This al Jazeera article reports that US government has indicated we'll be considering a lot more Iraqi refugees for resettlement here. According to that report, we've accepted 466 refugees since 2003, and only 202 in 2006, but have plans to interview another 7,000 by September of this year. We're also going to offer $18 million to UNCHR to help them handle Iraqi refugees elsewhere. Given the estimate of 2 million externally displaced Iraqis, that's about nine bucks a head. We can probably do better.
The DHS 2005 Yearbook of Immigration Statistics has some numbers on refugees and asylees accepted from various areas in 2005. Here are some values for the combined totals of refugees and asylees obtaining legal permanent resident status from various areas in 2005 (note that this is not the same as refugees arriving in 2005, which I'll discuss later, and which the al Jazeera report is talking about):
(Continued in the extended)
By region:
- Africa - 25,143
- Asia - 32,009
- Europe - 46,588
- North America - 35,709
- Oceania - 55
- South America - 3,312
- unknown - 146
Selected countries:
- Afghanistan - 4,049
- Belarus - 1,667
- Bosnia-Herzegovina - 13,298
- People's Republic of China - 5,335
- Cuba - 32,555
- Iran - 6,480
- Iraq - 2,169
- Ireland - 4 (just by way of comparison)
- Liberia - 3,548
- Moldova - 2,351
- Russia - 5,335
- Somalia - 5,478
- Sudan - 4,619
- Ukraine - 12,421
- Vietnam - 5,818
When looking specifically at asylum, a person can be granted asylum "affirmatively" or "defensively." An affirmative granting of asylum happens when an individual goes to the United States government and requests asylum, and is then granted it. A defensive granting of asylum occurs when someone is in the process of being deported from the United States and indicates a credible threat to their wellbeing should they be returned to their country of origin.
We granted 11,737 defensive asylum requests and 13,520 affirmative asylum requests in 2005.
In the period 1996 to 2001, about 200-300 affirmative asylum requests per year were granted to individuals from Afghanistan. Since the overthrow of the Taliban, that has dropped each year, to a total of 87 in 2005. Defensive asylum grantees from Afghanistan have also diminished, from a high of 151 in 2000 to a low of 33 in 2005.
Affirmative asylum grantee levels were quite high for Iraq in 1996 and 1997, with 944 in 1996 and a whopping 5,776 in 1997. Since then, the numbers have bounced around: 179 (1998), 206 (1999), 385 (2000), 640 (2001), 558 (2002), 326 (2003), 158 (2004), 194 (2005). Defensive asylum grantee levels have been much lower, and have not always tracked with the positive grantees: 53 (1996), 57 (1997), 74 (1998), 76 (1999), 82 (2000), 188 (2001), 280 (2002), 197 (2003), 115 (2004), 93 (2005).
The big "winners" for granting of affirmative asylum in 2005 were China, Colombia, and Haiti, with just over 2,000 asylees from each country. For defensive asylum, it's just China and Colombia, with about 3,000 and 1,000 people, respectively.
Whereas over 140,000 people were granted residency in the States in 2005, only about 54,000 refugees arrived here in that year. Here's a breakdown of notable arrivals in 2005:
- Afghanistan - 902
- Burma - 1,447
- Cuba - 6,356
- Ethiopia - 1,665
- Iran - 1,849
- Iraq - 198
- Laos - 8,517
- Liberia - 4,289
- Moldova - 1,016
- Russia - 5,982
- Somalia - 10,405
- Sudan - 2,205
- Ukraine - 2,889
- Vietnam - 2,009
It's from this table that the problematic figure of only 466 Iraqi refugees accepted since 2003 is derived. Even though many Iraqis gained residency in 2005, they are largely from the prewar refugee pool. If you're an Iraqi, the time to try and come to the United States was definitely before the war. Consider the numbers:
- 1996 - 2,528
- 1997 - 2,679
- 1998 - 1,407
- 1999 - 1,955
- 2000 - 3,158
- 2001 - 2,473
- 2002 - 466
- 2003 - 298
- 2004 - 66
- 2005 - 198
In contrast, refugee acceptance from Iran has remained high, in the 1,500-2,500 range, over the course of the war.