Paralysis

We are giving a new chance in life to 214,000 fellow humans.

--Dwight Eisenhower. Aug. 7, 1953

A stone's throw from Hitler's grandiose, marble-pillared Luitpold Arena on the edge of Niirnberg lies bleak, barbed-wired Camp Valka. refuge for fugitives from the Iron Curtain countries. At the Luitpold, time was when Hitler offered Germans the hope of Lebensraum. Today the U.S. offers Camp Valka's people a new chance in life--in the U.S. But the chance is still discouragingly hard to grasp.

In the 18 months since President Eisenhower signed the Refugee Relief Act of 1953, it has brought only 20,002 men, women and children to the U.S. To complete the authorized quota before the act expires 22 months hence, the monthly average must be stepped up at least eightfold. What has paralyzed the refugee program?

Red Tape. The program's administrator, State Department Bureau Chief R. W. Scott McLeod, blames the law itself, and he has a point. Each country wanting to send refugees to the U.S. must guarantee that they will be taken back in case the U.S. decides to send them away. Crowded Italy and Greece promptly agreed to this, but some other countries have yet to do so.

The law defines "refugee" as one displaced and destitute and "escapee" as a refugee from the Iron Curtain. Consequently, one who escapes with a little property, or who gets a temporary job, is not admissible because he is not destitute.

An applicant must have a documented record of his activities during the last two years. Since most escapees can document nothing that took place before their escape, they are consigned to a two-year wait at places like Camp Valka. Secretary of State Dulles has not used his authority to waive the two-year history.

Earlier displaced-person laws authorized U.S. organizations to sponsor immigrants in groups, but the new act requires for each immigrant a personal guarantee by a U.S. citizen of a job and a home. Government housing and employment agencies must certify that no American will be displaced from job or dwelling by the entry of the refugee.

Accent on Kinfolk. Congressmen have attacked Administrator McLeod for not cutting through the tangled mass of red tape in the law Congress passed and for delay in processing applications for entry visas. McLeod answers that it took time to build up a staff and to get cases into the processing pipeline (average time per case: six months). Since he now has a staff of 2,000, however, his performance is ten refugees admitted for each employee.

Last year the law was slightly liberalized. The ban on persons with police records was lifted to admit those who had committed nothing more than a misdemeanor. Before that, a refugee who, for example, had forged a ration card in Nazi Germany was excluded. Categories were also changed to admit more easy-to-process Dutch, Greek and Italian relatives of U.S. residents in place of refugees in those countries.

The program's greatest activity has been in Italy, which, after Germany, has the law's largest quota. But even there the U.S. has done little for 12,000 Iron Curtain escapees, half of whom live in camp dormitories. So far, 14,492 visas have been issued in Italy to relatives of U.S. residents, 49 to orphans, 23 to Italian refugees and eight to escapees. From all countries, only 68 escapees have entered the U.S. Said an Albanian in an Italian camp last week: "It would be better if the U.S. didn't raise our hopes with such a law."

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