President’s Corner: Too Little Progress on Iraqi Resettlement
Monday, December 03, 2007
The U.S. continues to fall well short of its own plans to resettle Iraqis here. In the month of November, the State Department reports that it admitted 362 Iraqis for resettlement in the U.S. This is less than the 450 resettled in October and well below the government’s target pace of the 1,000 a month necessary to meet its goal of resettling 12,000 Iraqis in the current fiscal year.
In the last year, despite a lot of huffing and puffing from the State Department, the U.S. resettled just 1,608 Iraqis, far below the indicated goal of 7,000. We are off to a better start this year, but the results are still pathetic.
Government officials justify the slow progress on resettlement by saying that it has taken them a long time to build an infrastructure for interviewing and processing Iraqi refugees who apply for resettlement in the U.S.
There are currently about 2.5 million Iraqi refugees, primarily in Syria and Jordan. Resettlement is only a solution for small numbers of these refugees, but it is a highly visible solution, one that could show that the U.S. is compassionate about and responsive to the plight of Iraqis who fled their country for safety. So far, the U.S. has been unwilling or unable to transmit that message.
Recently, some news stories have focused on refugees leaving Syria and returning to Iraq. The number of returnees is in dispute. The Iraqi Red Crescent Organization reports that about 28,000 people returned between mid September and mid October. The Iraqi government says the figure is about 60,000. Most of these people are returning because they have exhausted their resources and can no longer afford to live in Syria. When they come back to Iraq, they receive a stipend of $800.
The returns are encouraging, but they are still just a trickle compared to the large refugee population. If security improves, returns will accelerate, but many Iraqis, traumatized by the violence they have experienced and worried that sectarian tensions will continue for years, will be reluctant to return.
They deserve an opportunity to settle elsewhere, if they qualify, and the U.S. ought to give more of them that opportunity.
--Ken Bacon
In the last year, despite a lot of huffing and puffing from the State Department, the U.S. resettled just 1,608 Iraqis, far below the indicated goal of 7,000. We are off to a better start this year, but the results are still pathetic.
Government officials justify the slow progress on resettlement by saying that it has taken them a long time to build an infrastructure for interviewing and processing Iraqi refugees who apply for resettlement in the U.S.
There are currently about 2.5 million Iraqi refugees, primarily in Syria and Jordan. Resettlement is only a solution for small numbers of these refugees, but it is a highly visible solution, one that could show that the U.S. is compassionate about and responsive to the plight of Iraqis who fled their country for safety. So far, the U.S. has been unwilling or unable to transmit that message.
Recently, some news stories have focused on refugees leaving Syria and returning to Iraq. The number of returnees is in dispute. The Iraqi Red Crescent Organization reports that about 28,000 people returned between mid September and mid October. The Iraqi government says the figure is about 60,000. Most of these people are returning because they have exhausted their resources and can no longer afford to live in Syria. When they come back to Iraq, they receive a stipend of $800.
The returns are encouraging, but they are still just a trickle compared to the large refugee population. If security improves, returns will accelerate, but many Iraqis, traumatized by the violence they have experienced and worried that sectarian tensions will continue for years, will be reluctant to return.
They deserve an opportunity to settle elsewhere, if they qualify, and the U.S. ought to give more of them that opportunity.
--Ken Bacon
Labels: Iraqi Refugees, President's Corner
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