WASHINGTON, Jan. 16 — Senate lawmakers sharply criticized the Bush administration on Tuesday for failing to provide refuge in the United States for the most vulnerable of the Iraqis fleeing the violence at home.The United Nations estimates that two million Iraqis have fled the country and that 1.7 million are currently displaced within the country. Of those, roughly 500,000 have been displaced since February, with roughly 40,000 to 50,000 more fleeing their homes each month. Among them are Iraqis who have been threatened or attacked for working with American troops and companies.
In testimony before the Senate Judiciary Committee, Ellen Sauerbrey, an assistant secretary of state, acknowledged that only 466 Iraqis had been admitted as refugees since the American invasion of Iraq in 2003. She said that expanding the resettlement of vulnerable Iraqis in the United States was “a top priority.” Ms. Sauerbrey said the State Department was considering several options, including offering the Iraqis refugee or other special status, and expediting the processing of Iraqi religious minorities and of refugees who have worked for the American government.
The bipartisan panel of senators called for prompt action, warning that the United States was abandoning many Iraqis who had helped the United States — as translators, guides and contractors — at great personal risk.
| They're trying their best to turn Iraq into Vietnam, complete with boat people. |
“We have a special obligation to keep faith with the Iraqis who have bravely worked for us and have often paid a terrible price for it by providing them with safe refuge in the U.S.,” said Senator Edward M. Kennedy, the Massachusetts Democrat who leads the Judiciary Committee’s immigration subcommittee.
| Not that you'd know anything about loyalty. |
| Because the idea is to fix Iraq, not to bring them all over here. |
That view has changed, officials say. “At present more Iraqis are fleeing their homes to other areas of Iraq and to neighboring countries than are returning,” Ms. Sauerbrey said.