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7 Refugee Reports 1 (1986)

handle is hein.immigration/refgrpt0007 and id is 1 raw text is: WeRepos A Project of the American Council for Nationalities Service 815 Fifteenth Street NW, Suite 610 Washington, DC 20005 (202) 667-0782 volume VIL Number i VIETNAM SUSPENDS ODP INTERVIEWING January 24, 1986 Legal emigration from Vietnam was thrown into uncer- tainty as the Vietnamese government suspended inter- viewing under the Orderly Departure Program (ODP) as of January 1. The suspension is the first to hit the program, which began under the aegis of the UN High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) in 1979 and is the sole means of exit for people who wish to leave Vietnam legally. The stoppage reflects Vietnamese government dissatisfaction with an ODP backlog which, according to Vietnam, in- volves 60,000 people who should have already left for the United States, the leading recipient of ODP emigres. I Apparently, each of those individuals has been granted an exit visa by Vietnam, but only one-third of them have entered the ODP processing pipeline. Those who have entered are in various stages of being screened. The fact that, aside from obtaining exit visas from Vietnamese authorities, relatively few have been fully processed, or even entered processing, tem- pers Vietnam's claim of a backlog, according to U.S. officials. There are several thousand people that still require documentation, commented Donald Ellson, who heads the ODP branch of the Bureau for Refugee Programs at the State Department. Vietnam Blames ODP Backlog on U.S. The receiving countries generally have tightened their approaches to accepting people under ODP in recent years. To the displeasure of the Vietnamese government, people are rejected in instances where they don't fit the coun- tries' national immigration priorities. According to Nguyen Dang Quang, Vietnam's First Secretary to the United Nations, the United States is responsible for the backlog that led to the suspension. The backlog, he said, must go before there is another list. The remark referred to the manner in which ODP ap- plicants move through processing. Initially, that movement is controlled by the Vietnamese, who present ists of persons eligible for ODP departure to UNHCR interviewers in Ho Chi Minh City. The results of subsequent interviews of persons interested in going to the United States are forwarded to and ruled upon IN THIS ISSUE: The Vietnamese government has temporarily suspended further Orderly Departure Program interviewing. This month's feature looks at the reasons for the suspension and the prospects for the future of ODP ............... 1 * Update ................. 3 0 Recent Developments Gramm-Rudman law to affect refugee admissions and services; Would-be Romanian emigrants face difficulties; Arizona sanctuary trial moves slowly; Proposed bilingual- education regulations fuel controversy ................. 5 * Meetings and Conferences * Resources ............. 15 * Statistics Indochinese Refugee Activ- ity, FY 86 as of November 30, 1985 ................... 16

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