The Friends We Left Stranded in Iraq

The Friends We Left Stranded in Iraq

Because they risked their lives to aid U.S. troops, they now face death threats. Here is one of their stories.

By Mark Doss in the Wall Street Journal

American troops have come home from Baghdad, Fallujah and Mosul, but many of the Iraqis who risked their lives to aid U.S. forces are still waiting for their tickets out of danger. Hundreds of American allies, who worked as interpreters or provided valuable intelligence, are caught in a bureaucratic morass at the departments of State and Homeland Security.

In 2008 Congress created the Iraqi Special Immigrant Visa to help these brave men and women. Since then 6,378 applicants have received visas to resettle in the U.S. But more than 1,800 applicants have ended up stuck in limbo, told neither “yes” nor “no,” their applications endlessly pending. All the while, they face the constant threat of retaliation for having assisted the U.S. mission.

In February the Iraqi Refugee Assistance Project, where I work, along with Freshfields Bruckhaus Deringer, filed a federal lawsuit on behalf of nine of these Iraqis whose visa applications have been pending without answer for an average of four years and three months. They include several interpreters, a doctor and an engineer, but they are identified by code names in court documents because of the danger they face. Here is the story of one of these men—told in his voice but without his name to protect him and his family.

***

They say I belong to a family of traitors.

I am one of seven brothers. All of us served as interpreters for U.S. troops in the Iraq War over the past decade. We did so faithfully, willingly and proudly.

Saddam Hussein was a tyrant who brutally oppressed my country. We could not speak out against him or his Ba’ath party because we would be jailed or killed. As interpreters, our mouths finally opened. We were speaking up for the future.

I wanted Iraq to be a truly free and tolerant nation, so I knew that I had to participate in the American mission—despite the many life-endangering risks.

In 2006, I joined two of my brothers, who were already serving as interpreters for the U.S. Army, at Camp Taji. Over the next four years I went on hundreds of missions with U.S. troops to some of the most dangerous areas in the country.

I was the voice of my unit. Not only did I interpret what soldiers and civilians were saying, I also communicated tone, accent, credibility and trustworthiness. I took my duties with the utmost seriousness, because American men and women in uniform trusted me with their lives.

Even with all the precautions we took, I knew that each mission I went on could be my last. Every time I traveled, I silently prayed for the safety of my own brothers by blood, and my new American ones. I was going into cities filled with snipers and improvised-explosive devices. I did not know if I would return to the base in a casket. The smell of death lingered on my clothes after every mission.

In the summer of 2007, my younger brother, whose code name was “Eagle,” and four American soldiers, were killed while riding in a Humvee north of Baghdad. A terrorist threw an IED at their vehicle. The five died instantly. When my commanding officer told me, I felt overtaken by madness. It turned into an unrelenting sorrow.

My mother begged me and my brothers to stop working with the U.S. We did not.

Instead, the rest of my brothers signed up as interpreters—all of them wanting to honor the memory of Eagle and save Iraq from the militias.

My life is now in grave danger due to my service to the U.S. Army. I have survived two car bombs near my home. I have received phone calls and text messages from unknown numbers threatening to put a bullet through my head. One of my brothers was brutally beaten by militiamen. He survived only because the militiamen said they wanted to kill all of us brothers—“a family of traitors”—together.

I have three young children whom I cannot send to school regularly because they may be kidnapped or killed. My wife and I leave the house only to get essential items. I have no stable source of income and cannot reveal my work history to potential employers.

I was not killed on the battlefield, but I am not alive in the country that I love. I exist in a middle world between death and life.

In 2009 I applied for a Special Immigrant Visa, which would allow me to live in safety in the U.S. Over five years later, the U.S. government has still not decided on my visa application.

Each day that I wait brings me closer to a terrorist group like Islamic State finding and killing me. I pray that my visa will be granted before it is too late.

***

That’s our hope here in America as well. In 2013 Congress passed a bill requiring that these visas be completed within nine months of application. But to no avail. The State Department has provided no explanation other than an automatic reply that the applications are in “administrative processing.”

If the executive branch will not act, then the judicial must. With any luck, we will be able to welcome these brave individuals and their families—aspiring Americans who have paid the price for believing in freedom and liberty—to their new home very soon.

Mr. Doss is an Equal Justice Works fellow with the Iraqi Refugee Assistance Project at the Urban Justice Center.