Free Republic

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The United States has surpassed its goal of admitting 12,000 Iraqi refugees this year and expects more, perhaps tens of thousands, next year, the State Department said on Friday. The United States expects to admit a minimum of 17,000 Iraqi refugees in fiscal 2009, which begins October 1, the department's senior coordinator for refugees said. Thousands more Iraqis and their family members could arrive via a special visa program for people who worked for the United States or its contractors. "I think you'll see the U.S. government admitting over the course of fiscal 2009 tens of thousands...

<p>WASHINGTON - The United States allowed in more than 2,300 Iraqi refugees last month, setting a record and putting the Bush administration on pace to surpass its goal of accepting 12,000 by the end of September.</p> <p>The State Department said Friday that 2,352 Iraqi refugees had arrived in the country in July, shattering the previous monthly record of 1,721 from June.</p>

The Bush administration opened the nation's arms to as many as 27,500 endangered Iraqis who have rendered ''faithful and valuable service" to Uncle Sam since the invasion of Iraq. The Department of Homeland Security that handles immigration applications unveiled guidelines for admitting an estimated 5,000 additional Iraqis in each of the next five years who face ''an ongoing serious threat" stemming from their ties to the United States. The refugees worked as translators for American military units or in other high-profile jobs. They are among the estimated 4.2 million who have fled their homes to another country or to other...

The Bush administration increased more than fivefold today the number of Near East and South Asian refugees the U.S. can admit as it seeks to accept 12,000 Iraqi refugees during the next 12 months. Overall, Mr. Bush said that up to 80,000 refugees from around the world can be admitted to the United States in the next year. That's up 10,000 from last year's ceiling of 70,000. Mr. Bush announced the figure in a memo to the secretary of state, as he does each year after consulting Congress as required by law. The president laid out maximum numbers to be...

WASHINGTON — Prodded by Congress and human rights groups, the Bush administration is promising to increase the pace for allowing Iraqi refugees into the United States. Of the estimated 4.2 million Iraqis displaced by the war, either to nearby countries or within Iraq, only 68 Iraqis legally entered the U.S. between October and June as refugees, State Department and Homeland Security officials acknowledged Friday.

The numbers are so staggering that they are hard to process mentally and impossible to process logistically: each month some 60,000 Iraqis are voting with their feet against the surge of U.S. forces by fleeing their homes. Since the invasion, more than 2.5 million Iraqis have left for neighboring countries, while 2.2 million have been forcibly displaced within Iraq - too poor to escape the country or blocked from transitioning through more peaceful provinces, which in recent months have erected checkpoints to keep them out. To put it in stark historical terms: the war has created the largest refugee crisis...