September
11 A Year Later Security concerns stymie refugee resettlement
By PATRICIA LEFEVERE
New York
When hijackers cut down the lives of some 3,000 persons in New
York, Washington and Pennsylvania on Sept. 11, they also cut short the dreams
of thousands of refugees once destined to experience freedom from terror,
torture, famine, war and persecution within the borders of the United
States.
Security concerns in the wake of the terrorist attacks have
stranded thousands of refugees in squalid camps and overcrowded urban
safe houses. Dreams of being reunited with family members already
in this country were dashed last autumn for some 22,000 refugees -- already in
the pipeline for resettlement in this country -- as the U.S. government vowed
to use every legal means to prevent further terrorist activity.
At the start of the 2002 fiscal year on Oct. 1, 2001, President
Bush failed to sign the Presidential Determination that allows an
allotted number of refugees to enter the United States. The virtual moratorium
lasted until Nov. 21 when Bush issued an order allowing 70,000 to be resettled
in fiscal 2002, 10,000 less than the number set in 2001.
But with barely a month of the current fiscal year remaining, only
20,414 refugees have been permitted to enter. Mark Franken, who directs
migration and refugee services for the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops,
called the slowdown extremely serious.
It is particularly desperate for women and others in
Afghanistan who had been cleared for entry prior to Sept. 11, 2001. They
are virtually walking around with a tattoo on their forehead, announcing that
they were headed for the United States, Franken told NCR.
The Catholic church has resettled one-third of the 2.65 million
refugees who have come to Americas shores since 1975. The bishops
migration and refugee services office works through 106 dioceses to receive and
place refugees. Most diocesan reception and placement programs receive an
annual budget from the U.S. Catholic bishops conference. The refugee work
of the bishops office, in turn, is largely funded by the State
Department.
Women and children comprise the majority of the worlds 12
million refugees and 5.3 million internally displaced persons. Besides being
homeless, many of them face physical and sexual assaults both within and
outside the camps. Refugee women have testified that many times their husbands
have become despondent and sometimes violent when unable to provide for their
families. Some refugee women, without jobs and with little education, have
resorted to prostitution in order to meet their childrens most basic
needs.
Traditionally, the United States resettles the largest number of
refugees, followed by European states, Canada and other nations. But in the
aftermath of Sept. 11, Britain, Germany and Australia tightened their
immigration laws, and Denmark -- once a haven for refugees -- also adopted
stricter asylum regulations.
The terrorist attacks must not be used as an excuse by states to
turn their backs on or to shirk their international obligation to protect those
fleeing terror and persecution, said Jesuit Fr. Lluis Magrina, the Rome-based
international director of Jesuit Refugee Service. Anti-terrorism legislation
approved in the United States since Sept. 11 has allowed for prolonged
detention with limited judicial review of non-citizens, he said,
including refugees and asylum seekers.
Refugees languish
Refugees find themselves in a Catch-22, said Auxiliary
Bishop Thomas Wenski of Miami. The Immigration and Naturalization Service
is not going into areas of high security risk, but thats where
theyre going to find most refugees, he told NCR.
Wenski, who heads the bishops Committee on Migration, and
Cardinal Theodore McCarrick of Washington, underscored their concerns at a
meeting with Attorney General John Ashcroft last December.
Refugees now languish in limbo, striving to survive day by day in
habitats that are often hostile with inadequate food, water and medicine. Their
hope is being diminished, said Franken, who also attended the
meeting.
Americans are rightly concerned that the INS has
safeguards in place to screen people whod come here to harm
us, he said. Revelations that the INS issued visas to terrorists after
they had died have embarrassed the agency and increased public anxiety.
But youd have to be a pretty dumb terrorist to use the
refugee program to get into the United States. Refugees are already the most
screened of any immigrants arriving, Franken said.
Before being X-rayed, fingerprinted and photographed to pass the
State Departments security check, applicants for asylum need to undergo
an extensive interview to see whether they qualify for refugee status. If the
refugee has family in the United States, he or she must file an affidavit of
relationship. An agency must be found to sponsor the refugee, and the local
relative must be notified before the refugee can enter the country.
Previously the State Department relied on the United Nations High
Commissioner for Refugees to assess applicants. However, the commissioner lacks
sufficient infrastructure worldwide for the United States to depend on it.
Franken said that since February the INS has been sending its officers to do
on-site interviews in camps and holding areas, often in dangerous countries,
thus further slowing the flow.
Even before Sept. 11, Franken observed a kind of
disconnect between the political will to resettle refugees and the
mechanism needed to identify and process those eligible for entry. Part of the
bureaucratic maze has occurred because those processing the refugees have
not yet adjusted to the new world order, he said.
Previous refugees came chiefly from Southeast Asia or the former
Soviet states. Now millions have had to flee or have been displaced from their
homes by conflicts in Afghanistan, Burundi, Colombia and Congo, prompting the
State Department to examine not only individuals, but also the facility where
they were first adjudicated and held.
Franken has yet to see what he called the presidential
heightened awareness list.
No one can get this list, he said. He
said he presumes it includes countries in the Middle East, the Near East and
probably Cuba and North Korea. To date 43 percent of the refugees resettled in
the United States this year have come from Russia, the majority of them
Catholics, Jews and Pentecostals who fled religious persecution.
The State Department seems willing to look at alternative
gatekeepers now that it is no longer depending exclusively on the U.N.
commissioner for refugees. Recently Franken brokered negotiations between the
State Department and the International Catholic Migration Commission and Jesuit
Refugee Service. He serves on the governing board of the International Catholic
Migration Commission, based in Geneva, Switzerland.
Half century of service
Because of its half century of service to refugees in some 40
nations, the State Department long ago designated the International Catholic
Migration Commission as the fiscal and administrative supervisor of the Refugee
Data Center in Manhattan. According to Livia Farkas, who has directed the
office and its 34 employees since 1977, the center will close at the end of
August and be moved to Roslyn, Va., where it will be nearer to the State
Department. It will be run there by Computer Science Corporation, a contractor
to the federal government.
In an Aug. 6 meeting with Michael McKinley, assistant secretary of
state with the State Departments Bureau of Population, Refugees and
Migration, Franken raised the issue of the centers closing and of not
knowing when the new center will open. Franken is particularly concerned that
meetings that occurred at the center every Wednesday over the past 23 years
will end. Representatives from 10 religious and secular voluntary agencies
gathered weekly to review recently received refugee cases and determine which
agency would resettle each applicant.
Yet again this shows mismanagement. This was an avoidable
delay, Franken said. Since learning two years ago that the center would
shut down in 2002, the collective agencies wrote to the State Department asking
that it create continuity. But they blew us off.
Franken said he is befuddled and wonders whether it is
ignorance or lack of will that has so threatened the future for
refugees. It doesnt take a genius to see that if you have a
disruption of services, you must have an alternative in place to avoid a
complete shutdown of the flow.
The Rev. Keith D. Ingle, who heads Lutheran Social Services of
North Dakota, is convinced that nothing is going to change. It
doesnt serve the Bush administration to do anything. Refugee totals
are the lowest theyve been in 15 years, he told NCR. Three years
ago, the Dakota agency resettled 600 refugees -- including many so-called
lost boys from Sudan. Last year its numbers fell to 282. The agency
has been sent only 37 placements so far this year.
While most new immigrants are students and business people,
the INS has no good handle on how to control them. The one small piece of
the immigration flow they can control is refugees, Ingle said.
Thats why we wont see it opening up.
Ingle compared the governments failure to meet even half of
its goal of 70,000 refugees by Sept. 30 to the equivalent to sending
lifeboats with empty seats away from a sinking ship.
Our country has the
opportunity to rescue 0.5 percent of the worlds refugees and offer them
hope for a new life, he said.
Recently Congress held hearings on the refugee crisis, referring
to the hearing by Ingles term: empty seats on the lifeboat.
Still the ordained minister of the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America is
pessimistic that anything will be forthcoming. Sen. Ted Kennedy, D-Mass., who
heads the judiciary committee, has his heart in it, but hes one of
the dying dinosaurs of liberalism, Ingle said. While the lone congressman
from Dakota is supportive, refugees are not the highest priority of any
politician.
Ingle, a 25-year veteran of refugee work for the church across the
nation, said he believes that if the economy improves and there are no more
terrorist incidents, the numbers of refugees admitted to the United States will
rise. Its a cycle. Whether it goes up in one year or five, we
dont know. But if the numbers keep falling, he said he would be
forced to cut his staff from 10 to two or three.
Assuming the risk
Similar problems are facing other refugee organizations, though
not Catholic ones, Franken said. Unlike agencies that fund on a per capita
basis, we assume the risk nationally. For the most part, he said,
the Catholic network has been sustained by specific government funding
considerations. But no one knows what will happen in 2003. Were holding
our breath.
Franken pointed to his recent meeting with McKinley as a reason
for hope. Franken said McKinley is personally and professionally
committed to make it happen.
Although the governments overarching concern since
Sept. 11 is security, the Catholic bishops are convinced that we
can have both security and an increased flow of refugees, Franken said.
To that end, representatives of the bishops migration committee have been
urging members of Congress to speed refugee entry and family reunification. The
bishops are advocating that the refugee slots not filled by Oct. 1 be added to
the number authorized for the following 12 months.
If that happens, it could well mean 105,000 to 115,000 refugees
needing resettlement in fiscal 2003. But its a task Catholic agencies are
prepared for, Franken said. He noted that in 1980 the church found places for
more than 132,000 persons during the emergency exodus of Vietnamese boat
people that followed the Vietnam War.
Given the millions of refugees and the resources of this
country, we should be able to do it, said Wenski.
At a glance
Security concerns following the terrorist attacks of Sept. 11
have stranded thousands of refugees who were waiting for resettlement in the
United States, many to reunite with family members already in this country.
After nearly a two-month moratorium on allowing refugees to enter, President
Bush issued an order allowing 70,000 to be resettled in the 2002 fiscal year.
But with barely a month left before the order expires Sept. 30, only 20,414
refugees have been permitted to enter.
The slowdown of the already difficult asylum process has left
refugees in limbo, surviving in camps with inadequate food, water and medicine,
and threats of violence.
Changes in the process of assessing applicants have further
slowed the flow. The State Department no longer relies exclusively on the
United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees to assess applicants on-site.
Since February, the Immigration and Naturalization Service has sent its own
officers to conduct interviews in camps and holding areas. In addition, the New
York office of the Refugee Data Center was closed in August to be moved to
Virginia, closer to the State Department but no reopening date has been
set.
Refugees by the numbers
Number of refugees worldwide: 12 million
Number
of internally displaced worldwide: 5.3 million
Ceiling on number
of refugees allowed to enter the United States in fiscal year 2001:
80,000
Refugees resettled in the United States in fiscal year
2001: 68,426
Ceiling on number of refugees set for fiscal year
2002 (ends Sept. 30): 70,000
Resettled to date in fiscal year
2002: 20,414
Related Web sites
Immigration and Naturalization
Service www.ins.usdoj.gov
International Catholic Migration
Commission www.icmc.net
Jesuit Refugee
Service www.jesref.org
Lutheran Social Services of North
Dakota www.lssnd.org
State Department Bureau of Population,
Refugees and Migration www.state.gov/g/prm
U.N. High
Commissioner for Refugees www.unhcr.ch
U.S. Catholic
bishops Office of Migration and Refugee
Services www.usccb.org/mrs
National Catholic Reporter, September 6,
2002
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