New Soviet Regulations Scare Prospective Emigres: U.S. Official

A State Department official predicted Wednesday that within a year Soviet Jewish emigration “may start dropping again and the Soviets will be able to say, correctly, that there is no backlog of unprocessed applications.”

Richard Schifter, Assistant Secretary of State for Human Rights and Humanitarian Affairs, warned that despite the recent relaxation of Soviet emigration curbs on Jews, Moscow has announced new policies which are “scaring off prospective applicants” for emigration.

The Kremlin’s eventual goal is to end Jewish emigration entirely, Schifter told a meeting of the National Commission of the Anti-Defamation League of B’nai B’rith at the Grand Hyatt Hotel here. He said that despite the atmosphere of “glasnost” (openness) in the Soviet Union and the fact that 871 Jews were allowed to leave in May, the highest monthly total since 1982, “there is no evidence of a significant change in the status of Jews as second-class citizens.”

The new Soviet policies, according to Schifter, are apparently aimed at allowing most of the estimated more than 10,000 refuseniks to leave the country while discouraging new applications. Refuseniks are those Soviet Jews who have applied for–and been denied–permission to leave the country before the new decree on emigration went into effect Jan. 1, 1987.

Under the new decree, he noted, applicants for exit visas are limited to persons who are sponsored by spouses, parents, children or siblings abroad. “Publication of the new decree was greeted with a great deal of dismay by many of those concerned with the cause of Soviet Jewry,” he said. Schifter told the ADL leaders that the U.S. has learned that applicants who have sponsorship from close relatives abroad have been told they would not be allowed to emigrate without the consent of all siblings who remain in the Soviet Union, including their spouse’s brothers and sister.