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unhappycamper

(60,364 posts)
Sun Aug 24, 2014, 07:53 AM Aug 2014

Congress is next stop for Iraqi refugees

http://www.utsandiego.com/news/2014/aug/22/chaldeans-iraq-juanvargas-asylum/



Displaced Iraqis settle at a new camp outside the Bajid Kandala camp in Feeshkhabour town, Iraq, Tuesday, Aug. 19, 2014. Some 1.5 million people have been displaced by fighting in Iraq since the Islamic State's rapid advance began in June, and thousands more have died. The scale of the humanitarian crisis prompted the U.N. to declare its highest level of emergency last week.

Congress is next stop for Iraqi refugees
By Mark Walker2:59 p.m.Aug. 22, 2014

Efforts to fast-track Iraqi Christian refugees for resettlement in San Diego County and elsewhere in the country United States are expected to pick up steam when Congress reconvenes next early month.

Local Chaldean Catholics are working with the office of Rep. Juan Vargas, D-San Diego, on legislation that is expected to have the backing of the county’s four other House members.

The bill, still under construction, will likely ask Congress to approve immediate asylum for an unspecified number of Iraqi Christians displaced by the militant Islamic State.

“We are asking Congress to open its heart and mind,” said Mark Arabo, a local Chaldean leader who has been at the forefront of efforts to secure help from the Obama administration and United Nations. “We’re going to try and get whatever we can.”
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