The Foreign Service Journal, March 2008

from 889 in September (a 2007 high) — when the departments were rushing to meet a goal of 2,000 admis- sions for the 2007 fiscal year — to 450 in October, 362 in November, 245 in December and 375 in January. However, Foley expects the numbers to pick up rapidly this year. The two can point to some successes, though, such as convincing Syria last fall to allow Homeland Security Department interviewers to return and reaching an inter- agency agreement last year to begin processing refugees inside Iraq who were referred directly by the U.S. embassy. Under typical resettlement procedures, such refugees would have had to flee Iraq in order to complete the processing. Meanwhile, overall processing times are faster than anywhere else in the world, having been cut from eight to nine months to four or five months, Foley says. Still, some disputes remain. The Associated Press reported in December, for example, that the Homeland Security Department has refused to include refugees who worked for U.S. contractors in the new in-country processing system. And Foley says that it quickly became clear to him that his job is bigger than the first two tasks he was assigned: negotiating with Syria and the Homeland Security Department. “The longer I’ve been in the job I’ve had the sense that it’s like peeling an onion. You deal with one layer and there’s another layer beneath it. The basic reality is that the Department of State is not the only actor in making this process function success- fully and efficiently.” Foley sees the primary issue as State’s inability to process refugees (with the limited exceptions approved by the Homeland Security Department for direct embassy employees) inside Iraq, where an estimated two million people have been forced from their homes by sectarian violence and terrorism. State has not developed an official policy on process- ing refugees in Iraq. But Foley would like to be able to do it. “There is only so much we can accomplish in the neighboring countries,” he says. “The needs are greatest inside the country, and yet that is the hardest nut to crack of all.” That’s for reasons of security, he explains. “It’s not one of will or desire, but of conditions, of security first and foremost,” he says. At the same time, Foley says it’s not clear that more referrals for resettlement will be found in large numbers in Jordan, which has provided the greatest level of coop- eration with Homeland Security Department interview- ers and may be mostly tapped out. So ramping up the number of resettlements will rely heavily on expanding processing inside Iraq and in Syria. Damascus has allowed DHS interviewers in, but Foley says that it has not granted access to the number of Homeland Security Department officials or employees of State’s overseas processing entity in Syria — the International Organi- zation for Migration — that State would like to see, slow- ing processing there. As for shortening DHS security reviews to speed resettlements — and the analogies comparing the situa- tion in Iraq to the mass resettlements from Vietnam in 1975 — Foley says that concerns about admitting a ter- rorist by accident are now too severe to replicate the Vietnam airlifts. “Underappreciated, if not misunderstood, is how important the security screening is to the success of this program,” he says. “People like to put the Department of Homeland Security in one corner and the Department of State or others in another as antagonists. But in reality, all Americans should be united in supporting the idea that we will assist and to some degree resettle Iraqi refugees who qualify, who are in need — but equally that we will ensure that the program is completely sound from a security perspective. The world changed fundamental- ly on Sept. 11, 2001.” In other words, if one refugee were to commit a terrorist act in the United States, it would destroy the whole program. As a result, Foley says he’s making no guarantees that State will hit its goal of resettling 12,000 refugees this fiscal year. There are too many variables beyond the department’s control, he says, adding that it is using the goal as a motivator and is doing its best to reach it. In the end, though, Foley says that he hopes the intense focus on resettlement of refugees who assisted the U.S., while vitally important, doesn’t distract the nation from the larger issue of the more than four mil- lion displaced Iraqis, the vast majority of whom will never be resettled. “Politically speaking, resettlement gets all the attention, when it really is the solution for a small minority. We need to make sure we devote all the attention necessary to taking care of the totality of refugees.” F O C U S 34 F O R E I G N S E R V I C E J O U R N A L / M A R C H 2 0 0 8