Thread: Iraqis to call Denver home

denver & the west

Iraqis to call Denver home
By Bruce Finley
Denver Post Staff Writer
Article Last Updated: 09/09/2007 11:59:55 PM MDT

Over the next three weeks, the government plans to bring more than 1,400 refugees from Iraq to Denver and other U.S. cities - opening doors that have been closed since the fall of Saddam Hussein.

By next year, the number of Iraqi refugees may swell to 12,000, according to officials at the U.S. Departments of State and Homeland Security.

Between 1992 and 2002, the U.S. accepted an average of 2,800 Iraqi refugees a year. Since then, the annual average has dropped to 191.

The accelerated flow is in response to pressure to ease a worsening humanitarian crisis, State Department spokesman Kurtis Cooper said.

"We want to take care of the people who have helped us, especially those who might feel under threat," Cooper said.

United Nations officials last week estimated one in seven Iraqis have left their homes.

More than 2 million have made it to neighboring countries - the largest Middle East displacement since the 1948 creation of Israel.

The first refugees set to arrive in Denver are Nazar Al Taei, his wife and their three children. They are scheduled to fly from Jordan today.

Al Taei worked as a translator for the American military. His legs were injured, leaving him with nerve problems, resettlement-agency documents show. Fearing for their lives, the family fled to Jordan.

Before the war in Iraq, Al Taei and his wife worked as Russian-language teachers.

Others slated for resettlement in Denver include a woman with breast cancer who hasn't seen her husband since last year and another who worked as an interpreter and secretary and is suffering from serious depression and anxiety, the documents show.

An apartment off Colorado Boulevard has been furnished and stocked for the Al Taei family. Local school officials await their children, said Ferdi Mevlani, director of Ecumenical Refugee and Immigration Services.

This Denver group is working on contract to guide about a dozen Iraqi newcomers this month.

Meanwhile, tens of thousands more Iraqis clamor to get out, according to U.N. and government officials.

"My family now, they are on the target," said Omar Al Rahmani, 47, a Baghdad city councilman who translated for U.S. forces and visited Denver twice on intergovernmental exchanges.

"My daughter's school is 150 meters from my home. Even that is too far," Al Rahmani said in a telephone interview Friday.

"I don't feel she's safe, even though the school has four guards," Al Rahmani said. "I just want my family to be out in a secure place. That's all I want."

For the U.S., accepting Iraqi refugees presents the major challenge of screening out possible terrorists, said Paul Rosenzweig, deputy assistant secretary in the Department of Homeland Security.

The Bush administration's plan is to admit 10,000 to 12,000 Iraqis a year, starting next year, Rosenzweig said.

"We're doing enhanced background and biometric checks on people coming out of Iraq to do the best we can to be sure those who are admitted are deserving refugees, while at the same time screening out those who might pose problems to us because of connections to al- Qaeda in Iraq or other terrorist organizations," he said.

By the end of this month, total Iraqi arrivals for 2007 should reach 2,000, said Todd Pierce, spokesman for the State Department's migration bureau.

In the first seven months of 2007, some 190 Iraqi refugees were admitted.

United Nations High Commission for Refugees officials are negotiating with the U.S. to accept as many of the 2 million Iraqi refugees as possible, U.N. spokeswoman Wendy Young said.

The commission asked U.S. officials to admit 10,110 U.N.- screened Iraqis this year - nearly three times the 3,586 Iraqis referred to all other countries.

The fleeing Iraqis all managed to escape to neighboring countries such as Jordan, where authorities last week closed their borders because they are swamped with refugees.

"We rely on the United States as a key partner in refugee resettlement," Young said.

Inside Iraq, an estimated 2.2 million more uprooted Iraqis face dwindling options for escape. U.N. officials say 50,000 a month are fleeing their homes.

Some in Congress still oppose accepting any Iraqi refugees.

"I don't trust the (government) to vet them correctly," said U.S. Rep. Tom Tancredo, R-Colo.

Others, like U.S. Rep. Ed Perl mutter, D-Colo., are pushing to help more Iraqis out of a volatile situation.

"We've created it," Perlmutter said. " It's a tragic situation. And I don't think we've come to grips with it."

Perlmutter said he plans to introduce a bill that would admit up to 2,000 Iraqis who worked for U.S. diplomats and contractors in Iraq.

"People who have assisted the United States should be welcome here and be able to avoid persecution in Iraq, if that's what they choose," he said.

Denver is seen as an ideal resettlement site because it has robust agencies to help refugees from around the world, a healthy economy and the capacity to treat torture victims, said Paul Stein, coordinator of Colorado's state refugee program and chairman of a national advisory panel.

"By not making an effort to resettle more Iraqis, you'd definitely feed into that notion of hypocrisy and double standards," Stein said.

About 41,000 refugees were admitted to the U.S. last year among an estimated 1.8 million legal and illegal immigrants.

Refugees, who are deemed unable to return safely to their home countries, receive government assistance for 90 days.

Some Colorado leaders advocate resettling many more from Iraq.

"We're directly affected by what's happening in Iraq and the rest of the world. ... I'd like to see what tangible we can do to help fulfill our moral obligations," said state Rep. Joe Rice, who served as a civil-affairs soldier in Iraq and hears regularly from Iraqis wanting out.

But Rice said he's also deeply conflicted. Many of those fleeing Iraq "are the very people who are needed to try to stabilize things, to build a new society there," he said.

"If all the good people leave, who's left to build a new society?"

Staff writer Bruce Finley can be reached at 303-954-1700 or bfinley@denverpost.com

http://www.denverpost.com/headlines/ci_6847555

Not long ago that number was 7,000 max... now we here up to 2 million .... get outta here
IMPEACH BUSH NOW... Bring him before a US COURT FIRST AND TRIED FOR ALL OF THE US DEATHS FROM THIS ILLEGAL IMMIGRATION ON SLAUGHT>>>>THEN AFTER WE ARE DONE HE NEEDS TO BE TRIED BY A WORLD COURT FOR ALL OF THE WAR CRIMES AND THE TRILLIONS OF DOLLARS THE WORLD IS GOING TO HAVE TO PAY TO CLEAN UP THIS MESS>>> MANY, MANY YEARS DOWN THE ROAD AS HE PLAYS GOLF IN RETIREMENT...... I DONT THINK SO SH_T BIRD