WASHINGTON – The United States is opening its heart – and its doors – to 20,000 Kosovo refugees who want to move in with relatives or other Americans eager to help out.
Vice President Al Gore announced the new rescue plan from Ellis Island, the immigration gateway – shelving an earlier proposal to herd ethnic Albanians into makeshift shelters at the U.S. military base at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba.
“We are doing our part to help the Kosovar people … those with close family ties in America, and those who are vulnerable, and we will have them here until they are able to return home safely,” Gore said.
White House spokesman Mike Hammer said those accepted will be allowed eventually to apply for permanent residency, although he predicted most will “want to go back to Kosovo.”
The White House, calling the new plan “the most humanitarian way of handling” the crisis, said only refugees in Macedonia will be eligible, not those in Albania.
Announcement of the plan came as Macedonia’s president warned that the flood of 130,000 Kosovars fleeing the ethnic-cleansing campaign waged by Serbian strongman Slobodan Milosevic was destabilizing the former Yugoslav republic.
Hammer said U.N. officials have already started identifying some of the refugees eligible to come to America – and they could start arriving in a week.
Meanwhile, on the eve of a NATO summit conference in Washington, the White House opened the door to updating a Kosovo ground-troop plan drawn up in October.
White House spokesman Joe Lockhart insisted: “That’s not changing policy. It’s not committing ground troops.”
Analyst Dan Goure said using ground troops is one of several bad options left to President Clinton.
“They’re looking at an absolutely untenable situation at this point,” Goure said.
As new border clashes raised fears that the war is spreading, the first of 24 U.S. Apache helicopters arrived at the Kosovo border.
Experts said the low-flying, tank-destroying helicopters could wipe out half the Serbian tanks in Kosovo in a matter of weeks.
But analyst John Hillen, a former Gulf War army captain, also warned the helicopter flights will be risky to the two-man crews – given that there will be no backup forces on the ground in Kosovo.
The Pentagon also mulled sending more aircraft carriers and warplanes to the region – although top military officers warned that U.S. forces in other potential trouble spots around the world are “stretched thin.”