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Will Secretary Rice Help Extend Freedom to the World's Refugees?

WASHINGTON DC, February 16, 2005 Secretary of State Condoleeza Rice testifies this week on the President's proposed budget before three congressional committees and will soon begin setting the Department's priorities. The U.S. Committee for Refugees and Immigrants (USCRI) urges her to set a strategic new direction in refugee assistance by applying the President's forward strategy of freedom to end the "warehousing" of refugees.

"The President's budget requests increased spending on Migration and Refugee Assistance, which we applaud. But while we spend millions each year on the care and maintenance of refugee camps -- $147 million in 2003, for example -- we spend very little on programs to extend freedom so that refugees can enjoy their rights," said USCRI President Lavinia Limón. "Languishing refugees need more than subsistence rations; they need to enjoy their rights."

Most of the world's 12 million refugees do not enjoy the rights recognized in the Universal Declaration of Human Rights and the 1951 Refugee Convention, including those to work, practice professions, run businesses, own property, and move freely.

More than seven million refugees have been confined to camps or segregated settlements or otherwise deprived of these basic rights for 10 years or more, many for decades. UNHCR estimates the average length of major refugee situations actually increased from 9 years in 1993 to 17 years in 2003. This is illegal and immoral.

"Secretary Rice grew up in segregated Birmingham but made the most of her opportunities. Millions of warehoused refugees enjoy neither rights nor opportunities; they aren't even allowed to work," said Limón. "If refugees enjoyed basic rights, many could be free and self-sufficient, contribute to host country economies, and be less dependent on hefty assistance budgets. It is wrong to sentence them to enforced idleness, dependence, and despair."

Secretary Rice testifies on Wednesday before both the Senate Foreign Relations Committee and the House Foreign Operations Appropriations Subcommittee and on Thursday before the House International Relations Committee.

The President's budget request for the Migration and Refugee Assistance account, which provides funding for refugee assistance overseas and refugee admissions to the United States, is $893 million, about $129 million above what Congress appropriated for 2005. His request for the Emergency Refugee and Migration Assistance account, which funds unanticipated refugee crises such as the Sudanese outflow to Chad, is $40 million, about $13 million above its current level. And the Department of Health and Human Services' Office of Refugee Resettlement, which facilitates the resettlement and integration of refugees and others admitted on humanitarian grounds in the United States, received a $552 million request, a $68 million increase.

"Secretary Rice has a historic opportunity to further liberty, freedom, and opportunity for the world's warehoused refugees. We urge her to seize it," said Limón.

The U.S. Committee for Refugees and Immigrants (USCRI) is a non-profit, nongovernmental organization that has served refugees and immigrants and defended the rights of refugees, asylum seekers, and internally displaced persons worldwide since 1911. USCRI's resettlement program and network of community-based partner agencies help thousands of refugees build new lives in the United States each year. USCRI publishes the World Refugee Survey and Refugee Reports.