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{
    "localId": "7367512",
    "label": "Memorandum to Brent Scowcroft about a Recommended Phone Call to the Immigration and Naturalization Service (INS) Commissioner Chapman Regarding Indochina Refugee Boat Cases",
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    "id": "7367512",
    "sourceUrl": "https://catalog.archives.gov/id/7367512",
    "contentType": "document",
    "title": "Memorandum to Brent Scowcroft about a Recommended Phone Call to the Immigration and Naturalization Service (INS) Commissioner Chapman Regarding Indochina Refugee Boat Cases",
    "description": "This item is a memo from William Gleysteen to Brent Scowcroft .",
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    "identifierLocal": "035200025-001",
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    "productionDates": [
        {
            "day": 10,
            "logicalDate": "1976-12-10",
            "month": 12,
            "year": 1976
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    "seq": 2,
    "pageIndex": 0,
    "type": "photo",
    "url": "https://s3.amazonaws.com/NARAprodstorage/opastorage/live/12/3675/7367512/content/arcmedia/presidential-libraries/ford/gallery/035200025-001_Page_1.jpg",
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    "ocrText": "File scassed from \"Rengees - Geraid R. Ford Presideattal\nMEMORANDUM\n6467\nNATIONAL SECURITY COUNCIL\nCONPIBENTIAL GDS\nURGENT\nACTION\nMEMORANDUM FOR BRENT SCOWCROFT\nJohn\nDecember 10, 1976\nFROM:\nWILLIAM GEEYSTEEN\nmy\nSUBJECT:\nRecommended Phone Call to INS Commissioner\nChapman re Indochina Refugee \"Boat Cases\"\nYour intercession is needed with General Chapman, Commissioner\nof the Immigration and Naturalization Service, to insure that he\napproves a State Department request to admit an additional 100 Indo-\nchina \"boat case\" refugees a month beginning this December. These\nrefugees are in an extremely precarious situation because governments\nin the region often refuse to allow them to land and force them back\nout\nto sea. U.. S. willingness to accept some of them may cause these\ncountries to allow the refugees to land temporarily, thus removing them\nfrom danger.\nBackground\nWe still have one outstanding problem regarding Indochina refugees\nwhich requires immediate government action. Since the end of our\nevacuation program, over 4200 people have successfully escaped from\nVietnam by sea (the so-called \"boat cases\") and made it to various ports\nin Southeast Asia. Approximately 2200 remain unsettled and approximately\n500 more are fleeing each month. The refugees have to save gasoline\nand money for months in order to try to escape. They often have no\nnavigational aids other than a map from a tourist brochure. If they\nmake it past Communist patrols (and the estimates are that well over\nhalf do not), they then must face the dangers on the high seas. Most\noften their engines break down and they run out of food and water. Some\nhave sailed too close to Cambodia where they have been arrested and\nsummarily executed.\nFor the small percentage that survive all of these difficulties, their\nproblems are only beginning because on-Communist states in the region\nhave been unwilling to accept them on a permanent basis and often refuse\n8\nFone\nCONFIDENTIAL GDS\nKBH 3/1/00"
}