Laith al-Samari, 37, was one of many who could not believe it. A former interpreter for the United States military, he was wounded twice in battle, in the leg and stomach, and now lives in fear of retaliation from anti-American militants in his Baghdad community. He was not ashamed to beg.

“Please Mr. President, you are the president of one of the biggest states in the world,” he said. “Don’t be hasty in taking this decision. Be fair with us.”

Mustafa, the 28-year-old Iraqi, is a Shiite Muslim who worked on construction crews on American bases, mostly on fortifications. As he put it: “I made homes for them that kept them safe. I felt I was doing something good for humanity.”

But anti-Shiite militias in his neighborhood discovered what his job had been and accused him of treason. “I was beaten and shot and knifed and eventually came to Lebanon two years ago,” he said, during an interview arranged in Beirut by the International Refugee Assistance Project, a New York-based legal aid group.

After years of interviews and investigation, Mustafa said he was finally told to take his medical examination and now only needed to be given the date for his flight, to California. To get ready, Mustafa splurged at a high-end Beirut store to buy the clothes he would wear into his new life: dark green pants, a vest, a checked shirt in four colors. “I would wear the best clothes I have, and I wouldn’t take anything else with me, not even my memories,” he said.

Mustafa still has some hope that somehow exceptions will be made, which is why — like most of the refugees interviewed for this article — he did not want his full name published.