Unexpected consequences: 100,000+ Iraqi refugees headed for U.S.?

[Tierra_y_Libertad]

I wonder if the "Minutemen" will don their camis and wave the 'fedrut flag to save us from the Ay-Rabs coming to steal jobs.

http://www.boston.com/news/world/middleeast/articles/2006/12/11/iraqi_exodus_could_test_bush_policy/?page=2

WASHINGTON -- Hundreds of thousands of Iraqis who have fled their homeland are likely to seek refugee status in the United States, humanitarian groups said, putting intense pressure on the Bush administration to reexamine a policy that authorizes only 500 Iraqis to be resettled here next year.

The official US policy has been that the refugee situation is temporary and that most of the estimated 1.5 million who have fled to Jordan, Syria, and elsewhere will eventually return to Iraq. But US and international officials now acknowledge that the instability in Iraq has made it too dangerous for many refugees, especially Iraqi Christians, to return any time soon.

Ellen Sauerbrey, assistant secretary of state for refugees and migration, said that while the Bush administration does not think resettlement is needed for most refugees, its policy could rapidly change.

"It is quite possible that we will in time decide that because of vulnerabilities of certain populations that resettlement is the right option," Sauerbrey said. While acknowledging that the administration originally set a quota of no more than 500 Iraqi refugees, she said the president has the legal authority to admit 20,000 additional refugees.

But few Iraqi refugees have yet to be allowed to resettle here, due partly to finger-pointing between the State Department and the United Nations over who is responsible for determining which Iraqis need to be resettled. Sauerbrey said she has been pleading with the United Nations to do its job of surveying refugees.

In particular, more than 120,000 Christians who have fled Iraq are unlikely to go home and about 100,000 of them want to come to the United States, where many have relatives, according to a group representing the Christians. A great many of the estimated 1.4 million Iraqi Muslims also are expected to try to resettle, many in the West, according to UN officials.