News: An Increase in In-Country Processing

For most Iraqis who seek resettlement in the US, the immigration process is riddled with inane bureaucratic rules. One of those rules required Iraqis to be processed in one of Iraq's neighboring countries rather than Iraq itself; a dangerous and inefficient venture for Iraqis whose lives are in danger.

George Packer reports that this US policy has now changed. Thanks to a bill sponsored by Ted Kennedy, the Refugee Crisis in Iraq Act that passed in December 2007, resettlement cases for Iraqi allies are being held in the Green Zone. Packer relates:

I pushed for in-country processing when I was in Baghdad in early 2007 reporting for my article “Betrayed”; I was told by embassy officials that it wasn’t possible, without ever getting a persuasive explanation. It could have started a year ago, or two years ago. But I want to give credit where it’s due: if, in the coming year, a few thousand Iraqis who work with Americans won’t have to join their colleagues in the misery of exile before having a chance of being resettled here, then something good will have happened in this shameful story.

News: Betrayed Wins Award for Outstanding Play

George Packer's play, Betrayed, was named the "outstanding play" at the annual Lucille Lortel Awards. The play is a fictional account of an Iraqi translator's predicament in being denied a US visa and facing the threat of death in Iraq. A review of the play by the New York Times can be found here and George Packer's blog can be found here.

News Roundup: Week of February 4

State Department officials described the Iraqi refugee situation this week as a "looming problem" for the Middle East, while also acknowledging what has become tragically apparent: the U.S. may fall short of its pledge to admit 12,000 Iraqis between October 2007 and September 2008 (Fiscal Year 2008). As detailed in a Washington Post article on Tuesday, only around 10% of the goal has been fulfilled through four months.

Read the full briefing from State here.

This week a diverse group of prominent figures were in the news calling attention to the Iraqi refugee crisis. U.S. Representatives John Dingell and Alcee Hastings wrote a letter to Condoleeza Rice asking for increased government involvement:

"In addition to the moral and humanitarian elements of this problem, the lack of resources being provided to refugees and displaced persons from the United States and the international community is creating a potential security crisis, as the most vulnerable Iraqis are turning to extremist elements for assistance."

To read the full text of the letter, go to Congressman Dingell's website.

In her capacity as a goodwill representative for UNHCR, Angelina Jolie visited Iraq and met with aid organizations and high level Iraqi and US officials including General David Petraeus. Click on this AFP article to read more about the visit and issues being discussed.

Finally, a new play by George Packer on the plight of Iraqis who risked their lives to help the U.S. opened in New York. "Betrayed" is adapted from Packer's March 2007 New Yorker story of the same title.

Charles Isherwood discusses the play in a New York Times theater review.

News: The US Will Likely Default on Refugee Promise

George Packer of The New Yorker, is skeptical that the US will admit the 12,000 Iraqi refugees in the fiscal year that it has promised:

Two months ago, I mentioned the State Department’s latest promise to resettle twelve thousand Iraqis in the United States in the coming fiscal year. Since then, the monthly totals have dropped from 450 in October to 362 in November and 245 last month. At this rate, the government will have to admit almost eleven thousand Iraqi refugees in the next nine months—more than twelve hundred a month—in order to achieve its own goal: doubtful.

In the same blog post, Packer comments on the departure of the lead State Department official on refugees, Ellen Sauerbrey, as well as his latest proposal to shame President Bush into resettling more Iraqi allies in the US.

Article Roundup

George Packer continues to conscientiously write about the travails of Iraqi refugees and has mentioned The List Project’s very own Kirk Johnson in a recent blog post:

A few evenings ago, my friend Kirk Johnson stopped by with a man I’ll call Ibrahim, an Iraqi in his early thirties who had arrived in the U.S. earlier this month. Ibrahim’s story keeps getting worse before it gets better.
Toward the end of last year, while working for an American contractor, Ibrahim received a death threat from a co-worker who belonged to the Mahdi Army, and he decided to flee the country. Iraqis are less and less welcome in the Arab world, so he chose a dangerous, though increasingly common, way out: he paid a Swedish-Iraqi smuggler six thousand dollars up front to get him into Stockholm, where a cousin lives.
On the phone, Ibrahim sounded furious, bewildered, despairing—and determined. “Is it possible, is it possible?” he said over the static-filled connection. “I used to be manager of a procurement office of USAID. I am nothing now, and why? Because I trusted the U.S. When you are a refugee, it’s a very terrible feeling. You feel nobody knows about you, nobody cares about you.”

Packer had indicated that he will continue Ibrahim's story on his blog so keep an eye out for that. Furthermore, in a recent spate of articles on Iraqi refugees and U.S. policy towards them, Slate has another article arguing that not only does the U.S. have a moral responsibility to admit thousands of Iraqi refugees into the country, but that robust resettlement will also aid America’s strategic interests:

As with the Palestinian problem, Iraq's refugees could generate numerous regional crises. Large refugee flows can overstrain the economies and even change the demographic makeup of small or weak states, upsetting what is already a delicate political balance. One million Iraqi refugees is a substantial addition to Jordan's population of less than 6 million.

Not only, this, but another interesting piece relates of growing class and economic tensions in Jordan due to the presence of Iraqi refugees:

Hostility towards them easily translates into a general dislike of all Iraqis in Jordan, regardless of whether they are wealthy or not. "I'll give you an example — if an Iraqi comes to my stall he won't ask the price, he'll just start filling his bag," says Mohammed Ro'ud, a greengrocer in Amman's Boukari street market. "This is why the prices of flats are also going up: they don't bargain, they just pay cash right away, and ordinary Jordanians can't afford to do that."

The article also states that while poor Iraqis also constitute part of the refugee population in Jordan, most poor refugees have settled in Syria where the economy is straining under the added weight of approximately 1.5 million Iraqi refugees. The Economist comments on the situation and also explains new Syrian regulations limiting refugee admittances:

The UNHCR has managed to register only 135,000 refugees, a fraction of those who have arrived. And they are still trickling in, despite new rules that have in effect closed the border. Only certain favoured categories of applicants, such as lorry drivers, businessmen, academics and engineers, are now being allowed in, with occasional exceptions for the sick.

Must read: "The Guam Option"

The New Yorker's George Packer continues his diligent coverage of the Iraqi refugee crisis, particularly as it pertains to America's Iraqi allies. In his most recent post on the subject, he outlines what he calls "The Guam Option":

In the fall of 1996, the U.S. military evacuated more than six thousand Iraqis—Kurds and others who had worked with American agencies in the north, and whose lives were directly threatened by Saddam’s army—halfway across the world to Guam. There they were screened, processed for asylum, and assigned sponsors in an effort that involved more than a thousand American soldiers and civilians. Almost all of the evacuees ended up Stateside within seven months. Major General John Dallager, the Joint Task Force commander of Operation Pacific Haven, said, “Our success will undoubtedly be a role model for future humanitarian efforts.”

Undoubtedly... Recently, some conscience-stricken American officials have privately begun to ask why the model of Operation Pacific Haven can’t be emulated today. Flying Iraqis to Guam would solve every problem, real and invented, that the Administration claims is holding up resettlement: the inability of Homeland Security interviewers to meet with refugees in Syria; the near-impossibility of Iraqis getting into neighboring countries; the supposed security concerns that prevent the U.S. from screening Iraqis inside Iraq. With the Guam option, none of this would matter.

...In a single day. fewer than a dozen planes could rescue all of the eight hundred Iraqis on Kirk Johnson’s list. And Guam has U.S.-run facilities that can house large numbers of refugees. An airlift to Guam would not be cheap, and part of the cost would be enormous publicity. But it’s the obvious answer. Unless bad P.R., with echoes of the fall of Saigon, is the Administration’s real concern, there isn’t a single persuasive argument, practical or principled, against it.

Slate's Fred Kaplan endorses the plan (and also cites The List Project):

George Packer, the New Yorker writer who first drew attention to this crisis and who continues to shame officials for not doing more to resolve it, proposed a solution in his blog last week. The idea is eminently practical and logically unassailable—so much so that if Bush and his top aides don't take him up on it, there can be only one explanation: They simply don't want to.

Opinion: The Disgrace at State

This powerful blog piece by George Packer of The New Yorker is an absolute must-read. In it, he describes a State Department that attempts to obstruct Iraqi refugee legislation, makes promises it has no way of keeping to our Iraqi allies and falls short on promises already made. Perhaps most remarkably, he finds that military and State Department personnel who wish to act responsibly on this issue must turn to the press for help:

"...a desperate department official wrote to me, describing the sluggishness with which refugee applications in Syria and Jordan are being reviewed:

There is no excuse for this kind of mindless bureaucratic approach. I can’t find anyone here who seems to care that some of them seem to be on the verge of abandoning their cases. Know anyone who could do a one-page article somewhere to get the ball moving again?

So conscientious people on the inside have nowhere to turn but the press."

Read the full article on Huffington Post, or Mr. Packer's New Yorker Blog.