Priorities for the Bureau of Population, Refugees and Migration

December 9, 1997

Panelist: Julia Taft, Incoming Assistant Secretary of State for Population, Refugees, and Migration

Ms. Newland welcomed Ms. Taft to the Carnegie Endowment and introduced her to the audience. A leading authority on refugee affairs with more than 20 years of private-sector and government experience, Ms. Taft also brings to the job her passionate commitment and vitality. Ms. Newland noted that the Carnegie Endowment was founded to provide policy support to her great-grandfather-in-law, President William Howard Taft, and Ms. Newland hopes that the Migration Program will be a similar source of ideas for Ms. Taft.

Ms. Taft began by urging the audience to help her identify relevant and pressing issues because the refugee field is so dynamic. She emphasized that she sees the PRM portfolio as primarily a human rights portfolio, which is particularly compelling now as it is connected with so many U.S. foreign policy concerns. In the past--such as with the Indochinese refugee resettlement program Ms. Taft used to run--the humanitarian and refugee portfolio was viewed as only humanitarian. According to Ms. Taft, however, there is not a single place in the world where humanitarian dilemmas are not integral to the consideration of national interests; refugees are part of the geopolitical landscape. Ms. Taft is an activist, and she plans to campaign actively to raise the profile of the humanitarian and refugee portfolio in government. Ms. Taft also emphasized that protection will be the theme that drives PRM. ,

Ms. Taft’s view, the P in PRM has stood too often for politics instead of population. For example, the United States did not pay its UN arrears due to political disagreements about abortion. Ms. Taft finds these politics incomprehensible. Neither she nor PRM supports abortions, and the U.S. government does not spend money on abortions. On the contrary, the government is trying to find alternatives to abortion. Despite the unhelpful political intrigue, Ms. Taft hopes that general U.S. support for women’s health issues will extend to programs for refugee women. Nevertheless, Ms. Taft commented that garnering support is a difficult chore when only six people are assigned to the P in PRM.

The R in PRM, refugees, consists of two major components: refugee assistance and refugee resettlement. PRM is working on new monitoring and evaluation techniques to assess refugee needs more comprehensively. Moreover, Ms. Taft highlighted the valuable contributions of NGO’s and the need to involve them more extensively in relief operations and grass-roots educational activities. Ms. Taft also called for revisiting the viability of third-country refugee resettlement in certain situations, an option which has not had the full attention of the UNHCR in the last few years but should be a central element of the search for durable solutions.

Ms. Taft pointed to the 1996 First Regional Conference on Migration in Puebla, Mexico, as a milestone in cooperation among the ten nations of the northern half of the Western Hemisphere. Ms. Taft also noted the importance of contingency planning for future mass outflows of refugees in the region. The Intergovernmental Consultations on Asylum, Refugee, and Migration Policies in Europe, North America, and Australia (IGC) form another substantial forum for consideration of refugee protection and underscore the importance of the migration issue. Although these initiatives provide a useful framework for addressing refugee and migration issues cooperatively, the initiatives should not obviate the need for more rigorous law-enforcement to combat illegal migration among all parties concerned.

Ms. Taft underscored U.S. efforts to combat trafficking in women such as the information and prevention program PRM is coordinating in the Ukraine in cooperation with the International Organization for Migration and the Ukrainian authorities. Unfortunately for law enforcement agencies, however, trafficking in women is likely to grow because the profit margin for such activities, in many cases, is higher even than the profit margin for drug trafficking.

Ms. Taft argued that PRM functions energetically and is a model for the State Department bureaucracy. Even though PRM is constrained by the Byzantine State Department personnel system, Ms. Taft is eager to reach out to other State Department workers who could contribute valuable insight and experience to PRM.

In a lively discussion period following Ms. Taft’s presentation, the Assistant Secretary took questions on the U.S. resettlement program, refugee returns to Bosnia, burden-sharing, and a number of issues concerning U.S. leadership on refugee and asylum issue

To Contact the Panelist:

Julia Taft
Assistant Secretary of State for Population, Refugees, and Migration
Department of State
Bureau of Population, Refugees, and Migration
Room 6531, Suite L505
2401 E Street, NW
Washington, DC 20522
Telephone: 202-663-1071