Dear Colleagues:
Refugee Council USA has recently completed its document on the U.S. Refugee
Admissions Program for 2006 and 2007 with a special focus on the impact of the
material support bar on refugees and asylum seekers. Please find an excerpt
from the executive summary enclosed below:
"...thousands of refugees in need of protection are being denied access to
asylum and resettlement in the U.S. due to the overly broad application of the
material support ground of inadmissibility. This statutory bar, greatly
expanded by the USA PATRIOT Act of 2001 and the REAL ID Act of 2005, has been
interpreted to deny refugee protection to bona fide refugees and asylum
seekers who have been coerced under extreme duress—including at gunpoint—to
provide material support of as little as $1.00 to groups of two or more people
deemed to have engaged in “terrorist activity” which is broadly defined.
Under this expanded definition, even former U.S. allies and members of pro-
democracy movements fighting repressive military regimes are also being denied
admission to the U.S.
The delay in addressing this issue has nearly shut down the U.S. refugee
admissions program for Colombians. It has resulted in substantial processing
delays and a 20 percent rejection rate for thousands of Burmese Karen in
Thailand, bona fide refugees identified in October 2005 by the U.S. as in need
of resettlement. Other populations now affected include Vietnamese
Montagnards and Hmong—long time U.S. allies—as well as Cubans, Liberians, and
Sudanese. Without a clear definition of terrorism or terrorist organization,
the number of refugees in need of protection falling victim to this bar is
growing."
http://www.refugeecouncilusa.org/RCUSA2006finpostbl-w.pdf
Sincerely,
Elizabeth Campbell
Coordinator
Refugee Council USA
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