Refugee Act of 1980 is occasionally invoked—most notably by Eritreans, and rarely in writing, and, at least, once in an Amharic-language book by Ethiopian politician and author Gebru Asrat (a page of which was translated for me)—as evidence of a deliberate American strategy to dismantle the Eritrean Liberation Front (ELF). The claim that the Refugee Act sealed the ELF’s fate persists in part because of the historical and emotional lens through which many Eritreans view their struggle for independence. Refugee Act of 1980 was a deliberate strategy to dismantle the ELF is rooted in the political and emotional context of the Eritrean struggle for independence.