TODAY IS World Refugee Day. It is no cause for celebration.
There are about 15 million refugees in the world, of whom 80 percent are women and children. Some are eking out an existence in cities far from their homelands; many live in squalor in refugee camps of neighboring countries.
Very few - less than 1 percent - of the world's refugees get a chance to start a new life in a third country.
The United States is the leader in refugee resettlement. The president, in consultation with Congress, determines each year how many refugees may come here and from which countries they may come. Numbers have been as high as 150,000 in the 1980s and as low as the current goal of 70,000, depending on our understanding of the need. But this is not a normal year.
The refugee resettlement program shut down after Sept. 11. Although refugees were already more highly screened than any other category of foreign-born people entering the United States, every aspect of the program was scrutinized and reinforced. No other immigration program was so affected.
President Bush restarted the program Nov. 21 and pledged to rescue 70,000 refugees this fiscal year, which ends Sept. 30. The State Department and the Immigration and Naturalization Service are making efforts to meet this goal, but the flow of arrivals continues at a mere trickle, clogged by logistical problems and red tape.
There are breakdowns in the systems for identifying those whose lives depend on resettlement. Sadly, fewer than 13,000 refugees had arrived as of June 1. If this trend continues, 2002 will be the lowest resettlement year on record - not a record America can be proud to set.
The problems are complex, so it is no surprise that the solutions are as well. However, it is imperative that we find our way past the current impasse. We must solve the problems choking the system and choking out hope for 57,000 desperate refugees. We have promised to help them. It is unacceptable that we abandon them.
Annie Wilson is acting president of the Lutheran Immigration and Refugee Service, which has its headquarters in Baltimore.
