[Congressional Record (Bound Edition), Volume 153 (2007), Part 14]
[House]
[Page 20035]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office, www.gpo.gov]




                        PLIGHT OF IRAQI REFUGEES

  Mr. BLUMENAUER. Mr. Speaker, the front page of the Washington Post 
yesterday had the harsh and ugly reality. We cannot afford not to help 
the Iraqis who trusted and worked with the United States with the 
opportunity for refugee status.
  I quote:
  ``The American Ambassador in Baghdad, Ryan Crocker, has asked the 
Bush administration to take the unusual step of granting immigrant 
visas to all Iraqis employed by the United States Government in Iraq 
because of growing concern that they will quit and flee the country if 
they cannot be assured of eventual safe passage to the United States.''
  For the last 7 months, I have been working with a broad bipartisan 
group of people on legislation that would deal with the largest ongoing 
humanitarian crisis in the world other than Darfur. And unlike the 
tragedy in the Darfur region of the Sudan, the United States is front 
and center in Iraq. We have over 300,000 American soldiers, 
contractors, and civilian U.S. Government employees. We see firsthand 
every day the train wreck, while officials at the top of the food chain 
appear, sadly, oblivious and powerless to do anything about it.
  I am proud to say that there are young American soldiers who will try 
to do something about it, even after they rotate out of the country. 
That is how I first became involved in this issue, as young Oregonian 
Guard members fought valiantly to try to save the life of their 
interpreter when they returned to Oregon, knowing that her life was at 
risk. Working with those young guardsmen and with high school students 
from Lincoln High School in Portland, Oregon, we were able to have a 
happy resolution in this one case. But, sadly, it is only one case.
  I have become acquainted with another true American hero. Kirk 
Johnson was a young USAID worker who, as he rotated out, embarked upon 
a crusade to save the lives of Iraqis who were at risk because they 
were known to have helped the United States. He has compiled a list of 
over 500 Iraqis who were interpreters, who were guides, who were 
civilian employees. Not one, the last time I talked to Mr. Johnson, had 
been able to make it to the United States.
  The sad fact is that we are failing miserably in terms of responding 
to the refugee requirements. Since I became involved last fall, the 
United States has admitted the grand total of 133 Iraqi refugees, a 
shocking number when we consider that over 2 million Iraqis have fled 
the country and another 2 million within Iraq have been displaced from 
their homes. It's not that we can't figure out how to do it if we care, 
if we establish a priority, if we work on it. In that same period of 
time that we could only admit 133 Iraqis, we have allowed 3,500 
refugees from Iran, a country with whom we have rocky relations, to say 
the least, where we have deep concerns about terrorism.
  It makes a mockery of our commitment to accept 7,000 during this 
fiscal year which ends September 30. There must be a sense of urgency 
and a profound sense of obligation. In order to make even that modest 
goal of 7,000, we are going to have to admit more Iraqi refugees every 
working day than we have for the entire last 9 months.
  It is not just the right thing to do for these poor souls and their 
families. There is a harsh geopolitical reality. With 4 million Iraqis 
displaced, more than half fleeing the country, there's 1.2 million in 
Syria, and the accounts of what these people are forced to do to keep 
body and soul together are truly disturbing. Or three-quarters of a 
million Iraqi refugees across the border in Jordan, threatening to 
overwhelm that small country, adding another element of instability to 
this already unsettled part of the world.
  I urge my colleagues in the House of Representatives to look at a 
letter that we are circulating to them today that includes this article 
from the Post. I urge them to cosponsor our bipartisan legislation, 
H.R. 2265, have them urge a markup and action before we recess for 
August. Our failure to keep our commitment will be exceedingly serious. 
We undermine our ability to carry out our current mission in Iraq if 
people we depend upon know that they can't depend upon us.

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