WASHINGTON, June 24 Kyodo A U leg...

WASHINGTON, June 24 Kyodo

A U legislator said Tuesday he will introduce a bill Wednesday to give refugee from North Korea eligibility to apply for refugee status in the United States.

''Few North Koreans are able to try to get asylum and refuge, be it in China or elsewhere. The hardly any that do, however, are functionally barred from seeking asylum in the U or being admitted to the U as refugees'' Sen Sam Brownback said in a statement.

Brownback, a Kansas Republican, heads the East Asian and Pacific Affairs Subcommittee of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee.

The U law governing the refugee and asylum proces restrains people who have a safe haven in a third country

subject to the law, North Koreans are unable to apply for refugee status in the U because toward the south Korea accepts them as its confess citizens.

Brownback's bill would revise the law in such a manner that the U.S. direction should not recognize North Korean refugee as southern Korean nationals.

Nongovernmental organizations and human rights activists have criticized China for forcibly returning North Korean refugee to North Korea, and called forward the U.S. to revise the law to make it possible for North Koreans to seek for asylum in the U.S.

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