Becca Heller
By Becca Heller
I lead a group of lawyers representing more than 500 Iraqi refugees whose lives depend on resettlement to the United States. Among them are Iraqis whose work as military interpreters, journalists or human rights activists allied with the United States have made them targets for militants.
Since the fall of Mosul last week to the extremist Islamic State of Iraq and Syria, we have received numerous e-mails like the one above from clients who can do nothing but watch in horror as swaths of Iraq fall under jihadi control.
They are praying that the United States will finally act on their refugee applications.
Six years after Congress passed the Refugee Crisis in Iraq Act to provide safe passage and protection to United States-affiliated Iraqis, tens of thousands of people remain stuck in the bureaucracy or have been rejected for reasons that are often either unspecified or nonsensical.
Now, in response to the current crisis, the United States Embassy in Baghdad has suspended refugee processing as part of its evacuation of nonessential personnel. While this has made a perilous situation even worse, it is not the source of the problem.
For the vast majority, the bottleneck is located within the United States, where cases are stuck in redundant background-check processes that no agency is prioritising. Many of our clients have waited more than three years for a decision.
There is no way to formally request that a case be expedited, either because of a life-threatening medical emergency or whole cities falling to radical jihadists likely to kill anyone they find with a US affiliation.
Refugees are kept in the dark about the status of their applications. They are simply told that their cases are “in processing.” Meanwhile, they hide in Iraq or scatter to neighbouring countries.
Consider the plight of one client, a woman who worked for many years as a human rights organiser in Iraq and whose organisation received funding from the US Agency for International Development.
Refugee admissions are a critical component of US foreign policy. We have a special obligation to those who risked their lives by working with us to help bring basic human rights to Iraq.
But beyond humanitarian concerns, our failures in the area have national security implications, as well.
To fulfil its humanitarian obligations to refugees and adjudicate cases in a just and timely fashion, the United States must recognise the basic rights of refugees seeking life-saving resettlement — just as we do for asylum applicants already on our own soil.
Most important, we must immediately add the personnel necessary to expedite background checks in emergency cases, the number of which are rising by the hour.
The lives of many who stood with us when we needed them are on the line.
As Sunni militants push toward Baghdad, tens of thousands continue to wait, praying for the e-mail telling them that they can finally get on a plane to the life of basic human dignities we promised to them years ago. WP-BLOOMBERG
By Becca Heller
I lead a group of lawyers representing more than 500 Iraqi refugees whose lives depend on resettlement to the United States. Among them are Iraqis whose work as military interpreters, journalists or human rights activists allied with the United States have made them targets for militants.
Since the fall of Mosul last week to the extremist Islamic State of Iraq and Syria, we have received numerous e-mails like the one above from clients who can do nothing but watch in horror as swaths of Iraq fall under jihadi control.
They are praying that the United States will finally act on their refugee applications.
Six years after Congress passed the Refugee Crisis in Iraq Act to provide safe passage and protection to United States-affiliated Iraqis, tens of thousands of people remain stuck in the bureaucracy or have been rejected for reasons that are often either unspecified or nonsensical.
Now, in response to the current crisis, the United States Embassy in Baghdad has suspended refugee processing as part of its evacuation of nonessential personnel. While this has made a perilous situation even worse, it is not the source of the problem.
For the vast majority, the bottleneck is located within the United States, where cases are stuck in redundant background-check processes that no agency is prioritising. Many of our clients have waited more than three years for a decision.
There is no way to formally request that a case be expedited, either because of a life-threatening medical emergency or whole cities falling to radical jihadists likely to kill anyone they find with a US affiliation.
Refugees are kept in the dark about the status of their applications. They are simply told that their cases are “in processing.” Meanwhile, they hide in Iraq or scatter to neighbouring countries.
Consider the plight of one client, a woman who worked for many years as a human rights organiser in Iraq and whose organisation received funding from the US Agency for International Development.
Refugee admissions are a critical component of US foreign policy. We have a special obligation to those who risked their lives by working with us to help bring basic human rights to Iraq.
But beyond humanitarian concerns, our failures in the area have national security implications, as well.
To fulfil its humanitarian obligations to refugees and adjudicate cases in a just and timely fashion, the United States must recognise the basic rights of refugees seeking life-saving resettlement — just as we do for asylum applicants already on our own soil.
Most important, we must immediately add the personnel necessary to expedite background checks in emergency cases, the number of which are rising by the hour.
The lives of many who stood with us when we needed them are on the line.
As Sunni militants push toward Baghdad, tens of thousands continue to wait, praying for the e-mail telling them that they can finally get on a plane to the life of basic human dignities we promised to them years ago. WP-BLOOMBERG
