16 January 2007
Iraqi Refugees a Top Priority for State Department Official
Ellen Sauerbrey explains U.S. efforts to aid Iraq's displaced, refugees
Washington -- The State Department's highest ranking official for refugee issues says the problem of Iraqi refugees and displaced persons is a top priority.
Ellen Sauerbrey, assistant secretary of state for population, refugees and migration, told the Senate Judiciary Committee January 16 that the plight of Iraqis forced to flee by the sharp increase in sectarian violence in 2006 "is a very top priority for my bureau." The Bush administration, she said, shares the senators' concern about Iraqi refugees "and is committed to helping improve conditions for them in countries of first asylum."
Sauerbrey told the committee that since 2003, the United States provided more than $800 million to support the World Food Programme, the U.N. High Commissioner for Refugees, the International Committee of the Red Cross, the International Organization for Migration, plus several nongovernmental organizations that provide direct assistance to returning Iraqi refugees, internally displaced persons and third-country national refugees inside Iraq, as well as Iraqi refugees outside Iraq, to help them meet basic needs and to support reintegration programs.
In addition, she said, U.S. government support to the Iraqi government has increased the capacity of its ministries that work with refugees and the internally displaced, provided training for nongovernmental organizations serving refugees and assisted numerous victims of conflict. Sauerbrey said these programs successfully reintegrated many of the 300,000 Iraqi refugees and the 500,000 internally displaced in Iraq in the 2003-2006 period. Beginning in early 2006, though, the situation has changed, she said, "and at present more Iraqis are fleeing their homes to other areas of Iraq and to neighboring countries than are returning."
A number of senators at the hearing pointed out many Iraqis who had performed special service for the United States face persecution or death threats to them or their families.
Committee Chairman Patrick Leahy said he was "particularly concerned" about the lack of a legal authority that would enable Iraqis who have aided U.S. efforts there to be admitted to the United States.
"A lot of these are people we called upon to help us, and now we're not there to help them," Leahy said.
Similarly, Senator Edward Kennedy said the United States has "a special obligation to keep faith with the Iraqis who have bravely worked for us and often paid a terrible price for it, by providing them with safe refuge in the United States." He also asked whether refugees could be processed inside Iraq.
Processing refugees within Iraq, Sauerbrey said, is "a complicated issue" because of the heavy security Iraqis must pass through to enter the Green Zone (a fortified sector of central Baghdad) and reach the U.S. Embassy. "We are, however, looking at ways that we can find to do processing inside of Iraq," Sauerbrey said.
Lack of funding is also an obstacle to bringing more Iraqi refugees to the United States, according to Sauerbrey. But she added: “We have no quota on the number of Iraqis who can be resettled to the United States as refugees.”
Sauerbrey did point out that entry requirements to the United States have become more stringent since 2003. At that time, an enhanced security review was required, and that has made it very difficult for Iraqi refugees referred by the U.N. High Commissioner for Refugees to pass through the screening mechanism. That, in turn, has led the U.N. agency to stop making referrals to the United States.
The full text of Sauerbrey’s prepared testimony is available on the Senate Judiciary Committee Web site.
For more information on U.S. policies, see Humanitarian Assistance and Refugees.
(USINFO is produced by the Bureau of International Information Programs, U.S. Department of State. Web site: http://usinfo.state.gov)
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