 33 of the Refugee Convention apply extra-territorially. As a matter of policy, however, the US Government affords migrants interdicted at sea an opportunity to seek and receive protection from persecution or torture. If after an interview at-sea a USCIS officer determines that an interdicted migrant has a credible fear of persecution or torture, DHS transports that migrant to its facilities in Guantanamo Bay for further screening and evaluation. If the migrant is then determined not to be at risk of harm, the migrant may be repatriated to his country of nationality. If, however, the migrant is determined to be in need of protection, he may be resettled in a third country. Migrants interdicted at sea are not brought to the United States, in keeping with the overall U.S. Government policy of preserving lives by discouraging migrant smuggling and dangerous sea travel, while encouraging safe, orderly, and legal migration.
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The ''wet foot / dry foot'' distinction does not flow from the Cuban Adjustment Act of 1966 or the so-called Cuban Migration Accords. The Cuban Adjustment Act allows Cuban nationals who have been present in the United States for at least one year after admission or parole and who are admissible as immigrants to apply for lawful permanent residence (LPR) status. The reason Cuban migrants are not returned to their country of nationality upon arriving in the U.S.—as is the case with illegal migrants of other nationalities—is because the Castro regime will not accept their return. As a consequence, these migrants are eligible for lawful permanent resident status under the Cuban Adjustment Act.
STATUS OF PROCEDURES FOR WAIVER OF INADMISSIBILITY FOR ''MATERIAL SUPPORT'' AND THE GENERAL LEVEL OF REFUGEE FUNDING
Under Section 212(a)(3) of the INA, aliens who provide material support to individuals or organizations that engage in terrorist activity are inadmissible to the United States. The INA defines terrorist activity to include, among other things, any use of explosives, firearms, or other weapons or dangerous device with intent to endanger the safety of individuals or to cause substantial damage to property, except when done for personal monetary gain. The definition of terrorist organization refers not only to organized groups officially designated as such by the U.S. Government, but also to one or more individuals engaged in terrorist activity (so-called ''Tier III'' terrorist or undesignated organizations). The law provides no exception for motivation, and thus the statutory definition could include groups that are engaged in opposition to repressive regimes.
The INA does contain a discretionary exemption to the material support inadmissibility provision. Under this provision, the Secretary of Homeland Security or the Secretary of State, in consultation with each other and with the Attorney General, is empowered to make an unreviewable discretionary determination that the terrorism inadmissibility provision does not apply with respect to material support an alien has afforded to an organization or individual.
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Extensive consultations among DHS and the Departments of State and Justice recently culminated in the Secretary of State exercising her discretionary authority to not apply the material support inadmissibility provision to one group of refugees identified in