State, DHS grapple with Iraqi refugee crisis

In response to growing criticism about the slow pace and limited numbers of Iraqi refugees being admitted to the United States, the State and Homeland Security departments Wednesday appointed senior advisers to better coordinate the vetting process for applicants, many of whom have worked on behalf of the U.S. government in Iraq and are now targets of the insurgency or sectarian militias there.

Homeland Security Secretary Michael Chertoff tapped Lori Scialabba to become his special adviser for Iraqi refugee affairs, while Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice announced James Foley would become senior coordinator for Iraqi refugee issues. Both positions are newly created and do not require Senate confirmation.

Scialabba is a career civil servant and immigration lawyer who most recently was associate director of refugee, asylum and international operations at DHS' Citizenship and Immigration Services bureau; Foley is a career member of the Senior Foreign Service and a former ambassador to Haiti. The two will work together to better manage the agencies' security screening processes, according to Homeland Security deputy press secretary Laura Keehner.

Tom Casey, deputy spokesman at State, said at a press briefing Wednesday that Foley would "help ensure that the policies that have been established are being thoroughly and completely implemented and that any bureaucratic roadblocks that come up are being handled appropriately."

The United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees estimated last month that 60,000 Iraqis are displaced monthly because of the violence there. UNHCR also estimated that more than 1.4 million Iraqis have fled to Syria, and another 500,000 to 750,000 to Jordan; another 2 million are uprooted within Iraq.

The Washington Post reported Sept. 17 that U.S. Ambassador to Iraq Ryan Crocker is so frustrated by bureaucratic bottlenecks that he sent a cable to Washington blasting the process and expressing particular concern over the low number of Homeland Security case officers in the region to interview refugees and conduct security reviews.

"Our security checks are not slowing the process," Keehner said. "We have interviewed every single refugee State has [referred] to us. The allegation that we are somehow slowing the process is just not accurate."

Complicating the situation is the fact that Syria has declined to issue visas to Homeland Security personnel, but agency officials are conducting interviews elsewhere in the region, Keehner said.

Scialabba was traveling overseas and not available for an interview, but in an op-ed published in USA Today Thursday, she also disputed the notion that the agency is responsible for the slow response: "Homeland Security has completed more than 4,309 interviews and will have interviewed approximately 4,500 Iraqi refugees by the end of this month. Our officers have completed or scheduled interviews with every Iraqi refugee for which a request was received from the State Department."

"We are processing Iraqi refugees faster than any other nationality," Scialabba wrote. "At the same time we must guard against the possibility that hiding among those refugees are people who are neither refugees nor Iraqis. They're international terrorists whose goal is to unleash in America the violence and mayhem they have visited upon Iraq."

Keehner said the United States has accepted for review more than 9,000 applications recommended by the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees, significantly more than the 7,000 the government agreed to earlier this year. State conducts the initial screening of applicants and reviews their medical condition, while Homeland Security conducts security interviews and fingerprint checks. Once applications are approved, State is responsible for arranging travel to the United States.

More than 940 Iraqis have been accepted into the United States this year. Administration officials have said a significantly larger number will be accepted next year.