In fact, FY 2002 brought the United States to the end of several familiar elements of past refugee programs, placing us into a significantly new context for U.S. refugee resettlement B a difficult transition whose dimensions were obscured by the September 11 responses. Largely gone are the massive, steady, and more predictably manageable programs that had dominated U.S. admissions since the passage of the Refugee Act of 1980 B the Indochinese and Soviet programs, followed for a few years by programs for those fleeing the former Yugoslavia. We are in a distinctively new era for refugee resettlement, and we need to recognize the true dimensions of the change. The new era brings both disadvantages and important new opportunities for the program to reflect on its core objectives and to respond to a wider range of genuine refugee needs.

For the future, refugee admissions will be characterized by the combination of many smaller-scale resettlement programs, mostly originating in difficult locations that will shift from year to year, each presenting significant and distinct policy challenges. The challenges consist not only of processing and logistics, though these are substantial, especially in an era of heightened security concerns. They consist also, and more importantly, of the complicated steps required to achieve agreement among the relevant U.S. Government B and often international B players on the groups and individuals that should be the beneficiaries of resettlement. A sensible system that does not make it too hard to say yes to new priority categories for resettlement is absolutely essential to our post-Cold-War refugee admissions program. Without the capacity to approve new resettlement initiatives nimbly, even expansive gains in operations, including in the security screening system, will not achieve significantly improved admissions. Without that capacity, we will also be unable to capitalize on the genuine humanitarian opportunities that this new era presents.