The United States has continued to play its traditional role of safehaven
for those who flee or are forced to flee their homes because of persecution
or war. During 1980, the United States provided resettlement opportunities
for 216,000 refugees from countries around the globe. In addition, the
United States joined with other nations to provide relief to refugees in
country of first asylum in Africa, the Middle East, and Asia.
The great majority of refugee admissions continued to be from Indo-china.
During 1980, 168,000 Indo-chinese were resettled in the United States.
Although refugee populations persist in camps in Southeast Asia, and
refugees continue to flee Vietnam, Laos and Kampuchea, the flow is not as
great as in the past. One factor in reducing the flow from Vietnam has been
the successful negotiation and commencement of an Orderly Departure Program
which permits us to process Vietnamese for resettlement in the United
States with direct departure from Ho Chi Minh Ville in an orderly fashion.
The first group of 250 departed Vietnam for the United States in December,
1980.
In addition to the refugees admitted last year, the United States accepted
for entry into the United States 125,000 Cubans who were expelled by Fidel
Castro. Federal and state authorities, as well as private voluntary
agencies, responded with unprecedented vigor to coping with the unexpected
influx of Cubans.
Major relief efforts to aid refugees in countries of first asylum continued
in several areas of the world. In December, 1980, thirty-two nations,
meeting in New York City, agreed to contribute $65 million to the
continuing famine relief program in Kampuchea. Due in great part to the
generosity of the American people and the leadership exercised in the
international arena by the United States, we have played the pivotal role
in ameliorating massive suffering in Kampuchea.
The United States has taken the lead among a group of donor countries who
are providing relief to some two million refugees in the Horn of Africa who
have been displaced by fighting in Ethiopia. U.S. assistance, primarily to
Somalia, consists of $35 million worth of food and $18 million in cash and
kind. Here again, United States efforts can in large part be credited with
keeping hundreds of thousands of people alive.
Another major international relief effort has been mounted in Pakistan. The
United States is one of 25 countries plus the European Economic Community
who have been helping the Government of Pakistan to cope with the problem
of feeding and sheltering the more than one million refugees that have been
generated by the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan.
In April, 1980, the Congress passed the Refugee Act of 1980 which brought
together, for the first time, in one piece of legislation the various
threads of U.S. policy towards refugees. The law laid down a new, broader
definition of the term refugee, established mechanisms for arriving at a
level of refugee admissions through consultation with Congress, and
established the Office of the United States Coordinator for Refugees.
It cannot be ignored that the destructive and aggressive policies of the
Soviet Union have added immeasurably to the suffering in these three tragic
situations.