WHITE HOUSE DIGEST PAPER RE CENTRAL AMERICA: THE REFUGEE CRISIS

• Document Type: CREST
• Collection: General CIA Records
• Document Number (FOIA) /ESDN (CREST): CIA-RDP10M02313R000100930005-3
• Release Decision: RIFPUB
• Original Classification: K
• Document Page Count: 11
• Document Creation Date: December 22, 2016
• Document Release Date: April 16, 2012
• Sequence Number: 5
• Publication Date: November 30, 1983
• Content Type: MEMO

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EXECIJ`IIVE SECRETARIAT
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NATIONAL SECURITY COUNCIL
WASHI-+GTOW. O.C. 20S4*
November 30, 1983
MEMORANDUM FOR CHARLES HILL
Executive Secretary
Department of State
COL. JOHN STANFORD
Executive Secretary
Department of Defense
ROGER CLEGG
Special Assistant to the
Attorney General
Department of Justice
THCMAS CORMACX
Executive Secretary
Central Intelligence Agency
SUBJECT: White House Digest Paper re Central America:
The Refugee Crisis
We are forwarding a revised edition of subject document. Your
approval or comments are requested by 12:00 noon, Friday,
December 2, 1983.
Robert M. immitt
Attachment
Executive Secretary
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8595
NATIONAL SECURITY COUNCIL
November 30, 1983
MEMORANDUM FOR CHARLES HILL
Executive Secretary
Department of State
COL. JOHN STANFORD
Executive Secretary
Department of Defense
ROGER CLEGG
Special Assistant to the
Attorney General
Department of Justice
THOMAS CORMACK
Executive Secretary
Central Intelligence Agency
SUBJECT: White House Digest Paper re Central America:
The Refugee Crisis
We are forwarding a revised edition of subject document. Your
approval or comments are requested by 12:00 noon, Friday,
December 2, 1983.
I40
Robert M. `Kimmitt
Executive Secretary
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CENTRAL AMERICA: THE REFUGEE CRISIS
America is not an ordinary country. Our love of
freedom and generous appreciation of diverse cultural values, our
dedication to an open exchange of ideas -- these things we share
in many different forms with other democracies, but America's
openess to immigrants and, in particular, to refugees has
contributed significantly to the richness of our national life.
Refugees hold a special place in our sense of who we are and what
we stand for as a nation. Their contributions fill the pages of
our history books; yet for every refugee who finds his way to
safety and a new life with us, thousands of others know only
bitterness or even death.
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Since 1945 perhaps 20 million persons have emigrated,
fled or been expelled from Communist controlled countries.
Although 2/ million have settled in the U.S., less fortunate
refugees have remained homeless for years. To the tortuous
history of Vietnam, Cambodia and Laos, we add new names from our
own hemisphere. Today it is Cuba and Nicaragua, tomorrow other
countries in Central America may appear on the list as a new
refugee crisis develops. The outcome depends upon our actions.
The postwar record demonstrates that the coming to power of a
Communist regime always inevitably creates a large scale exodus
and frequently a continuing flow of refugees. The ultimate
destination for many of these victims has been the United States.
FROM CENTRAL AMERICA
Today, the 25 million people of Central America and
Panama face the same threat. Should Central America fall to
Communism, experience indicates that a flood of sudden
emmigrants would pour out of the region. The best estimates
indicate that at least 1.5 million and probably 2.5 million
people would flee.l/
We can avert this tragedy by helping our neighbors
resist the current Soviet-Cuban assault. As Ambassador H.
Eugene Douglas, the U.S. Coordinator for Refugee Affairs, has
said:
"If we truly care about the people of Central America,
then we must not allow them to be forced onto the
refugee trail... Democracy allows many options: the
option to vote for or against the government; the
option to stay or to leave. Communism offers only one
option -- to flee. But if the free world allows any
country to be forced so far along the Communist path
that millions of its people feel they have no choice
but to flee, then we have already failed. No
provisions, no matter how compassionate, that may be
made for the refugees, can make up for that failure."2/
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WHY SO MANY ?
All estimates of future refugee flows are subject to
debate. Experts disagree even on the numbers of existing
refugees. Refugees, after all, flee out of chaos, many secretly,
many fearing for their lives, to strange countries where they
encounter overwhelmed bureaucracies and confusing linguistic and
cultural barriers. And the Communist countries from which
refugees flee are often unwilling to give reliable estimates
of the number of refugees who have feld. Finally, many die
during flight.
But experience does give us some guide to what to
expect should Central America,fall.
Since 1959, 1,250,000 Cubans, more than 12 percent of
the island's population, have fled Cuba's Communist regime.
Nearly 85 percent have come to the United States. That high
percentage is partly due to Cuba's proximity to this country.
Because the United States is prosperous and free it is the most
popular destination for those fleeing Communism, so the exodus
from Communist governments can be expected to be higher when
those governments are nearby.
Because Central America is not much farther and, unlike
Cuba, is connected to the United States by land, we could expect
a similar percentage of Central Americans to leave their
homelands. With 25 million people living in the region, a 10
percent exodus -- slightly less than that out of Cuba -- would
yield 2.5 million people. A rock bottom estimate of five percent
would yield 1.25 million. These numbers do not include the
Caribbean island nations, which may also be vulnerable.
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OUT OF NICARAGUA
Events in Nicaragua, now run by a Communist clique,
suggest that the five to 10 percent range is a good guess. By
most estimates, up to 100,000 people, 3.4 percent of that
country's population, have fled since the beginning of the
fighting that concluded with the Sandinista takeover. An
estimated 60,000 of those Nicaraguans have come to the United
States.3/
Yet the revolution is only four years old. The
Nicaraguan Communists have not yet fully consolidated their
power. If 3.4 percent of the population has already fled, it
seems clear that the Nicaraguan exodus will exceed five percent
and likely that it will approach or surpass 10 percent.
Edgard Macias, who was once the Vice Minister of Labor
for the Sandinista regime in Nicaragua, but who resigned and fled
the country when the Sandinistas revealed their totalitarian
intentions, has commented on this mass emigration:
"The FSLN Ithe Sandinista regime] with its totalitarian
oppression and communist model has produced in only
four years more expatriated persons (refugees, exiles,
and emigrants etc.) than the Somoza regime did in 45
years [though the Somoza regime was] a terrible regime
that must never return to power in Nicaragua."4/
THE REAL VICTIMS
The prime victims of a mass exodus from Central America
would be the refugees. They would lose their homes, their
livelihoods, their native languages and cultures, their friends,
perhaps their families. Journeying in poor conditions, many would
lose their health, some their lives.
But for all the suffering of the refugees, the
potential social and economic impact on this country of such a
sudden migration cannot be safely ignored. If the Cuban
experience is any guide at least 80 percent of sudden emigrants
from Central America would come to this country.
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COUNTING THE COSTS
In financial terms alone, the strain would be
significant. The average refugee costs the federal government
more than $10,000 over his first three years in this country.
Federal assistance alone could cost this country more than $20
billion within a few years should there be a mass
migration
from
Central America. Billions more would be spent in
years, all at a time when the federal. deficit is
succeeding
approaching
$200
billion. State and local costs would also be high.
The people who do not emigrate but are left behind in
the new Communist state also would suffer severely from the
emigration. Not only do Communist countries inevitably subject
their people to great economic hardship, the loss through
emigration of many of the country's most able people and much of
its entrepreneurial class causes additional hardship. Even if the
Communist threat is turned back many of those who leave for fear
of the Communists will never return.
THE MARIEL EXPERIENCE
The 125,000 Cubans and the few thousand Haitians who
arrived in this country during the great 1980 exodus total barely
five percent of the numbers anticipated in the event Central
America should fall to Communism.
Yet, federal reimbursements to Florida alone (Florida
was the hardest-hit state, though many other states received
refugees) for recent sudden immigrants totaled nearly half a
billion dollars for fiscal years 1980 through 1983.5/ That
doesn't include federal administrative costs, which are
considerable.
Nor does that figure include other local expenses such
as large sums for special and bilingual education programs,
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criminal enforcement and detention, costs for special medical
problems, etc.
Finally, our churches and charitable institutions, as
well as tens of thousands of private citizens have spent hundreds
of millions of dollars of their own funds to help these people.
Eventually, states and localities receive offsetting
benefits from an influx of able, patriotic refugees, even as
Miami received new life from the Cuban exodus that started in the
'60s. Given time, 'refugees become taxpayers. For the U.S., the
problems come not from the people themselves but from the manner
of their arrival -- suddenly, in great numbers, and frequently
destitute.
Any mass migration brings chaos, and that chaos brings
costs -- costs that are expressed not only in dollars and cents
but in significant strains on the social fabric. Even in Miami,
which has been accustomed to heavy immigration for more than 20
years, the sudden immigration from the 1980 exodus has certainly,
and unfortunately, contributed to social tensions in that city.
Should Central America fall to the Communists, Florida,
still reeling from the Cuban-Haitian exodus, would not be able to
absorb 2.5 million new sudden immigrants, nor could the other
states along our southern border. The immigrants would have to be
distributed throughout the country, as would the temporary
financial and social burden.
THE LADY'S PLEDGE
Of course, the benefits of immigration are more difficult to
measure, and over the long run they must be immeasurably greater.
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The Statue of Liberty symbolizes not only hope for the
homeless who come here, but also the contributions they make to
building America. Every wave of immigrants has brought great
gifts to this country. We have reaped enormous dividends from
keeping out the welcome mat -- not only economic and cultural
dividends, but dividends in patriotism, for it must be admitted
that adopted Americans frequently are the best Americans of all.
And Caribbean area immigrants, if most of those who
have already come from Castro's Cuba serve as an example, would
do particular credit to this country.
But we must distinguish between steady, if strong,
streams of immigration, such as those that carried our ancestors
to America, and the tragic mass migrations caused by Communist
oppression. Such migrations, which inevitably include many who
would never have dreamed of leaving their homelands but for the
Communists, are intolerably cruel to those who are forced to
flee, and dangerously straining to this country.
The American people have always welcomed refugees from
Communism. But we can make that refugee stream unnecessary. We
can give our Central American neighbors the military aid and
training and, even more important, the economic assistance they
need to turn back the Communist challenge. There is no excuse for
not doing our duty.
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NOTES
1. Office of the United States Coordinator for Refugee
Affairs: "Briefing Paper and Talking Points on Refugees and
Potential Refugees in and from Central America" These estimates,
while necessarily speculative, are extrapolations from our
experience in this hemisphere i.e., the Cuban exodus which over
two decades has involved more than 12 percent of the Cuban
population and the Nicaraguan exodus which is already substantial
and is growing steadily.
2. Memo to the White House Outreach Working Group on
Central America; August, 1983.
3. Op. Cit., "Refugees"
4. Macias, Edgard; Letter to the Editor; WASHINGTON
TIMES; August 3, 1983.
5. Memo from the Office of Refugee Resettlement,
Department of Health and Human Services, to the Outreach Working
Group; August 31, 1983.
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