The Iraqi refugee problem has caused the US to accept more of them because the countries around Iraq can't handle the flow any longer. Here's the article:

Accepting More Refugees

What does this mean . . .

Regarding the Iraq situation as a whole?

Regarding terrorism in the United States?

Regarding economic and social conditions in the United States?

Regarding the Iraq situation as a whole?

...an unpleasant and unmistakable reminder of how poorly it's proceeding. When people start fleeing, bad sign.

Regarding terrorism in the United States?

Likely none, but one can't be sure about anyone these days.

Regarding economic and social conditions in the United States?

A couple thousand people.

Nada.

Not much. The numbers are small and many woill probably return to Iraq when conditions improve.



Nothing. I would expect that the people we take in are screened and will not be terrorists. This is the exact opposite to the situation we have on out borders as people stream in daily – illegally.

None. Iraqis are certainly going to be better educated than the millions we are taking in from Mexico. And it will help future relations with Iraq if we have a population here imo.

I think this is an important issue, and hate to see this thread die. Hope I don't offend, but my opinion probably differs from most on this.

What does this mean . . .

Regarding the Iraq situation as a whole?

Nothing good. There are hundreds of thousands of refugees in Jordan right now, there are over a million in Syria. In both places, they are overwhelmed and treat the Iraqis worse than dirt. In Jordan Iraqis can't even get in as visitors to retrieve personal property...instead they are placed in jail for a while. It's a bad situation. Jordan and Syria are small countries. Jordan has less than six million, and Syria has 20. So Jordan is housing an Iraqi population that is about ten percent the size of its citizenry. Syria is housing a population of refugees that is roughly seven or eight percent of theirs'. That would be the equivalent of around 25 million people...nearly the entire population of Iraq, flooding our borders. Imagine the crisis that would produce. I think we owe it to the neighboring countries to share this burden as it is a crisis we created, and we definitely owe it to the Iraqis. I think we should permit the entry of tens of thousands at least, rather than just a couple thousand.

Regarding terrorism in the United States?

Incoming immigrants are/could/and would be screened much more thoroughly than visitors would be. I don't think taking in Iraqi refugees would cause a problem with terrorism. I think it would be the opposite case. We took in over a hundred thousand Vietnamese, and I've never heard of any special problems created by them. I think taking them in was a very good thing. The moral thing.

Regarding economic and social conditions in the United States?

We might be impacted , but no where nearly as much as the cost of the war. I would wager that the cost of resources needed to build a single new clinic in a perilous area of Iraq is greater than the costs that would be incurred by the influx of five thousand immigrants.

What does this mean . . .

Regarding the Iraq situation as a whole?

I'm seeing this as the start of a pulldown of US forces in Iraq. President Bush has made the allusion to Vietnam and boat people, so this time it's going to be air transport people. Token troop pullouts have been talked about recently, and then we have the expiration of deployments coming up.

Ready or not, Iraq is going to be on its own. When that happens, what looks like a flood of refugees now will seem like a trickle. Then the US will likely allow more refugees into the country.

Regarding terrorism in the United States?

Assuming that our government can do a good job of screening, maybe nothing. However, I do not have that kind of faith in our government. Actually, I don't have that kind of faith in any system, having seen how much can fall through the cracks. I'm estimating a one percent fallthrough, so among 2,000 Iraqi refugees entering the country, 20 will have terrorist leanings. In effect, the terrorists won't follow us home; we'll bring them on.

Will we be up to this security-wise? Maybe so, but I can see more loss of civil liberties as a means to that end.

Regarding economic and social conditions in the United States?

The economy hasn't been all that well since the 1990s, and that wasn't a sustainable thing either. A grim thing happened in August. Instead of an expected 100,000 jobs created, 4,000 were lost. Source

This makes me think that Iraqi refugees will have a hard time finding employment. Ghettos may develop as they have in Europe, and these may encourage bad things to happen like riots.

Or maybe these new Iraqi immigrants will create jobs by starting new businesses. Yep, but I can't imagine what businesses these might be. I'll leave the mind open on this one.

Overall, the trend has started. I don't think it will end soon but will expand.