News: Kennedy Legislation Implementation

The Refugee Crisis in Iraq Act, which established in-country processing and 5,000 special visas for Iraqis working for US army or government, recently implemented the special visa program. Although the bill became law this past January, legal wrangling and the trademark turtle pace of change within the immigration bureaucracy had stalled the special visa program. The fact that it took about five months to implement the visa program and about four months to implement in-country processing reveals that our government does not recognize the immediacy of the threats against our Iraqi allies.

For an overview, The New York Times has the story:

The program will allow 5,000 Iraqis to go to the United States for each of the next five years. Each person can take immediate family members, who include spouses and children. More distant relatives, including siblings, parents and grandchildren, can apply under another program.

A second program, also established in January, whose rules were announced about six weeks ago, allows Iraqi employees of American nonprofit organizations, media companies and contractors to apply directly for refugee status instead of waiting for a referral from the United Nations. Like the special immigrant visa program, they can apply in Iraq and will be given support initially in the United States. Technically, anyone who qualifies will be accepted, State Department officials said.

Washington Post Chat: The Iraqi Refugee Crisis

As part of a five-year retrospective on the Iraq War, the Washington Post hosted an internet chat with Kristele Younes of Refugees International to discuss the plight of displaced Iraqis. Ms. Younes recently returned from visits to Jordan and Syria where she assessed the situation of Iraqi refugees (read her report).

During the wide ranging and informative internet discussion, Ms. Younes tackled a variety of key topics related to the refugee crisis.

On the delay in processing Special Immigrant Visas (SIV):

The Kennedy legislation- increasing the visas to 5,000 -- and its adoption by Congress are definitely positive steps. It is now up to the administration to implement the legislation and ensure it devotes the resources needed for it. Refugees International, as for other advocacy groups, will continue watching. Congress too is watching, and the administration is obliged by law to report to Congress on its progress with the implementation.

On the danger faced by those returning to Iraq:

According to the UNHCR, the conditions in Iraq are absolutely not conducive to return for the moment. This position is supported by the U.S. State Department. Refugees International strongly believes that return should not be encouraged until Iraqis can go home, on their own free will, in safety and dignity.

Obviously, we all hope that Iraqis will be able to return one day. But those who have returned in the last few months- forced to do so because they could no longer survive in exile- have mostly been unable to return to their homes. Seventy percent became internally displaced. Some were attacked or killed. In these conditions, return is not only dangerous for the displaced, it also adds to the potential for increased instability and violence.

And, on what America can do to help out:

It is essential the American public engages on this issue. As this is an electoral year, Americans need to ask all candidates to come up with a plan to deal with the humanitarian crisis. This is a bipartisan issue, and should concern us all. We need to increase assistance to the U.N. and to the region, increase resettlement numbers, increase U.S. engagement in the Middle East, and work on ensuring that whatever military course the U.S. takes in Iraq, it will consider the humanitarian consequences and ensure that civilians will be protected against further violence.

To learn more about what was discussed, read the full transcript.

TLP in the News: The Washington Post on Visa Quotas

The Washington Post recently reported on the State Department halt on processing visa applications for Iraqi translators due to a quota limit.

The halt is the latest obstacle for many of the several thousand translators who have worked for U.S. military units in Iraq and Afghanistan, risking their lives and leaving their families vulnerable to retaliation from insurgents who see them as accomplices of American troops. More than 250 interpreters working for U.S. forces or their contractors have been killed in Iraq since the U.S.-led invasion in 2003. Many American service members have worked to help their former translators gain a visa to come to the United States under a 2006 congressional program initially designed to admit 50 translators per year, a quota later increased to 500.

The article also quotes TLP's Kirk Johnson on the power of the president on the bureaucracy:

If this doesn't prove why it's President Bush's responsibility to whip these bureaucracies into shape, and why the best intentions of Congress can only nudge things, I don't know what else can," said Johnson, a former staffer with the U.S. Agency for International Development in Iraq. "Until the president weighs in, the bureaucracies will not solve this.

There are many more Iraqis who served as translators for the US, and who have worked with contractors, than the special visas currently allow. This narrow quota has recently been increased to 5,000 due to a recently passed bill that was signed by President Bush, however, its implementation will not take affect immediately. In the mean time, Iraqis who have risked their lives working for the US are shunned until the inertia-ridden bureaucracy implements the new quota.

News: Special Visa Created

According to an article by Refugees International:

The 2008 Defense Authorization Act, which was recently signed into law by the President, also established a special P-2 category and a special immigrant visa for Iraqis who have been targeted because of their affiliation with the U.S. government. Senators Edward Kennedy (D-Mass), Gordon Smith (R-Ore), Sam Brownback (R-Kan), Joe Lieberman (D-Conn) and a number of liberal and conservative Senators supported this bipartisan effort.

Hopefully, the special visa will expedite the resettle process for marked Iraqi allies. At the very least, the creation of the visa is an implicit recognition from the administration that Iraqi allies are, in fact, being marked for death and that the U.S. has an obligation to help them. The bipartisanship effort underlies the ultimate humanitarian nature of the refugee issue and thus transcends the confines of Democrat, Republican, left, right, pro-war, anti-war, etc.