SCA files, lot 62 D 146, “Implementation of the Refugee Relief Act”
Memorandum by Antonio A. Micocci of the Office of Security and Consular Affairs to the Deputy Assistant Secretary of State for Public Affairs (McIlvaine)
- Subject:
- Refugee Relief Program.
Background:
The Refugee Relief Program pursuant to Public Law 203 (as amended by Public Law 751)1 is, by legislative direction, conducted largely with instrumentalities already in existence when the laws were passed. These include the Visa Office of SCA, the Visa Officers in the field, the Immigration and Naturalization Service in the Department of Justice, the U.S. Employment Service in the Department [Page 1650] of Labor and the Public Health Service in the Department of Health, Education and Welfare. In addition, under some conditions, FOA, CIA, Treasury and Defense also come into the picture.
While the law was intended as a relaxation, for a limited period, and in some respects, of the Walter–McCarran Act, the implementation of the law is largely in the hands of persons who by circumstances not of their making, tend to look at the immigration process as a restricting or a legalistic exercise. At the same time, there are in existence statutes that put a positive responsibility on FOA to deal with escapees and refugees in a manner calculated to promote certain objectives that are not stated in the Refugee Relief Act.
The persons who in their several ways share in the implementation of the Refugee Relief Act are, in general, not aware of the psychological objectives that can be promoted by the Refugee Relief Program, and the contribution that the informed and successful execution of this program can make to the objectives to be achieved by FOA’s Escapee Program. On the whole these offices operate in a different world from those in the Regional Bureaus, in Public Affairs, in USIA, in CIA, in OCB, etc, etc.
Action Proposed:
We propose that P, working as it deems proper or useful with Stevens2 of EE, with OCB, and with USIA produce a guidance or a directive on this whole area of concern.
When produced we would then use the paper to condition the attitude and the thinking of the many groups that have an operational role in carrying out the Refugee Relief Program.
This kind of conditioning paper is particularly needed, for example, by the Visa Officers and by the Immigration Service. I say “conditioning” because by law no one person can order a Visa Officer to issue a visa, nor an Immigrant Inspector to allow an alien to enter the country.