U.S. failing Iraqis who helped us

Bob Keeler is a member of the Newsday editorial board.

Illegal, illegal, illegal. There you go. For readers who complain that we never use the word when Newsday writes about immigration, it seemed useful to get it out of the way early.

But this is not about illegal immigration. It's about how our legal immigration and refugee systems are not doing nearly as much as they can to help one of the most sympathetic immigrant groups imaginable: Iraqi refugees who worked for the U.S. government after the invasion of Iraq. That choice made them targets of the insurgency.

A Senate committee held a hearing on the Iraqi refugee issue just last week. There are well over 4 million Iraqi refugees, about half displaced internally in Iraq, and half outside that wrecked country, mostly in nearby nations in the Middle East.

Nobody says the United States needs to make room for 4 million Iraqi refugees. But our nation isn't doing its share. Why? Remember what then-Secretary of State Colin Powell told President George W. Bush before the 2003 Iraq invasion. It was a you-break-it-you-buy-it pottery rule: "You will own all their hopes, aspirations, and problems," Powell is quoted as saying, in Bob Woodward's book "Plan of Attack."

There was a refugee problem before the invasion. One cause was the 1980-88 Iran-Iraq war. Its iconic image was a 1983 photo of our friend and anti-Iran ally, Saddam Hussein, shaking hands with Donald Rumsfeld, then a special envoy of President Ronald Reagan. Another cause was Operation Desert Storm in 1991, against Hussein, by then our former friend and ally. But the 2003 invasion -- run by Rumsfeld, by then secretary of defense -- has worsened the dislocation.

Those living in surrounding countries are usually distrusted and marginalized, often unable to get work, unwilling to return to Iraq, where so many communities have been shattered.

For those displaced inside Iraq, perhaps the most vulnerable subgroup is people who worked for the U.S. government, in roles such as translators. In the eyes of the forces who continue to resist the occupation violently, they are seen as hated collaborators.

Our national response to all the displacement was the Refugee Crisis in Iraq Act of 2007. One of its elements was the special immigrant visa program admit up to 5,000 Iraqis a year who had served the United States. That program didn't really get going until 2008. By now, it could have admitted as many as 20,000 of these former U.S. employees -- plus their immediate families. The actual number is less than 3,200.

Under all programs, 55,000 to 60,000 Iraqi refugees have come here. Unfortunately, two of them were arrested in May in Kentucky on terrorism charges. At the Senate hearing, Rand Paul (R-Ky.), called for slowing Iraqi admissions. We must preserve our security, but without hurting a particularly vulnerable group.

The two men arrested did not enter through the special program for former U.S. employees, and the program shouldn't suffer a further tightening. The program is already grinding more slowly than other, more broad-based aspects of our Iraqi refugee system.

"One of the problems we're facing right now is it's taking a very long time," said Kate Norland of the Iraqi Refugee Assistance Project at the University of Pennsylvania Law School. "People are hearing back, 'You'll hear in six months.' " While waiting for admission, one client of the project in Iraq got shot -- but survived. At least, she said, some avenue of a review should be available for those rejected at the start of the special program.

We must do more to help people who were endangered when we hired them. The refugee problem is ours. As Powell said: We broke it. We bought it.