John Beale, Post-Gazette Hamid Al-Ghazi: "I just want to see my sons again."

By Moustafa Ayad, Pittsburgh Post-Gazette

Hamid Al-Ghazi's three sons have no home.

Born on the outskirts of Baghdad, Safa, 31, Adeeb, 29, and Afeer, 27, were kidnapped three months ago and then bought back by their father for the price of the family home, the bedrock of Arab families.

Now they inhabit a war zone no-man's land, three would-be Iraqi refugees who fear to stay, can't claim refugee status in their own country and are unable to get out to seek it elsewhere.

Mr. Ghazi, 53, who now lives in Lawrenceville, has been frantic in his attempts to help his sons. He came to the United States five years ago after escaping electric-shock torture in Iraqi jails during Saddam Hussein's rule and securing refugee status in Philadelphia. Though he was able to bring the rest of his family with him, his adult sons were required to file separately for refugee status and could not come with the family in 2001.

"This is a million times worse than what Saddam ever did to me," said the bearded Mr. Ghazi in a soft Baghdadi Arabic accent. He raised his palm to his forehead, the Arab equivalent of adding an exclamation point to his statement.

Immigration officials acknowledge that the increasingly violent struggle to establish the country's first democratically elected government is hampering efforts to save everyday Iraqis from violence.

"People leave or try to leave regularly in a situation like Iraq's where the security situation is deteriorating and increasingly violent," said Ron Redmond, spokesman for the United Nations Refugee Agency in Geneva.

	John Beale, Post-Gazette Hamid al-Ghazi holds a photo of himself with his grandson, Hamed, 4, who is in Iraq. Click photo for larger image.

Getting out is not easy.

The first catch is that, by definition, you can't be a refugee in your own country. You have to be outside.

The second catch is that you must demonstrate that you cannot gain protection under the government of your home country. Because the United States is heavily engaged in the government of Iraq, a high standard of proof is required to claim no protection is available.

The third catch is that because the United Nations has such a limited presence in Iraq, its ability to assess candidates is limited. So Mr. Ghazi's sons live in limbo, and he agonizes over them ceaselessly.

Mr. Ghazi, a Shiite who was incarcerated under Saddam, fled Iraq in 2001, escaping to Syria, where he was able to get on a flight to the United States. He asked for asylum when he arrived in New York City, and came to Pittsburgh, where his sole friend in the United States lived. From here he filed paperwork for his wife and their six children under the ages of 21. Safa, Adeeb and Afeer applied separately for refugee status but did not gain it. Their efforts stalled when the war started in 2003.

The family members who had made it to the United States were all granted asylum and resettled in Pittsburgh by the Immigration Court in Philadelphia in 2001.

Mr. Ghazi has sent money to his sons, and they were able to file for refugee status in Syria but could not get work permits there or permission to stay for more than three months. They are back in Baghdad, living in a relative's house and awaiting word from the United Nations.

His hope is that someday his sons will join him, but the reality is that not a single Iraqi with a case stemming from events after the start of the war has been resettled in the United States. That may soon change, because the United States has recently informed the U.N. that efforts to resettle Iraqis in the United States will resume this year. That announcement follows a three-year freeze on resettlement.

The State Department did resettle 189 Iraqis in the United States last year -- a number that represents 3 percent of the 5,000 slots allotted to the Middle East -- but they were people with cases from the uprising after the first Gulf War in 1991.

Some 80 cases that the U.N. Refugee Agency was in the process of moving through the U.S. resettlement pipeline before the war were put on hold as soon the United States geared up to move troops into Iraq.

"The United States in 2003 was sure that everybody's situation in Iraq was going to get better; therefore, Iraqis would not need to be resettled," said Anna-Maria Deutschlander, the senior protection officer for the U.N. Iraqi refugee station, now located in Amman, Jordan.

"With Saddam gone, people weren't fleeing political persecution anymore. The equation was simple -- there is no more political persecution now, so there is no need for resettlement."

But violence and persecution did not in fact disappear. While thousands of Iraqis living abroad did return home after the fall of the Baathist regime, hundreds of thousands of Iraqis have tried to flee and gain official refugee status so that they can settle outside Iraq.

More than 250,000 Iraqis went to Jordan, and similar numbers went to Syria, looking for an escape from the violence or searching for jobs. The United Nations began the arduous task of sifting through stories and asylum cases, separating those looking for economic opportunity from those in fear for their lives. The organization currently has 15,000 registered refugee cases in Jordan and has recognized 700 of them officially as refugees.

"Getting refugee status is not easy," said Gideon Aronoff, president of Hebrew Immigrant Aid Society, a major resettlement agency in the United States. "Since the U.S. war effort began, the dilemma for any refugee or asylum seeker in Iraq would have to be arguing that they are being persecuted by the government that the United States supports, and that's always a difficult case to make -- not impossible, but difficult and tough."

Potential refugees first must leave their home country. But for many, that is impossible. Then they must prove a well-founded fear of persecution on account of race, religion, nationality, membership in a particular social group or political opinion.

Proving any one of these convincingly to a U.N. representative or a counterpart at the U.S. State Department could result in becoming a recognized refugee, but does not mean automatic resettlement. Sometimes the best option for refugees is to be integrated into the countries in which they have claimed asylum.

The United Nations is in charge of some of the refugee referrals to the United States and since the agency has been operating from Jordan and neighboring countries, it cannot conduct face-to-face interviews or in-country investigations. It is using nationals to gather information rather than its own field officers.

As twilight gives way to late night, the silhouettes of angular ivory figures once again haunt Mr. Ghazi's bedroom.Night after night, Mr. Ghazi tries to outrun them, then wakes and finds his family surrounding him. And remembers that he is safe but his sons are not.

He has back problems from the beatings he received that prevent him from sitting for long periods of time. He was awarded disability status by the federal government, and has been living on his $600-a-month Social Security checks, unable to return to work as a tailor, his previous occupation.

His wife, he says, cries for her sons and their children almost daily. He no longer sleeps. That way he can escape the dreams.

"I just want to see my sons again," he said.