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Iraqi refugees fail to get with the program

SAUL LOEB/AFP/Getty Images The U.N. High Council on Refugees announced today that the number of Iraqi asylum-seekers more than doubled last year, reversing a five-year decline. But according to one U.S. congressman, these Iraqis are just being selfish. California Rep. Dana Rohrabacher had this to say at a hearing last week on the U.S. obligation ...

By , a former associate editor at Foreign Policy.
595932_080318_rohrbacher2.jpg
595932_080318_rohrbacher2.jpg

SAUL LOEB/AFP/Getty Images

SAUL LOEB/AFP/Getty Images

The U.N. High Council on Refugees announced today that the number of Iraqi asylum-seekers more than doubled last year, reversing a five-year decline. But according to one U.S. congressman, these Iraqis are just being selfish. California Rep. Dana Rohrabacher had this to say at a hearing last week on the U.S. obligation to Iraqi refugees:

They’re wonderful people who’d like to live here, especially the ones who have helped us, but the last thing we want to do is to have people who are friendly to democracy… moving here in large numbers at a time when they’re needed to build a new, thriving Iraq.”

What nerve! It’s as if they’re putting their personal safety and well-being ahead of U.S. foreign-policy goals. Don’t they know this is an election year?

(Hat tip: Cato-at-Liberty)

Joshua Keating is a former associate editor at Foreign Policy. Twitter: @joshuakeating

Read More On Iraq | Middle East and North Africa | U.S. Congress | U.S. Foreign Policy

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