Relief agencies billing refugee Albanians

[Yoshie Furuhashi <furuhashi.1@xxxxxxxxxxx>]

>Date: Sat, 23 Oct 1999 14:04:31 -0400 (EDT)
>From: Michael Pollak <mpollak@xxxxxxxxx>
>To: lbo-talk@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
>
>   Relief agencies billing refugee Albanians
>
>   Copyright © 1999 Nando Media
>   Copyright © 1999Associated Press
>
>   By AMY WESTFELDT
>
>   NEWARK, N.J. (October 22, 1999 9:31 p.m. EDT
>   http://www.nandotimes.com) - Arijeta Blakaj didn't hesitate when a
>   refugee agency offered to fly her from war-torn Kosovo to America. She
>   had seen her neighbors kidnapped and their homes burned, and she saw a
>   chance for escape. But once she arrived in America, she got the bill.
>
>   The agency told her she would have to pay the U.S. government $760 for
>   the flight or return to Kosovo, she said.
>
>   "It's not good. It's not fair," the 21-year-old said from the church
>   rectory in Elizabeth, N.J., where she has been staying and trying to
>   start a new life in America. "I need money for everything."
>
>   Refugees flown to the United States have been asked to reimburse the
>   government for their airfare and domestic travel costs since the
>   1950s, said Norman Runkles, comptroller of the State Department's
>   Bureau of Population, Refugees and Migration. Congress made it
>   official policy in the mid-1980s.
>
>   According to the policy, the refugees have to sign contracts in their
>   own languages agreeing to pay back the loan before boarding planes to
>   America, he said.
>
>   But relief agencies acknowledge that, due to the speed of the Kosovo
>   effort, many ethnic Albanians may not have been told about the policy
>   until they arrived at the refugee center at Fort Dix, N.J.
>
>   They still will be billed for airfare to the United States and for any
>   flights they were put on to other parts of the country, Runkles said
>   Friday. The $740 budgeted per refugee for housing and food each month
>   is not considered part of the "travel loan" and doesn't have to be
>   paid back, he said.
>
>   "What they pay back goes towards the next crisis," said Lauren Engle,
>   spokeswoman for the International Organization for Migration, which
>   leads much of the country's refugee resettlement efforts.
>
>   Refugees have paid well over $400 million in travel loans since the
>   process began - about half of the money the government has loaned out,
>   Runkles said.
>
>   Those who return to their homeland after the danger passes do not have
>   to pay the plane fare, he said. The primary reason, he said, is that
>   the country has no practical way of collecting back loans once the
>   refugees leave.
>
>   Of the 14,129 Kosovar refugees airlifted to the United States since
>   the Serb crackdown on ethnic Albanians in Kosovo, 2,462 had returned
>   as of Thursday.
>
>   The rest, like Blakaj, will have 46 months to pay the airfare back,
>   Runkles said. Most won't be billed until next summer. Those who refuse
>   to pay and stay in the country eventually will be reported to credit
>   bureaus, he said.
>
>    Copyright © 1999 Nando Media