Perhaps the Burmese junta's recent attacks against the Karen and the KNU, which have so far displaced 13,000 people in a matter of months, caused the white house to take care of this matter a bit more expeditiously.
It's certianly a positive step, and at least we know now that someone up there is paying attention to this situation - but it's still only a small, temporary fix. As I had suspected, the waiver does not apply to anyone who was actually a member of the KNU, or any other armed group, for that matter:
“Anybody who might be a combatant or a member of the Karen National Union would not be eligible for resettlement in the United States, even under this waiver authority,” [Sean] McCormack said.
It should be noted that "member of the KNU" actually extends to those who were non-combatants - such as teachers and nurses working with rebel organizations. So, it's still vital that the amendment to the immigration and nationality act, which would restrict the definition of terrorist groups to those that have been officially designated as such, and would waive the material support bar for those who were forced to provide support under duress, still passes congress as quickly as possible.
I'm not sure which bill the proposed amendment to the Immigration and Nationality Act was attached too (or the name the media uses for it) - I'd thought it might be the emergency spending bill that I've seen recently in the news, but I've received no updates or notices regarding the amendment and its status. If anyone else has any news about it - please do share it.
This article in the New York Times mentions a few other specific groups that must be under consideration for the waiver:
But that waiver will not apply to scores of other refugees whose resettlement has been delayed by the provision, including 146 Cubans who offered support to armed opponents of Fidel Castro in the 1960's; 200 Burmese refugees housed in Malaysia; 30 Hmong refugees in Thailand; 11 Vietnamese Montagnard refugees in Cambodia; and a small number of Liberians and Somalis. The State Department will have to seek separate waivers for each of those individual groups, officials said.
I don't know where they got their numbers from, but there are significantly more than 200 Burmese refugees in Malaysia waiting to apply for resettlement in the U.S. Everyone has been anticipating at least 1000 Chin alone to be resettled from Malaysia this year - they're all waiting for this to be sorted out so the resettlement application process can start again. On top of that, there must be well over 20,000 Burmese of all ethnicities waiting to seek asylum and resettlement from Malaysia. The U.S. needs to remember that it typically takes more refugees in these situations than other countries, and are looked to as an example. If we start to ignore our humanitarian obligations then others will too, and the negative impact will reach much further than those refugees they have on record as waiting to apply for resettlement in this country.
I saw mentioned elsewhere that this waiver is sort of a 'test' with this group to see how it goes. I don't know what they are testing - the waiver allows the system to revert to the way it's been operating for decades already, and even though there's a lot that probably needs to be fixed, enhancing security isn't one of them. There are already provisions which make it more difficult for former combatants to receive asylum, and to the best of my knowledge, there have been no instances of terrorists deliberately using the refugee resettlement system to gain entry into any country. Of all the ways to enter the U.S. - temporary visas, fake passports, marriage, or the Green Card lottery - the asylum process is by far the most tedious and least efficient or reliable.