The group responsible for helping resettle Soviet Jews in the United States reacted with tempered praise Wednesday to an imminent Bush administration proposal to increase the U.S. quota on Soviet refugees.
“I am delighted in the direction they are moving,” said Karl Zukerman, executive vice president of HIAS, the Hebrew Immigrant Aid Society.
He was responding to a White House announcement Wednesday that President Bush will ask Congress for an additional $85 million this fiscal year to help resettle Soviet refugees.
The proposal, which is expected to be submitted to Congress shortly, also would request $15 million to help reduce refugee backlogs in other countries, according to White House spokesman Marlin Fitzwater.
Fitzwater said the administration was not yet proposing how many additional refugees could enter the United States with those funds. That would come in negotiations with Congress, he said.
Zukerman refrained from giving full-blown endorsement to the plan until the administration says how much of the $85 million will help Soviet Jews, including the split between expenditures for processing and resettlement.
Congress and Jewish groups have been pressuring the administration to increase funding and quotas for Soviet Jews.
They estimate that as many as 40,000 will want to leave the Soviet Union this year. But the United States has only earmarked 25,000 slots for Soviet refugees so far.
19,000 WAITING IN MOSCOW
The Bush administration is also proposing to increase the number of Immigration and Naturalization Service processing officials in Moscow from two to six. The number in Rome would grow from five to seven, Fitzwater said.
Soviet Jews will benefit mainly from the increase in Rome, where most of them are processed, Zukerman said, while the increase in Moscow will primarily help Armenians. Of the 13,000 Soviets currently waiting to be processed at the U.S. Embassy in Moscow, roughly 1,000 to 1,500 are Jews, he said.
Fitzwater said 14,200 Soviet refugees have been admitted so far this fiscal year from the Soviet Union. An additional 19,000 refugees are waiting in Moscow to leave, and 7,000 are already in Rome.
The U.S. proposals were first revealed Tuesday by Secretary of State James Baker, during testimony before the House Appropriations subcommittee on foreign operations. Baker testified before the Senate counterpart to that committee Wednesday, and heard criticism of U.S. refugee policy.
Sen. Patrick Leahy (D-Vt.), the subcommittee chairman, told Baker, “We have probably reached a point where it makes sense to go back and totally look at how our quotas are set up.”
Sen. Robert Kasten (R-Wis.) said, “Sometime in April, we are going to run out of money in each of the places (Moscow and Rome). We have got people backed up for five and six weeks of processing in Rome.”
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