[Senate Hearing 113-880]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office]
S. Hrg. 113-880
THE SYRIAN REFUGEE CRISIS
=======================================================================
HEARING
before the
SUBCOMMITTEE ON THE CONSTITUTION,
CIVIL RIGHTS AND HUMAN RIGHTS
of the
COMMITTEE ON THE JUDICIARY
UNITED STATES SENATE
ONE HUNDRED THIRTEENTH CONGRESS
SECOND SESSION
__________
JANUARY 7, 2014
__________
Serial No. J-113-45
__________
Printed for the use of the Committee on the Judiciary
[GRAPHIC(S) NOT AVAILABLE IN TIFF FORMAT]
U.S. GOVERNMENT PUBLISHING OFFICE
28-392 PDF WASHINGTON : 2018
COMMITTEE ON THE JUDICIARY
PATRICK J. LEAHY, Vermont, Chairman
DIANNE FEINSTEIN, California CHUCK GRASSLEY, Iowa, Ranking
CHUCK SCHUMER, New York Member
DICK DURBIN, Illinois ORRIN G. HATCH, Utah
SHELDON WHITEHOUSE, Rhode Island JEFF SESSIONS, Alabama
AMY KLOBUCHAR, Minnesota LINDSEY GRAHAM, South Carolina
AL FRANKEN, Minnesota JOHN CORNYN, Texas
CHRISTOPHER A. COONS, Delaware MICHAEL S. LEE, Utah
RICHARD BLUMENTHAL, Connecticut TED CRUZ, Texas
MAZIE HIRONO, Hawaii JEFF FLAKE, Arizona
Kristine Lucius, Chief Counsel and Staff Director
Kolan Davis, Republican Chief Counsel and Staff Director
------
Subcommittee on the Constitution, Civil Rights and Human Rights
DICK DURBIN, Illinois, Chairman
AL FRANKEN, Minnesota TED CRUZ, Texas, Ranking Member
CHRISTOPHER A. COONS, Delaware LINDSEY GRAHAM, South Carolina
RICHARD BLUMENTHAL, Connecticut JOHN CORNYN, Texas
MAZIE HIRONO, Hawaii ORRIN G. HATCH, Utah
Joseph Zogby, Democratic Chief Counsel
Scott Keller, Republican Chief Counsel
C O N T E N T S
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JANUARY 7, 2014, 2:29 P.M.
STATEMENTS OF COMMITTEE MEMBERS
Page
Cruz, Hon. Ted, a U.S. Senator from the State of Texas........... 4
Durbin, Hon. Dick, a U.S. Senator from the State of Illinois..... 1
prepared statement........................................... 53
Klobuchar, Hon. Amy, a U.S. Senator from the State of Minnesota.. 6
Leahy, Hon. Patrick J., a U.S. Senator from the State of Vermont,
prepared statement........................................... 56
Whitehouse, Hon. Sheldon, a U.S. Senator from the State of Rhode
Island......................................................... 6
WITNESSES
Witness List..................................................... 27
Groom, Molly, Acting Deputy Assistant Secretary, Office of
Policy, U.S. Department of Homeland Security, Washington, DC... 12
prepared statement........................................... 44
Lindborg, Hon. Nancy E., Assistant Administrator, Bureau for
Democracy, Conflict, and Humanitarian Assistance, U.S. Agency
for International Development, Washington, DC.................. 10
prepared statement........................................... 37
Richard, Hon. Anne C., Assistant Secretary, Bureau of Population,
Refugees, and Migration, U.S. Department of State, Washington,
DC............................................................. 7
prepared statement........................................... 28
MISCELLANEOUS SUBMISSIONS FOR THE RECORD
al Muqdad, Omar, Journalist and Syrian Refugee, statement........ 154
American-Arab Anti-Discrimination Committee (ADC), Washington,
DC, statement.................................................. 74
American Baptist Home Mission Societies (ABHMS), Rev. Aundreia
Alexander, JD, Director, Office of Immigration and Refugee
Services, Valley Forge, Pennsylvania, statement................ 240
American Friends Service Committee (AFSC), Philadelphia,
Pennsylvania, statement........................................ 79
Amnesty International USA, New York, New York, statement......... 82
Ayoub, Christine, statement...................................... 92
Catholic Relief Services (CRS), Dr. Carolyn Y. Woo, President and
Chief Executive Officer, Baltimore, Maryland, statement........ 103
Center for Applied Linguistics (CAL), Washington, DC, statement.. 95
Center for Victims of Torture, The, (CVT), St. Paul, Minnesota,
statement...................................................... 111
Charbaji, Mohamad Eiad, Journalist, statement.................... 145
Church World Service (CWS), New York, New York, statement........ 117
Cooperative for Assistance and Relief Everywhere (CARE USA),
David Ray, Head of Policy and Advocacy, Atlanta, Georgia,
statement...................................................... 98
Episcopal Church, The, Deborah Stein, Director, Episcopal
Migration Ministries, and Katie Conway, Immigration and Refugee
Policy Analyst, New York, New York, statement.................. 251
Evangelical Lutheran Church in America, The, (ELCA), Chicago,
Illinois, statement............................................ 118
Friends Committee on National Legislation (FCNL), Washington, DC,
statement...................................................... 125
Hebrew Immigrant Aid Society (HIAS), Silver Spring, Maryland, and
Iraqi Refugee Assistance Project (IRAP), New York, New York,
joint statement................................................ 197
Human Rights First, New York, New York, and Washington, DC,
statement...................................................... 207
Human Rights Initiative of North Texas, statement................ 253
Institute of International Education (IIE), Daniela Kaisth, Vice
President, External Affairs and IIE Initiatives, New York, New
York, statement................................................ 129
International Rescue Committee (IRC), Sharon Waxman, Vice
President for Public Policy and Advocacy, Washington, DC,
statement...................................................... 225
KARAMAH: Muslim Women Lawyers for Human Rights, Rockville,
Maryland, statement............................................ 242
Lutheran Immigration and Refugee Service (LIRS), Baltimore,
Maryland, statement............................................ 139
McCain, Hon. John, a U.S. Senator from the State of Arizona; Hon.
Sheldon Whitehouse, a U.S. Senator from the State of Rhode
Island; Hon. Kirsten E. Gillibrand, a U.S. Senator from the
State of New York; Hon. Christopher A. Coons, a U.S. Senator
from the State of Delaware; Hon. Richard Blumenthal, a U.S.
Senator from the State of Connecticut; and Hon. Kelly A.
Ayotte, a U.S. Senator from the State of New Hampshire; letter
addressed to President Barack Obama, December 20, 2013......... 57
Mennonite Central Committee (MCC), Akron, Pennsylvania, statement 192
Mercy Corps, Andrea Koppel, Vice President, Global Engagement and
Policy, Portland, Oregon, statement............................ 218
Muslim Public Affairs Council (MPAC), Washington, DC, and Los
Angeles, California, statement................................. 147
National Association of Evangelicals (NAE) World Relief,
Washington, DC, statement...................................... 150
Okar, Ayman A., Syrian refugee, statement........................ 248
Oxfam America, Noah Gottschalk, Senior Policy Advisor,
Washington, DC, statement...................................... 157
Physicians for Human Rights (PHR), Washington, DC, statement..... 221
Refugee Council USA, Washington, DC, statement................... 162
Refugees International, Washington, DC, statement................ 179
Save the Children, Michael Klosson, Vice President, Policy and
Humanitarian Response, Fairfield, Connecticut, statement....... 133
Syria Relief and Development (SRD), Overland Park, Kansas, and
United Muslim Relief (UMR), Washington, DC, statement.......... 187
Syrian American Medical Society (SAMS), Washington, DC, statement 170
Syrian Emergency Task Force, Washington, DC, statement........... 232
Syrian Human Rights Organization Swasia, Muhanad Al-Hasani,
President, statement........................................... 233
United Nations International Children's Emergency Fund (UNICEF),
Ted Chaiban, Director, Emergency Programs, statement........... 69
United States Conference of Catholic Bishops (USCCB), Most
Reverend Eusebio Elizondo, M.Sp., Chairman, Committee on
Migration, statement........................................... 59
Urang, Sally, RN, CNM, Volunteer in Jordan, statement--Redacted.. 143
THE SYRIAN REFUGEE CRISIS
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TUESDAY, JANUARY 7, 2014
United States Senate,
Subcommittee on the Constitution, Civil Rights, and
Human Rights,
Committee on the Judiciary,
Washington, DC.
The Subcommittee met, pursuant to notice, at 2:29 p.m., in
Room SH-216, Hart Senate Office Building, Hon. Dick Durbin,
Chairman of the Subcommittee, presiding.
Present: Senators Durbin, Whitehouse, Klobuchar, Cruz, and
Graham.
OPENING STATEMENT OF HON. DICK DURBIN,
A U.S. SENATOR FROM THE STATE OF ILLINOIS
Chairman Durbin. Good afternoon. This hearing of the
Subcommittee on the Constitution, Civil Rights and Human Rights
will come to order. Today's hearing is entitled ``The Syrian
Refugee Crisis.'' We are pleased to have a large audience for
today's hearing, particularly on such a challenging weather
day--not as challenging as Illinois yesterday, but challenging
nevertheless. It demonstrates the importance of this issue.
Thanks to those who are here in person and those who are
following the hearing on Facebook and Twitter using the hashtag
#syrianrefugees. There was so much interest in today's hearing,
we have moved this to a larger room to accommodate everyone. If
anyone could not get a seat in the hearing room, we have an
overflow room, 226 Dirksen.
At the outset of the hearing, we are going to start with a
brief video to provide some background and context. We are then
going to have opening remarks--I am hoping that Senator Cruz
will be joining us shortly--and then turn to our witnesses.
At this point let us roll the tape, show the video.
[Videotape played.]
Chairman Durbin. I would like to thank the U.N. High
Commission on Refugees for allowing us to use this video and
for many of the posters that you see around the hearing room. I
appreciate their outstanding work in helping Syrian refugees,
and this video gives us some context of the importance and
gravity of the issue that we are taking up today.
Today's hearing will focus on the plight of Syrian refugees
fleeing the violent civil war in their home country. This is
the world's worst ongoing humanitarian crisis and the worst
refugee crisis since the Rwandan genocide in 1994, and perhaps
since World War II.
Last year, when I visited Kilis, a Syrian refugee camp in
Turkey, I was especially struck by the plight of the children.
It is no exaggeration to say that a generation of Syrian
children is at risk. More than 11,000 children have been killed
in the conflict, including hundreds who have been shot by
snipers or summarily executed.
Let me add for a moment about this visit to this Turkish
camp, and a word of gratitude to the Turkish Government. Ten
thousand people were living in that camp, men, women, and
children. Efforts were being made, superhuman efforts, to
provide for them, for the basics, for food, for medicine, even
for basic education. So I want to put my comments in that
context. Many of those receiving countries who are receiving
Syrian refugees are making extraordinary sacrifices on their
own part to help.
There are 1.1 million Syrian refugee children, 70 percent
under the age of 12, 60 percent not attending school. One in
ten Syrian refugee children is working to support their
families, including some as young as 7 years of age. Thousands
are unaccompanied or separated from their parents. And we have
heard troubling reports of boy refugees being recruited as
combatants and girl refugees being forced into early marriage.
The onset of winter puts Syrian children at even greater
risk, especially the hundreds of thousands living in temporary,
often unheated, tents or shelters. Several children have
already died from the cold, and, tragically, more are likely to
follow.
The Assad regime and, to a lesser extent, some rebel groups
have blocked humanitarian assistance in a deliberate effort to
increase pressure on besieged children. Several children have
already starved to death. One medical expert who examined
underweight refugee children said, ``We have a middle-income
country that is transforming itself into something a lot more
like Somalia.'' Aid workers report that signs are posted at
regime checkpoints that say, ``Kneel or starve.'' This is a
deplorable war crime, and it must be stopped.
I am proud to say that the United States has provided $1.3
billion in humanitarian assistance to aid Syrian refugees,
leading the world. We have a moral obligation to assist Syrian
refugees, but it is also in our national interest to find a
path to stability in that region.
This humanitarian catastrophe has created grave challenges
for neighboring countries--including many U.S. allies--that are
hosting vast majorities of the refugees. These countries have
saved the lives of untold numbers of Syrian refugees. We have
to continue to support them.
Take a look at Lebanon, a country of 4.4 million people now
hosting 860,000 Syrian refugees. This is more than 20 percent
of the Lebanese population. It would be the equivalent of the
United States facing the sudden influx of 60 million people.
UNHCR projects that an additional 1 million could arrive in
Lebanon this year. This has increased competition for limited
job opportunities, raised food and housing costs for all, and
created severe strains on schools, health care, and other
social services. In fact, the number of Syrian school-aged
refugee children in Lebanon is soon likely to exceed the number
of Lebanese school-aged children.
As the Syrian conflict grinds on, UNHCR has begun efforts
to resettle especially vulnerable refugees in third countries,
including 30,000 this Fiscal Year 2014.
For decades, the United States has received more refugees
than any other country in the world, and the American people
have greeted these refugees with open arms and hearts. But the
United States only accepted 31 Syrian refugees in the last
fiscal year, and the administration has said we are likely to
accept a few hundred this fiscal year.
Two years ago, I asked the administration to grant
temporary protected status to Syrians. As a result, the United
States is providing a safe haven to hundreds of Syrian visitors
who were in this country on a temporary basis.
But we also should accept more vulnerable Syrian refugees
who have no way of getting to the United States. One issue that
needs to be addressed is the overly broad prohibition in our
immigration law that excludes any refugee who has provided any
kind of support to any armed rebel group, even a group that we
in the United States support. This would prevent a Syrian who
gave a cigarette or a sandwich to a Free Syrian Army solider
from receiving refugee status in the United States, despite the
fact that the United States is providing assistance to the Free
Syrian Army.
At the same time, other countries must play a larger part
in accepting Syrian refugees. For example, the Conservative
government in the United Kingdom has said it will not accept a
single one. And none of the Gulf Arab countries--Saudi Arabia,
Qatar, and others--have committed to accept Syrian refugees.
These countries need to step up as well and do their part.
You heard the statistics. But it is critical to recall that
behind those numbers are real people. A number of those Syrian
refugees are here today. I would like to take a moment to
introduce a few of them who have been fortunate enough to find
refuge in the United States.
Eiad Charbaji, please stand. Thank you, Eiad. Mr. Charbaji
and his wife, Ola Malas--I hope I pronounced that correctly--
are journalists from Damascus who took part in the nonviolent
protest movement. Mr. Charbaji was arrested and tortured by the
regime for publishing recordings of the regime's violent
response to peaceful demonstrations. Ms. Malas' life was
threatened, as was the life of the couple's 4-year-old
daughter, Julie. The family fled from Syria in January 2012,
and Mr. Charbaji came to the United States with the State
Department's International Visitor Leadership Program.
Amer Mahdi Doko, please stand. Thank you. Mr. Doko is from
Darayya--I hope I pronounced it--a suburb of Damascus. He, his
wife, and his baby now live in Virginia. Mr. Doko was
imprisoned twice for opposing the Assad regime, once in 2003
and again in March 2012. After being released in 2012, he fled
to Jordan. He came to the U.S. after he was admitted to a
master's program at Georgetown. In August 2012, the Assad
forces massacred hundreds of civilians in his hometown and
arrested two of his brothers, who are still, sadly, missing.
Mr. Doko, who received asylum in 2013, is now working full-time
and continuing his studies.
Omar Al Muqdad, please stand. Thank you. Mr. Al Muqdad, who
is from Dara'a, worked as a journalist for over 9 years,
publicizing human rights abuses by the regime. He was arrested
seven times and was imprisoned for 2 years, between 2006 and
2008. When he refused to stop writing, the prison guards broke
his hand. After his release from prison, he continued to work
as a journalist. He participated in nonviolent political
protests in Dara'a in March 2011 and publicized abuses by
Syrian security forces. He fled to Turkey in April 2011 after
he was pursued by the regime. He was resettled in the United
States by Catholic Charities after receiving refugee status.
Mr. Al Muqdad has submitted a statement to the
Subcommittee. I would like to read a portion of it. He said:
``I would like to take this opportunity to publicly thank
the American people for providing me refuge in the United
States. Also, I would like to urge you to do all that you can
to make U.S. resettlement available for more Syrian refugees.
Obviously, the United States cannot resettle all of the
hundreds of thousands of people who have fled from Syria. But
there are many very vulnerable people who could be helped,
including women with problem pregnancies, girls subject to
forced marriages, orphans, elderly people, and sick people.''
As this Syrian conflict enters its fourth year, it is clear
that the refugee crisis is going to continue. While there may
be differences about how to resolve the conflict, even within
this panel, there should be no disagreement that it is a moral
and national security imperative to do all we can to help
alleviate the suffering of innocent Syrian refugees.
I look forward to our discussion about what steps Congress
and the administration should take to address the crisis, and I
now recognize the Ranking Member of this Subcommittee, Senator
Cruz of Texas.
OPENING STATEMENT OF HON. TED CRUZ,
A U.S. SENATOR FROM THE STATE OF TEXAS
Senator Cruz. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Thank you to the
witnesses who have come today to this hearing.
The refugee crisis in Syria is a humanitarian disaster, and
I want to thank the Chairman for convening this hearing and for
helping shine the light on what is happening.
I am the son of a refugee from Cuba who fled oppression,
and to the refugees who have come here today, let me say
welcome, and I think the United States should always be a
clarion voice for freedom and a voice against the oppression of
the innocent.
Given what is happening in Syria, the United States is
rightly participating in the relief efforts there, and I think
it is critical that our aid be dispensed in a way that is
consistent with the vital national security interests of the
United States and, in particular, with our allies in the region
and maintaining stability in the region.
In the next few months, we are going to mark the third
anniversary of the beginnings of the civil war in Syria, which,
tragically, grinds on with no foreseeable prospect of
resolution in the future. And the humanitarian crisis continues
to get worse by the day. Amnesty International estimates that
some 2.3 million people have been displaced; 52 percent of them
are children. One-third of Syria's population has been forced
out of their homes. Jordan's population has increased by 9
percent, and Lebanon's population has increased by 19 percent.
This disaster demands the attention of the United States
not only because Americans are and have been traditionally a
generous people who have volunteered to step forward with
assistance in humanitarian crises, but also because this crisis
threatens the ability of some of our key allies, including
Jordan, Lebanon, and Israel.
Given its fragile political situation, Lebanon is a
particular concern. It would be tragic and dangerous if the
Iranian-backed Hezbollah militia exploited the humanitarian
crisis to gain control of the country. And we should be
particularly concerned by recent reports that Hezbollah is
smuggling long-range missile systems from Syria into Lebanon,
where they could be used to target Israel.
It is also a serious concern that some of the Al-Qaeda-
affiliated terrorists who have infiltrated the Syrian
opposition have also apparently infiltrated the refugee
population or are using them as cover to move into host
nations. This has obviously been a grave concern to many
countries who have been asked to grant additional visas.
In addition, I am particularly concerned about the
neglected plight of many Christian refugees both inside and
outside of Syria. The reports of the ancient Christian
communities that are targeted by extremist elements in the
opposition that the regime forces cannot or will not protect
are heart-breaking. And as we explore the visa issue, we should
not neglect the tragic circumstance of Syrian Christians facing
oppression.
For a long time, Chairman Durbin has worked hard to ensure
that perpetrators of human rights abuses do not attain safe
haven in the United States, and I thank the Chairman for his
leadership on that issue, particularly through the Genocide
Accountability Act and the Human Rights Enforcement Act, both
of which have been made law.
While we have come a long way because of the Chairman's
work, his intention highlights that challenges still remain to
improve Federal law and to strengthen our immigration screening
system at the front end, thereby ensuring that dangerous people
are not allowed into this country in the first instance.
So not only do we have a humanitarian crisis, we have
potentially a security crisis as well. I look forward to
hearing the thoughts and learned judgment of the members of
this panel on how we can approach these interrelated problems
and hopefully on how we can make progress on alleviating both,
and I welcome you.
Chairman Durbin. Thanks, Senator Cruz.
Senator Klobuchar has asked for a brief opening statement,
and I am going to offer the same courtesy to the other Members
who are in attendance here today. Senator Klobuchar.
OPENING STATEMENT OF HON. AMY KLOBUCHAR,
A U.S. SENATOR FROM THE STATE OF MINNESOTA
Senator Klobuchar. Well, thank you so much, Senator Durbin,
and thank you for holding this important hearing. The conflict
in Syria remains one of the most crucial foreign policy
challenges that we face, and addressing this refugee crisis
caused by the war is essential to our stability in the region
but, as we can see by the people who have joined us today, the
refugees, essential to the people of Syria.
In April, I visited one of Syria's neighbors--actually, two
of them, Jordan and Turkey, with Senator Graham and Senator
Gillibrand and Senator Hoeven. And we had the opportunity to
visit the Zaatari refugee camp in Jordan right on the border
there and to meet with a few of the 120,000 Syrians that were
there. I will never forget this visit. I will never forget the
one man who told us that the atrocities would ``make stones
cry.'' And then each of the people that we met with went
through what had happened to their families.
A young boy name Yurab was only 11 years old, but it felt
like he had the weight of the world on his shoulders. His
father had been shot and badly injured before escaping to
Jordan, and so now it was up to this 11-year-old boy to make
sure that the rest of his family was taken care of. Every day
Yurab would stand in line for food and water, and every day he
would carry what he could hold in his hands back to his family.
At 11 years old, he had seen more suffering and injustice than
most people will see in their entire lifetimes.
This is just one of millions of tragic stories that we
heard from the men, women, and children who have had to flee
their homes in Syria. My home State has always been a State of
refugees. We have one of the largest Somali populations in the
country, and we have the largest Hmong population in the
country. We see these refugees, whether they be from Somalia or
Liberia, as part of the fabric of our State and our culture,
and we are much the richer for them.
So I am looking forward to hearing about resettlement
efforts at this point. I am looking forward to hearing about
where aid is going, something that Senator Graham and I
encountered when we were there in terms of an issue, and other
steps that are being taken to help Syrians that are in
desperate need of assistance.
Thank you.
Chairman Durbin. Thank you.
Senator Graham, Senator Whitehouse.
OPENING STATEMENT OF HON. SHELDON WHITEHOUSE,
A U.S. SENATOR FROM THE STATE OF RHODE ISLAND
Senator Whitehouse. Thank you, Senator Durbin. I will not
take long. I just want to thank you for holding this hearing. I
think it is an issue that merits our attention.
I think we have been in a hearing on this before, Ms.
Richard. We have been a day late and a dollar short
consistently with our response to the Syrian crisis. And as a
result, we have always been behind the curve, and as a result,
I think there has been unnecessary human suffering.
Like Senator Klobuchar, I have traveled to the area with a
bipartisan delegation. I would like to put into the record a
letter that Senator McCain and I, Senator Gillibrand, Senator
Coons, Senator Blumenthal, and Senator Ayotte wrote to the
President urging a fulsome and robust response to the crisis
that has developed in Syria. And I hope we learn lessons from
this because, frankly, we were warned all along the way, and
despite the warnings from Members of Congress, from allies in
the neighborhood, we remained always a day late and a dollar
short. And I think it has been a very unfortunate episode.
Thank you, Chairman.
Chairman Durbin. Without objection, the letter will be
entered in the record.
[The letter appears as a submission for the record.]
Chairman Durbin. The Committee, as a matter of standard
practice, swears in the witnesses, and I ask the three to
please stand and raise your right hand. Do you affirm the
testimony you are about to give before the Subcommittee will be
the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth, so help
you God?
Ms. Richard. I do.
Ms. Lindborg. I do.
Ms. Groom. I do.
Chairman Durbin. Thank you. Let the record reflect that the
witnesses have answered in the affirmative.
Each witness is going to be given 5 minutes for an opening
statement, and their written statements will be included in
their entirety. Senator Leahy, the Chairman of the full
Judiciary Committee, who has been a leader on refugee issues,
has submitted a statement, and without objection, it will be
placed in the record.
[The prepared statement of Chairman Leahy appears as a
submission for the record.]
Chairman Durbin. Our first witness, Anne Richard, currently
serves as Assistant Secretary of State for Population,
Refugees, and Migration. Prior to her appointment, Ms. Richard
was vice president of government relations and advocacy for the
International Rescue Committee, an international aid agency
helping refugees internally displaced and other victims of
conflict. During the Clinton administration, Ms. Richard served
in a variety of capacities in the State Department and Peace
Corps and the Office of Management and Budget. Prior to her
Government service, Ms. Richard was part of the team that
created the International Crisis Group. She has a B.S. in
foreign service from the highly regarded Georgetown University
and an M.A. in public policy studies from the University of
Chicago.
Ms. Richard, thank you for joining us today.
STATEMENT OF HON. ANNE C. RICHARD, ASSISTANT
SECRETARY, BUREAU OF POPULATION, REFUGEES, AND
MIGRATION, U.S. DEPARTMENT OF STATE, WASHINGTON, DC
Ms. Richard. Thank you, Mr. Chairman, and I would like to
thank the other members, Ranking Member Cruz, Senator
Klobuchar, and Senators Whitehouse and Graham, for coming out
today. Senator Graham has sat through and chaired a similar
hearing, so he is a diehard fan of ours, so we appreciate
that--or at least very interested in this subject, which we
appreciate. So thank you for holding this hearing and bringing
attention to the tragedy unfolding in the Middle East.
I am here today with colleagues from the U.S. Agency for
International Development and the Department of Homeland
Security. I am going to limit my remarks to the State
Department's role in assisting refugees overseas. We are also
going to talk about aid inside Syria. Nancy will take the lead
on that. And then Molly Groom from DHS will talk about
resettlement. But I am happy to take questions on any of these
subjects because we are working very closely together on all of
these things, and in the interest of time, I will keep my
remarks more restricted.
You know that more than 2.3 million have crossed Syria's
borders and, thus, are considered refugees. They have fled to
all the neighboring countries, most of whom are struggling to
help them.
We are incredibly grateful to these countries for letting
them in, and we want them to keep their borders open and not
push anyone back. In order for them to do so, these neighboring
countries need our help. They need our help not just in
delivering aid to the refugees, but they also need our help for
their own poor citizens. And they need help for their own
budgets, which are strained and overstretched by delivering
services to these much larger populations.
The impact is that schools have moved to double shifts to
accommodate Syrian children. Hospital beds are filled by Syrian
patients. Rents have risen; wages have fallen as a result of
the competition for housing and jobs. There are water shortages
in Jordan and Lebanon. The drain on water resources is
especially severe in Jordan. And helping the host community, in
addition to the refugees themselves, is an accepted tenet of
refugee work. We do this, for example, in remote parts of Chad
where poor Chadians are given help alongside refugees from
Darfur, and in this case, we need to do more in terms of
helping them provide services--health care, clean water, extra
schooling, in addition to items like food vouchers, household
supplies, and blankets. This will involve more than just
humanitarian agencies. We need and are getting help from the
World Bank and our development agencies and our colleagues at
USAID who work on longer-term development.
In talking about the situation of the refugees themselves,
I think that was a very good video that we saw from UNHCR. I
recently made my sixth visit to the region. My seventh is
upcoming to Jordan this weekend. Right before Christmas I
traveled to Erbil in northern Iraq. There I had the pleasure of
wading through oceans of mud in cold temperatures to visit with
refugee families and consult with local government officials.
The good news is that the U.N. agencies, nongovernmental
organizations, and local charities have managed to house a lot
of people in tents and keep them warm using an extra layer of
tenting fabric, kerosene stoves, and lots and lots of blankets.
Still, this is no place for children to grow up. I saw kids
there running around in plastic flip-flops without socks. This
is not a good environment for families.
And I have met with Syrian refugees in all of the other
countries bordering Syria. In Lebanon, they continue to keep
its borders mostly open, and it is now hosting the largest
number of refugees in the smallest country in the region. You
have already mentioned its refugees make up 20 percent of the
population in Lebanon on top of 400,000 Palestinians who have
been there for decades.
More than a million refugees are split between Turkey and
Jordan, and those are just the registered refugees. There are
many more citizens from Syria living in both of those cities.
Iraq and Egypt also have large populations of Syrians.
It is important to know--and I am so grateful that some of
you have visited the camps, but most refugees do not live in
the camps. In early December, my Principal Deputy Assistant
Secretary Simon Henshaw visited refugees in cities of southern
Turkey, Kilis and Gaziantep, and there he saw the work of NGO's
and municipal governments struggling to deal with an influx of
refugees living in the cities and towns of Turkey.
Despite their efforts, most refugees were not getting
services and were living in substandard conditions. For this
reason, one of our top goals is to focus more attention on the
plight of urban refugees and do everything we can to get aid to
these families.
Other challenges that we talk about in the testimony are
children. The U.N. High Commission for Refugees and UNICEF have
come together. There is a press statement that came out today
that Save the Children and World Vision were also involved in
an initiative that we support called ``No Lost Generation,''
trying to make sure that we keep these children inside and
fleeing from Syria safe, healthy, educated, and away from
danger. They need a future.
Another issue of great concern to all of us is protection
of women and girls, and here we have, I know, a lot of
bipartisan support. We also have support from Secretary Kerry,
who has put together an initiative called ``Safe from the
Start,'' to make sure we protect women and girls in this
crisis. We are also concerned about them surviving the winter.
Final remarks. I would like to say that on January 15th we
will be in Kuwait for a pledging conference to reiterate
American support for the humanitarian response. Of course,
beyond that, our Secretary will be heading to the Geneva II
conference to try to bring peace to this very troubled area.
This is not the only crisis to which we are rushing
humanitarian aid. South Sudan is suffering a political crisis
that has displaced 190,000 of its citizens, with another 32,000
streaming across its borders. In the Central African Republic,
UNHCR's latest update puts the number of displaced at 930,000.
This is 20 percent of that country's population displaced, the
same proportion as there are refugees in Lebanon.
This administration is addressing all of these crises and
other crises at the same time with high levels of vigor and
energy and dedication. The most senior members of the
administration are fully engaged, including Ambassador Power,
National Security Adviser Rice, and my boss, Secretary of State
John Kerry. But their attention does not necessarily mean that
these tough situations are easily solved, and we cannot do much
without your support. Especially in the case of humanitarian
endeavors, support for our budget and the budgets of all our
diplomatic and foreign aid activities is very helpful.
Thank you.
[The prepared statement of Ms. Richard appears as a
submission for the record.]
Chairman Durbin. Thanks, Ms. Richard.
Nancy Lindborg serves as USAID Assistant Administrator for
the Bureau of Democracy, Conflict, and Humanitarian Assistance,
where she leads the efforts of more than 500 team members in 9
offices focused on crisis prevention, response, recovery, and
transition. She has led DCHA teams in response to the ongoing
Syrian crisis, the Sahel 2012 and Horn of Africa 2011 droughts,
the Arab Spring, and numerous other global crises. She was back
to her home base in Chicago a few months ago discussing the
typhoon in the Philippines, so I know you have a very busy
schedule.
Prior to joining USAID, she was president of Mercy Corps
for 14 years, with a B.A. and M.A. in English literature from
Stanford, an M.A. in public administration from the JFK School
at Harvard.
Ms. Lindborg, I want to take this opportunity to thank you
again for coming to Chicago and for all your good work.
Please proceed.
STATEMENT OF HON. NANCY E. LINDBORG, ASSISTANT
ADMINISTRATOR, BUREAU FOR DEMOCRACY, CONFLICT,
AND HUMANITARIAN ASSISTANCE, U.S. AGENCY FOR
INTERNATIONAL DEVELOPMENT, WASHINGTON, DC
Ms. Lindborg. Thank you very much, Chairman Durbin. Thanks,
Ranking Member Cruz and other members of the Subcommittee. We
really appreciate your having this hearing today to shine a
light on this crisis and, most importantly, put a human face on
it.
We have heard the staggering statistics, and the numbers
are really hard to comprehend, and thank you, Senator
Klobuchar, for the stories that you told.
Those in need in this crisis are equal to the entire State
of New Jersey, and the displaced are as if the entire State of
Massachusetts were out of their homes. And, most importantly,
the 5 million children who are affected is equal to the
children in the entire 25 largest school districts in this
country. So that is all of New York, all of Los Angeles, you
know, et cetera, et cetera, for 25 school districts. This is a
generation of Syrian children who have been traumatized by
bombs, many of them have lost their homes, their families,
their friends. And, unfortunately, similar to Massachusetts and
New Jersey, the region also faces one of the worst winters in
the last 100 years, adding to the hardship of families out of
their homes.
Working in partnership with the international community,
the United States humanitarian response has reached millions.
We have saved millions of lives. But we also know that the
needs are escalating faster than any of our collective
responses can manage to reach.
So I would like to cover three quick areas today.
First, a quick update on our very significant life-saving
humanitarian response, which does include a focus on the most
vulnerable, especially women and, very importantly, children
who will steer the future course of this country and this
Nation.
The United States has made a total contribution, as you
noted, Senator Durbin, of $1.3 billion, and we are reaching
regularly about 4.2 million people in all 14 Governorates
inside Syria as well as the 2 million refugees in neighboring
countries. And we have doubled the number of our partners
inside Syria, and we are working through all possible
channels--the United Nations, NGO's, international groups, and
local. We are reaching about 2.7 million people with medical
care, and thanks to the many extraordinarily courageous
doctors, nurses, and health workers who risk their lives every
day inside Syria.
We are the single largest donor of emergency food aid, and
thanks to the very flexible tools that allow us to provide
vouchers and do local/regional purchase, we are able to feed
about 4.2 million people inside Syria and 1.3 million refugees
every day who depend upon that food.
Finally, all of our assistance takes into account the
vulnerability particularly of women and children and women who
experience gender-based violence. As Anne noted, we have an
initiative called ``Safe from the Start'' that prioritizes this
in all of our assistance.
Also as Anne noted, we are working very closely with the
international community on the No Lost Generation strategy that
looks at programs to help children inside and outside of Syria,
and today is the start of a very major multi-partner media
campaign to put a face on this crisis that has dragged on into
its third year now.
So a few key challenges that I want to note. The first is
that the insecurity of this war zone complicates every day the
ability to deliver assistance. Roads are closing, hundreds of
checkpoints make it very dangerous for aid workers to cross
lines and to get into communities.
Most concerning, there is an estimated 250,000 people who
have been completely and deliberately cutoff from humanitarian
assistance for many months now in areas that are besieged by
the regime, as you noted, in campaigns that are unconscionable,
``Kneel or starve.''
In October, the U.N. Security Council passed a Presidential
statement that urges all parties of the conflict to facilitate
immediate access. This statement lays down a very clear set of
markers for the Syrian regime regarding the world's
expectations that it will provide the access that it has long
denied, and by taking these clear steps, the regime has the
power to enable life-saving assistance to reach more than
200,000 people in need immediately.
Finally, resources remain a key constraint, and as we head
to Kuwait next week for the donors conference, we are making a
major push for all donors across the globe to step up to the
plate to help with this escalating burden.
We have also within USAID reoriented our development
activities in the neighboring states. We are working with our
development and humanitarian resources and with our partners to
help create a comprehensive response for the neighboring states
that are straining to accommodate the needs of their own people
in addition to the millions of new refugees, and we are seeing
this convergence of the poorest communities hosting the largest
number of refugees. So in Jordan, for example, where the
domestic water supply is among the lowest in the world, USAID
used $20 million from our Complex Crises Fund to help
communities with that large refugee population. So our efforts
are both to assist with the development needs of communities as
well as contribute to the region's stability.
We know that humanitarian assistance is not the solution to
this horrible crisis, and it absolutely cannot end the
bloodshed. But it is saving countless lives every day. It is
helping to protect the vulnerable from a very, very devastating
conflict.
The United States remains committed to using every possible
tool that we can to reach Syrians in need and to bring in our
full diplomatic weight to help attain greater access.
So thank you for your time today and for the vital
congressional support that makes our work possible, and we look
forward to your questions.
[The prepared statement of Ms. Lindborg appears as a
submission for the record.]
Chairman Durbin. Thanks, Ms. Lindborg.
We are now going to hear from Molly Groom, Acting Deputy
Assistant Secretary for the Office of Immigration and Border
Security at the Department of Homeland Security. Ms. Groom is
detailed to her current position from her permanent role as
Chief of the Refugee and Asylum Law Division in the Office of
Chief Counsel at U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services. She
has worked in a variety of capacities on immigration law in the
Department of Justice and Department of Homeland Security. A
graduate of Duke with an A.B. in English, a J.D., and her
master's of social science from Case Western, received the
National Security Law LLM from Georgetown University.
I came to know Ms. Groom when she was on detail with
Senator Menendez to work on the bipartisan comprehensive
immigration bill that the Senate considered this year--last
year, I should say.
Ms. Groom, it is nice to see you again. The floor is yours.
Do you want to push the button in front of you there?
STATEMENT OF MOLLY GROOM, ACTING DEPUTY ASSISTANT SECRETARY,
OFFICE OF POLICY, U.S. DEPARTMENT OF HOMELAND SECURITY,
WASHINGTON, DC
Ms. Groom. Yes, thank you so much, Chairman Durbin, and
thank you, Ranking Member Cruz and the distinguished members of
the Subcommittee. I appreciate the opportunity to address the
refugee resettlement and other humanitarian efforts that we are
undertaking to address the crisis in Syria.
As you are all aware, the U.S. has a proud and longstanding
tradition of offering protection, freedom, and opportunity to
refugees from around the world who fear persecution. Refugee
resettlement is a cornerstone of our national character and
reflects our country's commitment to humanitarian ideals. It is
this commitment which must be carried out in conjunction with
our overarching commitment to protecting our national security.
DHS, along with the Department of State, is committed to
ensuring that the U.S. continues to take a leading role in
refugee resettlement and other humanitarian protections. The
U.S. Refugee Admissions Program serves a critical role in
identifying individuals in need of protection who do not
present a risk to our national security and who are otherwise
admissible to the U.S. as refugees.
It is DHS' U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services that
is responsible for determining whether individuals meet the
refugee definition. They do this by conducting individual in-
depth interviews and considering the results of security
checks, extensive security checks.
In 2005, USCIS created the Refugee Corps, a cadre of
specially trained officers who travel overseas to adjudicate
applications for refugee status. The officers receive extensive
training which includes information about the specific
populations they will be interviewing, including the likely
types of claims that they will encounter, fraud trends or
security issues, and detailed country-of-origin information.
All refugee status determinations undergo 100 percent
supervisory review before a final decision is reached.
Security checks are an integral part of the refugee
resettlement process, and coordinating these checks is a shared
responsibility between the Department of State and the
Department of Homeland Security. The refugee vetting process in
place today employs robust security measures to protect against
risks to our national security, and DHS would never approve a
refugee applicant for travel until all required security checks
are completed and cleared.
Refugee vetting happens at different stages of the process,
and the procedures include initial biographic and biometric
security checks against DHS holdings, FBI holdings, Department
of Defense holding, State holdings, and intelligence community
holdings, and those checks are performed again, the interagency
checks, pre-departure--that is, before the refugee is scheduled
to travel to the United States.
While no screening is infallible, we believe that our
current refugee screening systems are more likely today to
detect individuals with derogatory information should they
apply.
DHS works early on with the Department of State to provide
feedback on which refugee groups being considered for
resettlement are likely to qualify and which may pose
eligibility concerns. The broad definitions of terrorist
activity and terrorist organizations under U.S. immigration law
are often a hurdle to resettling otherwise eligible refugees
who pose no security threat. Examples of these groups include
the ethnic Burmese who provided food to an individual or Iraqis
who paid ransoms for the release of family members.
Given the complexities of the crisis in Syria, we believe
certain refugees fleeing the crisis may fall within the
terrorism-related inadmissibility grounds as they are defined
in the Immigration and Nationality Act. With the breadth of
these grounds, the law also gives the Secretaries of State and
Homeland Security, in consultation with the Attorney General,
broad discretionary authority to issue exemptions when the
circumstances might justify an exemption. DHS, DOS, and the
Department of Justice engage in an interagency consultation
process on the exercise of this exemption authority. This
process is used to ensure that the terrorism-related
inadmissibility grounds are applied in a way that protect our
national security but also allow individuals who pose no threat
to potentially receive immigration benefits that they are
otherwise eligible for.
If the Secretary of Homeland Security or the Secretary of
State exercises the exemption authority, the Department of
Homeland Security or the Department of State may then apply
these exemptions on a case-by-case basis, taking into
consideration the totality of the circumstances. Any individual
who poses a threat to the safety or security of the U.S. would
not be eligible for an exemption.
We are ever mindful that addressing humanitarian needs must
be coupled with robust measures to protect national security,
including the security screening of refugee applicants. With
regard to the population fleeing Syria, the Department of
Homeland Security and the Department of State have had a series
of conversations with UNHCR on how best to address resettlement
of Syrians and any potential exemption-related issues. With
regard to possible new exemption authority, interagency
consultations are ongoing.
I appreciate the opportunity to testify and for your
interest in how we are approaching resettlement of refugees
fleeing the crisis in Syria, and I would be happy to answer any
questions you may have.
[The prepared statement of Ms. Groom appears as a
submission for the record.]
Chairman Durbin. Thanks, Ms. Groom.
UNHCR has begun efforts to resettle especially vulnerable
refugees in third countries, including 30,000 in Fiscal Year
2014. I am struck by that number, that they are trying to
resettle 30,000 and we are talking about an order of magnitude
in the millions of refugees, but 30,000 is the UNHCR target
number.
Now, the United States typically accepts more than half of
resettlement refugees under this type of program. Ms. Richard,
administration officials previously told the staff of our
Subcommittee that the United States is likely to accept only a
few hundred Syrian refugees in this fiscal year, which ends in
October, October 1st. However, in your testimony today, you
said, and I quote, "We expect to accept referrals for several
thousands refugees in 2014."
Can you please clarify that?
Ms. Richard. Thank you for your question, and I get asked a
lot about whether we will accept refugees in the United States,
not just here in Washington but also when I travel overseas,
because the neighboring countries would like us to, out of
solidarity with them, bring in our share of refugees as well.
And I explain to them that it is our tradition to do so. We
have every intention of doing so. We are not at all opposed to
bringing Syrian refugees to the United States.
The fact that we have not brought many so far is due to:
First, our hope, and now discarded, that this conflict
would be over quickly and they would be able to go home
quickly, and that has not been the case.
Second, we take refugees after they have been referred by
the U.N. High Commission for Refugees, UNHCR, and so that
process did not start at once, but instead started after a
period of time.
And now our own process takes a little while. It is very
deliberate and careful. It is designed to be that way to make
sure that we only take bona fide refugees.
So we are working very quickly now to respond to referrals
from UNHCR and to start that process of bringing in refugees.
And so I think that UNHCR's desire to send 30,000 to new homes
in other countries this year is ambitious, and I want to do
everything we can to bring in as many as we can to the United
States before the end of the fiscal year, but in all honesty, I
do not think you will see big numbers until next fiscal year,
the end of this calendar year.
Chairman Durbin. And, of course, it is difficult to speak
to our allies and friends and ask them to also bear the burden
if we do not do it as well.
Ms. Richard. That is right. And the good thing is, I was
able to say that we could be counted on to bring in refugees,
in part because we have this tradition that has bipartisan
support on the Hill of bringing refugees. Last year, we brought
70,000, and that was the closest we had come in 30 years to
reaching our target level. We got 99.9 percent of the refugees
we plan to bring in we brought in, so we have done a lot of
things to make sure our process works quickly and well. But it
is deliberately supposed to be designed that bona fide refugees
come in and bad guys do not come in, and that process that
Molly Groom has described very well of checking to make sure
that we are only bringing bona fide refugees does take a little
time.
Chairman Durbin. So let us go to the bad guy issue and talk
about it for a moment. I mentioned it at the outset because of
concerns over what we have heard in terms of applying the rules
as written, that if someone is seeking refugee status and they
have somehow even supported an armed rebel group, which the
United States is directly supporting, it could in some cases
raise questions if not disqualify them.
The same questions have been raised about those who help
groups under duress. It was a witness before this Committee or
a case before this Committee of a Colombian nurse who, at the
point of a gun, was providing medical assistance to a FARC
injured rebel and was disqualified as a refugee because of her
involvement, even though her actions were under duress.
The point made by Senator Cruz is obvious and valid. We do
not want anyone to come into the United States who will be a
threat to our security. That is something I think we owe the
American people, is the assurance we have done everything
humanly possible to stop that from occurring.
So let me ask you at this point, Ms. Groom, as you reflect
on this, can you update us on the status of exemptions that
have been prepared for cases like those that I have described?
And what is the timetable for a decision about a proposed
exemption to the material support bar, which I think is an
overarching description of what we have been describing?
Ms. Groom. Thank you for the opportunity to talk about the
TRIG grounds, as we call them, terrorism-related
inadmissibility grounds, and the exemption process. As you
note, the terrorism-related inadmissibility grounds are quite
broad because of the definition of ``terrorist organization''
and because of the definition of ``terrorist activity.'' A
terrorist organization includes any undesignated terrorist
organization, which means any two members who use a firearm or
other weapon with the intent to endanger. That is a terrorist
organization if they engage in terrorist activity.
So the exemption process is the flexibility that is
provided for in the law, and the interagency working group that
I mentioned has exercised an exemption for those who provide
medical care under duress. There is also an exemption for those
who provide material support under duress. So those exemptions
are already in place and may be useful with the population
fleeing Syria.
I believe you were asking about something that we have been
discussing for quite some time and whether or not there should
be an exemption for insignificant amounts of material support.
And with that exemption, it is on an accelerated track. We are
nearing the finish line, and we are at the point of senior-
level engagement, and we are going to bring this to a close in
the interagency and it will be moving to the secretarial level
for decisionmaking very shortly. So I hope to have good news on
that front soon.
Chairman Durbin. Thank you.
Ms. Lindborg, when I visited the refugee camp in Turkey,
10,000 people--and as I said, I thought it was an extraordinary
effort by the Turkish Government to accommodate a large number
of people, men, women, and children--we went into the
classroom, and I am sure these children were completely beside
themselves to figure out who we were or why we were there. They
were Syrian children who were in a classroom being taught in
Turkish and greeted by American visitors in English. I am sure
that they were puzzled as to what life held for the next day.
But it raises a question that you have addressed here, the
so-called lost generation. What are we going to do with these
children as they lose their opportunity for a normal, regular
education? What efforts, as you mentioned, are underway to try
to avoid this?
Ms. Lindborg. Well, there is a unified campaign and
strategy under the heading of No Lost Generation that is
looking at how do we pull together the resources from both our
humanitarian accounts with our partners as well, both inside
and outside Syria and in the neighboring countries, and how do
we focus in on all the ways that we can help children both
access education and be provided with the kind of safe spaces
and opportunities that create a little more normalcy in their
lives?
So, for example, in Lebanon, in addition to the assistance
that we are providing through our humanitarian efforts, we are
also with our development funds focusing in on education,
because one of the big challenges is the number of Syrian
children in Lebanon who need to be accommodated by an already
overburdened school system. You already have double shifts in a
lot of the schools in Lebanon.
So the focus is to create that comprehensive approach where
we are able to bring in the development funds that help both
the communities but also get kids into school, get kids into
ways that they have more of a sense of future and hope.
Unfortunately, inside Syria, it is much more complicated
because it is difficult to restore infrastructure when they are
still under aerial bombardment. So in those instances, it is
more of a focus of the kind of psychological or safe spaces
that we can help to provide those kids, and also just that they
get clothing and food to eat.
Chairman Durbin. Thanks.
Senator Cruz.
Senator Cruz. Thank you, Mr. Chairman, and thank you to
each of the members of the panel today.
Assistant Secretary Richard, could you put the impact of
the displaced Syrian refugees into historical perspective? What
comparable events have we seen in the past? And what have been
the consequences of those?
Ms. Richard. We have not seen anything like this in several
decades, and, you know, the Rwandan genocide sent people
fleeing from Rwanda, but it was a very short period of time in
which they were on the move, and then there was a larger effort
to address the situation after they had fled to Zaire, the
modern-day Democratic Republic of Congo.
We saw widespread chaos in the Balkans in the mid-1990s
that involved pulling together a lot of different parts of the
United Nations, peacekeepers, diplomatic measures.
This is different in many ways in that one of the things
that has happened--and this was referenced earlier--is we have
seen a country lose about 35 years of development. In a sense,
it is the suicide of Syria because the hospitals have been
bombed, schools have been bombed, civilians have been killed by
the tens of thousands. And when we talk about No Lost
Generation, this ought to be the generation that will be the
future of Syria. I do not know where the leaders are going to
come from if they are not in school and if their families are
torn apart and they are traumatized from what they have
witnessed.
So this sets a horrible new standard, I think, in our
historic annals in terms of the amount of mayhem and tragedy
that can be spread in a couple years.
Senator Cruz. And in terms of prior refugee crises, what
efforts have been undertaken to alleviate those crises? And how
successful would you characterize those efforts as having been?
Ms. Richard. I think today we see the fruits of some of the
lessons learned in the past, because never before have I seen
such an impressive group of U.N. agency heads, including a few
Americans--Tony Lake runs UNICEF, and Ertharin Cousin from
Chicago runs the World Food Program. So we have a lot of very
good relations with the U.N. leadership there, and also we have
some really good experience behind them. And also we have much
more professional aid workers on the ground using more time-
tested techniques to help people.
The problem is that it is such an overwhelming crisis that
even though so many lives have been saved and so many people
have gotten help in the places to which they have run, it is
not enough. It requires more. This is why we are taking
extraordinary measures like the Kuwait pledging conference,
held for a second year soon, and trying to pull the world
together, get new donors to the table, get never before degrees
of coordination among all the players in the field to work
together.
Senator Cruz. And this is a question for anyone on the
panel who would care to respond, but in your judgment, how
would you assess the impact of this crisis on U.S. allies in
the region and, in particular, Lebanon in terms of the
stability and security?
Ms. Richard. I will start. I think it is having a
devastating impact. It is undermining the stability of the
region. It is no longer a Syria crisis; it is a regional
crisis. And, you know, we have very close relationships in
Jordan. Our embassy works very closely with the government
there. They are very, very worried about their abilities to
host this third wave of refugees because they have hosted
Palestinians for decades, they have hosted Iraqi refugees,
recently an uptick in refugees from Iraq coming into Jordan,
and now they have opened their homes and cities and towns and
schools to the Syrians.
The only place worse off than Jordan in terms of the
concerns and the fears of the government officials with whom I
meet is Lebanon, and Lebanon has just not got a society and a
government organized to respond as robustly as some of the
other countries. And so there has been increased tensions
within that society. Even as they brought in more refugees than
any other state, and even as they have been very generous in
letting people come and kept their borders open, the tensions
have built, and the internal sectarian tensions are also on the
rise. And so we should all be very concerned about what this
crisis means for the countries in the region.
Senator Cruz. And let me again ask the panel, in your
judgment, how serious a threat and how widespread are we seeing
the infiltration and exploitation of refugees by Al-Qaeda and
radical extremists?
Ms. Richard. I will answer that. It is not large numbers.
Most refugee groups that you meet, most in the camps are
civilians, families, law-abiding people who are just shattered
by what is happening in Syria. The thing that we know, though,
is it does not take a lot of evildoers to cause a lot of havoc.
And so it is not a wide problem, but it is a real problem.
And so that is why I respect your concern that we do
everything we can to avoid radicalization and also to make sure
that borders are guarded carefully so that only legitimate
refugees come across, which will be the--most of the people
will be legitimate refugees, but also that bad element is kept
out. And what I fear for, though, is I do not want Americans to
equate refugees with terrorists and--they are not. And the
refugees here today with us are journalists and scholars and,
you know, family people. So that is--I guess I do not have to
convince you if your parents were refugees, but I do think that
sometimes Americans who have not personally met refugees are
fearful. Once they meet refugees, usually they are convinced.
Refugees themselves make the best Ambassadors to this program.
Senator Cruz. Thank you very much.
Chairman Durbin. Senator Klobuchar.
Senator Klobuchar. Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman. Thank
you to all of you, our witnesses.
The one thing that I thought was good that you talked about
early on is that we focus a lot on the camps. Several of us, as
you noted, have been there, but that, in fact, most of the
refugees are out in the countries in Jordan for the most part
and other countries. And I understand nearly 520,000 refugees
are in Jordan, increasing that country's population by 9
percent, over 750,000 in Lebanon, adding 20 percent.
When we visited Jordan last April, we met with the king,
and he met with us for a significant period of time and talked
about how the refugee situation was increasingly difficult for
his country to handle.
To you, Secretary Richard, and then Administrator Lindborg,
how do you assess the current stability of Jordan considering
the massive refugee influx?
Ms. Richard. First, I would just like to say that Nancy
Lindborg is from Minnesota. She is not from Illinois, okay? So
we should just out her right there.
Senator Klobuchar. I can tell by her last name.
Ms. Lindborg. But I lived in Chicago for 4 years.
Ms. Richard. I lived there for 2 years.
So we are very concerned about Jordan, which is why we
spend a lot of time visiting with our colleagues who work in
Jordan, and also with the Ambassador here, and we have a very
active embassy there led by Ambassador Stu Jones, and we have a
lot of colleagues who are working in Jordan to work very
carefully with the government, which is very aligned in their
approach to the crisis to provide assistance. They know that
our funding in the State Department Population, Refugees, and
Migration Bureau that I lead goes through the U.N. High
Commissioner for Refugees, goes through the International
Organization for Migration----
Senator Klobuchar. Is it true that---just speaking of the
U.N. High Commission, I know when Senator Graham and I were
there, we were really concerned that the aid goes through--when
it comes from the United Nations, it only goes through the
Assad regime. Is that correct?
Ms. Richard. No, that is not correct.
Senator Klobuchar. So----
Ms. Richard. The Assad regime does not benefit from U.S.
taxpayer support to----
Senator Klobuchar. So the U.N. aid can go through the rebel
groups?
Ms. Richard. What is true is that--and Nancy I can tell
wants to pick up on this. What is true is that the U.N.
agencies need the permission of the Assad regime to bring their
staff in on visas and to set up their operations in Damascus,
and then they try to get as far around Syria as they can get.
Senator Klobuchar. Okay, but that does mean that they have
control over where the aid goes, and it makes it harder for it
to go to certain regions. Is that right?
Ms. Richard. Yes.
Senator Klobuchar. Okay. If you want to go back to the
original question----
Ms. Lindborg. Yes, to both, but just to finish on this, the
constraints on providing assistance from a Damascus base are
the core parts of this October statement that was released that
has a very specific list that we are happy to send to you all,
that says these are the things that we need for that assistance
to be able to reach people in need more effectively, and it is
in particular the 200,000 who are in areas besieged by the
Syrian regime as well as about 2 million people who are in
conflict-affected areas. So we have a lot of concerns about the
ability to reach everyone in need.
To your question about Jordan, I think that for both Jordan
and, as Anne said, Lebanon as well, there is a lot of concern
about the stability when you have that level of influx of
refugees. In Jordan, we have put about $1 billion of assistance
through development aid to Jordan, both for budget support as
well as into those communities that have the greatest refugee
burden. There is a lot of concern about stressed infrastructure
and about very scarce resources, and so we have put much of our
development assistance focus on that.
We are also, as we provide humanitarian assistance, looking
at ways that not only it benefits the refugee population but
also the locals. So because of this flexibility that we have
with some of our food aid assistance, we have done vouchers
that enable the refugees to buy food in local stores. So it is
a revenue benefit for the local merchants, which makes a huge
difference in terms of community acceptance.
Senator Klobuchar. Ms. Groom, I was looking at the numbers
from Southeast Asia, and I think we got 130,000 Southeast Asian
refugees that came to the U.S. at the end of the Vietnam War.
And many of them are in Minnesota, and also I would note you
mentioned the Burmese, many of them are in Minnesota as well.
And I am just concerned when I hear these numbers, hundreds
that Senator Durbin was talking about, even though Assistant
Secretary Richard talked about thousands, but I am very
concerned about the numbers when I think that we should be
making it easier, while still checking everything you need to
check.
I know in the immigration bill there are actually some
provisions that have passed the Senate that would make it
easier to speed up some of these asylum applications. Would
that be helpful?
Ms. Groom. Yes, thank you so much for the question. As you
note, in Senate bill 744 it does remove the 1-year filing
deadline from asylum claims, and that is something we have
seen. In the past year, 1,335 Syrians have applied for asylum.
Now, while there is an exception for the 1-year filing deadline
right now, if it were removed and the Senate bill were passed,
it would make those claims move more quickly. And it seems to
be the right result given the crisis there.
There are also some other changes to the refugee program
that are contained in the bill that might be useful for
resettling refugees, and then there are changes also to the
expedited removal and the credible fear process.
Senator Klobuchar. How many do you think we are going to be
able to resettle in the U.S. in the coming year when there are
135,000, or whatever, that have applied?
Ms. Groom. Well, I think Assistant Secretary Richard spoke
to--the numbers will really probably--the referrals are
starting, are going to start coming in very shortly, but then
the process works, and it takes a bit of time. So we are going
to start seeing arrivals not until the end of this year,
likely.
Senator Klobuchar. It just seems like such a long time, and
I will just end with that, and just say to the refugees that
are here with us today, the three that got here, Mr. Doko and
Mr. Charbaji and Mr. Muqdad, how sorry I am about this. And on
Christmas Eve, our church, like many churches in the U.S.,
everyone holds a candle, and we go around and sing ``Silent
Night.'' And I had been thinking of Syria for a number of
weeks, I will be honest about that, and that was all I could
think about when I stood there, was those refugees that, when
we went and visited them, the rebels were doing much better.
And we said, ``Oh, we know this is going to improve for you by
the end of this year. We know the situation is improving.'' And
to me, it has only gotten worse.
And so that is why I am so much interested in this idea of
the resettlement and working with our allies and leading so
that other countries in Europe and other places will also bring
in these refugees as we do not see an immediate end to this
conflict. So I appreciate your efforts. Thank you.
Chairman Durbin. Thanks, Senator Klobuchar.
I want to thank my colleague Senator Graham for his
patience in waiting and especially for his dedication to Syria
and the challenges it faces. Senator Graham.
Senator Graham. Well, thank you, Mr. Chairman, for, one,
hosting this hearing. I think most Americans are concerned
about a lot of things, and Syria is hard to get people's
attention about, not because Americans are hard-hearted but the
complicated world in which we live. So hearings like this are
very important, and I want to compliment my Ranking Member
here. I think he understands exactly what is going on.
Ms. Groom, in 2014, does Congress need to do anything
pretty soon to make sure that we can achieve our fair share of
the refugees in changing the laws? Do you have any proposals?
Ms. Groom. I do not have any proposals to offer you today,
but we have offered to work with the Senate----
Senator Graham. Well, I guess what I am saying, I do not
see a comprehensive immigration bill passing anytime soon, so
when it comes to changes in our laws, exemptions, if you need
something beyond the ability you have within the body that you
work, please let us know, because I think a lot of us may have
different views about immigration but would be willing to
accommodate some legal changes if it would help expedite this
process. So that is an opportunity for you.
Ms. Groom. And I welcome that opportunity.
Ms. Richard. A couple of ideas right off the top of my
head, never missing an opportunity. You know, we have this sort
of tradeoff to make within our budget at the State Department.
How much do we devote to bringing refugees to the U.S.? And how
much do we devote to helping refugees overseas in the places
where they live? We help far more overseas. And so it sounds
like there is support here for bringing even more refugees to
the United States beyond the 70,000 that we brought. But in
order to do that, we would hate to undermine our overseas
programs, and so we need support for both.
Senator Graham. Well, let us talk about this. I think there
is bipartisan support for trying to do a better job in terms of
assimilating non-terrorist refugees in the United States. I
just think Senator Cruz represents what can happen when you
take people from other countries. You know, our country
benefits. And I am sure there are Democrats who were refugees,
too, so we do not want to make this partisan.
[Laughter.]
Senator Graham. But the bottom line is I think America has
a pretty good track record of assimilating people.
Now, about the budget, the World Food Program, how much of
their budget is allocated to Syria?
Ms. Lindborg. Increasingly, a large percentage. I can----
Senator Graham. Well, I just met with a lady in Rome. She
says they are being overwhelmed.
Ms. Lindborg. They are overwhelmed. We are the largest
single donor, and it vacuums up all of our flexibility.
Senator Graham. Her budget is being destroyed.
Ms. Lindborg. As is our----
Senator Graham. Every other refugee problem in the world is
being displaced by Syria, so the World Food Program is being
devastated by Syria.
Now, when it comes to appropriations, Ms. Richard, I am the
Ranking Republican working with Senator Leahy. We tried to
increase funding, and there is a limit to what we can do. But
could you provide the Appropriations Committee and the
Judiciary Committee with what you think would be a 2- or 3-
year plan here? Could you see the war ending this year?
Ms. Richard. Regrettably, no.
Senator Graham. Do you think Al-Qaeda is going to go to
Geneva, too?
Ms. Richard. Well, I do not hang out a lot with Al-Qaeda,
so----
Senator Graham. I know, but I do not think they are going
to be invited.
Ms. Richard. I think the chances for Geneva II making some
modest successes are increasing just in these last few days,
but I defer to Robert Ford on that.
Senator Graham. Well, I hope you are right, but here is
what I see----
Ms. Richard. But I think--I know where you and I agree is
that this is not an easy crisis to end, to clean up.
Senator Graham. What I am trying to lay out is that the
worst is yet to come. Do you agree with that?
Ms. Richard. I hope that is not the case.
Senator Graham. Hope is not my question. Do you agree that
the worst is yet to come?
Ms. Richard. If I were not a hopeful person, I would not be
in my job.
Senator Graham. Okay. Well, just from an analytical point
of view, Ms. Lindborg, do you think the worst is yet to come?
Ms. Lindborg. Well, we do know that this is the largest
U.N. appeal in history, and it is more than two-thirds of the
rest of the global appeals put together.
Senator Graham. Well, do you think, Ms. Richard, that 2014
is dramatically better for Syria or worse in terms of the
refugee----
Ms. Richard. What concerns me is the idea of donor fatigue
taking hold. We have been trying to get more donations from
other countries, and so if it continues the way it has--and I
would be stupid to suggest it might not. If it continues that
way, we have got to somehow enlist new donors to come and----
Senator Graham. Well, do you think it would be wise for
America to plan for the worst and hope for the best when it
comes to Syria?
Ms. Richard. I agree that in dealing with a refugee crisis
of this magnitude, we have to have contingency plans for some--
--
Senator Graham. So let us put a scope on what----
Ms. Richard. Really scary scenarios.
Senator Graham. Okay. Let us start to talk about some of
those scary scenarios that are not unrealistic. You were at
the--and, you know, you do a good job. I do not mean to be
combative here. At the hearing we had in Appropriations, didn't
the Lebanese Ambassador say his country was saturated?
Ms. Richard. Absolutely. He had--UNHCR has provided the
photos to show that there are Syrian refugees on every square
turf in Lebanon.
Senator Graham. He says basically they cannot take any more
people. What is the likelihood in 2014 of Lebanon closing their
borders to Syrian refugees?
Ms. Richard. I am going to try----
Senator Graham. Would you agree that would be a bad
situation----
Ms. Richard. To keep that from happening?
Senator Graham. Yes, but, you know, trying--I am trying to
plan for the worst case.
Ms. Richard. A worst-case scenario would be a lot more
refugees streaming out of Syria. The amazing thing to me is
that not more have. They clearly are trying to stay put.
Senator Graham. I think the worst-case scenario would be if
they had no place to go. So what is the likelihood of Lebanon
and Jordan closing their borders, because their countries'
sovereignty and security is at risk, to Syrian refugees in
2014?
Ms. Richard. We have seen that what is happening is that
the borders have already been moved from being open in most
cases to being managed.
Senator Graham. Could you give me a plan? Let us assume the
worst now. What would our response be as a world and as a
nation if in 2014, God forbid, the Lebanese closed their
border, the Jordanians closed their borders? You do not have to
answer that question now, but I think we need to get really
serious about this, because I think the worst is yet to come.
And, God, I hope I am wrong. I hope I am wrong.
Ms. Richard. One of the things that is good is that the
U.N. appeals assume, you know, more challenging scenarios and
so--and build in those funding.
In terms of our being able to respond, I think that we have
benefited from your work and Senator Leahy's work last year
that provided----
Senator Graham. But it really is inadequate over time,
don't you think? That what we are doing today, if this
continues, that the Congress needs to seriously look at coming
up with a funding plan for----
Ms. Richard. The reason it is inadequate is because we have
not seen other countries step up, and we have other crises to
deal with. And the other piece that I want to make sure I
mention to you all today is that the Department of Health and
Human Services helps refugees once they have arrived in the
U.S. We provide the aid, thanks to you all, for the first 30 to
90 days. But after that, it is up to HHS to provide aid through
the States. That has been underfunded.
Senator Graham. I am giving you an opportunity here to tell
us that maybe the worst is yet to come and prepare Members of
Congress who are sympathetic with a bill you may send us. So if
I were you, I would suggest to take this opportunity to sit
down and write out what we may be facing as a Nation in terms
of our obligations to stabilize the region. That is all I am
asking.
Ms. Lindborg. And we very much appreciate that. Just to
your point, we keep passing the worst-case scenario. So we need
to be thinking of that. There have already been extraordinary
strains on the system. We keep coming up with new ways of
addressing it, and we will continue to be faced with that
pressure, and we would very much welcome the opportunity to
work with you all further on envisioning what that might take.
We were able to do the response that we did in this last
Fiscal Year because of the very important support that we
received, especially from the Senate. So we thank you for that,
and I think that the partnership into the future will be
really, really important.
Chairman Durbin. Thanks, Senator Graham.
I want to ask three last questions, and I will allow
Senator Cruz if he would like to as well. We have not mentioned
Egypt, which is receiving over 130,000 Syrian refugees. We read
about Egypt every day and the political instability and
violence in that nation. In Lebanon and Jordan, I have a
different mind's image of what is going on on the ground. There
is weakness, vulnerability, and worry.
But in Egypt, it looks like clear instability. And I would
like to ask, Syrian refugees who fled to Egypt face challenges
because of this political turmoil. Conditions for Syrian
refugees who fled there appear to have deteriorated in recent
months as their political environment has deteriorated in
Egypt. Some Syrian refugees in Egypt have reportedly faced
arbitrary detention and deportation back to Syria.
Ms. Richard, has the U.S. Government taken any steps to
address the concerns that have been raised about the treatment
of Syrian refugees in Egypt?
Ms. Richard. Yes, Senator. As you said, more than 130,000
Syrian refugees have been registered in Egypt. There is an
additional 20,000 awaiting registration. Most are living in
greater Cairo; significant numbers are also in Alexandria. And
on July 8th, the interim Egyptian Government imposed
restrictive entry procedures requiring Syrians to have a valid
visa and prior security approval. Tensions have resulted in
increasing hostility toward Syrians and Palestinians from Syria
and have led to detention and deportations of refugees.
So the U.S. is providing funding to UNHCR and other U.N.
agencies to address their needs, and UNHCR has appealed to
Egyptian authorities to admit and protect all Syrians seeking
refuge.
At this morning's State Department's staff meeting, we were
joined by Assistant Secretary Anne Patterson, who until
recently was our U.S. Ambassador to Egypt, so I know she is
fully aware of this. And she was part of a conversation this
morning about Syrian refugees.
Chairman Durbin. Ms. Lindborg, there is a practical issue
here on this No Lost Generation that gets down to something
very basic, and that is the fact that babies are being born in
these refugee settings. A recent UNHCR survey on birth
registration revealed 781 Syrian newborns in Lebanon; 77
percent of them had no official birth certificate. They are
technically stateless at this point. These numbers are a
concern because, as UNHCR indicates, unregistered refugee
children can face increased risk of exposure to violence,
abuse, and exploitation. The numbers may be low when you
consider the universe of refugees, due in part to the barriers
at birth registry that refugee families encounter in Jordan and
Lebanon, including complex registration procedures.
Has the U.S. Government taken any steps with UNHCR, NGO's,
and host governments to address the issue of statelessness
among Syrian refugee children? Either Ms. Lindborg, Ms.
Richard, or Ms. Groom.
Ms. Richard. I will take that and get back to you on that.
I know statelessness is one of the UNHCR's key mandates,
fighting statelessness, and it is something we pay a lot of
attention to globally. And I do not know the answer, so I will
get back to you on that, Senator. Thank you.
[The information referred to appears as a submission for
the record.]
Chairman Durbin. So let us use this opportunity to give a
shout-out, if we fail to, to private sector efforts to try to
help in this refugee situation. I understand IKEA is trying to
develop a new shelter. I do not know much more about it----
Ms. Richard. They have developed it. It is really nifty, as
you would expect. But the IKEA Foundation helps refugee
situations in other places, too, but their new shelter is
something that can be folded up into a suitcase so that that
way the home can travel with the refugees wherever they are.
Chairman Durbin. It was reported only recently Lebanon
started to allow these IKEA refugee housing units to be used to
shelter Syrians for fear that housing too sturdy and protective
would encourage them to stay indefinitely. I have always found
that interesting. When I travel around the world and I visit
with refugees, they are okay, but they are usually complaining
a little bit--not enough foods, problems here, there, and the
other place. And the administrators of many refugee settings
have said, ``We do not want them to get too comfortable. We
want them to consider where their next move will be. Hopefully
it is back home.'' Well, back home is out of the question now
with Syria's circumstances here.
But could you address either this particular issue or that
general concern of the administrators of refugee camps?
Ms. Richard. Well, I have had discussions about this with
the Minister of Social Affairs in Lebanon, Abu Faour, and he--
because I was trying to convince him to allow these IKEA
shelters to be used by the refugees. And so I am very pleased
that they have made this change in their policy.
What several governments in the region are concerned about
is that they will host the refugees for a long, long time, and
the reason they are concerned is because Jordan, Lebanon, and
Syria were three of the five fields where Palestinian refugees
live. And now Palestinian refugees are fleeing from Syria,
which had been a very safe place for them to live, and
primarily going to Lebanon.
And so I think we have to respect the government officials
who are concerned about protracted refugee situations in this
part of the world because they have firsthand experience with
it, and that is partly why I feel we should support them and
make it easier for them to host the refugees, even as we try to
do everything we can to get the Syrian refugees home.
Chairman Durbin. There has been a great deal of interest in
today's hearing. The turnout evidences that, and dozens of
organizations--I am going to read their names because some of
them are doing extraordinarily good work. Catholic Relief
Services and others have presented testimony, which will be
part of the record. The Center for Victims of Torture, Church
World Services, the Episcopal Church, Evangelical Lutheran
Church of America, Human Rights First, International Rescue
Committee, joint statement of the Iraqi Refugee Assistance
Project and HIAS, Human Rights Initiative of North Texas,
Lutheran Immigration and Refugee Services, Mercy Corps, Oxfam,
Refugee Council USA, Refugees International, Save the Children,
Syrian American Medical Society, UNICEF, U.S. Conference of
Catholic Bishops, and World Relief, and without objection, we
will place their statements in the record.
[The information referred to appears as a submission for
the record.]
Chairman Durbin. The record is going to be open for a week.
You may get a few additional questions, and you promised me a
few additional responses, and I appreciate what you had to say.
And I will say in closing here this was a pretty diverse
political group sitting up here, and this is not always the
type of topic that attracts anybody other than the Chairman and
a Ranking Member. And it is an indication to me of something
good and positive. We see a problem. We are a caring people. We
want to do something about it. We want it to be thoughtful, as
Senator Cruz says, not to endanger the United States in any
way, but to do our part to deal with a worldwide problem, which
he appreciates more than any of us could on this panel.
So those who have given up on this institution, I hope
today's hearing is an indication that sometimes we kind of do
move in the right direction, even if we have different starting
places.
If there are no further comments from our panel, I want to
thank the witnesses for attending, my colleagues for
participating, and the hearing stands adjourned.
[Whereupon, at 3:54 p.m., the Subcommittee was adjourned.]
[Additional material submitted for the record follows.]
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