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Press Briefing Ellen Sauerbrey, Assistant Secretary of State at the ASSISTANT SECRETARY SAUERBREY: Good afternoon, and thank you for coming to this press conference. It’s always a pleasure to meet with the Geneva-based press corps and have the opportunity to talk about America’s assistance to refugees throughout the world. The United States continues to be the largest single donor to refugee aid efforts around the world. The bulk of what we give is distributed through UNHCR, Red Cross, and IOM, and a network of non-governmental organizations. Much of the assistance comes from the bureau that I head which is the Bureau of Population, Refugees and Migration. We are the part of the U.S. State Department that has the responsibility for refugee assistance. We’re very proud that the U.S. is again the largest single donor to the UN High Commissioner for Refugees. We donated $363 million to UNHCR alone in 2007. The program focuses on finding durable solutions for refugees. Our first preference, of course is, and I also would add that it’s the preference of the refugees that we serve, is to create the circumstances that enable them to return home safely. When that fails, we also work to integrate refugees into the society of the country where they have settled. If these options don’t work we consider resettlement, which for a relatively small number of refugees worldwide is the best durable solution. The process of resettlement in the United States is long. It involves several of our government agencies and we are also required by law to submit all refugees that want to resettle in the U.S. to a series of interviews and tests. Our major area of concern these days is the plight of the four million Iraqis who have been displaced from their homes by sectarian violence. UNHCR estimates, as you know, that half of them remain inside the borders of Iraq as internally displaced and the other half are in Syria, Jordan, Lebanon and other countries in the region. In keeping with what I mentioned before, I want to say that our first priority is to promote a safe, secure, peaceful Iraq. The country must become a place that welcomes back all of its people, regardless of their religious or ethnic affiliation. We believe that President Bush’s surge of a million Iraqis will create a more peaceful country, and it is the first and best course of action to address the refugee crisis. But meanwhile we are also committed to helping displaced Iraqis where they have found first asylum. Inside of Iraq we have been working through UNHCR, ICRC, IOM and NGOs to help Iraqis who have fled from the areas where they have been victims of sectarian violence, but we must do more. Fewer than half of Iraq’s internally displaced have access to international food distribution efforts and the state of healthy care we know is woeful. Outside of Iraq the United States government has been the driving force and the major funding of the Joint UNHCR/UNICEF Education Appeal and I want to say, I was in the region in the spring and one of the most troubling things was seeing the number of Iraqi children that were not attending school. So far we have given $39 million to the Education Appeal and worked with the government of Jordan in particular to get them to agree to allow Iraqi children to attend school. We are seeing already the results of this as Iraqi children are enrolling, particularly in large numbers in Syria and in Jordan and around the region. I had the opportunity a month ago to meet some of these children and talk to some of them that have not gone to school for two years. To see the joy that young people were experiencing of now having the opportunity to go back to school. We are urgently calling on other countries to contribute generously to this appeal because it is so critical. The education of these children is so critical to the region. We also plan to contribute generously to a recently released multi-UN agency Joint Health Appeal. These UN appeals will help Iraqi refugees in the region to get access to treatment. Many of them are now going without because they have, we know, run out of money. There has been a lot of media focus on resettlement of Iraqi refugees in the United States and the pace of that resettlement. Families that are resettled are those with little or no prospect of being able to go home safely. We know that resettlement is a small part of the solution, but it is a critical one for the people who are most vulnerable. But resettlement isn’t just for Iraq and the United States. This is in line with refugee resettlement policies around the world in every type of situation. During the last year between October 1st and until today, 1650 Iraqi refugees were admitted to the United States. In Jordan and in Syria there was little to no admission infrastructure in place. Referral practices had to be set up between UNHCR and the UN embassies in the region. Overseas processing entities such as the International Organization for Migration had to set up offices and deal with a surge of referrals. At the same time the United States confronted certain diplomatic situations such as the inability of officials from the U.S. Department of Homeland Security to get the visas to enter Syria which is critical if we’re going to continue resettling from there We have also been unable, thus far, to begin processing of refugees for resettlement from inside of Iraq. Security problems in Baghdad make access to the Green Zone very difficult for some Iraqis. There is also the question of where these people, who again are the most desperate of refugees, would be able to stay while they wait for the several months for due diligence and the security clearance in their cases. We work very closely with the Department of Homeland Security, and of course with our embassy in Baghdad in trying to resolve these logistical problems for resettlement. While I’ve been focusing on Iraq, I don’t want you to believe that the United States is ignoring refugees in the rest of the world. We are monitoring the condition of Bhutanese refugees now in Nepal with a view to resettling many of them by the end of this year, and with the expectation that over the next five years we hope to be able to resettle up 60,000 Bhutanese refugees. We’re also focused on the tragedy that continues to unfold in Darfur and Eastern Chad. In Darfur the U.S. has backed up this concern with generous donations to UNHCR’s work with internally displaced persons. We gave almost $5 million in Darfur, and in Chad, over $15 million for that purpose. In Southeast Asia we have overcome the legal hurdles that we had with material support and we have been able to resettle thousands of Karen and Chin refugees from the camps along the border. We have resettled over 48,000 refugees this year, this fiscal year, and that includes also refugees from Africa. In Afghanistan we remain committed to helping Afghan refugees return home and assisting them with their shelter, sanitation and health care needs once they get there. In North Korea we remain determined to help those fleeing a brutal regime to find a place where they and their families can life in peace. I’ve given you a broad outline of both our assistance and our resettlement work. I’m going to stop here and open it to questions, which can be directed to all of us. QUESTION: Of course I do understand that you cannot take ample numbers of people to resettle in the United States, but I feel that the 12,000 Iraqis that will be settled is a miniscule number compared to the two million. I mean it’s not even one percent of the two million. Two, I would like to ask you, IOM has a program for the internally displaced inside Iraq which is a program of $85 million. We were told that the U.S. has only contributed $6 million. Are you planning to upgrade your contribution or not to that program? What kind of contribution will you give to the Health Appeal? And last but not least, I know that it’s not the mandate of UNHCR, but I assume it’s your mandate since they are refugees, how much is the contribution of the U.S. to UNRWA and are you the number one donator to UNRWA also? Thank you. SAUERBREY: Let me take your first question which is the 12,000 that will be resettled in the United States this year. It really is not a valid comparison to talk about the 12,000 versus two million . That would assume that there are two million people in the region who are looking to be resettled. In the travels that I’ve done in the region, talking to refugees themselves, what we hear from UNHCR, what we hear from NGOs, remains that the large percentage of people who are refugees in the surrounding countries hope one day to be able to go home. So a great part of our focus is on assisting those people to remain in the region, to have some modicum of a decent means of living while they are displaced and working with the governments of the surrounding countries to ensure that their social service networks do not collapse under the weight of the refugees. If you look at the number of people who had been referred for refugee resettlement, which this year for the United States has been over 10,000 from UNHCR plus another 500 from our own embassy. We are keeping up now. It took time to get the mechanism in place, the institutional structure in place to do the diplomatic work with the countries in the region to allow resettlement to proceed, which meant getting them to agree to do exit permits. So there were a lot of steps that were necessary. The in-flow is now picking up and will continue I think to flow well, as we enter the next fiscal year. I would like for Barbara to have a chance to talk about the actual numbers in terms of the interviews that have been done, and how this flows into the pipelines we look to the next year. But again, you cannot look at the number of resettlements and compare it to two million and say this is a small percentage, because most of these people will never be resettled in a third country, and that’s the case in refugee flows anywhere in the world. It’s a small percentage. Resettlement is meant for the people who are the most vulnerable. UNHCR makes those decisions when they register Iraqis, they’ve registered about 163,000; and out of the people that they register they determine who they feel are vulnerable and in need of resettlement, and that’s who they refer to third countries. Barbara, do you want to speak to the -- CHIEF STRACK: I don’t work for the State Department. I work for the Department of Homeland Security. Our two agencies work together cooperatively as partners in the refugee resettlement program. The way the program works, as you all may know, UNHCR is making the referrals to the United States based on certain criteria that have been agreed to between the United States and the UNHCR. The State Department then takes the lead responsibility for beginning the process of pre-screening those cases and preparing those cases for eventual resettlement in the United States. Where my agency comes in is after that phase, and officers from the Department of Homeland Security, from my bureau, travel around the world to actually interview refugees face to face. We have a requirement that ever refugee, every refugee family is interviewed. So out of the, I think we’re up to almost 11,000 referrals at this point from UNHCR to the U.S. Refugee resettlement Program. About 4,600 of those cases, individuals have been interviewed to date by our program. Then as Ellen mentioned in her opening statement about I think it’s 1,600 or so have already been admitted to the United States. So the fact that we’ve done those 4,600 interviews, those are people who are now on track, completing the process in order to be able to travel to the United States. We have also agreed between our two agencies, we’re scheduling interviews for the first quarter of our fiscal year, which starts on October 1st. So between October and December we have a very active schedule of interviews that are planned for Iraqis and other nationalities. SAUERBREY: Let me quickly respond to your UNRWA question and then as Greg Gottlieb to speak about the internal displacement and the IOM question. The U.S. is by far the largest contributor to UNRWA. Our contribution this year is over $154 million. Greg? ACTING DEPUTY ASSISTANT ADMINSITRATOR GOTTLIEB: Let me just respond to your question on IOM. IOM is one of many partners for the U.S. government inside Iraq. So the particular number that they have has to be weighed against what is contributed to other organizations. This year Congress allocated over $65 million for internally displaced Iraqis. IOM is one of those. But that being said, we’re always under discussions with our partners as to what the needs are and how we can better meet those. QUESTION: And on the Health Appeal, how much will you contribute? The Joint Health Appeal, how much will you contribute, the U.S.? GOTTLIEB: The way that we usually do it for IDPs in terms of by agency is we’re very project specific. We don’t usually look at the whole appeal, but we would fund specific projects. So we’ll discuss with the organizations that are involved in that and then look to fund what specific projects they have. SAUERBREY: In terms of the State Department contribution, I can’t give you a precise number yet. We’ve contributed 30 percent to the other special appeals including the education appeal and we are trying to stay in that 30 percent range, but at this point we are still trying to put together our contribution in terms of the funding package, in terms of our budget process. QUESTION: I have three questions. First of all for Madame Ellen Sauerbrey. You talked about resettlement for Iraqi refugees regardless of their religious beliefs, but what about the security situation right now? Do you think that Iraq is safe for them? The second question for Madame Barbara Strack. First of all, what about your policy right now? How many green cards will be delivered this year, and how are you proceeding? A second question also for you, many African people are living in the U.S. like business. They cannot go back home because they may lose their jobs or not have a visa to come back to the U.S.. What about your policy to regularize that situation? Thank you very much. SAUERBREY: Your first question, I wasn’t clear when you asked about safety, what are you -- QUESTION: You talked for the necessity, the right for Iraqi refugees to come back home regardless of their belief. You talked about their belief. But my question is, do you think that Iraq is safe for all these people to come back home? SAUERBREY: I’m not suggesting that Iraqis are going to be returning home under the current conditions. When we look at the Iraq refugee population we have to recognize that a very large refugee population existed during the period of Saddam Hussein, and after the fall of Saddam Hussein UNHCR and most of the international community including the United States were focusing on helping Iraqis who had stayed in the region, who were in surrounding countries, to return home. Approximately 400,000 actually had returned home at the time of the Samarra Mosque bombing. Unfortunately, as we all know, that led to increasing sectarian violence which began slowly but built up over the period of the end of 2006 to significant outflows. It is certainly no one’s belief that Iraqis today are going to turn around and go home in large numbers, but I think whether you look at the past situation with Iraqis going home, hopefully, thinking there was going to be an opportunity to rebuild their lives in their home following the fall of Saddam Hussein; or you look at what has happened in the Balkans or virtually any other refugee crisis around the world. When the situation stabilizes at home, people do go home. They will go home again in Iraq. The most important element of U.S. policy is creating the conditions for stability and peace in Iraq. STRACK: There was a second part. I’m going to have to answer your questions a little bit generally because I specialize in the refugee program at U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services, so I’m not an expert on the other issues but I can give you a general answer. In terms of the number of green cards, there is no absolute limit in a given year on the number of green cards. There are limits on certain categories and other categories don’t have limits. So it depends partly on the demand in those various categories. What there has been is a dramatic improvement in recent years. We did have processing backlogs, people who applied for green cards sometimes had very long waits. That’s a place where the agency has improved substantially and we’re working towards a six month processing time for most cases. I think your last question really deals with immigration reform in the United States. You may be aware there was a very substantial effort of the Administration working with the Congress to propose some comprehensive immigration reform legislation. That effort was not successful in developing a bill that could be agreed to by the Congress and signed by the President. So given that that didn’t happen we’re now really in a period of regrouping and trying to figure out what the answer would be to move forward. QUESTION: You mentioned in your introduction you’d like to see some burdensharing to assist the IDPs and the refugees in the region, especially the Iraqis. As you are very well aware, there was a conference here in April and that message went out. Are you basically saying that message fell flat on the international community? And if I could have a U.S. assessment, what are the needs for the refugees in neighboring Jordan and Syria and what percentage of a shortfall is there in terms of funds? Thank you. SAUERBREY: I’m not saying that effort fell flat. Let me talk about two different aspects. First of all, Iraq itself made a pledge of $25 million as an initial contribution to help its own people, its own refugee population. At this point we are still urging Iraq to make good on its pledge by donating directly to UNHCR which is best positioned to be able to get assistance to all of the countries in the region and is working very well directly with the Ministries of Education and Health certainly in Jordan and in Syria. So we, again, call on Iraq to live up to the commitment that it made. In terms of the other contributions from the world, I think it’s notable that UNHCR’s special Iraq appeal, the first one was very quickly fully funded; the second appeal is not fully funded, but I think it’s about 80 percent. Certainly there has been a lot of support from around the world. The third appeal is the education appeal. This is one that we feel very passionately about and promoted very strongly to get UNHCR to make a very robust appeal because of the need for the whole region. Educating the children of Iraq is important to the future of Iraq. It’s important to the stability of the countries that have large numbers of children who are of school age, that they be in school and not out on the street. And it’s important to the future of the entire region that this issue be addressed. This appeal is a new one. We are beginning to talk to other countries in the region in the Gulf to help and calling on other traditional donors to assist. There’s a long way to go yet on that appeal. The newest one, the health appeal, has just come out within the last two weeks. I really can’t speak to what kind of response there has been other than a general commitment from the U.S.. QUESTION: If I might have a follow-up, I was wondering, do you have an assessment what are the needs of the two million or so refugees outside Iraq, and the other two million internally displaced? In other words, this international humanitarian assistance meets how much of the needs of the people affected? SAUERBREY: That is not a question in terms of the refugees that I think we could give a very precise answer to. First of all, the number of refugees outside of Iraq is not a verifiable number. Nobody really knows how many refugees there are. So starting with the fact that many of the refugees who are outside of Iraq have been there for many many years. Many of them, as I said, a significant percentage, had fled during the period of Saddam Hussein and they have been refugees for long periods of time, and in many cases were able to get established in the surrounding countries. The early out-flow of Iraqis following the Samarra Mosque bombing and the newer out-flow we know were people who came with significant resources and were able to buy homes, buy businesses, and indeed created a lot of pressure on the countries because they were driving up real estate costs. This was kind of a unique issue with refugees. The latter flows have been people who are coming certainly with less and less resources, and we also know that people who came with resources who have not been allowed to work since they’ve been there, and if they were able to establish a legal residency, they can be running businesses. But those that have not been allowed to work, who have spent down their resources depending on how long they have been refugees, have greater needs. So one of the ways we can make some evaluation is how many have come forward and registered for protection and assistance with UNHCR, which is about 163,000 at last report from UNHCR. So we have to look at that since we encourage all refugees to register with UNHCR and 163,000 in the whole region are the number that have registered, that gives us some indication of those who are really in need of assistance. We are, as I say, we are doing about 30 percent of the UNHCR appeal. In addition we are contributing through NGOs another significant amount. So that’s about the best response I can give you on refugees. Maybe Greg can calk about the AID -- GOTTLIEB: I think in terms of IDPs inside Iraq, it’s an estimate of around 2.2 million . We don’t have a really solid figure on need because it’s not a population that’s entirely dependent on external giving. If you look at the HCR appeal which is about $123.7 million, the recent one for Iraq, only $ 28 million of that was for IDPs. As I said earlier, we were allocated and are obligating around $65 million this year for IDPs in Iraq, and that’s in addition to the donors that will be contributing as well. The difficulty is, of course, access is somewhat difficult for those populations and a lot of the assistance that goes to them is not full support but it’s partial support. It’s partial support to services such as water and sanitation. Some of that is also support to the families that host people. So it’s a different kind of IDP population than you might see in Darfur. QUESTION: I would like to switch to a different subject if that’s okay. The last point of your presentation you said that you’re determined to find a way to help the North Koreans who flee the regime to assist them. But I’m wondering what can you do exactly or what are you planning to do? Many of those who are fleeing violence can only go to China where they’re not recognized as refugees and very often sent back. So what can you see as a solution? SAUERBREY: Certainly much of our involvement with China is diplomatic. We have been using every opportunity to convince the Chinese to live up to the humanitarian obligations under the refugee convention, not to forcibly return North Koreans who are, we know, in China in probably fairly substantial numbers. Also to allow those who do find their way through getting into an embassy or having been housed in a UNHCR apartment, to give them exit permits. When they have made a clear appeal; they have been recognized as refugees and they have made a clear appeal to either go to South Korea or to come to the United States, We urge China not to be holding these people for sometimes up to a year without being willing to give the exit permits. We also are working with all of the governments in the region to try to develop ways that North Koreans who find their way to other countries are able to be processed, either to go to South Korea or to come to the United States. QUESTION: A quick follow-up. Do you see any change in China’s policy recently? Or have your diplomatic efforts born fruit yet? There is a lot of -- Well, there is some change in Chinese policy regarding a lot of different humanitarian issues at the moment for different reasons. Do you see the same with North Korean refugees? SAUERBREY: Unfortunately I cannot say that we are seeing very much progress. QUESTION: There is a lot of money spent on the war machine and a lot of money spent on the humanitarian aid in Iraq and outside Iraq. What is missing from the equation that you can’t reach stability and security? SAUERBREY: That’s not an issue that I would be really able to answer. My bureau focuses on the humanitarian response and I would hesitate to try to address the underlying political problem. GOTTLIEB: I would agree with Ellen. It’s our responsibility within our government to tend to those in need, and that’s what we’ll do. I think we’d be overstepping our bounds a bit if we commented much further than that. QUESTION: I would like to ask Mr. Gregory. What your job, for example, consist in Africa regarding your, what you are doing? If you take an example of a country, what is your job exactly so I can -- GOTTLIEB: The bureau that I have oversight of, and I have oversight of three offices, but the two that maybe you're familiar with, one is Food For Peace which supplies food through World Food Program and non-governmental organizations. The second office is the Office of U.S. Foreign Disaster Assistance. Between the two of those offices last year I think we did in excess of $2 billion in relief. A good example would be Darfur. The Office of Foreign Disaster Assistance put in about $110 million last year to that emergency, just Darfur. And in food we were close to $400 million. So almost half a billion dollars has gone there. Similarly, we’ve had a large presence for years in places like Eastern Congo for instance. We’ve been in there for years, last year’s program was around $30 million. So we are in, if there is a crisis in Africa, particularly a protracted crisis, we’d tend to be there for a long time. Sudan we’ve been almost 20 years. The largest part of our emergency budget, in excess of $2 billion, probably somewhere in the neighborhood of $1.4 billion went to Africa. VOICE: That’s about all we have time for. Thank you very much.
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