First Chilean Refugee Family Arrives
Diocesan Press Service. January 14, 1974 [74005]
NEW YORK, N. Y. -- The first Chilean refugee family to be admitted to the United States since the overthrow of the Allende government last September has arrived under the sponsorship of the Episcopal Church and through the auspices of Church World Service, the relief agency of the National Council of Churches.
Mr. and Mrs. Carlos Alberto Reyes Espinoza and their two children, Carlos and Camilo, aged one and three, arrived recently at New Windsor, Md., for an interim period at the Brethren Service Center there before traveling to the west coast where Mr. Reyes Espinoza will teach at the University of California at La Jolla.
Professor Reyes Espinoza formerly taught at the Technical University in Santiago, Chile. His wife is a citizen of El Salvador.
The family is being "paroled" into the U.S. upon recommendation of the U.S. State Department and approved by the Department of Justice.
According to the Rev. John Schauer, director of Church World Service's Immigration and Refugee Program, the applications of some 54 Chilean refugees for entry to the U.S. under the special program are being considered by the State Department and his office has promised to resettle "any or all" of them.
Under President Salvador Allende more than 13,000 persons from several Central and South American countries had found asylum in Chile. Since the military overthrow of Allende on September 11, 1973, many of these have been on the run. Nearly 1,500 persons have been cared for in six refugee centers in Chile operated by an ecumenical committee of churchmen and the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees.
The Board for the Presiding Bishop's Fund for World Relief of the Episcopal Church recently approved a grant of $1, 000 to assist in the resettlement of refugees from Chile.