Iraqi refugees typically get little attention in the debate over whether the United States should accept Syrians fleeing civil war, but legislation approved recently by the U.S. House would make it much harder for refugees of Iraq and Syria, war-ravaged neighbors in the Middle East, to resettle in America.
Many in Congress fear that Islamic State terrorists could slip into this country in the guise of refugees.
Although Gov. Mike Pence in November banned new Syrian refugees from coming to Indiana, many more Iraqis than Syrians have ended up in the Hoosier State in recent years. Through October, only 39 Syrian refugees had resettled in Indiana since fiscal 2012, compared with 267 Iraqi refugees, according to U.S. State Department data.
In that time, Fort Wayne has received just five Iraqis and no Syrians. Most Iraqi refugees have gone to Indianapolis, South Bend and Mishawaka.
Indianapolis resident Aftiham Nader, who left Iraq in 2006 to study and work abroad but has visited her home country since then, said Iraqi refugees should be treated differently from Syrians because the United States helped cause Iraq’s refugee crisis by waging war there from 2003 to 2011.
Nader said Iraqi refugees are “in need because of problems actually created by the Americans in the first place. Americans didn’t take control of Syria, but they did that to Iraq. I was there in 2003, and I saw what happened. Everything was a mess.”
Nader is married to Fahad Nader, an electrical engineer whose family moved from Iraq to the United States in the late 1980s. They met at IPFW in recent years; Fahad was a student at the time, and Aftiham was on the Fort Wayne campus seeking information about a doctoral program in environmental policy.