WASHINGTON — Good news for My Thi Huynh came at the end of April. A refugee from Vietnam, the 75-year-old widow had persevered to win approval for her children to come from Ho Chi Minh City to California, and they were finally listed for a flight.
Two weeks later, everything came apart. For reasons never explained, she said, the U.S. government ordered a new round of security checks on her three sons, who survive as street vendors under a Communist government that considers them politically suspect.
Like the Huynhs, tens of thousands of refugee families -- Jews from Islamic Iran, Cubans, Somalis and many others -- are trapped in a labyrinth of security measures put in place after the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks.
The measures are choking a U.S. refugee program that once set an example for the world, advocates say. The number of refugees allowed to enter the country plummeted by 60% since 2001, from 69,304 to 27,186 last year -- the lowest in 25 years.
President Bush has pledged that America will keep welcoming refugees, and set a goal of up to 70,000 this year. But by the end of June, with only three months left in the 2003 federal fiscal year, fewer than 17,400 refugees had been admitted.
Administration officials say the new security measures are intended to prevent terrorists from infiltrating the country by passing as refugees. But they acknowledge that the restrictions are creating a humanitarian quandary.
As defined in U.S. law, refugees are people escaping persecution, or fleeing situations in which they have a "well-founded fear" of persecution for political, religious or other reasons.
Huynh, like most refugees, does not question the need for stricter security. But she feels something has gone awry. "I am very frustrated," said Huynh, who lives in Rosemead.
Since her husband died a few years ago, she has been without close relatives in this country. The couple came to the United States in 1995 as refugees. Am Van Phan, Huynh's husband, was an official of the former South Vietnamese government and endured seven years as a political prisoner after the Communist victory, she said.
"Until now, I have not questioned anything. But to wait, and wait, and wait," Huynh said. "Every night, I pray for them to come, because I am 75 years old and alone."
*
Files Full of Heartbreak
The files of international relief agencies are full of heartbreaking stories. Some people have died waiting. Others grow weary of refugee camps and return to their homelands, only to disappear.
