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| Casework: Kirk Johnson, a former USAID worker in Iraq, thumbs through a binder filled with cases of Iraqis who worked with
the US government or military in Iraq. All want to live in the US, afraid they will be killed if they remain in their country. Jill Carroll |
The List Project: a commitment to helping Iraqis find refuge in the US
Kirk Johnson is devoted to helping Iraqis resettle in the US. Hundreds, faced with death threats, are still waiting.
from the February 13, 2008 edition
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The Byzantine process requires Iraqis to travel to neighboring countries several times for interviews and background checks – costly and dangerous journeys. Countries often turn Iraqis away at the border. The Refugee Crisis in Iraq Act, passed as part of the Defense Authorization Bill for 2008, will allow select Iraqis to be processed in Iraq.
Johnson is from West Chicago: "Bush Country," he calls it. His parents twice voted for the president and support the war. But Johnson's efforts have shifted from trying to massage the bureaucracy to mustering public pressure on President Bush to address America's imperiled Iraqi employees.
"He's the only one that can save them quickly," says Johnson. He rattles off statistics of refugees evacuated on presidential orders – including Iraqis in 1996.
"The most difficult part is the fact that this list has become a source of such hope for these Iraqis," Johnson says, given their slim chances of making it to safety.
According to the State Department, just 1,068 Iraqis entered the US out of 7,000 allotted slots in fiscal year 2007. That's out of 4.4 million the UN High Commissioner for Refugees says have been internally displaced or fled.
Kelly Ryan, deputy assistant secretary of state for population, refugees, and migration, says they welcome Johnson's effort, particularly before the government had a way for Iraqis to contact them. Now, she says, they want Iraqis to contact the State Department directly through a new e-mail.
"What's so maddening about this issue is everyone agrees with you," Johnson says. "They've had security checks, marines vouching for them, yet we've been talking about this for a year and a half."
Those waiting include one man who "wrote to me last week and signed off saying, 'The destinies of my children are in your hands,' and he attached a picture of his kids," he says.
Another family on the list had a daughter killed in 2005 because she worked for USAID. Her sister escaped after a death threat. Their brother owned a printing press and, under a US-funded contract, printed materials for Iraq's elections. He too received a death threat, as did his wife, who worked for a US reconstruction company. His father worked for US contractor KBR and was kidnapped but escaped.
But there are a few bright spots. The three Iraqis working with Johnson here are former USAID colleagues who had been threatened. Also, Yaghdan, the colleague Johnson wrote about in the Los Angeles Times, has arrived here.
Johnson's is a "popsicle stand" operation, as he calls it. But demand is ballooning – one week he received 1,200 e-mails.
"He's got literally 1,000 people's lives on his mind. It's a tremendous amount of courage," says Paul Rieckhoff, founder of the Iraq and Afghanistan Veterans of America, whose group passes names along to Johnson.
But Johnson is uncomfortable with praise.
"I still at the end of the day go to sleep with the mountain of people who haven't gotten here," he says. "In the end, there are so many people left living in misery and fear … I don't feel like I've saved anybody."
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