by Ollie Ruth Jefferson, Attorney at Law

This article was first printed in The Dallas Morning News Friday, 8/22/97, Viewpoints, Page 35A

President Clinton is about to determine how many refugees will be admitted for resettlement in the United States next year. Although our country has made a humanitarian commitment to refugees in much of the world, its commitment to Africans has gone unfulfilled.

The United Nations estimates more than 26 million people are displaced as refugees worldwide, with 9 million from Africa alone. Unlike immigrants, who have the advantage of being able to plan their transition, refugees generally are uprooted from their own country spontaneously and tragically and are forced to flee for their lives out of fear of persecution by their own government or others.

Refugees may be persecuted because of such immutable characteristics as race and national origin or because of their religion, political opinions or membership in a particular social group. They may be imprisoned without charges, tortured, enslaved or raped.

Some refugees aren't dependent on Mr. Clinton's numerical determination. They come from wealthy families who have run successful businesses or enjoyed social prominence. Due to their economic status, they are able to leave their countries and enter the United States, where they apply for refugee status through asylum.

But then there are people who aren't able to distance themselves so significantly from the place of their abuse. They often are marooned in refugee camps, living at the mercy of sometimes inhospitable host countries. It is the poorest of the dispossessed whose lives hinge on the resettlement decisions of the United States and other countries.

The U.S. State Department reported that the United States admitted 75,693 refugees for permanent resettlement last year. As has been the pattern for more than 20 years, the United States admitted more refugees from Asian countries (more than 23,000) and Eastern Europe (more than 41,000) than other regions of the world. Although Africa has the highest rate of refugee displacement, only 7,512 Africans were admitted to the United States as refugees in 1996.

While the State Department offers any number of reasons for the disparity, it doesn't require very deep thought to appreciate the unfairness. U.S. officials are proud of our support of human rights worldwide, but there is shame in the numbers. A truly great country would develop a formula for the allocation of refugee admissions that respects the suffering of all people, not just the well-to-do and not just the populations that have a solid base of advocates in the United States.

In June, the U.S. Commission on Immigration Reform recommended the development of such a formula. The large numbers of Africans displaced due to human rights violations never have been meaningfully acknowledged by our country, and that must change if we are to reach our potential as a great nation with humanitarian values.