America stops the Iraqi refugee program … and the reason is revealed
America stops the Iraqi refugee program … and the reason is revealed
01/23/2021 18:05:59
{International: Al-Furat News} The US State Department announced the temporary suspension of the program for accepting Iraqi refugees after discovering a “breach” that included stealing the files of asylum applicants’ files.
The State Department said in a press statement that it “decided to stop the program urgently for a period of 90 days after an indictment was issued by the US Department of Justice against three people for stealing confidential data for about 1,500 Iraqis seeking refuge in the United States.”
According to the indictment, two of the defendants, a Jordanian and a Russian, were former employees of the US Customs and Immigration Service, who were able to access the applicants’ information and send it to an Iraqi citizen during the period from 2016 to 2019.
The data contained questions that interviewers might ask asylum seekers as well as assessments of their cases and other information.
Investigators say that “the fraud was directed by Aws Mowaffaq Abdul-Jabbar, an Iraqi citizen living in Jordan, whose application for refugee status in the United States was rejected earlier, according to the” Washington Times “newspaper.
She added, “The other two persons involved were employees of the US Immigration Service, one in Jordan and the other in Russia, where we were able to access hundreds of files and hand them over to Abdul-Jabbar, who paid them more than a thousand dollars each time, as stated in the indictment.”
The investigators confirmed that “the leaked information may have been used to help Iraqis formulate their asylum applications and try to obtain approvals when they are rejected.”
Prosecutors said that “the three accused may have caused some eligible refugees to leave the waiting list in the immigration program.”
Established in 2008, this program allowed Iraqis who had worked with the US government and military and media institutions during and after the Iraq war to apply for direct asylum to the United States rather than having to go through UN programs.
alforatnews.com
