Transcripts For CSPAN3 Origins Of The Refugee Act Of 1980 20240714

Lets get started again. We will start with the first panel, and i will introduce the moderator and then she going to introduce the panelists. Honored to introduce to you monica stanky who is with the raven group. She is a nationally known expert on Immigration Law and policy. I know monica from her time on the judiciary committee, the house judiciary committee, where she focused on immigration and refugee issue, but i also know monica for another reason. Her father was a refugee from uganda resettled to new orleans by hius, my organization. Monica. Thank you very much, and thank you for being here, and thank you to mark, and for putting on this wonderful event. As mark said, my father was resettled by hius in 1972 and so i have a personal connection and as counsel on the judiciary committee, it is wonderful to be here. Today we want to diverge from the standup panel, and we want to have two wonderful speakers today and look at how the refugee act came to be and then take a step back to look at sort of where we are today and sort of see if there are any lessons that we can learn from that time and how we can move forward as the morning speakers talked about sort of at a difficult time that we are in right now for the United States Refugee Resettlement, and what lessons we can also take from a difficult time. So i will with that, i will let skip begin to introduce himself and give a brief remark. Im skip endres and i was chief counsel to the immigration subcommittee for 25 years and spent 25 years on capitol hill working for legislative giants like representative holtzman and john dingle. So i retired from there and went off to join the private sector the work with railroads, but i wanted to thank mark and hius to invite me to participate. It is a honor to join distinguished speakers and panelists, because i have known them for a long time and these are some of the finest Public Servants that i have ever met. My first introduction to hius came some 40 years ago, as i was telling you last night, mark. And so i had just been hired by a Committee Chairman emanuel seller who had been the chairman of the committee for some 22 years at this point, and been in congress for 48 years. One day he called me into his office and he was always recalling stories about his times with coolidge and hoover and so as it turned out, he was being honored that weekend by hius and he asked me to write him some remarks. So being a dutiful staffer i researched hius and his activities and i found out that it was a wonderful organization dealing with refugees around the world and i learned that firsthand. I think that i mentioned it to you, mark, last night, that i learned firsthand relationships with carl glick and other advisers i later had when i would hit thorny issues, i could get sage advice and always on point. That is the first assignment. The Second Research was that he was legendary for his battled with senator mccarthy and roosevelt over the restrictions imposed over the holocaust, and the most important thing that i learned in the research is that he delivered the maiden speech on the house floor opposing the measure brought up by ambassador peters. And this is coming from a guy of another person. And so southern europe, and if you were like me, you would have been fine, but if you were from Southeast Asia or elsewhere, forget about it. The system was very unfair. And so for the first time refugees were from all over the world. And the 1965 act was a tough thing to pull off, and as i understand they were able to stack the committee with all of the lbj allies to get that legislation removed. The reason i mentioned it is because all of that was with based on the cold war mentality and other things, and reinforced in the famous mccarron walter act in 1982 changed that perpetuated act. And so it was finally eliminated. The reason i mention it is to show that there was a restrictionist mentality through the 50s and 60s and even into the 70s where the place of birth and things like that would determine what would happen to you if you were an immigrant or refugee. And so they had increased the conditional entrants, and in addition to that, there were both emergency Parole Authority, and that is the basically the mechanism, because there was no basis in the law otherwise. And the refugee crisis had no basis in law, because it was an administrative system that what was brought up in the 1960s with the cubans affected the soviet jews and we had the first attorney general who was the first to command that Patrol Authority of the soviet jews, and then you get into the situation of the boat lift exodus act that was in place at that time to take care of some of issues. But it was always a conflict between the executive and legislative branches of government over who had power over the laws, and that persists to this day as we know. It is very clear that congress enjoyed the plenary power. You can see them coming up out of the upper court, and the Circuit Court saying that it is the president who has that authority. So that is going to continue to go on. During our time both in the soviet jewish time, jim will testify to this as well, it is something that we enjoyed a collaborate power through the indochina access, and the executive and the president s team and the legislative, and there was a complete and continuous consultation of the two levels between the two and between the ford, and the reagan and the carter years, the progress worked. Yes, disagreement, and jim can testify that it was a system of give and take. It was tortuous process. Which continued through the geneva meeting. But what i wanted to mention is two things quickly and then ill stop. This is of significant importance and one was 1972. Liz was the youngest female member of congress at this time, and so we had the longest running member of the house of representatives and so liz came in and joined the subcommittee, and we spent quite a few years on the subcommittee, and as she said over here from 1979 to 1981, and that is when all of this took place. Liz came in and we were off to do the refugee act. She needed a systemic and orderly system for handling the bifurcated refugee problem. Before that, it wias ad hoc, an sometimes the response to an emergency crisis. She recognized the definition was not the same as the u. N. Definition, and she wanted to make sure that the ideology, geography, and none of those things came into play, and that it was a fair and humane process to eliminate the idea that you had to be from a communistdominated country to quali qualify. And so created the office of refugees and resettlement. And also, jim can testify to that, you have had all of the people coming from the South China Sea in boats, and nobody wanted to settle the refugees. So within a month following the appropriations act to coordinate between the admission and the resettlement side but also to make sure that we could fund the problem. So they took care of the programs and then off and running, and to that extent the refugee act was a milestone. Co talk in more detail about the refugee issues. And that is a clear establishment and what i was thinking about today is so much has been helped and so much has not. I was part of the beginning prock willmati proclamation, and they were collaborate. Yes. And so it was precarter, and you can say it is because of the president , but it has really been a slow diverted issue. And so what is fascinating to me is how much is similar and how much is different. Another thing that i am reflecting about is the father who was resettled by hius, and how a number of his immigration documents we were able to find his parole paper and i as a member of the House Judicial Committee pasted it up on the door, because i had not seen that document in so many years, and so it was in responding to some tof of issues. I would like for you to introduce yourself and talk about your role with the refugee act of 1980. Yes. I was designated by secretary christopher to leave a really Good State Department and go up to the Refugee Bureau which was a very not desirable place to go at that time. The Refugee Bureau had modified the antideficiency act, and there were multiple agencies investigating them. And in june of 1979 was clearly difficult for our government. We had so many different refugees coming in, and they could stay in the asylum camps, and the asean countries had declared that there would no longer be a need for them. And thailand and there were 40,000 cambodians crossing the border. And that is part of what was happening that month. So i was told to try to take the remnants of the Old Organization and institute something that worked. I didnt particularly want anything to do with it, but i said that i would be a good soldier. So i went up and read all of the reports, and from the committees on the refugee act. There was one where the secretary for hew, and the discussion between the members and joe califano was dont you think that it would be better to take the state departments domestic Resettlement Department and take it to hew. So i went back home and looked on my desk of the judiciary report on the house subcommittee on approapriations say that we take the programs and the relief programs and the resettlement, and i realized there is nothing left. So i had another meeting with christopher and ben reed the undersecretary and i said, look, guys, i will do it for a week. I and that one week lasted my entire career. And so it was to get up there quick enough to avoid disaster. And so i got word that from cy vance that we start doing two or three options for the resettlements and we did the budgets for it. And by the way, we had no money, and the committees had done zero on the appropriation, and the bank was dry and here we were going for the Big Initiative and many of you know about the ops center on the seventh floor of the state department. It is a big table and the Foreign Policy leards of the day were all there. And how many people are we going to take in . That is the issue. We had a u. S. Coordinator, but because the issue was dollars and people, he felt that i should take the lead. So after 30 to 40 minutes of discussion, the discussion between me and jolbert who wanted to go big, and i said, i know the constraints and congress is not giving us money for peasant operations and now you are talking about quad ruppling, but we had to come out with the decision, and i initially agreed with 10,000 per month, and that is going to break the bank and unrealistic, but i will go that far. So we left that meeting and did a normal thing, and a decision memo to the white house. Brzezinski shuffled it through the process over there and we got no word, no decision. So president carter announced that he was going to tokyo on this economic summit, and while it was there, he wanted to make an announcement on the refugees, and so we went back double duty and we had the options ready, and the preferred was 10,000. And now, on the flight on the way over holbrooke, and if you know dick holbrooke, you can believe this, holbrooke was banging away at carter the whole trip. I searched the record, but there is no indication that he made any decision, but the next day, president carter announced it is 14,000 a month. And i told him that nobody has ever done that before. I couldnt as a career bureaucrat, i couldnt do that. Anything above that has to be president ial. So i came to really respect jimmy carter to make the right call and ignore all of the noise, and what i was telling him, this is what it needs, and he made the right call. That is what a real president does. Now we came back from geneva, and i might mention this one thing on Vice President mondale. His speech was absolutely brilliant. And he left out one thing, and he said it is a test of civilization. And in the real speech he said and after the delegates left and a few weeks later tonight closed in. That struck people. And so who wants to try to do better . They came away with 290 million and it does not sound like much nowaday, but back then, it was a lot of money. So we came back to washington and my job then was to start carrying it out with 168,000, and soy called my team in to do the resettlement, and i was just thinking, all of my people are in geneva and what if something happens in new jersey . So i moved that meeting back and i called all of the ngos in the United States to a meeting in west virginia. We spent three difficult days there. The first half day was letting them tell how the government had not been treating them as equal problems. So your predecessor, mark, he was there. And then for next two days, two and a half days, we sat down there and we said what is the responsibility of an ngo to resettle a refugee in this country . We carved it out. Now, before we said the legal vehicle for all of this was contract. I said it is not a contract, it is a cooperative agreement, and we have to use that procedure, and solve you now may remember the cooperative agreement here and under the terms and it has been improved over the years, be the United States has successfully resettled over 3. 5 million refugees in the country. And from the geneva conference, and english as a second language program. I brought a lady who is the peace corps director from thailand back, and we sat down and carved it out. What it ended up being is the Worlds Largest english Language Training center that we added in the philippines center, and other improvements flowing from the act. I had the privilege to stay in the state department during president carters return, and we left and the other team had to leave, and i was asked to stay on. So i transferred over to the republic years when george shuldz ca schultz had come in, and he asked me to be the permanent director which i did for the last four years. When i left president reagan, and secretary schultz nominated me to be the u. S. Kacandidate t go to geneva and i spent ten years there. I have had the chance to see virtually every serious complex that the world has been involved n and i can see the u. S. Leadership, and the changes that have been made, and so each one added. We have strengthened and improved the program and it is really great. I keep coming back after all of this work and say what started it all . What was the seminel event that started it all, and it is president jimmy carter, and Vice President mondale, you were terrific. As you were talking, you talked about the importance of the leadership and you were talking about the importance of the elected officials, but it is also the leadership of the staff at the level, and the importance of leadership of president s and members of congress on making sure that they are putting good hard working dedicated people in the positions. Because as someone who is a former staffer, you know, this is where the work gets done at the deep level. And so that is really the benefit of the conversation, and so that is opening the curtain behind the scenes, and trying to figure out and find out how the refugee act of 1980 came to be. And soing at that, and it was a very difficult Political Climate and so if you took the refugee act of 1980 out of the picture, and looking at the management of the indochina crisis and the cold war and it s is remarkable that it was presented and signed and a remarkable achievement to be credited to president carter. So what else was the catalyst . Was it president carter . What else allowed the act to be pushed. I would like to hear from you on the legislative side . Jim mentioned similar events. One was the indochina refugee crisis, and the constant communication required between the executive and the legislative and at that time, they did respect the legislative vessels in these things. It was a tough time bidding there, and some of the assertive members on the committee at this time, but it was constant. And the process became a little bit unworkable, because in the consultation, there were regular consultations defined into the categories to allow the chinese to come in, and would happen in the recess that i am trying to find people all over the world and find an agreement to what these changes were, and this had not worked. This is a different time. And that is what the ektive and the legislative branch is doing, and they could Work Together very well. So any the indochina crisis is one of the events, and also taking over for the 1979 management, and also, ted kennedy taking over the chair of the Senate Judiciary committee and also you had rodinohs leadership. And he had served on the immigration subcommittee for 24 years before he was chairman of the subcommittee in 1971. And so, he continued to watch the subCommittee Chairman what the exception is. And when he came over, he said that he had a big conference, and the refugees and what she needed for help, but there was always a interest there. And so the steady hand, and gleason retiring and kennedy taking over, and so it was really a confluence of events that made the refugee act possible. Politically at the time that senator kennedy and president carter were politically opposed. And yet, they were able to Work Together on this. And so in the current local climate it is hard to imagine, two political opponents coming together to Work Together or was it seamless . I guess that is my question. No, it is very close to the staffers that i can tell you that president ial politics never entered into the equation of the passing the refugee act of 1980. It was not an issue. Little known fact that helped us in the process as well is that the little known fact is that r rodinho was also to be the running mate for carter, but then after the impeachment exercises, carter was very goodt that period of time. Do you any thoughts on the events . The events of that time, and i think that the events were propelling us as a society to do a better job on refugees. Not only was it indochina. December of 79 i looked at the cable traffic and lo and behold the soviet union had invaded afghanistan, and 3. 5 to 5 million more refugees going to pakistan. And then a week later the african chief came in and said that the somalis have invaded ethiopia and we have 1 million somalis out there in the desert, and then castro empties out his institutions, and so now, all of the United States. Sen im so now im in a new group with very little staff, and we had the subharin crisis and so many happening at the same time. So we had to find a better way to find out, who are these refugees . We were bringing in people in paro parole, and once they had parole, there were designated categories, and if you are in one of those categories, you are in free. That is not adequate. So we needed a new legal mechanism, and that, and the events were propelling. I think it is wise, and i will agree with skip that we had some wise leadership on the hill. And we had some wise leadership from jimmy carter, and just recognizing what was happening and that we have got to do something. I think that events were propelling us forward. And we had to do that and the result was that we acted. We acted with as chip mentiskip we had great Cooperation Amongst the branchs of government which does not always happen. Skip said it is a little back and forth, and give and take and in my perspective, it was a little bit more give than take. And so when you were speaking what came to my mind is that we talked about refugees and the settlement refugee policy landed in the immigration context currently, but really what you are reflecting back is an entirely different world view, and the world policy world view, and this is what is, correct me if i am wrong is propelling us forward, right . Right now, there is a movement in the country that is very much sort of isolationist and restrictionist world view and yes, while that is related to migration, it is at the end of the day who are we as a country and who are we as a global community, and that is seeming to me to be a sharp distinction. I dont know if you have any thoughts about that . I do. If you take the Indochina Program and carry it through the carter years and the reagan years, at the end of the reagan years, we had made enough headway that we needed to start looking at the end game for Southeast Asia. So i assembled a little group called the igc, the informal Consultation Group of the americans, the canadians, the australians and the deputies of the high commission, and we started to think about the end games. And we got governor bob ray from iowa to go around to get a study and we had illustrious americans on this. And so those two came together and as i was together. As i was leaving r. P. , 1986 i had an expanded igc meeting in tokyo. We got the governments all to agree on this approach. And it had things like return to vietnam. Which is unheard of before. And it would be difficult. That pack j was given to the u. N. Hcr. And my great colleague, sergio dimello. He took that package and maneuvered it through the u. N. Bureaucracy and that became the comprehensive plan for indochinese refugees. It took another ten years. And that was very, very difficult. A lot of indochinese had to go back home. A lot of vietnamese had to go back home. A lot of kbad yans went back to cambodia. But we took the tough steps and by 1997 we called it over. It had been finished. Thats 75 to 97. 22 years. Given a whole region was upset, and we dealt with some really really thorny issues over many governments. But we produced a model in my book which ive recently written. And i think youll see copies of it around here somewhere, i call that the indochina model, based on global cooperation, active american leadership, partner collaboration, burden sharing, recognition that all this flows from human rights, that every person is entitled to dignity. And that model, i think is very successful. It was followed now i think in my book i describe what weve got now. And i said and as a contrast its a National Interest model. Whats good for me and what will help my company and my pressure groups and whatnot, but we have lost the notion that jimmy carter pioneered that this can only be solved humanely with global cooperation. And i think my characterization of todays model as a National Interest model is probably pretty much correct. I think thats right, skip. Do you have any reflections on that. On the world view as a. As you mention the current Political Climate i was harkening back to what was said earlier today about the climate in the 50s. The 24 act mentioned by evans and ambassador peters. A and it was restrictionist Immigration Law reinforced in 1952 with an act. Which truman vetoed quickly overridden by the congress. Those restrictionist climate is returning process. Right. And thats a dangerous. That was, again, very restrictionist, very staunch apartment i communist and all the rest. But im afraid were going through the same process of looking within rather than without. And as jim said, the indochinese and i remember clearly that conference in geneva in july of 79 all the nations coming together to respond. At that point in time one cht problems was there was a bit of immigration indochina fatigue setting in. Little did they know lasted 2 years. I can remember one who became chairman on the republican side was who was worried about spending all the money on the resettlement process. I have a couple of more questions and i think well open it up to the audience. Okay. One of the things id be curious to know was as someone so instrumental in drafting and passing to doing the livingston nittygritty to get the refugee act of 1980, if you knew what you know today, would you have done anything different . We talked a lot today and listened to kelly very clearly about the other categories of people, whether tutd, displaced by conflict or military hostilities by civil disorders or violence or terrorism. We looked at all that. And should we have done something and created special capturings independent of the u. N. Definition of refugees . We were making such a giant leap forward going with the u. N. Definition we didnt thinkt we could go beyond that at the time. And whether we need to go beyond that to take care of the Central American situation or victims around the world, even people displaced by Natural Disaster . Because that authority had been used on that on occasion as well. Thats one thing i wish we could have looked at more deeply. But i dont think we could have. The second thing is and we talked about this the consultation process has become a fares. Yeah. I dont think it was a fares back then. Do you agree with, jim . It was action forcing. But but it worked. That was the point. We did try to codify some of the consultation process in the frunlee act of 1980. Obviously that codify indication process hasnt worked. But some delineation of congresss role needs to be restored. I looked back then about one house vetoes, committee vetoes and whether we could substitute we did it with the base closure issues and other issues as well. But we couldnt come to resolution on how to make congresss role continue to be meaningful in in refugee admissions process. So i can say as a house back staffer we often thought about having we have introduced bills to have congress have a stronger role in setting the refugee ceiling. One of the challenges is that the executive is actually the is actually the branch that implements Refugee Resettlement. Im curious from you, jim and i understand the refugee consultation was more collaborative than it is currently. But one of the challenges with giving a legislative branch more authority is that the executive it makes it hard reporter for the executive to respond. Thats true. In terms of crisis of the day. But the also the executive is the one processing and so i dont know, im curious to know what ob that particular point if you had any thoughts on how we can improve. Well, let me just say, if you look at the refugee act and the compared to parole that we had before. The refugee act made a fundamental decision. It took major policy Decision Making from the attorney general. And gave it to the president. And i think that was a very, very wise decision. And it we found as we were going through consultations, the hearings would identify issues. And i remember the cambodians, skip. That was a big issue. I testified up there that i was lead administration witness in the first reagan consultation. Because there were no political appointees back then. And i said we are not going to barring catastrophe we are in the launching a Resettlement Program for cambodians unless the situation doctorates, and the high commissioner makes a request to us. Well conditions deteriorated. The high commissioner came in with this outrageously large request. I said no, we cant do that. We will have to be more modest. So i decided to launch a small cambodian Resettlement Program. Using then we had six priority categories. I used only the first three. That gets everybody that really needs to get out of there. I had a new boss who came in about that time. And he didnt want to slow it up by consulting. And i said, you know, we pretty much told the committees that we werent going to be resettling cambodiaen a here we are starting it. I argued that point for days. And finally we agreed on simultaneous implementation and consultation. And my new boss went up there and talked to ron mizoli in the house. And al simpson in the senate. And they were not happy. But i said, you know, it started. We have really no choice. But that took some time. But over time that became probably lionel you can comment on this when you have a chance lionel is our man watching over these things in the field. That became our most i got thousands of letters about cambodiaens. The secretary of state got them. Im sure the congress did as well. But the consultations gave us a context. And i think we learned from that lesson that once we establish a new program we want to not breach the trust we built up up there. And to do that it really it really interferes with your implementation of the programs. I think we did a good we did a had a pretty good record. But i you know, i have a hard time myself talking about some of these issues, because i personally i poured a lot of my heart and soul and life into this bureau. I was over there this past week. And to see whats become of it is is its frightening. Im going to give you a little figure. If you take the 2020 budget and you go into it and look under population of refugees and migration, for 2019 its 3. 5 billion. For 2020 its 400 million. Now that rest has been taken out, shrunk and transferred over to a. Id where it will be combined with other aid monies in a new human tanner Assistance Program under their jurisdiction. In decision is trying to eliminate the state department from the refugee program. And i think its such a tragic mistake. State looks at the human rights side. It looks at the root causes. It looks at partners and doing the c. P. A. We had hundreds of consultations and negotiations with partners. But this, what is happening now is a tragedy. Ive been working with a group thats trying to let all of our relevant congressional committees know that we think its a disaster. But so far we havent heard much from the other said. And im waiting to hear. Abi know there is great support for that up on the hill with you irving its a very important because i think people here need to be letting their Congress People know that we dont agree with this decision. And its not just agree or disagree. Youre destroying one of the most important human rights arms we ever had. I think human rights and refugees are flipsides of the same coin. And thats whats happening now. Can i respond. Go ahead. You mentioned the cambodian situation. And i had a chance to have din we are lionel last night. One of the more i dont want to take any thunder from your panel later, lionel. But one of the major policy decisions made in the refugee act of 1980 which wasnt discussed a lot was to leave basic refugee policy making responsibilities in the department of state. To reflect appropriate hue mane man tanner concerns, reflect Foreign Policy concerns. And to leave in the department of justice the final say on who qualifies for refugee and asylum status. And we talked last night about whether that was the right decision or not. And we we thought it was the appropriate balance to make. Not only is it a checks and balances system but to provide, you know, domestic and Security Issues with traditionally handled by the department of justice. And asylum country relationships and all those things with the department of state. I still think that was the right way to go. And lionel and i talked last night about that whether that was the right way to go and was something lost in the shuffle with regard to cambodians in terms of executing the guidance that was delivered by the people above to the people below . And one of the things we didnt do and we probably should have, liz, is i thought the asylum and refugee training became part of the department of justices Officers Training program. So that was late in coming. It probably should have come earlier. Maybe we should have mandated that earlier. But once they started to understand the guidance and that they are supposed to follow instructions from above it would work out well. So, again i dont know if you have a thought on that, jim or not because we went through that. We with went through that a lot. I want to go back a little bit to the other question about if we could go back what would we put in the refugee act now . I think we need to look at the definition again. We have found many instances over there where with he to expand the definition and lionel can tell you later about what we had to do in cambodia. We had to revert back to the category. We got the president to agree to that. Kelly mentioned this morning all of these 70 million people. Well next year theyll have a consultation on 30,000 refugees. Were missing the were missing the elephant in the room. And the congress i think has a very Important Role to also educate the American Public. The consultations were an educational device. But if you consult on frunles and you miss the id p. I dont mean we want to settle them all but the people need to know and the Congress Needs to know whats under way and what should we do to reinforce. Unhcr and icrc, helping the internally displaced person. We dont know anything about that. But the consultation i need needs to be more comprehensive about whats actually occurring in the country and what our american citizens ought to be aware of. I would you know, the consultation the refugee act also created a a position of u. S. Coordinator for refugee affairs. It was a good idea at the time. And we got senator dig clark in from iowa, the first refugee coordinator. It didnt last long. But he really was useful in getting the frunlee act through the congress and raising all of the numbers. The history of that position, particularly when it got out of the democratic years was that it was politicized. And we got political folks from pretty much the far end of the extreme. And if anything it made our life much more difficult. And as it ended up during much of that time i was in r. P. Doris meissner was in justice. Phil hawks was in h. H. S. And the three of us talked to each other constantly. And i later went to he will tell the secretary of state, george schultz, that this is an unneeded position. It complicates our life. I would eliminate it, which he did for a couple of years. Anne they brought it back. But i think we have to watch that what actions are taken on vehicles like the refugee act actually improves things. So, yeah i want to open it up to question but i have a burning question. Forgive me for those of you in the audience who also have burning questions. But you know, i think its important for me to reflect on you know, its been 40 years,right, since president carter resettled over 200,000 refugees. And one of the common arguments that happened in the current refugee consultations i can tell from you experience having been in the room in the consultations is really a question of assimilation. And there is a real question in the minds of members of congress and in the frujee consultations about whether if we allow large numbers of refugees whether they are going to be able to assimilate. I worked with congresswoman lofgren who has a lain she likes to say you go up and down the coast of california. And all the high school value dig toerpias have vietnamese names. Not that being a value dig attorney is a sign of sim assimilation. We resettled so much refugees. Our country is not broken. Our country has been enriched. But from your perspective, looking at sort of the past 40 years and thinking about the members of congress and the American People who fear that Refugee Resettlement would somehow lead to a degradation of identity or a lack of assimilation. How would you respond to that, given that you have lived through very large resettlement periods . Either one of you, if you have a thought. Weve had commission after commission on undocumented migrations which also focused a bit on refugees. And every study i li done. I serve on one existing they are the contributors. They contribute much morp to the system than they take out, whether talking undocumented, were you are talking about refugees. And the frunlee assimilation. We trieds tried methods of doing it. And everyone of the cases it appeared its been successful. The cuban thing was explored in great depth and the numbers out there about the mental institutions, the prisoners, most of those were successfully resettled. And we decided with the cubans should we 11 them in miami where there is a tremendous network of support . They didnt need it. They were resettled nationwide. A lot migrated back to south florida. But in every study i read assimilation has not been a problem. I dont think especially during our time, skip and i dont want to really imply i can talk about current times much. But we put a lot of thought into assimilation. I had as i mentioned a. S. L. Program for every indochinese frunlee that came to this country they spent six months at our camp in the philippines. English Language Training, cultural orientation. Vocational skills. We worked with partners here where refugees were going to go like the 3 m koerpg in minnesota. And we sent hmong. They were helpful and receptive in in the endochf days we had a lot of indochinese. And we tried to make sure to get good geographical distribution around the country. But you could go to any church, parish, temple, whatnot, and you would find the and this is also true with the secular organizations that we settled. You would find a refugee in that church group. And the people in that church would be hard at work helping them to assimilate. I have said before that i think for the American Public to resettle large numbers of indochinese and pouring their heart out to helping them we had more of what i would call american learning during that indochina period than at any period that i can remember. Yeah. We were learning what its like to have a foreigner dependent on you, how do you help them . But i think we did really make a deliberate attempt to be sensitive to both the needs of the refugees being resettled and to the communities in which they were being resettled. I think that deliberate attempt was very successful. And i dont want to pat ourselves on the back. But i think we did. Who i want to pat on the back are they called them ngos. We called them Something Different in the old days. But organizations like hias and all the others ner the ones on the front line and can affect the i assimilation better than anyone. And theyve done a great job. I want to mention if i could, that is another area which we see vanishing. Is volunteer agency, because theyve been cut back drastically. Theyre moving to other areas. I dont believe we fully appreciate what a loss this is going to be to our country and our society if we dont have these voluntary agencies on the firing line, i can think of a dozen different ways they could be helpful. But youve got to have an appreciation and a sympathy to them. We have time for one question and my apologies for taking. Yes, the burning question. Where is the microphone . Its coming to you. I think its more the tv. Thank you very much. Mr. Purcell correctly pointed out that the frunlee act of 1980 transferred the authority to make decisions about refugees from the attorney general to the president , which i think we all agree was a good thing, at least at that time it was. Not so sure about today. But if i remember correctly, the act also took away the authority of the president to parole or the executive to parole large groups of people, like we did with vietnamese refugees from saigon, et cetera. And then not three weeks after the act was signed we had the cuban boat lift. I remember it vividly because i was the only Immigration Lawyer in atlanta. And a en a i had only done a few political asylum cases for soviet pentecostal christians, jews and a few chinese that wanted more than one baby. And a federal judge knew me as having dabbled in Immigration Law. And the judge who is a close friend of the president. Called me and appointed me to represent all the cuban that came to america. I said judge i dont know anything about grimes law. He said near do idale. We were on night line with ted koppel debating this hardnosed attorney from the from the Justice Department named rudy giuliani. So my career changed from being a mergers and acquisitions lawyer to an Immigration Law for the last 50 years. Sahr that have or 40 years. But my question is, when the boat lift happened a few weeks the ink wasnt dry on the refugee act. Did it send shock waves threw you gentlemen . I mean did it seem like the frunlee act was being turned upside down by this event happening . After all president carter said i welcome them with open heart and arms. It wasnt exactly gifting them parole but close to it how did that affect. You you know, parole is based on a concept we call presumptive eligibility. If youre a member of the designated class you are presumptively eligible for refugee status. There were many people in this country felt that that was not adequate. The refugee act requires an individual determination of persecution. Thats been very, very controversial over the years. The transition from parole to that refugee act scenario was not easy. No. It was very railroad difficult. But i was there during the mariel and at first the white house didnt know if it was refugee or immigration crisis. Do we give it to justice or state . They decided then they couldnt decide. So they asked the coordinator to take it over. We had a new coordinator, a good guy came in victor palmeri. He had the cuban issue. We decided that we needed to bring in the ngos. We had meetings down in miami and all over where cubans were coming. But we had to use the refugee system. But we cheated lab. We used bus the refugee hadnt totally come into effect yet. So we used sort of a combination of parole and refugee stuff. We did examine them. Right, right. We had a very, very dangerous element who came into the country with the cubans. In fact i had one at Hamilton Air Force base we put him as a temporary place. I got a call from the coordinator. Said a lot of the cuban guys are breaking out making a bee line por the chirps wing. I said you get the mps and police you you arrest every one of them. And they then confiscated. They all kind of knives and guns and whatnot that they found on the camp. We had to transfer these kids, gave them to the Justice Department Community Relations service and they resettled them somewhere else under a different guise. But resettlement under the refugee act is really its a strenuous test. And the cambodians, the issue came to head really in cambodia. You know, they many of the people we were reviewing were recommend manhattans of chammer rouj. When we sent them to the ins with all the files they were getting turned down in large numbers. We couldnt do that. And a bunch of people including lionel and the nsc stf and the jva in thailand and justice and r. P. , we worked and got a hybrid that came through with a National Security decision memorandum, just for cambodians. And it allowed us to really sort of reinsert the categories. It wasnt popular. But there was no way otherwise that we could do it. But its its hard, the transition from parole to refugee act. Yeah. Was really really hard. By design,dale, we did not repeal the Parole Authority. In the frujee act of 1980. We learned our lesson from earlier. Because you mentioned about the ink being dry. Because i remember the story i heard that Lyndon Johnson when he signed the 1965 act into law at the statue of liberty, the legislative on parole was very clear. We had conserve members at that time, back tos francis wahlberg again who wanted to make sure parole was not utilized for groups or class of refugees. Very clear in the house report, the legislative history of that. As soon as he signed that law johnson announced we will take any and all cubans who are able to leave that country. So we why get into that again . We just let it go. Did not repeal parole thinking it maybe brought flexibility for a future event. Muriel came about. I dont want to were over time. Thank you, jim and skip. [ applause ] and hias. [ applause ] so we have gotten a congressional perspective and state department perspective. But we also are going to get a white house perspective. Stewart eisenstadt who was president carters domestic policy adviser throughout the Carter Administration couldnt join us today. But i did manage to sit down with him two weeks ago at his law firm in washington at covington and bulger and talked to him about the frunlee act. And his role as domestic policy adviser under president carter. My name is markette field im the president and ceo of hias founded as the Hebrew Immigrant Aid Society where the American Jewish communities refugee organization. Im here to do today with ambassador stewart eisenstadt, the domestic policy adviser to president carter throughout both of president carters president ial campaigns and throughout his white house years. Ambassador eisenstadt was a key actor in the implementation of the refugee act of 1980. Ambassador eisenstadt thank you so much for joining us today. I also want to note that ambassador eisenstadt recently released a book that he authored called president carter, the white house years. And the refugee act plays a prominent role throughout this book. Thank you very much for letting me do this by interview process, because i have a conflict timingwise. My grandson is graduating from high school the day of this conference. Which is the only reason i wouldnt be here. Im a great supporter of hias, personally, financially. And because you did an important job in helping with one of the Untold Stories in in administration, and that is how we helped get 50,000 iranian jews abchristian as and bah the ais out in the midst of the iranian radical revolution. The cater are Carter Administration was confronted with four refugee crisis without a legislative framework to address them. How did that work. . 1952 Congress Passed the immigration and nationality act and in 1968 the u. S. Acceded to the 1967 u. N. Protocol on refugees which said at least some framework. But from that time until the 1980 act president s acted under what was called Parole Authority. And unthe 1952 act Parole Authority was not intended by congress to take the role this that it did. So the first real major test of that came during the Ford Administration. When the vietnam government fell in the south. The north took over, started butchering anyone who cooperated, collaborated with the south vietnamese and u. S. Governments. And the boat people started. And the Ford Administration began to use Parole Authority to let tens of thousands of people in. But then decided to stop it and seek comprehensive legislation. When we came into office, president carter saw that this was such a gigantic humanitarian crisis that we simply couldnt wait for the legislative process. So we started again the parole process. And before the passage of the 1980 act over 200,000 vietnamese refugees came in. In the end between 1975 and 1980, 360,000. Vice president month dale gave an porp speech in july of 1979 in again eva in which he convened a number of countries. And he gave a remarkable address which would be very important for hiass history. Because he reminded the governments there that we had failed in 1938 at the avian conference called by president roosevelt when one country agreed to lift very restrictive grip immigration quotas that had they been lifted would have saved hundreds of thousands of jewish lives from nazi germany. It was in a way a signal to hitler that jews were dependenceable. And mondalle said we must not have that on our conscience. That was the catalyst for getting 20 countries to take their share of refugees. A number of countries in europe and of course the United States. But even that was still stretching the Parole Authority, which is highly individualized, to almost the breaking point. Senator kennedy had been working on legislation. And he introduced it with our support in 1979. And it passed and was signed into law by president carter in march of 1980. For the first time we moved from that ad hoc policy, using the parole authorities, to a legislative framework, for the first time, believe it or not, we defined what a refugee was. There was a number set of up to 50,000 through 1982 and then there after the president had some discretion with congress to do it. There was a diminishing of the Parole Authority and set a framework. But even that framework couldnt accommodate what we faced shortly there after. You mentioned senator kennedy. Id like to hear more about the politics of the refugee of act of 1980. What was remarkable and so hard to imagine in todays environment is the refugee act passed the senate unanimously. Passed the house nearly unanimously with bipartisan support. Senator kennedy, who was challenging president cart ner a primary campaign at that time was the lead advocate in the senate. How did everything mag to come together to pass the refugee act with that kind of bipartisan support in that kind of political environment. Its a terrific question and really shows how much we have lost in todays world with the bitter partisanship. This was a humanitarian crisis which republicans and democrats agreed on even in the midst of what was an extremely bitter primary campaign by senator kennedy which ultimately divided the party we were still able to cooperate because the problem was so massive and so important. One other and he can date are doet is after we lost the election senator kennedy asked me if we would appoint Stephen Briar to the first Circuit Court of appeals which was his stepping stone to the supreme court. I said look there is a bitter dwiegs between the two of you he said thats why im asking you and not the president. I asked the president dont worry about kennedy asks process stephen would be a tribute to you he agreed. I said how about Strom Thurmond he is the incoming chairman of the Senate Judiciary committee. Just wait two and a half months and reagan can appoint a conservative republican. He said strom is in the bag. And he supported stephen. Even though they were ideological op sits. This is an era even when people had partisan divisions they worked together for the common good. Another kind of political question, president carter in 1980, as you mepsed he admitted a lot of refugees. In fact the number i think was 207116, which is more refugees than any president in history has ever admitted in a single year before or since. How did that work . How was the United States able to absorb such a large number . We used, again, before the legislation, the socalled Parole Authority, which was being stretched for sure to its maximum. But we included in that number that you have mentioned and its a great tribute to the president and one of the underappreciated parts of his presidency. That included the vietnamese boat people. Also included a number of soviet jews. Here hias was also involved. We doubled the number of soviet jews coming in each year from 25 to 50,000 before the afghan invasion. We signed the anitolys life saying he was not a spy. By the president saying he was not a spy. There was a bipartisan consensus that after all this credited stood for helping those who suffered greatly abroad. And that we were a beacon of hope, a light. It was the statue of liberty. It was all of the things that were important there at that time and i hope we can return to that at this time. But we the were challenged almost immediately, mark, when the act was hardly dry with crises that were not anticipated by the new act. So for example only 50,000 refugees were to be allowed. And the mariel boat lift in cuba in the space of a couple of months in 1980, 125,000 cubans came in, again often times by rick etty boats from muriel hasher to florida. We faced the iranian jewish crisis, not anticipated. We had a whole raft of issues that confronted us that had not been anticipated by the 1980 act. And we had to deal with those in a more ad hoc way than the act intended. So, for example, for iranian jews, after our hostages were taken, november 4th, 1979, in tehran our diplomats. President carter issued an executive order expel petitioning all iranianen from the United States. There were hundreds of thousands students, business people, visitor he is. And i had a delegation of young iranian jewish students who came to see me in the white house and said if we are subject to this expulsion its a death sentence to go back to this radical regime thats just come in power. The head of our community mr. Al hagani has been killed and his body strewn through the straits of tehran. You cant allow us to be included in that expulsion. So we had a some emergency interagency meetings. Some of the people in or panel. Doris meissner was involved. David crosson, the head of the i. N. S. , the state department. After a lot of difficult negotiations we came up with a very, very unusual process. And that is we used in the sense the structure of the 1980 act which was a wellfounded fear of persecution based on raise, religion, national origin. But we were going over the 50,000 limit. And so what we did is we had those students, jews, bahais and christians in the United States file asylum petitions for a wellfounded fear of persecution backup but because we didnt want to risk their families having said that they did, i got David Crossland and Doris Meissner to agree we would sit on the asylum petitions and not act until the shah came back on the throne which we knew would be never. Theyve been resettled. We were able to instruct our consulates in europe at a time when jewss and bahais and christians to get out of iron to apply the same principles to assume because they were religious minorities they were in effect covered by the 1980 act and had a wellfounded fear of persecution. In the end 50,000 iranian jews and bahais and christians came in. But we used the act and but we stretched the definitions. And this shows i think the importance of the president having a certain amount of discretion. Now it can be abused as we have seen in the current administration. But congress simply cant keep passing acts as these new crises occur. You have to give a president a certain leeway. And that leeway was critical in getting 125,000 cubans in. Critical in getting soviet jews in. Critical in get be the iranian jews in. And it was critical of course in getting the vietnamese in. All four required a certain amount of discretion on the president s part. But also bipartisan support. Had we had as we have today people getting up on the band stand and saying we dont want those foreigners, we couldnt have done it. We couldnt have exercised that discretion. But as you mentioned, the 1980 act was passed with over welcome bipartisan support. Something so sadly missing today on this issue. Now, if you could talk a little bit about the mariel boat lift. As you mentioned the mariel boat lift happened almost exactly one month after president carter signed the refugee act. If the timing had been a little bit different, if the boat lift had had happened first, do you think the refugee act would have still been passed . Would it have looked different. Thats a very good question. First one of the reasons my book got excellent reviews is its honest and im honest and candid about the fact that we were slow off the mark in dealing with this unexpected outflow from mariel hash ner cuba. We didnt have places to resettlepeople. We werent sure whether we could turn boats back. And risk people drowning. The policy took more time than we should have to come to terms with it. But having said that i still believe that had mariel preceded the refugee act, if anything it would have gained further encouragement, symbioticing how bankrupt our current refugee policy was, how ad hoc it was. How it relied simply on the Parole Authority that had never been intended going back to the 1952 immigration and nationality act to deal with the mass numbers of refugees. So i dont think it would have been a deterrent. If anything it would have been a ren to support it. And remember, please, that for the cuban boat lift you had an extremely active cubanamerican community in south florida. And there our biggest problem was that Shirley Chisholm and other members of Congress Said we have a crisis also in haiti. And we are not going to allow you just to get cubans in. So we came up with a special cubanhaitian immigration programming with also allowing a number of haitians to come in unthe umbrella of the cubans. If they had been isolated i dont think we would have had the support. But the Cuban American Community was heavily republican. That led to a buyin for the bipartisan process of allowing the cubans in. My last question for you is looking at the last 39 years of the refugee act in action, what do you think should have been done differently . How should it be amended today . There needs to be a clarification about how you apply for refugee status. The difference, mark, between a frunlee and asylum applicant is that a refugee is applying to come in on a well founded fear of persecution from outside the country. An asylum applicant is doing so inside the country. Now we have a situation on the southern border in which people are coming over and claim asylum. And there is not a clear process of how thats being done. The president is trying to force them to go back which i think is not permitted under the act. That should be defined. How do you apply what happens during the time you are there . Now because there are tens of thousands indeed now up to 100,000 coming from Central America they are overwhelming the process. And until they can actually get a hearing. This was not really intended. And i think last, it should be very clear that while the president has to to have discretion, that that discretion should be bounded by very clear legislative principles. Im sorry i have to ask you one more question. I lied about my last question. Right now one of the reasons the refugee act has gotten to bogged down in its implementation under this administration are socalled security concerns. Concerns that refugees have to be extremely vetted because they represent security threats. But the refugees that were brought in under the Carter Administration were from from the soviet union, our sworn enemy. Vietnam where we had been at war. And where there could have been north vietnamese sympathizer coming in. Absolutely and cuba not to to mention iran where there were very Real Security concerns at that time. How do you explain that . How were the security concerns addressed during that time . Especially looking through the lens of today . Well, first, i think history has shown that there were no security concerns. The close oeft could come to to it is that of the 125,000 cubans that came in perhaps 3,000 were prisoners in cuban jails, criminals. That was where the controversy came. Now in retrospect said they were all criminals. Thats not the case. What our history showed and see there wasnt a security issue. All of these people have become contributing american citizens. And there is no security issue thats been shown by any asked with the tens of thousands of people coming in on our southern border from Central America. None. No indication that they are murders, rapists. And, yes with you get one or two perhaps but the vast number are coming because they want a better standard of life. Now having said that we with also, mark, have to define who is a refugee or an asylum seeker. With a wellfounded fear of persecution and who is simply an economic migrant. And if you are an economic migrant and coming purely for economic reasons thats an abuse of the system. Then you should stay in line with others who are legally seeking to come in. And as much as we want to have people come who are seeking a better way of life but not fleeing persecution we are not in a position to let every economic migrant come in. Thats not been our policy. It wasnt in the 1980 act and shouldnt be our policy. But separating out the massive flow from the south of those who have a fear of persecution and those who are economic mierpgts is itself a huge burden. So we need additional resources, a huge number of resources. More immigration judges, you know, more Border Patrol people who request do the initial vetting. To determine who is a an economic migrant and who is not. Certainly if there is some person with a criminal record but thats not the real problem. The real problem in my opinion is overwell a system thats the 80 act did not anticipate in terms of economic migrants and in terms of people claiming that their persecution came as a result of being in a quote unquote social dwroup. Thank you ambassador. Thank you so much. [ applause ] all week with we are featuring American History tv programs as a preview of whats available every weekend on cspan3. The lectures in history, american artifacts, real america, the civil war, oral histories, the presidency, and special event coverage about our nations history. Enjoy American History tv now and every weekend on cspan3. Here is a look at our primetime schedule on the cspan networks. Live starting at 7 00 p. M. Eastern, President Trump holds a Campaign Rally in manchester, new hampshire. At 8 eastern on cspan2. Its book tv with books and authors who have written about economics. And at 8 00 on cspan3 its American History tv with a discussion on the correlation between violence and political change, from the time of the American Revolution to present day. Saturday, on American History tv, at 10 00 p. M. Eastern on real america, the 1970 film, communists on campus. Yes, they are communists. Their mission proudly pro claimed, the violent overthrow of the democratic system. And yet our nation seems unbelieving, even unconcerned. Sunday morning, at 10 00 a. M. Eastern on oral histories wood stock cocreatorer arty cornfield details how it came together. I said if we took it outside, michael suppose we had henricks and joplin how many people would come. 50,000. I said no there would have to be 100,000. My wife said there will be more than 300,000, just like that. And i swear to god i looked off the terrace and i actually saw that field. Thats when im interviewed in the move were you spaced out . Of course i was spaced out. I was looking at a dream that came true. At 6 00 on american artifacts, Virginia Museum of history and culture curator karen sherry on their exhibit of 400 years of africanAmerican History. They were not content with their lot. They wanted to resist their enslavement. And they tried to run away. Unfortunately, they were not successful. They were captured. And as punishment for their attempt to escape Robert Carter got permission from the court in 1708 to have their toes cut off. Explore our nations past. On American History tv. Every weekend on cspan3. In 1980 president carter signed the refugee act which raised the annual ceiling for the number of refugees allowed in the United States. And right now on American History tv former officials who helped implement the measure discuss the challenges they faced with refugee admissions. The impact of Public Opinion and Lessons Learned in light of current refugee policy. This is an hour