Posted on 09/17/2007 6:34:45 AM PDT by 3AngelaD
Iraqis Could Wait 2 Years for Entry, Ambassador Says: The U.S. ambassador to Iraq warned that it may take the U.S. government as long as two years to process and admit nearly 10,000 Iraqi refugees referred by the United Nations for resettlement to the United States, because of bureaucratic bottlenecks.
In a State Department cable titled "Iraqi Refugee Processing: Can We Speed It Up?" Ambassador Ryan C. Crocker noted that the Department of Homeland Security had only a handful of officers in Jordan to vet the refugees....
Human rights groups and independent analysts say thousands of desperate Iraqis who have worked alongside Americans now find themselves the targets of insurgents and sectarian militias, prompting many of them to seek residency in the United States or Europe...
About 2 million Iraqis are displaced inside Iraq, and an estimated 2.2 million more have fled to Syria, Jordan and other neighboring countries, where they are straining local resources and threatening to destabilize host communities, the United Nations has reported...Jordan largely closed its borders to Iraqis earlier this year, and Syria said yesterday that it will begin requiring visas for Iraqis at the conclusion of Ramadan next month...
In response, the U.S. government has provided more than $122 million in refugee aid to Iraq's neighbors this year...
Crocker suggested fast-tracking security checks for Iraqis, doubling the number of interviewing officers in Jordan and continuing to push Syria to issue visas...
But progress to date has been slow. Since February, the office of the U.N. High Commissioner on Refugees has referred about 10,000 Iraqis to the U.S. refugee program . The State Department, however, has admitted just 829 Iraqis this fiscal year, which ends Sept. 30, and officials caution that they may admit only about 1,750 by the end of the year.
(Excerpt) Read more at washingtonpost.com ...
Amen, and amen to your missive. We DO NOT NEED more muslims, no matter how “peaceful” immigrating to this country. Besides, their country needs them now more than ever.
BTTT,
I cannot understand what in the hell we lose American men and women for when these people are to sorry to stay and fight for their country. And if the trash has run away to Jordan let them stay in Jordan.
“”Perhaps the reason the State Department is moving so slowly is that the people who want to come here cannot be determined to be reliable and trust-worthy enough, and are, in fact, another potential fifth-column waiting in line to harm us.””
If that were the case, you can bet the State Department would step up their paperwork. You can’t have forgotten who processed and approved the visas for the 9/11 murderers. Those applications for the visas have been posted over and over again and they could have been filled out by a kid in nursery school, yet our State Department saw fit to issue the visas regardless.
It doesn’t say much for the progress we’re supposedly making in Iraq if thousands of Iraqis need to be admitted to the US as refugees. It also doesn’t say much about the desire of Iraqis to build a stable and peaceful Iraq.
Stories like this tend to discredit the optimistic reports we’ve heard lately.
Most of these Iraqi's have already been vetted since they worked for the US Government, according to some reports.
There won't be thousands, there will be millions.
That may or may not be the case, but what about their families? What a security nightmare.
Yes, Ma'am.
B T T T
Just one more Federal boondoggle!
ping
I'd much rather have as neighbors new arrivals who stuck it out LEGALLY than a whiner who wants theirs RIGHT NOW.
We allowed a legion of Kurds in after the first go-around - most of them here in Nashville in their own little enclave - and now we have a gang of their youth competing with the Hispanic and Korean youth gangs.
I understand a large town in Maine has been utterly ruined by the Feds dumping thousands of illiterate and unskilled Somalians there - again all in one group.
Yep, there’s a pattern here.
Rest assured that some unsuspecting community will find itself the involuntary host of these Iraqis. Hope they enjoy those calls to prayer.
I almost posted this story myself because I heard it on the radio. Why in the world is this an issue when we have Americans fighting to give these refugees a democracy! It sounds like we are so afraid of criticism over this that we are starting to bend over backwards for fear of being called hypocrits, I guess. But that’s the irony because so much blood has been spilt for these refugees to have a free Iraq.
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