Iraqi refugees fail to get with the program

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Iraqi refugees fail to get with the program

Tue, 03/18/2008 - 11:13am

SAUL LOEB/AFP/Getty Images

The U.N. High Council on Refugees announced today that the number of Iraqi asylum-seekers more than doubled last year, reversing a five-year decline. But according to one U.S. congressman, these Iraqis are just being selfish. California Rep. Dana Rohrabacher had this to say at a hearing last week on the U.S. obligation to Iraqi refugees:

They're wonderful people who'd like to live here, especially the ones who have helped us, but the last thing we want to do is to have people who are friendly to democracy... moving here in large numbers at a time when they're needed to build a new, thriving Iraq."

What nerve! It's as if they're putting their personal safety and well-being ahead of U.S. foreign-policy goals. Don't they know this is an election year?

(Hat tip: Cato-at-Liberty)

Joshua Keating | Permalink |

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( filed under:

Iraq | Middle East | U.S. Congress | U.S. Foreign Policy

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You Obviously Are Not Reading the Same Quote I am

by himalayanjourney on Tue, 03/18/2008 - 11:42am

How do you get the idea that Rohrabacher is calling them selfish? You are obviously not reading the quote you posted on the blog entry. All Rohrabacher says in the quote is that he worries about a form of brain drain occurring in Iraq at a critical juncture. People get asylum when not only are they not safe but there is not much they can do in their home country in the short term to change things -- like Burma or North Korea. In Iraq right people who are pro-democracy have the opportunity to alter the future of their country in a major way. It would be sad if those people left and missed an opportunity that could quickly evaporate for good.