Few Iraqis Are Gaining U.S. Sanctuary

Excerpts from the NY Times:

“We’re not even meeting our basic obligation to the Iraqis who’ve been imperiled because they worked for the U.S. government,” said Kirk W. Johnson, who worked for the United States Agency for International Development in Falluja in 2005. “We could not have functioned without their hard work, and it’s shameful that we’ve nothing to offer them in their bleakest hour.”

Some critics say the Bush administration has been reluctant to create a significant refugee program because to do so would be tantamount to conceding failure in Iraq. They say a major change in policy could happen only as part of a broader White House shift on Iraq.

State Department officials and some advocates for refugees agree that the United States is not likely to begin resettling large numbers of Iraqis anytime soon. New counterterrorism laws after Sept. 11 have slowed immigration, particularly from countries in the Middle East, and Iraqi applications would be bogged down by those security issues.

“I don’t know of anyone inside the administration who sees this as a priority area,” said Lavinia Limón, president of the United States Committee for Refugees and Immigrants...

A quicker way to help would be to increase financing to countries that are accepting Iraqis — Jordan, Syria and Lebanon — and press those governments to improve their treatment of Iraqis by allowing them to work and travel, officials and advocates said.

That would be a real service for Iraqis in Jordan, who speak of rude and sometimes abusive treatment. Jordanians often do not allow Iraqis to bring in suitcases, travelers said, and have been known to turn away young men, forcing families to continue on without them.

“Put yourself in my shoes,” said an Iraqi working in an American Army base who spent eight hours in the January cold last year with his wife and infant at the Jordanian border. “You take your family to another country and they interview you like you are a terrorist.”

A residency permit is required, and Iraqis must deposit 50,000 Jordanian dinars — about $70,000 — in a bank without drawing on it for a year to obtain one. The worker, who wanted to be identified only as Abu Hussein, eventually moved his family back to Iraq, to the south, because he could not afford to stay in Jordan.

“The Americans are in control of this country,” he said, talking about Jordan. “Why don’t they become angry at how they are treating us?”