Tuesday, March 07, 2006

Developing the US Policy on Refugees

This news has been far too long in coming and hopefully will prove to be true.

Secretary of State Rice spoke at length concerning her confidence in Lefkowitz as the NKHR envoy and also pointed to coming changes. The State Department has taken heat over their slow reaction to the North Korea Freedom Act and how we still have yet to take in any NK refugees. This has become increasingly embarrassing as a handful of European nations (all without special legislation and spiffy envoys) accepted NK refugees over the last month and a report came out detailing how many NK refugees European nations have accepted in total. US Legislators have been clamoring for changes for some time (particularly those who were instrumental in the passage of the bill 3 years ago) and promises of change seem like they may finally be fulfilled. One report puts the number of refugees that could be accepted this year at 200. While not an astronomical number (certainly not on par with the 1400 that Seoul accepted last year) it is as many as Europe has accepted in total and would be a substantial step in the right direction. But, we will all have to wait and see how fully this pledge is carried out.

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