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Scene one, take 3. 14,500 miles. How do you do? Ladies and gentlemen, one of the sad after effects of Castro and communism having taken over Cuba has been a tremendous dislocation of human life. We in Florida are thoroughly familiar with this problem because we have seen some 165 of them leave Cuba under pressure and come into our state.

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I have with me today is my guest, Mr Anthony Makuuchi, who is the staff director of the Cuban refugee problem here in Washington. I thought he might be able to give us some exact information first. As to how many of these Cuban refugees are now in Florida, there are about 105,000 in Dade County now.

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So that means you have resettled. How many? We resettled 55,000 other parts of the country and overseas. Do you have any programs to continue this resettlement? Oh, yes, indeed. It's going right on every day. Center. Do you expect to lessen the number of refugees that are now, for example, in Dade County?

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Yes. If they don't start arriving again. Great numbers. How do you What is the program that you follow in resettling a Cuban refugee. We and the voluntary agencies working with us, uh, inform the country of the situation and ask for sponsors. That's a citizen who offers to find a home and a job temporarily, a temporary home and a job for a refugee, and they tell us what they can handle.

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Then we find the refugee that meets those requirements size of family, the skill of the person be employed. And we send them on their way or more of the Cuban refugees that are now in Florida, giving some indication that they are willing to be resettled and was originally the case.

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Well, it goes up and down, but in general we're short of sponsors right now rather than Cubans willing to leave Miami. In other words, what you're looking for? People around the country who are willing to take these Cuban refugee. That's right. That's right. What areas of the country are doing the best job in taking these refugees from Florida?

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As far as numbers, the best job has been done by a New York City and then northern New Jersey, Massachusetts, Southern California and maybe about the best job by Puerto Rico. Why is it speaking of Puerto Rico? How many do they have in Puerto Rico? We've sent there about 3000 from Miami and about 12,000 more of going to Puerto Rico directly from Cuba.

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Why do not more these Cuban refugees go to some of the central and South American countries where the language they understand they have friends? Well, great. Many have gone there directly from Cuba anyhow. But the big handicap for Cuban to go there is the business of coming back into our country.

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In case something goes wrong, the job ends or the health fails. Or there is a political difficulty. Uh, we don't have. Our law doesn't make it easy for them to come back in the event they leave the country. So they just to be on the safe side, they come to United States first.

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That's right. And they'd like to stay near Cuba anyhow. And we're as close to Cuba as you can get. I explain to us a just a few moments we have left about these welfare payments. How does the men qualify? And can he work and still get the payments?

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The Cuban refugee the welfare program is actually handled for the federal government by the welfare department of the state of Florida. And with federal money, the standards applied are identical to the ones that are applied to local Florida people who need help and come for it.

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Uh, they may work a little, but of course, they learn beyond a certain point. Then they're not eligible for additional. Do you think there's any truth in the complaints which I sometime here that there is work for some of these Cuban refugees and particularly medical technicians?

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But they don't accept those jobs because they would rather accept the welfare checks. This does not square with our experience center smiler. The one thing about these Cubans are so eager to be self supporting they're so eager to work. And they're so eager not to be on relief because this is the one thing they never were on back in Cuba.

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This type of reputation, you don't put any stock in that complaint. Well, that's good to hear. Thank you very much, Mr Makuuchi. Our time is up for being our guest. And thank you very much. Ladies and gentlemen, for looking in. I hope you're looking again at this same time next week.

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G programme costing the taxpayers of the United States this fiscal year. It'll cost close to $70 million. Senator. How much did it cost last year? 38 million. Why? It was the price of it going up so much. Strictly a matter of numbers. Strictly a matter of not the matter of numbers.

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Only more refugees have to be taken care of. Now, Mr Makuuchi, would you, uh, tell us What about this survey that the Labor Department is taking? Yes. You well recognized that all these Cubans in South Florida has upset Are labour pattern considerably and his considerable unemployment in the area?

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Would you tell us what the Labor Department is doing about it? Yes. First, let me make clear that this is this primary responsibility of the Labor Department rather than my department. However, we we are sympathetic to this survey and are hopeful that a way can be found who consider within the unemployed picture of Dade County the fact of the presence of a lot of unemployed Cuba.

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Now, if this results in certain facilitation ins, certain additional consideration for day county like area redevelopment and training of some of these people under manpower, the development programs. Why we think this would be a good thing. Mhm. How many of these people do you keep? Any accurate information is to the talents and capabilities of these people is becoming how many of them are professional people.

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How many of them are laboring people, how many of them are capable of working? We keep very accurate tally of what their skills are because we're trying to find jobs for them around the country. About 25% of them quarter are in what you might call the professional categories doctors, lawyers, engineers, chemists, architects, senior managers of enterprises and so forth.

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Oh, another 25% or in the commercial field salesmen, clerks and stenographers and bookkeepers and so on. And another 25% our skilled workers and all kinds of things. And a quarter, or about 25% or semiskilled or unskilled. Now, could you? As long as we have so many people listening over this particular these particular programs right now, could you tell the people who are listening?

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What is it that it's available with respect to these people? What talents they might have. And maybe somebody who's listening would have some opportunity of using this town. I hope so, Senator, I have a list on my desk right now. 10, 500 Cubans who have registered for employment with us looking for employment, and they represent 1497 different skills.

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You can almost name it, and we'll find you a Cuban who can do it if you need a person to do that job. Now, most of these people that come, are they bilingual? Do they speak any English or they? Unfortunately, not about a quarter of them know enough English to get get by with some small, some some English, two very good English.

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The others need to be taught English, and we're concentrating on having them learn English as fast as possible. Any given day in Miami, there are 9000 adult Cubans learning English taking. And how do you account for the fact that of the categories, which you name, that there's so many professional people who have left Cuba?

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Whenever a Communist regime takes over, the first victims are the better, the better. Well, let's say the better people, the professional people the ones that the Communists know they cannot persuade to buy their bill of goods. We hear that in some instances Castro is letting go a lot of elderly people whom he thinks could never be any use to him.

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Now you say that this class of refugee that we're getting is not just the older people, and all these well qualified people know the distribution of the the age distribution of the refugees actually coincides pretty much with the standard distribution of our own people in this country.

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What are the possibilities of opening up another refugee center in some other area of the country? Well, it's such an appealing thing to say Open the second center. And I would say, Senator, that if refugees start coming out again and anything like the numbers before October 23rd, then it could very well be that we ought to open a second center or rather bypassed Miami.

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But it's not open and shut up. It's all right. Well, thank you very much. I'm sure you will agree with me that the only real permanent solution this problem is getting rid of Fidel Castro and free in Cuba once again. Thank you very much, Mr McCutchen, for being on this program.

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Thank you very much, ladies and gentlemen, for listening in. I hope you're listening again at the same time next week.