To say that the U.S. invasion of Iraq has been controversial is an understatement at best. The premises, events and impacts of the war are, and perhaps will forever be, hotly contested.
Yet the U.S. has refused to take the one action that most Americans would probably agree upon: offer refuge to the Iraqi citizens who risked their lives to work with U.S. forces in Iraq.
According to a Washington Post article published on Tuesday, U.S. asylum programs for Iraqis who aided U.S. soldiers are horribly ineffective and inefficient.
Iraqi citizens who work with coalition forces must rearrange their entire lives in order to avoid being discovered. They conceal where they work by pretending to be carpenters or launderers, hide their ability to speak English, and coach their children to lie under intense interrogation. The penalty for losing their cover is death.
Their reward for taking on such hazardous positions is this: When they are finally discovered, the American government does everything it can to avoid helping them to safety.
The Post reported that in order for Iraqi citizens to gain asylum in the U.S., they must:
1. File an application.
2. Fork over $375, which is more than the median Iraqi’s income.
3. Provide proof they worked for the U.S. for more than one year.
4. Acquire a recommendation from a flag officer.
5. Be interviewed by the State Department.
6. Be interviewed by the Department of Homeland Security.
The process makes getting into grad school look like a breeze. To further emphasize just how ridiculous these requirements are, let’s take a look at what the Danish forces require of their interpreters who seek asylum:
1. Be flown, along with their family, to Denmark by the Danish government.
2. Accept a cash stipend and attend language lessons while waiting in a safe place for asylum to be approved.
It is painfully obvious that the U.S. government has made applying for asylum so burdensome that it is unlikely any of the Iraqis who assisted them would have the resources, financial or otherwise, to even complete the application process.
And even if they somehow manage to scrounge up enough money to pay for the application and travel to the required interviews, U.S. officials are apt to cancel their appointments with the asylum-seeking interpreters, leaving them stranded at the airport.
This is what happened ““ twice ““ to an Iraqi interpreter who worked in a hospital alongside Army Reserve Capt. Peter Fish. Fish has been attempting to bring the Iraqi interpreter into the U.S. for over six months.
Such a total lack of manners is appalling in any context, but it’s absolutely inexcusable when one considers the sacrifices these people have made not only to work alongside U.S. troops, but to also go through the motions of applying for refugee status.
“These people are our brothers and sisters in arms,” writes Iraq combat veteran and U.S. Army Maj. Ray Kimball of the Iraqi interpreters on military.com. Without the guidance of these Iraqis, our troops would have no way to comprehend information or communicate with others during their missions. These interpreters put themselves in grave danger while carrying out their duties. Over 250 translators have been killed in Iraq, according to The Post.
In 2007, The New York Times profiled an Iraqi forklift driver working for U.S. forces named Hamed. After receiving death threats at his home, Hamed moved his wife and children to an apartment and traveled to Lebanon, where he was not allowed to work or to apply for refugee status. The process took so many months that Hamed eventually ran out of money and had to return to Baghdad in order to support his family, which meant invalidating his application.
A revised version of the 2008 defense authorization bill contains an amendment raising the number of Iraqi refugees allowed into the U.S. over the next five years. While I support the effort, it does little to help those like Hamed who cannot afford to navigate through the bureaucracy of seeking asylum.
We should be making these applications free to file and streamlining the process so applicants do not drive themselves and their families into poverty while waiting for help.
During a time when, and in a place where, the U.S. government’s reputation is already in shambles, it is tremendously important that we not turn our backs on the few allies we have in Iraq.
E-mail Strickland at kstrickland@media.ucla.edu. Send general comments to viewpoint@media.ucla.edu.