The table of contents for this Act is as follows:

This Act may be cited as the Iraqi Refugee and Internally Displaced Persons Humanitarian Assistance, Resettlement, and Security Act of 2008 .

The term vulnerable populations in Iraq includes IDPs, Iraqis from ethnically mixed families, women at risk, unaccompanied children and adolescents, the elderly, Iraqis with serious medical needs, survivors of violence or torture, Iraqis who are members of religious or other minority groups, including Chaldo Assyrian Christians, Sabian Mandaens, Yazidis, Jews, and Baha’is, and any other group determined to vulnerable by the Secretary of State in consultation with the UNHCR.

The term UNHCR means the Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees.

3.

Findings

Congress finds the following:

(1) Since the beginning of the war in Iraq, according to the UNHCR, more than 2,000,000 Iraqis have fled their homes for neighboring countries to avoid sectarian and other violence.

(2) According to the UNHCR, there are more than 2,700,000 IDPs, many lacking adequate food, shelter, and other basic services.

(3) The security situation in several locations within Iraq reduces access to the Iraqi population by Iraqi Government agencies and humanitarian aid providers and greatly limits the provision of aid.

(4) The Iraq Study group predicted that [a] humanitarian catastrophe could follow as more refugees are forced to relocate across the country and the region. .

(5) The dispersion of Iraqi refugees in poor urban areas of host countries makes it exceedingly difficult for humanitarian agencies to identify and reach these populations.

(6) Many Iraqis have put their lives and those of their families at risk by working for the United States Government, United States corporations, the United States media, and nongovernmental organizations.

(7) Since March 2003, the United States has resettled less than 20,000 Iraqi refugees, while Jordan and Syria have provided temporary asylum to 2,000,000 Iraqis, and other countries neighboring Iraq have received tens of thousands more Iraqis.

(8) Since March 2003, Sweden has accepted 40,000 Iraqi refugees, and Denmark evacuated and resettled 370 Iraqi interpreters and other Iraqis who worked for Danish troops prior to the Danish contingent’s departure from Iraq in 2007.

(9) Current United States policies governing the processing of refugees constrain United States Government agencies from expediting the screening processes and increasing the number of Iraqis accepted into the United States.

(10) The massive flow of Iraqi refugees into neighboring host countries has overwhelmed existing social, economic, and security capacities of such countries.

(11) While Iraqi refugees and IDPs are disproportionately made up of vulnerable populations, many other segments of the Iraqi population at large are also vulnerable.

(12) Increasing poverty and despair among displaced populations may provide fertile ground for extremist ideologies to take root and possible recruitment by extremist groups.

(13) The humanitarian crisis in Iraq and neighboring countries threatens to destabilize the entire region.

(14) United States policy is to admit at least 50 percent of the refugees referred by the UNHCR. In 2007, the UNHCR referred more than 10,000 cases to the United States, and the United States resettled 1,608 Iraqi refugees. The United States has pledged to admit 12,000 Iraqi refugees during 2008.

(15) During 2008, the Government of Iraq has dedicated $18,000,000 to its Ministry of Displaced and Immigration and offered $25,000,000 to neighboring countries hosting Iraqi refugees, even as the Government of Iraq is predicting it will likely generate more than $32,000,000,000 in oil revenues during 2008 alone.