One Utah

In an essay in Foreign Affairs, Richard Holbrooke, former U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations, compares the current Iraqi refugee situation with the plight of European Jews in the 1930s. Now, as then, the United States government is shamefully ignoring the crisis. Now, as then, visas can save lives.

Since the 2003 invasion, the U.S. government has allowed only 466 Iraqi refugees to enter the United States, even though more than two million have fled the country (mostly to Jordan and Syria). Among those desperately seeking safety are thousands of Iraqis who worked with or supported U.S. personnel in Iraq. They are at the greatest possible risk. In an embarrassing interview recently, Ellen Sauerbrey, assistant secretary of state for population, refugees, and migration, told 60 Minutes that the small number and slow processing is the result of new, post-9/11 security requirements. Even Iraqis who were given security clearances to work with U.S. troops in sensitive positions in Iraq have to wait several years to get approved. Sauerbrey boasted about increasing this year’s Iraqi refugee quota to 7,000 — still a pathetically small number given U.S. responsibility for the desperate plight of fleeing Iraqis. Under similar circumstances, between 1975 and 1980, Presidents Gerald Ford and Jimmy Carter took in over 500,000 refugees from Vietnam and Cambodia. Those refugees were initially put into camps of “first asylum” for security screening before being permitted to settle in the United States, where today they are a vibrant part of American life.

In fact, if it were not for Senator Edward Kennedy (D-Mass.), who has made refugees a prime concern for over 40 years, the Bush administration would probably still be ignoring the issue; President George W. Bush has yet to mention it in public. That the sorry story of the 1930s is being repeated — with so little public outrage — is more than disturbing; it is shameful.

More about the Iraqi refugee crisis from One Utah.

UPDATE: IraqSlogger reports that 600,000 Iraqi Christians (and members of other minority groups) are threatened with death. Islamists have said the country should be cleansed of Christians as they are accused of supporting the American occupation. Some families are being forced to pay up to $2,000 a month in protection money– those who don’t pay are executed unless they flee.

This entry was posted Friday, May 4th, 2007 at 10:57 am and is filed under Disaster, George W. Bush, Human Rights, Immigration, Iraq, National Politics, This Blog, War. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.