-We have begun to reunite separated families and have already brought more than 12,000 Vietnamese and Americans together with their American families and sponsors.

-We have undertaken a vigorous series of diplomatic initiatives with multilateral agencies and with nations worldwide to find resettlement opportunities in third countries. The results to date have not, quite frankly, been encouraging, but we continue to press this effort.

On May 21, 1975, the Congress gave final approval to the Indochina Migration and Refugee Assistance Act of 1975, which the President signed into law on May 23, 1975 (P.L. 94-23; 89 Stat. 87; 22 U.S.C. § 2601 note). The Act authorized $455 million for resettlement of Vietnamese and Cambodian refugees, and provided for a temporary program, to extend no longer than fiscal year 1977, of relief and resettlement for such refugees. The assistance was to be provided under the Migration and Refugee Assistance Act of 1962, as amended, thus utilizing established procedures and administrative machinery. The assistance included daily maintenance for the refugees at staging areas; transportation to other areas in the United States; public health care, bilingual, vocational, and remedial education; adult education courses; possible welfare costs; and transportation costs for the movement of some refugees to third countries. The resettlement programs were made available only to refugees who met the requirements of financial need applicable to other refugees assisted under the 1962 Act, and were to terminate no later than the end of fiscal year 1977.

Section 3 of the Act provided that in utilizing funds under the Act, the term "refugee" as defined in Section 2(b) (3) of the Migration and Refugee Assistance Act of 1962, as amended, "shall be deemed to include aliens who (A) because of persecution or fear of persecution on account of race, religion, or political opinion, fled from Cambodia or Viet-Nam; (B) cannot return there because of fear of persecution on account of race, religion, or political opinion; and (C) are in urgent need of assistance for the essentials of life." Section 4(a) of the 1975 Act required the President to consult with and keep the appropriate congressional committeees fully and currently informed of the use of funds and the exercise of functions authorized in the Act. Section 4(b) required the President to report to such Committees within 30 days of the enactment of the Act on the status of the refugees, and to set forth in addition

(1) a plan for the resettlement of those refugees remaining in receiving or staging centers;

(2) the number of refugees who have indicated an interest in returning to their homeland or being resettled in a third country, together with (A) a description of the plan for their return or resettlement and the steps taken to carry out such return or resettlement, and (B) any initiatives that have been made with respect to the Office of High Commissioner for Refugees of the United Nations; and

(3) a full and complete description of the steps the President has taken to retrieve and deposit in the Treasury as miscellaneous receipts all amounts previously authorized and appropriated for assistance to South Vietnam and Cambodia but not expended for such purpose, exclusive of the $98,000,000 of Indochina Postwar Reconstruction funds allocated to the Department of State for movement and maintenance of refugees prior to the date of enactment of this Act.

Supplementary reports at 90-day intervals were required under Section 4(c) of the Act.

On May 23, 1975, the President also signed Public Law 94-24, appropriating $305 million to the Department of State for relocation and resettlement assistance to refugees from Cambodia and Viet-Nam and $100 million to the Department of Health, Education, and Welfare for social and rehabilitation services for those refugees. Section 201 of the Act contained the following restriction:

Sec. 201. No funds appropriated in this Act shall be used, directly or indirectly, to aid the Democratic Republic of VietNam (D.R.V.) or the Provisional Revolutionary Government (P.R.G.), nor shall any funds appropriated under this Act be channeled through or administered by the D.R.V. or the P.R.G., nor shall any funds appropriated under this Act be channeled through or administered by international organizations or voluntary agencies to aid the D.R.V. or the P.R.G.

President Ford transmitted to six Senate and House Committee Chairmen on June 23, 1975, the first report required by Sec. 4(b) of the Indochina Migration and Refugee Assistance Act of 1975. It was entitled "Report to the CongressInter-Agency Task Force on Indochina Refugees, June 15, 1975." For the text of Secretary of State Kissinger's news conference of Apr. 29, 1975, see Dept. of State Bulletin, Vol. LXXII, No. 1873, May 19, 1975, pp. 625–633. For the full text of Ambassador Brown's statement of May 8, 1975, and his other testimony before congressional committees in support of the refugee assistance legislation, see Dept. of State Bulletin, Vol. LXXII, No. 1875, June 2, 1975, pp. 741-745.

On May 19, 1975, President Ford issued E.O. 11860, establishing the President's Advisory Committee on Refugees, composed of citizens from private life, to advise the President and the heads of appropriate Federal agencies concerning the expeditious and coordinated resettlement of refugees from Southeast Asia. See Fed. Reg., Vol. 40, No. 99, May 21, 1975, pp. 22121–22122.

Emergency Fund

Section 501 of the Foreign Relations Authorization Act, Fiscal Year 1976 (P.L. 94-141; 89 Stat. 771), approved November 29, 1975,

amends the Refugee and Migration Assistance Act of 1962 (22 U.S.C. 2601) by establishing a United States Emergency Refugee and Migration Assistance Fund and authorizing continuing appropriations for it in an amount not to exceed at any time $25,000,000 in unobligated funds. This replaces an authority to transfer up to $10,000,000 in any fiscal year from appropriations under the Foreign Assistance Act.

Deportation

In Yan Wo Cheng v. Rinaldi, 389 F. Supp. 583 (1975), the United States District Court for the District of New Jersey, on February 5, 1975, held that two alien plaintiffs, who claimed to be citizens of the People's Republic of China, were in the United States unlawfully and were therefore not entitled to asylum under the provisions of the Protocol Relating to the Status of Refugees (TIAS 6577; 19 UST 6223; entered into force for the United States November 1, 1968) and a Department of State policy statement regarding refugees who come to the United States after residing in Hong Kong. The Court held further that no substantive right of asylum was created by Operations Instructions of the Immigration and Naturalization Service (INS).

Plaintiffs were Chinese seamen who had fled to Hong Kong in 1961 and resided there for some time before coming to the United States. One entered the United States illegally from Canada; the other entered as a nonimmigrant and overstayed the authorized period. At INS deportation hearings, they admitted their illegal status, conceded deportability, and accepted Hong Kong as a place to which they would voluntarily depart. They failed to depart by the appointed time, and when ordered by INS to report a year and a half later for deportation to Hong Kong, they applied for asylum, basing their claim on INS Operations Instructions 108.1 and 108.2, found in an INS publication entitled "Current Laws; Title 8, Code of Federal Regulations; Operations Instructions; and Interpretations." These instructions set forth procedures for implementing the right of asylum granted by Section 243(h) of the Immigration and Nationality Act, 8 U.S.C. § 1253(h) and by the Protocol. They cover requests for asylum made prior to, during, or after completion of deportation hearings and provide for referral of such requests to the Office of Refugee and Migration Affairs in the Department of State for that Office's views. On February 14, 1973, by unpublished internal agency memorandum, INS had advised its District Directors that the State Department had announced that it would no longer entertain asylum requests from aliens who had left Communist China and resided for a period of time in Hong

Kong before coming to the United States, thus making the referral procedure inoperative in such cases.

The INS denied the application for asylum on the grounds that the plaintiffs had failed to establish pursuant to Article 1(A)(2) and Article 32(1) of the Convention on the Status of Refugees, made applicable under the Protocol, that they were refugees lawfully in the United States and that they would be persecuted on account of race, religion, nationality, or membership in a particular social group or political opinion if returned to Hong Kong. Kan Kam Lin v. Rinaldi, 493 F.2d 1229 (1973), cert. denied, 419 U.S. 874 (1974). See 1973 Digest, Ch. 3, § 4, p. 109.

The plaintiffs instituted suit to enjoin their deportation and for asylum. The District Court accepted jurisdiction, in that the proceedings were ancillary to the statutory deportation hearing, despite the contention that judicial review was exclusively vested in the Court of Appeals. The Court concurred in the INS determination that since the plaintiffs were in the United States unlawfully they were not entitled to asylum under the Protocol and the State Department policy statement. It held, in addition, that the INS Operations Instructions could not create any substantive right of asylum. Although the plaintiffs had not charged lack of due process as to the effect of the State Department policy statement on the INS published instructions, the Court nevertheless stated that the INS could properly issue, without violation of due process, an unpublished intraagency directive not to submit details of certain asylum requests to the State Department.

The opinion went on to state that, in contemplation of possible appellate review, if arguendo the Operations Instructions created substantive rights, then the District Court could not review the deportation proceedings conducted to date because the plaintiffs had not exhausted their administrative remedies. In an epilogue, the Court criticized the delaying actions of plaintiffs and their attorneys. It suggested that the situation which permitted such delays might be remedied by legislation, that INS should try to close off loopholes in its hearing procedures, and that the United States Attorney should review the hearings and determine if criminal laws might have been violated.

Sec. 243(h) of the Immigration and Nationality Act provides that "The Attorney General is authorized to withhold deportation of any alien within the United States to any country in which in his opinion the alien would be subject to persecution on account of race, religion, or political opinion and for such period of time as he deems to be necessary for such reason."

The 1967 Protocol Relating to the Status of Refugees applied the substantive provisions of the 1951 Convention Relating to the Status of Refugees to refugees

as defined in Art. 1 of the Convention, as revised by the Protocol. Art. 1(A)(2), as revised, defines a refugee as a person who

... owing to a well-founded fear of being persecuted for reasons of race, religion, nationality, membership of a particular social group or political opinion, is outside the country of his nationality and is unable, or owing to such fear, is unwilling to avail himself of the protection of his country; or who, not having a nationality and being outside the country of his former habitual residence, is unable or, owing to such fear, is unwilling to return to it. Art. 32(1) of the Convention states:

The contracting states shall not expel a refugee lawfully in their territory save on grounds of national security or public order.

Territorial Asylum

Asylum

A United States Delegation participated in the United Nations Group of Experts on the Draft Convention on Territorial Asylum, which met at Geneva April 28-May 9, 1975, to draw up a revised text of a convention. The 27-nation Group met pursuant to General Assembly Resolution 3272 (XXIX) of December 10, 1974, to review and refine the text of a Draft Convention on Territorial Asylum, initially prepared by a colloquium of legal experts which met under the auspices of the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace at Bellagio, Italy, in April 1971.

The report of the Group of Experts, with the revised Draft Convention appended, was referred to the United Nations General Assembly, which by Resolution 3456 (XXX) of December 9, 1975, called for a conference of plenipotentiaries on territorial asylum to be convened January 10-February 4, 1977, to adopt a convention. The U.S. Delegation Report pointed out certain drawbacks in the draft text. In particular, it noted the inconsistency between the requirement in Article 3 that a contracting state "use its best endeavors" to admit a person seeking asylum at the frontier and the obligation in Article 4 to admit such a person provisionally pending determination of his request. The United States Delegation had proposed the "best endeavors" wording in Article 3 but had failed to receive the necessary support for deleting the reference to provisional admission in Article 4.

U.S. Delegation Report, Dept. of State File L/SCA. For the report of the Group of Experts, see U.N. Doc. A/10177, Aug. 29, 1975.

The revised text of the Draft Convention on Territorial Asylum, as approved by a majority of the experts attending the 1975 conference, follows:

DRAFT CONVENTION ON TERRITORIAL ASYLUM

The Contracting States,

1. Considering the obligation of states under the Charter of the United Nations to promote universal respect for, and observance of, human rights and fundamental freedoms,

2. Recalling that the General Assembly of the United Nations has solemnly