Burmese Refugee Reprieve

This is good news.

Via Tara at Burma Underground comes word that Secretary of State, Condolezza Rice, has overridden the USA Patriot Act and granted a waiver to thousands of Burmese refugees who have languished, for years in some cases, in Thailand. The refugees are of the Karen ethnic group, which has been the target of a bitter cleansing by the Burmese junta. I had previously noted this ridiculous situation:

some 9500 Burmese refugees' relocation to the US is being held up because stipulations within the Patriot Act disallow dissidents or even those who may have supported such activity in other, usually repressive, countries should not be allowed entrance into the US.

More at Burma Underground.

Of course, one has to wonder whether this will become necessary practice for the State Department; overriding draconian provisions contained within the ill-considered Patriot Act in order to provide desperate people refuge from oppressive regimes. I also can't help but wonder how the immigration nazis in the US are going to view the influx of thousands of refugees from Burma. Bush's "base" is never happy when America brings in more poor, tired and huddled masses.... Nonetheless, this is a brief, shining bit of good news for those desperate people.