McClatchy DC recently featured IRAP in an article that highlights delays in the Special Immigrant Visa (SIV) application process, and which specifically addresses the significance of IRAP’s current lawsuit against the U.S. government. The piece drives home how the bureaucratic failings of the SIV program negatively impact real lives, focusing on the experience of one of the lawsuit Plaintiffs, an Iraqi interpreter code named Frodo.
After waiting just shy of four years for a decision, Frodo and his family were finally granted visas to the United States last month. This is incredible news, and an excellent outcome from the lawsuit, but thousands of other applicants remain in limbo. While awaiting a decision from the United States, these individuals and their families remain extremely vulnerable to threats from militant groups in their home countries.
McClatchy DC quotes IRAP Legal Fellow Mark Doss in the article: “This program doesn’t seem to be a priority… If more resources, personnel, capacity, were added to the program so that processing could go faster… I think the state could work faster.”
The U.S. government can and must do more to ensure the protection that our allies in Iraq and Afghanistan deserve.
Be sure to check out the full piece here.
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