Christopher Coen
Melissa Sogard
nancylee1
The Morrison-Lautenberg Amendment of 1989 and the issue of whether Congress should renew it is up before us again (the last temporary extension of the measure expired on May 31, 2011). San Antonio’s Express-News reports that US Rep. Lamar Smith, R-San Antonio, chairman of the House Judiciary Committee with oversight over immigration policy, is holding up the renewal of the Morrison-Lautenberg Amendment:
In 1989, Congress passed legislation authored by Sen. Frank Lautenberg, D-N.J., codifying the U.S. interest in assisting [people to] escape persecution...
…Congress has routinely renewed the refugee measure for 22 years. This year, as in the past, Lautenberg attached the legislation as an amendment to the foreign operations budget. But Rep. Lamar Smith, R-San Antonio, chairman of the House Judiciary Committee with oversight over immigration policy, has stopped the Lautenberg Amendment dead in its tracks.
Smith raises two categories of objections. The first have to do with fairness. Smith contends that the 2,000 or so refugees who enter the United States annually under the Lautenberg Amendment receive preferential treatment in comparison with the other 73,000 refugees the United States takes in.
But that’s precisely the point of the amendment — to recognize special situations of persecution and open a relief valve to help avert a humanitarian catastrophe.
Smith’s second area of concern is that the amendment has never been subjected to oversight. Is the refugee program being run wisely and efficiently? Are people entering the United States under false pretenses?
Oversight hearings are entirely appropriate. We are confident that after hearing the facts about the refugee program, Smith will agree that the Lautenberg Amendment is a judicious and compassionate policy for legal immigration... Read more here
To understand this amendment we must first understand the meaning of the word “refugee” as defined by the Immigration and Nationality Act – the basic body of immigration law:
Refugee – any person who is outside any country of such person’s nationality or, in the case of a person having no nationality, is outside any country in which such person last habitually resided, and who is unable or unwilling to return to, and is unable or unwilling to avail himself or herself of the protection of, that country because of persecution or a well-founded fear of persecution on account of race, religion, nationality, membership in a particular social group, or political opinion. here
The Morrison-Lautenberg Amendment then added more language in trying to help people experiencing persecution within their country of nationality, and in circumstances that are not easy to prove. A member of a category group:
“…may establish a well-founded fear of persecution on account of race, religion, nationality, membership in a particular social group, or political opinion…by asserting a credible basis for concern about the possibility of such persecution.”
The category groups were Jews and certain Christians from the former Soviet Union (FSA), as well as certain refugees in Vietnam, Laos and Cambodia. A 2003 update to the law made the category also available to refugees from Iran – mostly Christians, but also Jews, Bahais, Zoroastrians and other persecuted minorities. Presently the US allows in only about two thousand people annually this category.
The problem with the Morrison-Lautenberg Amendment was that powerful US political groups, e.g. Jews and evangelical Christians, abused it to help people they favored emigrate to the US. It allowed people to enter the US as political refugees from the FSA even after glasnost (openness) and perestroĭka (restructuring) often made moot any claim to persecution. Preferential treatment was indeed given to these people, which left some people with a bad feeling about the amendment. The Morrison-Lautenberg Amendment, however, remains the only option for legitimately persecuted groups who stay trapped inside their countries of nationality in circumstances of persecution not easy to prove. I would agree that Congress needs to inspect the oversight of the refugee program to check the many shortcomings that we explore on this blog, but not in the context of the Morrison-Lautenberg Amendment. I also question why the category is only open to persecuted groups from a select handful of countries.
