Senate Approves $75 Million Extra for 18,500 More Soviet Refugees

The Senate has approved a $75 million appropriation to help bring an additional 18,500 Soviet refugees to the United States this fiscal year.

The sum of money, adopted by the full Senate Thursday as part of a package approved by the Senate Appropriations Committee, is identical to a supplemental appropriation approved May 24 by the House of Representatives.

The $75 million is expected to clear the next stage of the legislative process, a House-Senate conference committee, assuming the Senate approves the 1989 fiscal year emergency supplemental appropriations bill, which it may do this week. The House already has approved the bill.

Most of the $75 million would go to the Hebrew Immigrant Aid Society and the American Jewish Joint Distribution Committee for processing, transportation and initial resettlement of Soviet Jews.

The additional funds were needed because Soviet Jewish emigration in the 1989 fiscal year, which began Oct. 1, has greatly exceeded administration projections.

Last year, the administration set the 1989 fiscal year Soviet refugee quota around 20,000, a figure Congress accepted. Congress then appropriated enough funds to cover the costs of processing just that number.

Jewish groups have been battling all year to win additional funds for Soviet refugees, as well as for an increase in the refugee quota.

$22 MILLION FOR RESETTLEMENT

The increase in the refugee quota could come within a few days, a Justice Department official said Monday. The official said that all of the key lawmakers have accepted an administration plan to raise the quota for the Soviet Union by 18,500 slots.

Attorney General Dick Thornburgh, in a May 17 meeting with key lawmakers on the House and Senate Judiciary subcommittees on immigration, had proposed such an increase in a “formal consultation.”

The Refugee Act of 1980 requires the administration to consult with Congress before it adjusts the refugee quota. Thornburgh and the State Department’s coordinator of refugee affairs must now certify that there is no congressional opposition to such a move.

The increase would bring the 1989 fiscal year refugee quota for the Soviet Union to 43,500. Close to 40,000 of the slots are expected to be used by Soviet Jews, enough to meet the expected flow through the end of the fiscal year.

On yet another front, several senators have expressed concern that the United States has not appropriated sufficient funds to help resettle the refugees once they enter this country.

Sens. Joseph Biden (D-Del.), Tom Harkin (D-Iowa), Edward Kennedy (D-Mass.) and Arlen Specter (R-Pa.) have written to President Bush urging that new funds be made available this fiscal year for domestic resettlement of refugees.

An additional $22 million needs to be approved for the domestic costs of resettling refugees, primarily cash and medical assistance provided by state governments to newly arrived refugees, according to Mark Talisman, Washington representative of the Council of Jewish Federations. About $19 million of that amount would go to resettling Soviet refugees.

The $22 million is expected to be included in the Health and Human Services Department’s appropriations bill for the 1990 fiscal year, Talisman said.

That would put to rest various other refugee bills that Jewish groups have been supporting, including one by Rep. Howard Berman (D-Calif.).