On April 4th a massive forum will be held in Washington DC on Law and Public policy with respect to Iraqi refugees, held by Villanova University. It's free but requires pre-registration, details are here.

Found via the excellent Immigration Prof Blog.

i stand corrected

Some Iraqis are having better luck at getting into the US. Finally!

links for february 20th, 2008

Some are new stories, some not so much:

Lebanon just recognized that Iraqis staying there are refugees-as opposed to illegal immigrants. As far as I know they are the first Middle Eastern country to do so, since Turkey's refugee policy seems to only apply to Europeans.

Authorities destroy Karbala farms, displacing peasants.

Cholera crisis hits Baghdad.

"Of Iraq's widows, only 84,000 receive government support from the Ministry of Labour and Social Support -- between 50,000 and 120,000 Iraqi dinars -- $40-$95 -- a month." Out of an estimated 1-2 million.

Kurds impose limits on where Arabs can live.

1560 Palestinians are still stranded at the Iraqi-Syrian border and still face threats in Iraq. Who wants to break it to Angelina Jolie? [Last time, I promise.]

During the wave of Church attacks in January, apparently the spiritual leader of Iraq's Catholics claimed that he didn't believe they were about persecution so much as to show that Iraq was not at peace. In all honesty, I really don't know what to make of that.

Illiteracy is spreading rapidly among refugee children which isn't very surprising. Even where they are allowed to attend school books, transportation, and uniforms are still a financial burden. A recent IPSOS poll did show that enrollment had significantly increased among Iraqis in Syria during 2007, though lack of resources and documentation were still cited as by far the most common reasons for not being enrolled in school.

IWPR: Iraqi scholars reluctant to return.

Robert Fisk:

It's not difficult to create orphans in Iraq. If you're an insurgent, you can blow yourself up in a crowded market. If you're an American air force pilot, you can bomb the wrong house in the wrong village. Or if you're a Western mercenary, you can fire 40 bullets into the widowed mother of 14-year-old Alice Awanis and her sisters Karoon and Nora, the first just 20, the second a year older. But when the three girls landed at Amman airport from Baghdad last week they believed that they were free of the horrors of Baghdad and might travel to Northern Ireland to escape the terrible memory of their mother's violent death.

Alas, the milk of human kindness does not necessarily extend to orphans from Iraq – the country we invaded for supposedly humanitarian reasons, not to mention weapons of mass destruction. For as their British uncle waited for them at Queen Alia airport, Jordanian security men – refusing him even a five-minute conversation with the girls – hustled the sisters back on to the plane for Iraq.

"How could they do this?" their uncle, Paul Manouk, asks. "Their mum has been killed. Their father had already died. I was waiting for them. The British embassy in Jordan said they might issue visas for the three – but that they had to reach Amman first." Mr Manouk lives in Northern Ireland and is a British citizen. Explaining this to the Jordanian muhabarrat at the airport was useless.

iraqis in jordan and the cost of return-part 27326

Catharsis/whatever he's calling himself now/an Iraqi blogger living in Jordan has a post on the Jordanian government cutting subsidies for fuel in the middle of what's been an especially harsh winter, not just for Jordan but the MENA region in general, causing heating costs to go through the roof. Meanwhile salaries were raised for government workers which, of course, doesn't help a lot of people including Iraqis living entirely off their savings there. At the same time fines for Iraqis overstaying their visa limits were dropped (or reduced??) to encourage them to return(these would have been paid upon their exit from the Kingdom.) However, there seem to be a few exceptions that were never subject to them:

There is a category of Iraqis in Jordan that have legal residency permits that enable them to travel and return again to Jordan whenever they want.
Part of that category is represented by Iraqi businessmen and investors that obtained legal residency permits in Jordan after making deposits of 75 – 100 thousand U.S. dollars in bank accounts based in that country. The other portion of this category are Iraqis hired, according to formal contracts, by Jordanian, Arab, or International organizations that operate in Jordan, such as Iraqi physicians and college professors

Good to know-though not very surprising. Regardless, there doesn't appear to be any respite from arrest or deportation, the same post details the continuing crackdown on non-wealthy Iraqis trying to live in the Kingdom, and that some of their employers pre-emptively firing them in anticipation of being searched by Jordanian authorities. Last of Iraqis recently posted about another rejection by customs in Amman despite having the paperwork for his visit and intending to only stay briefly on the way to London, which is an old story but still a heartbreaking one and his post is very strongly recommended reading.

Like I mentioned in the post below, Refugees International has criticized the Iraqi government not only for not doing enough to assist its citizens but also encouraging neighbouring countries to close their borders. Meanwhile the government continues organizing buses for those that want to return from Syria, and is now offering to pay half your plane fare from Beirut. Money (and the lack of it) remains a main motivator for returnees, not a perception of reduced danger. Noah Merrill also points out that returnees are expected to be accompanied by government forces, which may also be a factor in fear of returning as many were originally displaced by militia members that had infiltrated the Iraqi forces.

Finally, Iraq's IDPs really don't get nearly enough attention so here's a brief report on some trying to survive in Sadr city. Angelina Jolie may or may not know they exist.

still think the US' slow resettlement is an issue of logistics and not political will?

The U.S. fell far short of its promise to permanently resettle 7,000 vulnerable Iraqis in the 2007 fiscal year.

# of Refugees Resettled in FY2007
Burma 13,896
Somalia 6,969
Iran 5,481
Iraq 1,608

Is the UNHCR in Burma or Somalia really that much better organized? Somehow I doubt it. Paul Rosensweig(sp?,) US government official told NPR last October, that he personally is not in a position to say a Burmese is any more or less deserving than an Iraqi to get in the US. Okay, but somebody obviously decided last year that they are nine times as deserving, so what gives? When the UNHCR did its part and referred more than 14000 Iraqis for resettlement to the US government last year alone, and the wait's an issue even for translators that have already been screened for security purposes, what's the excuse then?

The entire briefing by Refugees International should be read. They estimate almost a 5th of Iraq's population are now displaced and the UNHCR is (again) short of the resources necessary to effectively assist Iraqis, which last year amounted to about $30 per person. Criticism is also heavily on the Iraqi government for not aiding neighbouring countries enough, nor had it been doing such a great job with the millions displaced inside Iraq:

The Government of Iraq has finally provided $25 million to Jordan, Syria and Lebanon to help meet the needs of Iraqi refugees in these countries. Yet, despite numerous requests from neighboring countries for more involvement, the Iraqi Government has failed to deliver additional assistance. Instead, the Government has actively encouraged a policy of returns, by asking neighboring countries to close their borders, providing financial incentives to refugee families, and issuing non-exit stamps when refugees return to Iraq. Similarly, the Government of Iraq’s inability to manage the Public Distribution System of food has led millions of displaced Iraqis inside the country to lose the only assistance they were receiving. Despite billions of dollars remaining in its national budget, the Iraqi Government is spending an extremely small amount to assist its internally and externally displaced populations.

uh, thanks, i guess?

if it takes Angelina Jolie to attract attention to the plight of Iraqi refugees and displaced persons, then blessings upon Angelina Jolie. There's hardly an Arab newspaper or Western wire service which hasn't run a picture of Jolie's visit to Baghdad to raise awareness of the issue. That's a welcome change for a humanitarian disaster and a major political issue which rarely gets the attention it deserves. In the US debate, when it comes up it is usually over the marginal issue of whether America is granting visas to a few thousand former employees. The real issue is the 4-5 million Iraqis which the UN estimates have been displaced since 2003.

It's so easy to make fun of this kind of publicity, but I really couldn't agree more right now. The problem is that first "if" in that paragraph is a huge one. While the words spoken were calling for attention to Iraq's refugees, it's irritating that the cameras weren't following along:




If you were flipping through your paper and saw these pictures, what would you think was the subject of this story? Maybe you'd think Jolie was entertaining the troops, most likely a gargantuan humanitarian crisis would not come to mind. Out of sight, and slipping further out of public consciousness.

more iraqis leaving for syria than returning home in january

Definitely one of the more frustrating aspects of the narrative of a success of the surge is that it encouraged the neglect of still severe humanitarian crisis, not to mention the perception that the displacement crisis is on the wane.

BAGHDAD (AFP) - Iraqis are once again leaving Iraq for Syria in greater numbers than are returning, despite the lower level of bloodshed in their homeland, the UN refugee agency said on Wednesday.

A report by the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees, citing Syrian immigration officials, said that in late January an average of 1,200 Iraqis entered Syria every day compared with around 700 who returned.

Most of those Iraqis who return say they are doing so because their Syrian visas have expired or because they have run out of money, rather than because conditions in their homeland have improved, the report said.

"The UNHCR has observed that the return movement to Iraq that increased immediately after the imposition of new visa regulations appears to have subsided," the report, which was sent to AFP in Baghdad, concluded.