On May 10, the House International Relations Subcommittee on Africa, Global Human Rights and International Operations held a hearing entitled, “Current Issues in U.S. Refugee Protection and Resettlement.”
While outlining current U.S. refugee policies and strategies, Subcommittee Chair Christopher Smith (R-NJ) focused on a provision in current immigration law under which innocent victims can be categorized as those who have provided “material support” to terrorist organizations: “In Sierra Leone a woman was kept captive in her house for four days by guerrillas. The rebels raped her and her daughter and cut them with machetes. She would normally be eligible to come to safety in the United States. But she has been put on indefinite hold — because American law says that she provided ‘material support’ to terrorists by giving them shelter. During the war in Liberia, rebels came to a woman’s home, murdered her father in front of her and then raped her repeatedly. The rebels then abducted her, held her hostage, and forced her to cook and wash for them. After she escaped to a refugee camp, the DHS [Department of Homeland Security] considered the tasks she had performed for the rebels as ‘material support,’ and she is on hold.” He stated, “I would welcome suggestions from our panelists as to how we need to change the law so that it no longer reaches such absurd results.”
Rep. Betty McCollum (D-MN) said that she was “particularly concerned” about U.S. efforts to address gender-based violence. Noting that women and girls in Darfur and Uganda have been raped and attacked repeatedly, she stated, “How can we say that we as a country are doing a lot about gender-based violence? We’re relying on NGOs to address this central issue.” Rep. McCollum pointed out that women’s access to health care is limited in those situations. “What are we doing to provide these women with adequate health care, women who are afraid of being raped again?” she asked.
State Department Bureau of Population, Refugees, and Migration Assistant Secretary Ellen Sauerbrey explained that since taking office in January 2006, she has had “over 100 meetings with NGOs, representatives of state, local and foreign governments and international organizations,” in addition to visiting refugee camps in Kenya and Uganda. “I talked with refugees, particularly women,” she said, “to hear their views on camp concerns and plans for return to Sudan. I heard the stories of women who were not yet convinced that it was safe to go home to southern Sudan; I heard the songs of young girls who had been exploited for their labor and/or for sex.” Ms. Sauerbrey applauded the rise in U.S. refugee admissions from 28,000 in FY2003 to 53,000-54,000 in FY 2004-05, and reassured the subcommittee on the issue of “material support” for terrorists: “It is the Administration’s view that important national security interests and counter-terrorism efforts are not incompatible with our nation’s historic role as the world’s leader in refugee resettlement. While we must keep out terrorists, we can continue to provide safe haven to legitimate refugees.”
Acknowledging that current law “may in some instances bar admission of individuals and groups who do not present such risks and to whom the United States is sympathetic,” Department of Justice Assistant Attorney General for the Office of Legal Policy Rachel Brand argued that “the definitions are broad, however, for good reasons.” She asserted that “Congress addressed these concerns to some extent by providing the Secretaries of State and Homeland Security the authority to exercise their sole and unreviewable discretion, on a case-by-case basis, that the provision barring persons who have provided material support to terrorist organizations, as defined in the INA [Immigration and Nationality Act], does not apply to a particular alien.”
Testifying for the U.S. Conference on Catholic Bishops (USCCB), Anastasia Brown protested that “law is so broad that it harms any individual who provides even a glass of water, a bowl of rice, or a place to sleep to a member of an organization involved in the defense of that individual against a regime which is actively involved in ethnic cleansing. In one case, a woman who offered two tins of rice to the resistance army, who lost her husband in the conflict and was systematically raped by the Burmese army, would be deemed inadmissible under this provision.” Ms. Brown said that the USCCB urges Congress to “revisit the law and adjust the material support provisions in the REAL ID Act and the PATRIOT Act to minimize the impact to bona fide refugee groups around the world.” Concerning the FY2007 Migration and Refugee Assistance funding level, she stated that the USCCB recommends at least $1.2 billion rather than the $834 million requested by the administration. Ms. Brown also identified changes to the U.S. Admissions Program proposed by the USCCB, including “prioritizing female head-of-households, unaccompanied children, long-stayers, and urban refugees outside of traditional camp settlements for resettlement.”
U.S. Committee for Refugees and Immigrants (USCRI) President Lavinia Limon focused her testimony on USCRI’s anti-warehousing campaign. Explaining that “as attention wanes on a particular population, so does donor commitment, leading to reduced food rations in camps where refugees have no right to cultivate land, trade or sell goods in local markets,” Ms. Limon said that 8 million of the world’s 11.5 million refugees have been “warehoused.” She gave the example of a Darfur refugee living in Chad, who asked, “Are they going to leave us like this forever? Will we just rot here like our animals?” Ms. Limon applauded Congress for “passing an amendment to the FY06 Foreign Operations Appropriations bill requesting the State Department to designate some of its funds to developing effective responses to protracted refugee situations,” and proposed that governments “develop regional refugee empowerment zones where refugees would be free to live, move and work.”
Noting that refugees are defined as “people who have crossed an international border to escape persecution,” Refugees International President Kenneth Bacon stressed that the current displaced persons population extends to 21.3 million, since this includes those who “live in refugee-like conditions but have not crossed national borders.” Mr. Bacon proposed that the United States continue strategic intervention to promote peace, as was done in Sudan; adequately support the UN High Commissioner for Refugees; and fulfill its funding obligations for UN peacekeeping operations.
Additional witnesses included Department of Homeland Security Acting Assistant Secretary for Policy Development Paul Rosenzweig, United States Commission on International Religious Freedom (USCIRF) Chair Michael Cromartie, and USCIRF Director for Policy Tad Stahnke.
