'Kept In a State of Limbo'.(Point of View)(George W. Bush's omnibus bill that will allow refugees to migrate to US)

Byline: Anna Husarska; Husarska is senior policy adviser at the International Rescue Committee.

Christmas came a day late for the inhabitants of Tham Hin, a Burmese refugee camp along the Thai border. On Dec. 26, U.S. President George W. Bush signed an omnibus spending bill containing two provisions that may change the lives of these refugees and the thousands of others around the world who live in fear of persecution in their home countries.

For years these refugees were kept in a state of limbo, forbidden to go to the United States by overly broad antiterrorist legislation that labeled them threats to homeland security and defined terrorism in a way that goes far beyond the more traditional definition--violent activities aimed at civilians--to include the use of any "dangerous device" for virtually any purpose, even to resist oppressive regimes that the United States opposes, and even if committed under the threat of death. Among the groups deemed to have been involved with terrorist activities are the Hmong, Mustang, Montagnards and Alzados--freedom fighters from Laos, Tibet, Vietnam and Cuba, respectively, and loyal allies of the United States in the Southeast Asia wars and in the effort to overthrow Fidel Castro in the 1960s. Also considered "terrorists" were Burma's ethnic groups like the Karen, Karenni, Arakan, Kayan and Chin, who struggled against a regime that has used terror against its own people.

But buried deep inside the omnibus bill is a set of provisions that could finally help these people. These groups will no longer be considered terrorist organizations, opening the pathway for their admission to the United States as refugees. Moreover, the law allows the heads of the Department of Homeland Security and Department of State to waive a rule in the antiterrorist legislation that bars entry to individuals who were combatants or trained as combatants. If exercised properly, this will undoubtedly help true freedom fighters who have been excluded from the United States only by dint of its broad definition of terrorists.

This definition has already kept out people like Lincoln, a soft-spoken 87-year-old Karen. He had been labeled a terrorist for years by U.S. authorities, solely because he was a teacher in a school set up by a group of armed resisters in the Karen-controlled territory of Burma. Denied entry into the United States, his dream of joining his grandnephews in running ...