Quote of note:

...The provisions, which draw on the USA Patriot Act of 2001, were enacted last year as part of the Real ID Act and incorporated into U.S. immigration law. One involves a catchall definition of "terrorist organization," said to be any group of two or more people who bear arms with the intent to endanger the safety of any individual.

...The lack of specificity in the law has created problems for groups as varied as Colombian refugees fleeing the terrorism of leftist insurgents and Liberian women raped and forced into servitude by rebels. Its restrictiveness is affecting even groups whose causes the Bush administration supports, such as some in Afghanistan who aided the Northern Alliance against the Taliban.

Immigration Waiver Granted to Refugees
Some Burmese Lose Pro-Terrorism Label
By Bradley Graham
Washington Post Staff Writer
Friday, May 5, 2006; A14

In the first move of its kind, Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice has granted an immigration law waiver so that many of the 9,300 Burmese refugees at a camp in Thailand will no longer be viewed as supporters of terrorism and can be considered for resettlement in the United States, officials said yesterday.

The waiver, which Rice signed Wednesday, followed months of internal argument among the departments of State, Justice and Homeland Security. The argument has pitted concerns about combating terrorism against worries that people with legitimate claims to asylum were being blocked from immigrating to the United States. At issue have been broad definitions, in recently passed immigration legislation, of what constitutes a terrorist group and what qualifies as "material support" for terrorism.

The lack of specificity in the law has created problems for groups as varied as Colombian refugees fleeing the terrorism of leftist insurgents and Liberian women raped and forced into servitude by rebels. Its restrictiveness is affecting even groups whose causes the Bush administration supports, such as some in Afghanistan who aided the Northern Alliance against the Taliban.

Lawmakers and human rights activists who had pushed for the waiver applauded it as a first step. But they appealed for further action to alleviate the inadvertent impact of the counterterrorism provisions on thousands of other refugees seeking entry into the United States.

"We had been urging them -- and the State Department itself had been pressing -- to use this waiver authority for many months, and they had been blocked by the departments of Justice and Homeland Security," said Tim Rieser, an aide to Sen. Patrick J. Leahy (D-Vt.).

State Department officials said there are no plans to grant additional waivers in the near future. They characterized the Burmese situation as a test case, the results of which will need to be assessed before more waivers are issued. The case was chosen, they said, because it involves the largest group of refugees affected by the provisions in question.