Arriving Armenians Face Tighter Rules, Less Government Aid

State Department officials have cautioned service agencies that 3,400 Soviet Armenian immigrants expected to settle in Los Angeles between now and October may find it more difficult to gain refugee status than previous immigrants and will receive less government assistance when they arrive.

At a tense meeting Wednesday with 30 public and private refugee service providers in Los Angeles, the officials said that individual determinations of refugee status will replace the blanket refugee status accorded Soviet and Eastern bloc immigrants in the past.

“The old system was pretty much anyone who comes to the Embassy gets a stamp to come here,” said Lenas Kogalias, deputy assistant secretary of state for refugee admissions. “We’re going to tighten the standards--which so far have been lower for Soviet Armenians than they have been for the rest of the world.”

The new U.S. policy, first announced three weeks ago, is the result of a stunning increase in the number of emigres from the Soviet Union and Eastern Europe this year. The surge--more than four times the number who arrived from that area in 1986--has left the State Department with an embarrassing budget shortfall and sparked a decision to tighten restrictions, Kogalias said.

“The refugee bureau did it’s best to sort of cut and scrape and go through some painful economic measures to save some money, but we didn’t have enough for everyone,” Kogalias said.

Kogalias, spelling out how the new policy will be implemented, said that of the 3,400 Armenians seeking entry to the United States before October, some will be allowed to enter as refugees but without government funding. Others, he said, may be allowed to enter on a little-used immigrant designation called parole. Those who enter on parole are not entitled to welfare benefits routinely available to refugees and are not eligible to become permanent citizens.

All the immigrants will be entitled to rapid entry to the United States, but their resettlement expenses must be paid for by a relative or private sponsor, Kogalias said.

Through July, the federal government paid transportation and resettlement costs under the Refugee Resettlement Act of 1980. But in July, the State Department abruptly suspended visa processing for Soviet Armenians seeking admission to the United States. The department made an about-face later that month, resuming the processing of the refugee visas. Until Wednesday, refugee service groups had feared there might be a blanket rejection of benefits to the Soviet Armenians awaiting admission to the United States.

Apparently viewing the new policy as a compromise, representatives of some of those groups withheld complaints about the loss of benefits but chastised State Department officials for not keeping them informed.

“We’re the ones who are constantly being asked questions, and we haven’t known,” said Bruce Whipple, director of the local office of the International Rescue Committee, a private refugee resettlement agency. “Frankly, I’m a little ticked off.”

More than 9,000 Soviet Armenian immigrants have arrived in the United States as refugees since October, 1987. State Department officials estimate the refugee flow has cost the federal government $14 million.