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My dear friend Andy -- we're so close, we call each other brother and sister -- has a degree in English literature. He loves Shakespeare and Shelley, Byron and Dunne, and can quote from their works far better than most poetry professors I know. Andy loves beauty and harmony and tea and good food. He is simply gaga about his lovely young wife, Alysse, and their two little ones.
He's not the kind of guy you'd expect to want to serve the U.S. military, but just a couple of weeks after the U.S. invasion of Iraq, Andy lined up to enlist. He couldn't wait to help the United States bring democracy to Iraq. Since April 2003 Andy has served faithfully with the Army despite being in dire danger almost all the time. He and his wife and two babies have been under sporadic but serious threat of execution because of Andy's work with the U.S. Army. The stress is wearing on Andy and Alysse -- physically and mentally. Andy is well aware that it is only a matter of time before his luck runs out. He is ready to get out of Iraq.
His army colleagues and commanding officers think the world of Andy, but despite his four-plus years of almost nonstop service, Andy can't get out of Iraq. The U.S. Army seems to be quite powerless in this case.
That's because Andy is Iraqi. He has been an interpreter/translator for the U.S. military this whole time. The commanding officers of his units have written letters attesting to his competence, loyalty, resourcefulness, reliability and utter trustworthiness -- please forgive the redundancy, I'm quoting from their letters -- as well as to the fact that he must be evacuated to the United States quickly before he and his family are killed because of his work with the U.S. Army.
His family has been threatened too many times to count, and two-and-a-half years ago the threats proved all too real. Their house was bombed. Andy's father and brother were kidnapped. They were butchered the next day, their bodies dumped back at on the doorstep of the house before the family had time to arrange some kind of ransom, had one been demanded, or even to patch up the house or evacuate to relatives' homes.
Now Andy and Alysse and their babies are in grave and ceaseless danger. Most of Andy's extended family put them up at one time or another, but eventually had to ask them to leave when they were threatened for harboring a U.S. military employee. Andy now stays with his sister and in other places, and Alysse and the children stay with some of her relatives. The danger is constant, and Alysse is traumatized to the point, sometimes, of paralysis. She is 21 years old.
Although their situation is a direct result of Andy's work with the U.S. Army, the government of the United States is telling Andy: "Tough luck. It's too bad that you and your wife and babies will be killed because of your four years of service to us, but we simply don't care."
Andy is just one of thousands of Iraqis who have worked faithfully and well for the U.S. military and civilian operations in the 51 months since the invasion began. And this is how they are repaid.
Last year, on April 5, the U.S. House of Representatives passed HR 1815, the National Defense Authorization Act for Fiscal Year 2006, and George W. Bush signed it into law. It contained a provision, in Section 1059, authorizing special immigrant status for a maximum of 50 Iraqi translators per year. These translators must have (1) "worked directly with United States Armed Forces as a translator for a period of at least 12 months," (2) "obtained a favorable written recommendation from a general or flag officer in the chain of command of the United States Armed Forces unit that was supported by the alien," and (3) "before filing the petition ... cleared a background check and screening, as determined by a general or flag officer in the chain of command of the United States Armed Forces unit that was supported by the alien."
At that time, Andy and Alysse had just one baby, a boy. Alysse was pregnant, due in midsummer. Only 20, with a 19-month old son, she was practically collapsed under stress and terror, forced to move from house to house to avoid the threats against Andy for his work with the U.S. Army. Despite the urgency of the family's situation, the process dragged on, month after stressful and frustrating and increasingly perilous month, as Andy continued to work for the Army.
The U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Service -- USCIS -- which was in charge of putting this asylum petition process into practice, waited more than three months to make an application available. When they did, they posted the same application that had been used since the late 1970s, and geared toward "Amerasians." As soon as they said we could use this form, we -- that is, I, on behalf of Andy -- were the very first to apply. USCIS told us that because we were in the first couple of applicants, Andy and his family would be in the group of 50 lucky ones.
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Journalist and activist Maura Stephens first visited Iraq in January and February 2003 and with her husband, George Sapio, published a book, Collateral Damage, about the Iraqi people. Since then, Stephens has returned to the country twice and has given scores of presentations about the humanitarian situation as a member of the Iraq Speakers Bureau.
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