In an absurd twist, America’s anti-terrorism laws are now being used to
deny protection to refugees fleeing some of the most brutal regimes and
violent conflicts on earth. Shockingly, under today’s laws, Jews who
bravely resisted Nazi terror—and who as a result were among those who
survived the war—would have faced exclusion when they sought refuge in
the U.S. Under the law, any individual who has provided what the law
terms “material support” to terrorists is barred from entering the
United States. Of course, measures taken to prevent terrorists from
being supported, and to keep their supporters out, are critically
important. However, the U.S. government is using the material support
provision to exclude victims of terrorism, including those whose very
struggle to be free now makes them inadmissible to the United States.

As examples, Burmese ethnic minority groups who are viciously
repressed by the Burmese regime—generally viewed as one of the most
brutal in the world—are not being processed for admission to the U.S.
Likewise, Hmong refugees from Laos, who were ardent supporters of the
U.S. government during the Vietnam War, are now in danger of being
denied admission to the U.S. Colombians who have paid ransom to obtain
the release of a kidnapped loved one are considered by the U.S.
government to be supporters of terrorism. In a particularly disturbing
case, a woman from Sierra Leone who was raped by rebels who took over
her home was “deferred” from the U.S. refugee program for providing
material support to terrorists—in her case, housing.

Under the broad terrorism definition, support for a group that is
associated with armed resistance against a repressive regime
constitutes material support to terrorism—even if the group’s actions
are not terrorist acts by any reasonable definition of the term
terrorism, the government it opposes is a major human rights violator,
and the U.S. government openly supports the goals of the opposition
group. Even refugees whose actions in support of terrorist groups were
forced or coerced have been barred from the country. According to the
U.S. government, duress is not an excuse—any contribution to a
terrorist group, even if it was made at gunpoint or under threat of
death, constitutes material support to terrorism. The motives,
circumstances, and beliefs of the refugee are irrelevant.

Had this policy been in place in the years following World War II,
the United States would have closed the door to the Bielski family.
When the Nazis murdered their parents and two brothers along with
thousands of other Jews in western Belarus in 1941, the four surviving
Bielski brothers fled into the woods. They joined with a small group of
other survivors and over the next two years recruited more than 1,000
Jews to join them rather than report for deportation. The forest camp
soon became a community—and a fighting unit. The Bielskis pillaged
food, attacked the enemy, and destroyed supply depots. When the war
ended in Belarus in 1944, 1,200 men, women, and children emerged from
the forest. The Bielskis, who were able to begin new lives in the
United States, would not have been welcomed today because of their
courageous defiance of the Nazis.

Congress must amend the law to ensure that innocent victims are not
branded as “terrorists” and refused safe haven. In the meantime,
Congress gave the Administration discretionary authority to determine
that the bar does not apply in some cases. The Administration should
exercise this authority immediately. To date, the authority has never
been used.

President Bush has repeatedly expressed the view that the U.S.
refugee program reflects our finest humanitarian tradition. To honor
this tradition, the Bush Administration must exempt legitimate refugees
from the “material support” bar to admission where the support provided
has been coerced under extreme duress, or where it is otherwise clear
that the refugees seeking the protection of the United States are not
supporters of terrorism, but are in fact victims of tyranny and
oppression. We must ensure that the Bielskis of today continue to be
received with welcome, not with the indifference of authorities who are
“just following the law.”

Gideon Aronoff
President and CEO
Hebrew Immigrant Aid Society