Top official: U.S. to admit thousands more Iraqi refugees next year

Published: 2007-09-21

WASHINGTON (CNS) -- The United States should have the capacity to admit around 1,000 Iraqi refugees a month next fiscal year -- an amount "substantially higher" than this year, said a senior U.S. Department of State official. The United States has "a moral obligation" to protect Iraqi refugees, "particularly those who belong to persecuted religious minorities, as well as those who have worked closely with the United States government," said Ellen Sauerbrey, assistant secretary of the Bureau of Population, Refugees and Migration. She told the U.S. Commission on International Religious Freedom at a hearing on Capitol Hill Sept. 19 that the U.S. has been slow to admit the thousands of Iraqis referred by the U.N. High Commissioner for Refugees because the system was not in place. The United States has admitted less than 1 percent of the more than 10,000 refugees that the U.N. referred for admission this year. "We had to start building an infrastructure that didn't exist," but operationally, things are moving along, Sauerbrey said. She noted the work of faith groups, in particular the U.S. bishops' overseas relief and development agency, Catholic Relief Services, and the Geneva-based International Catholic Migration Commission, for their work providing humanitarian assistance for Iraqi refugees.

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