BY  Maria Puente

        If people here and abroad are confused about the state of U.S. refugee policy, no one should blame them.
        -- Item: One day, Cuban boat people are anti-communist heroes welcomed to Florida. The next day, they're illegal aliens dragged off to a naval base.
        -- Item: One day, Haitian boat people are illegal aliens intercepted at sea and dragged back to Haiti. The next, they're human-rights refugees shipped off to a naval base.
        -- Item: One day, Chinese boat people are illegal aliens washing up off New York and dragged off to jail. The next, they're refugees fleeing forced abortion policies in China and possibly eligible for "humanitarian" release.
        At best it's a muddle, and many people are deeply angry. But in a world overrun with literally millions of displaced and desperate people, the USA's refugee policies are now in dramatic - and some would say necessary - flux.
        President Clinton's recent actions, experts say, are a tacit recognition of the need to replace the ideologically driven policies of the Cold War era, which accorded automatic welcome to people fleeing communist regimes.
        "It's always been true of our refugee policy, and to an extent our immigration law, that they've (refugees) been jerked around by a combination of our foreign policy and domestic political interests," says Lawrence Fuchs, a historian of immigration at Brandeis University.
        Now, "our policies aren't so much confused as they're very, very complicated, because when you're talking about refugees you're talking about emergencies, which you can't always plan for," he says.
        At the moment, the most pressing emergency is the continuing, relentless flood of boat people and rafters from Cuba. On Wednesday, administration officials redoubled their efforts to convince Cubans that - despite three decades of open arms - they're no longer welcome and that they'll be taken to the U.S. Naval Base at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba.
        "They will absolutely, in no way, have any way of coming to the United States," said White House press secretary Dee Dee Myers.
        "I want to speak directly to Cuban families in Miami who may be talking to their loved ones in Cuba," implored Attorney General Janet Reno.  "You should urge your family not to make trips" to Florida.
        So far, there are few signs that Cubans are listening.
        Idalberto Cepero, a 26-year-old Cuban picked up with five friends in a small rowboat off Key West by the Coast Guard, says he knows he will end up at Guantanamo.
        "It doesn't matter," says Cepero, sunburned and soaked with salt water and gasoline. "I want to work. I need to work." In shortage-plagued Cuba, "I can't buy nothing."
        What happens if the exodus continues? "We are preparing to maintain that base indefinitely," says Defense Secretary William Perry.
        U.S. officials are trying to arrange "safe havens" in third countries, but they hope they won't have to face a long-term problem.
        After all, detention at Guantanamo abruptly halted the flood of Haitian boat people that bedeviled the administration a few months ago.
        But so far, Cubans aren't responding as the Haitians did - an ironic turn of events considering the pressure Clinton has been under to treat Cubans and Haitians the same.
        Few deny that Clinton's refugee policy on Cubans and Haitians today is more equitable than his predecessors'. But many refugee advocates still condemn him for sending both groups into refugee limbo.
        "It's equal mistreatment for all," complains Arthur Helton, head of migration programs for the Open Society Institute.
        Dennis Gallagher, head of the Refugee Policy Group, a Washington research organization, says Clinton has opted for "foolish consistency."
        "It's the idea that since we weren't generous to one group, we can't be generous to others," says Gallagher.
        But other experts say more time is needed to draw conclusions - and that Clinton is in the middle of a messy, evolving process of searching for a new refugee policy.
        In the past, foreign policy considerations were paramount in dictating refugee rules. Now, domestic politics is taking a top priority.
        Clinton "is responding to a growing anti-immigrant climate and at the same time he's trying assuage right-wing Cuban-Americans by tightening the economic screws on Castro," says Deborah Anker, immigration and refugee coordinator at Harvard Law School.
        The United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees is alarmed that once-welcoming countries like the USA are now closing their doors - at the same time there's a growing refugee problem around the world.
        "A decade ago, there were 13 million refugees," says commissioner spokeswoman Barbara Francis.  "Now there are 23 million."
        Rep. Robert Torricelli, D-N.J., who represents a heavily Cuban-American district and is a leading advocate for get-tough policies against Cuba's Fidel Castro, says the current crisis is "probably a harbinger of an intense debate" to come.
        "Americans have a romanticized notion of what our our past policy was," he says. "American immigration policy was never as open and inviting as commonly believed."
        But what should drive refugee policies in the '90s? Refugee advocates urge generosity, individual assessment of each applicant and increased efforts to change the conditions that prompt people to become refugees. They oppose indefinite detention and repatriation.
        "We support the idea that any effective policy needs to balance control and generosity," says Gallagher. "In the absence of compelling circumstances like a Cold War, you can't expect a country to open its doors . . . without asking questions."
        On the other side are people who want to discourage all newcomers.
        "We're moving towards a system of treating people the same regardless of where they come from and that's good, but we still have to rethink our whole concept," says Ira Mehlman, spokesman for the Federation for American Immigration Reform, which wants to cut back on all newcomers. "We have to repatriate those who don't meet the criteria."
        But for the moment, Cuban boat people and their families aren't paying attention to the debate; their interests are more immediate.
        "The Cubans are political refugees and those who have family here should be processed," into the USA, says Georgina Marrero, whose cousin Gilberto Leo Garcia is being detained at Guantanamo. "There's a lot of space here. . . . We have a lot of states - they're not overpopulated."
        Contributing: Lee Michael Katz, Kirk Spitzer

U.S. immigration's change course

Cubans are only the latest refugees wishing to enter the USA who are finding muddled rules. But that's not stopping them. Immigration is once again peaking as the century ends:

Decade       Admissions 1901-1910    8,795,386 1981-1990    7,338,062

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Cuban, Haitian immigration tide

The surge in the number of Cubans rescued by the Coast Guard in recent weeks, and earlier the exodus of Haitians, has turned the spotlight on U.S. immigration policies. The flow of immigrants to the USA:

Cubans rescued by the Coast Guard Aug. 10     101 Aug. 23   3,253

Annual rescues of Cubans 1989           391 
                                           1994        16,350(1) (1) - Through  Aug. 23

Annual rescues of Haitians 1989         3,368 
                                            1994        24,591(1) (1) -  Through Aug. 23

Illegal immigrants apprehended, expelled
           Apprehensions    Expulsions 
1989        954,243              860,936 
1993     1,327,259            1,278,855

Where legal immigrants come from Top 10 places of birth for immigrants granted legal status in 1993: 
Mexico                          109,027 
China                                65,552 
Philippines                      63,189 
Vietnam                            59,613 
Former Soviet Union       58,568 
Dominican Republic       44,886 
India                                40,021 
Poland                             27,729 
El Salvador                       25,517 
United Kingdom              18,543

Few Haitians granted legal status Number of immigrants in 1993 applying for permanent refugee status out of fear of persecution and the percentage of applications approved:
                         Applications      Approved 
1. Soviet Union      53,735               96.0% 
2. Vietnam             36,137                86.7% 
3. Haiti                    7,421                16.8% 
4. Laos                    7,004                98.9% 
5. Somalia               6,940                72.2% 
6. Iraq                     4,381                64.2% 
7. Cuba                   3,493                78.4% 
8. Iran                     2,175                49.7% 
9. Ethiopia              1,384                82.9% 
10. Liberia               1,504                51.6%
     Others                  3,502                67.0%
     Total                127,676                83.9%

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Refugee rules vary

Some groups or nationalities have been given special immigration status for political, social, economic or humanitarian reasons:

CUBANS: President Clinton's new policies displace a 1966 law, which had benefited Cuban refugees: They could become permanent legal residents, and eventually citizens, just one year after reaching the United States. Now, Cubans intercepted at sea are taken to the U.S. naval base at Guantanamo Bay. They can't come to the USA.

HAITIANS: The Coast Guard is intercepting boats of fleeing Haitians. Nearly 15,000 have been taken to Guantanamo. The exodus from Haiti has virtually stopped.

CHINESE: Those who can prove persecution under China's one-child-only policy may receive "humanitarian consideration" allowing them to remain in the USA at the discretion of immigration officials.

IRISH: The 1990 Immigration Act established an annual lottery for 1990-93 to distribute 40,000 immigrant visas per year to mostly European countries. Congress set aside 40% in the first three years for the Irish, who had lobbied heavily for the quota.

MEXICANS: Since a special immigration law took effect in 1987, about 3 million illegal immigrants, mostly Mexicans, were granted amnesty. Mexicans are also the largest single group of undocumented immigrants, making up about 70% of the USA's estimated 3.8 million illegal residents.

SOVIET JEWS/EVANGELICAL CHRISTIANS: A 1990 law granted special refugee status for Jews and Christians from the former Soviet Union, who were presumed to be fleeing oppression.

SOVIET SCIENTISTS: A 1992 law allows up to 750 former Soviet scientists who worked in a nuclear facility or scientific program to be admitted each year through 1996 to head off U.S. enemies from employing the scientists.

VIETNAMESE AND SOUTHEAST ASIANS: Vietnamese children born between 1962-76 and fathered by a U.S. citizen may immigrate. So may children of U.S. citizens born in Cambodia, Korea, Laos, Thailand or Vietnam after 1950 and before Oct. 22, 1982. Vietnamese "boatpeople" are admitted as refugees under special humanitarian rules because of U.S. obligations arising from the Vietnam War and because of reported persecution by the communist government.