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Quota for Refugees
 U.S. President George Bush has announced that the number of refugees
the United States will admit in this fiscal year would be 70,000. Of
that number the largest group - 20,000 - will be from Africa.
 In a memo released by the White House, Bush set the quotas as
follows: 20,000 for Africa, 4,000 for East Asia, 2,500 for Eastern
Europe, 14,000 for the former Soviet Union, 2,500 for Latin America
and the Caribbean, 7,000 for the Near East and South Asia and a
20,000 reserve to be doled out as needed.
The memo, addressed to Secretary of State Colin Powell,
said unused places assigned to a particular region may be
transferred if there is an "overriding need" elsewhere.
UNHCR urges U.S. to grant TPS to Colombian refugees
 The United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) has
requested that the U.S. government grant "temporary protected
status" (TPS) to Colombian nationals currently residing in the
United States who cannot return to their homeland because of the
conflict there.
TPS is a program which would allow Colombians to stay in the
United States for a specific period of time, regardless of their
immigrant status. If granted, TPS would affect tens of thousands of
Colombians in the United States.
As Immigration Times
has reported in
previous issues, TPS has
also been granted to nationals of Angola and Argentina.
 In a two-page letter to U.S. administration officials, UNHCR
pointed out that the escalating humanitarian crisis in Colombia has
not only resulted in the displacement of millions of civilians but
is also precluding their return home. According to the UNHCR, "the
numbers of Colombian asylum seekers are increasing dramatically in
the region and in the United States. Countries neighboring Colombia
have seen dramatic increases over last year in monthly average
arrivals of asylum seekers, and fighting in Colombia's border
regions is intensifying." |
