Attorney General Richard Thornburgh took steps Thursday to allow up to 2,000 Soviet emigres per month to enter the United States on the attorney general’s parole authority, including all Jewish emigrants now in Rome.
In addition, the Justice Department will allow “immigrant class” entry to a “limited number of applicants who face special circumstances.”
Thornburgh announced this interim measure in response to a request from Secretary of State George Shultz that something be done to help Soviet citizens who are unable to get visas to the United States because of the U.S. budget crunch.
Since September, about 179 Soviet Jews have been stranded in Rome, because they have been denied refugee status, which would automatically allow them entry to the United States. Another 345 have been waiting a ruling on their status.
But Sheppy Abramowitz, a State Department spokeswoman on refugee affairs, said all the Soviet Jews stranded in Rome could come on parole status. She also noted that 93 percent of Jews who left Soviet Union in the last three months have come on the normal refugee status.
Also since July, a lack of funds has left the U.S. Embassy in Moscow unable to process applicants for visas, mostly Armenians, but some Jews as well. The embassy had decided not to process additional Soviet applicants until January.
But Thornburgh also ordered Alan Nelson, the commissioner of the U.S. Immigration and Naturalization Service, to take immediate steps to place a Russian-speaker at the Moscow Embassy to help adjudicate some of the backlog of emigration cases.
As a long-term measure, the Justice Department’s Office of Legislative Affairs will work with the State Department to develop a legislative strategy to address the problem, Thornburgh added.
The attorney general’s order was announced two days after Shultz met with a delegation of the National Conference on Soviet Jewry. The secretary promised at that meeting that the government would work with the Jewish community to resolve the problem.
Jews entering the United States as refugees receive government aid for traveling and resettlement. But when Jews come to the United States under the parole authority, these expenses are picked up by the Jewish community in which they settle.
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