Bill Clinton: “No, I'm saying--I think there will be more--some more people in the sense that we will be reviewing more people…”

“No, I'm saying--I think there will be more--some more people in the sense that we will be reviewing more people simultaneously. That is, we will be reviewing people not only in the in- country processing centers, but we'll be interviewing people either on boats or in a third country. But what I'm saying is that we have not broadened the criteria of eligibility for coming to the United States. I want to make this very clear. The problem with the present policy is--the present policy worked in 1993 up through the abrogation of the Governors Island accord and for some time thereafter in the sense that we did not have evidence of widespread indiscriminate killing of civilians. And we increased by tenfold, by tenfold, the number of people processed and the number of people approved for refuge in this country for 1993 over 1992. But when all this killing started, when it became obvious that the military leaders had no earthly intention of honoring Governors Island or anything approaching it or keeping their commitments, but instead were going to tolerate, organize, and abet increased killing in Haiti, it is logical to assume that some of those who get on the boats include not only economic refugees, who are the vast majority of them, but also some who genuinely fear for their lives. The only way we can get those people to the in-country processing is to let them off at the dock in Port-au-Prince where the police have jurisdiction. I do not believe that is a sustainable policy, either practically or morally, given the level of indiscriminate violence. So there may be some more people who get in because we'll be reviewing even more people. But it would be a great mistake for Haitians who want to come here for economic reasons to just take to the boats, because we are not changing the standard by which we admit people. Gwen [Gwen Ifill, New York Times].”