Iraqi Refugees Face Catch-22
Tens of thousands of Iraqis who might qualify for asylum in the United States as refugees are unable to do so because of bureaucratic and practical obstacles, Sabrina Tavernise and David Rohde report.
Despite a stepped-up commitment from the United States to take in Iraqis who are in danger because they worked for the American government and military, very few are signing up to go, resettlement officials say. The reason, Iraqis say, is that they are not allowed to apply in Iraq, requiring them to make a costly and uncertain journey to countries like Syria or Jordan, where they may be turned away by border officials already overwhelmed by fleeing Iraqis.
[…]
[T]he administration has set up a special program for a small number of Iraqis, which gives preferential treatment to full-time employees of the American Embassy, about 125 in Baghdad, and to 500 interpreters by allowing them to skip the lengthy United Nations refugee process once they leave Iraq. But thousands more Iraqis work for the United States through contractors like Titan, a subsidiary of L-3 Communications; DynCorp International; Parsons Corporation; and Triple Canopy, and their subcontractors.
In all, 69,000 Iraqis work on contracts with the Department of Defense through Iraqi and foreign companies, according to the American military. They are cleaners, construction workers, drivers and security guards, to name a few, and though they face the same reprisals as anyone working more directly with the American government they do not fall into the special category.
A spokesman for the United States Embassy here said all Iraqis who had worked for the United States would have their refugee applications sped up once they fled Iraq and reached neighboring countries like Jordan or Syria. “The big question mark is for those who can’t reach us here,” said Rafiq A. Tschannen, chief of the Iraq mission for the International Organization for Migration in Amman, Jordan. The United States has processed large numbers of refugees in countries they were trying to flee, namely Vietnam in the 1970s and the Soviet Union in the late 1980s, and it could also do it in Iraq, Mr. Tschannen said, where the embassy is one of America’s largest in the world.
Obviously, travel is incredibly difficult for people who live in a war-torn country. Besides the real problems in crossing international borders, just getting out of one’s village requires facing mortal danger. Surely, a less absurd system could be put into place for processing requests.
UPDATE: John Cole and I are apparently having a “mind meld.” We do, however, differ somewhat on the issue of whether it should be illegal to stalk people for sex in public restrooms and whether right-wing bloggers are being hypocritical on the issue (Cole vs. Joyner here and here), so it’s still necessary to read both sites to get a wide range of views on the important news of the day.
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This seems unfortunately similar to some of the policies enacted by the imperial British governments in Ireland and India in the 19th century, where those who were starving had to walk at least ten miles to a workhouse or other facility to prove that they truly were destitute and starving. I guess they thought back then that it helped weed out the truly starving from the merely hungry.
This policy makes perfect sense if you want to claim you’re offering Iraqis asylum without actually having to admit any Iraqis.
Also, admitting large #s of Iraqis would be an admission of defeat for the Decider™, and thus intolerable.
A third of Iraq’s population lives in metropolitan Baghdad. Like much of the Middle East, Iraq’s population is overwhelmingly urbanized.
I’m not trying to trivialize the dangers. Just setting the record straight: most Iraqis aren’t villagers.
This is what happens when you liberate a country full of maladroit liberals.
You give them all sorts of welfare money, a job, and now they are saying it isn’t enough?!?!
These people are seriously ungrateful.
I didn’t pick that up from the article, but I don’t see why we should make it easy for gay Iraqi’s to get visas here either. They will just tempt the Idaho Statesman into framing Larry Craig again.
Heh. Even if they got asylum, how would they get to the US? What are the Vegas odds on dark-skinned people of arab/persian descent, and actually from Iraq being allowed to board a plane by TSA? 🙂
James: “…just getting out of one’s village…”
Dave Schuler: “A third of Iraq’s population lives in
metropolitan Baghdad. Like much of the Middle East,
Iraq’s population is overwhelmingly urbanized.
I’m not trying to trivialize the dangers. Just setting
the record straight: most Iraqis aren’t villagers.”
Google ‘baghdad+checkpoint+killing+militia’ but only if you have a strong stomach.
Just moving a few miles in Baghdad is extremely
dangeous: there are the shiite militias running
checkpoints, the shiite militias running checkpoints
in uniforms gotten from their Iraqi police fellow
militia members, the Iraqi police who are also shiite
militiamen running checkpoints, the Iraqi Army who are
also shiite militiamen running checkpoints, the Iraqi
Army guys who are sunni arab guerrillas running
checkpoints and the sunni arab guerrillas running
checkpoints all on their own, without pretending to be
official (they, of course, are now Our Friends, but no
less unpleasant).
Oh, plus the US Army, otherwise known as people who
don’t even speak the language, are obviously a tad bit
paranoid, are heavily armed, and can generally get
away with killing the odd Iraqi.
Makes a conventional war look cozy and homey.