Paper says U.S. soft on Armenians

Press, 1 June 1988, Page 54

Paper says U.S. soft on Armenians

NZPA-Reuter New York The United States is arbitrarily accepting thousands of Armenians as refugees without even trying to determine if they have been persecuted in the Soviet Union, the “New York Times” reported. The newspaper, which said its report was based on a probe by State Department lawyers, said the practice appeared to violate the Refugee Act of 1980 which defined a refugee as someone with “a well-founded fear of persecution.” Some lawmakers were concerned about the practice because refugees from other areas; particularly Indochina, were being treated less favourably.

The newspaper said an official of the United States Immigration and Naturalisation Service confirmed that approval of refugee applications from Soviet Armenians was “virtually automatic,” even though Armenians were not generally claiming they were subject to persecution in their homeland.

The report noted that

disclosing of the special treatment of Armenians could prove embarrassing to the Reagan Administration, which recently asked Congress to double the number of refugees allowed into the United States from the Soviet Union and Eastern Europe. The number of Armenians permitted to leave the Soviet Union has jumped from about 200 a year in the mid-1980s to about 1200 a month since September, the newspaper said. It said the State Department lawyers outlined the problem of Armenian emigration in a confidential report to the Justice Department. In the report, excerpts of which were published by the newspaper, the lawyers said they were prepared to advise the Secretary of State, George Shultz, that he “must take steps to encourage the Department of Justice to end the apparent practice of admitting Armenians to the United States as refugees without requiring individualised showings of persecution.”