The FBI denied an Iraqi mother’s return to the US despite death threats

Lamia remembers her relatives receiving threatening text messages members of the Shia militia in their region of Iraq. Her father, who worked as a translator for the US military, was the first to receive them – before he was murdered in 2006.

Lamia, who is identified by a pseudonym due to concerns for her safety, eventually started receiving the same type of messages. The militia was running out of patience with her, they told her.

She knew she had to leave Iraq and in June 2016 her refugee claim for the US was approved. The problem: her husband’s application was still pending. But Lamia was afraid of what might happen to her and her two children, so they left for the US, hoping that her husband would soon follow.

“I had hoped that me and the rest of my family would all be resettled to the US and have a new and comfortable life where we could be safe,” she told HuffPost.

Once in Charlottesville, Virginia, Lamia quickly began building a new life. She enrolled her children in the local public school system while pursuing vocational training.

Meanwhile, in Iraq, Lamia’s husband received a bullet in the mail as a warning from the local militia. He was still married to Lamia, a woman whose family had betrayed them, and he was not safe.

“I was afraid he would suffer the same fate as my father,” Lamia said.

Lamia traveled to Iraq with her two children the following month, in July 2017. She wanted her children to see her husband, even if it was for the last time.

She never expected that she would still be in Iraq nearly eight years later — long enough to have a third child there — because of the U.S. immigration system.

Since the passage of the 1980 Refugee Act, more than three million refugees have been resettled in the US. But it can take years for refugees to strengthen their case and obtain residency, and the government’s refugee admissions program has long faced backlogs and delays. Severe cuts to the program’s budget under President Donald Trump have exacerbated these problems.

Even after resettlement, refugees face a litany of challenges, including language barriers, reduced access to housing and economic opportunities, and the challenge of obtaining citizenship. They also face years of delays and difficult decisions – decisions that, as in Lamia’s case, could endanger their lives.

According to the American website Immigration and Citizenship, refugees are allowed to travel back to the countries they originally fled from. But they must have a pre-approved travel document, which serves a similar purpose to a U.S. passport for refugees, in order to be readmitted to the U.S.

Lamia was in a hurry to see her husband before he was harmed, her lawyer told HuffPost, and she thought she could get the travel permits later, so she left without applying for one first. But after she arrived in Iraq, the Shiite militia discovered she had returned and began threatening her again.

U.S. officials did not respond to her until January 2023, according to a formal complaint she filed in federal court against USCIS and the State Department last month — more than five years after she first filed it.

By then, the militia’s threats had escalated. At one point, militia members beat her with guns in a pharmacy.

Ultimately, the government denied her travel document but approved permits for her two children. That forced Lamia, who had since had another child in Iraq, to ​​make a bleak choice: split up her family and send her eldest two children to the US alone or stay together as a family in a country where their lives were in danger . .

A spokesperson for USCIS told HuffPost that the agency does not comment on individual cases or pending litigation. The spokesperson said it is the agency’s policy to “review requests for immigration benefits on a fair, humane and efficient basis on a case-by-case basis to determine whether they meet the established eligibility criteria required under the applicable laws, regulations and policies.”

Lamia’s lawyers from the International Refugees Assistance Project argue that none of this should have been necessary. They say refugees should be readmitted with the same protections afforded by the 1980 Refugee Act – the law under which Lamia’s entry was approved in the first place, which does not specify the need for travel documents.

“The U.S. government’s unlawful requirement that our client obtain a refugee travel document to return to the United States has left her and her children stranded in Iraq under threat from the very militias she thought were already there. had escaped,” says Kate Meyer, lawyer at IRAP. “The United States must fulfill its commitment to welcome and provide lasting protection to those fleeing persecution.”

“We ask the court to prevent the government from applying its unlawful refugee travel document policy to our client so that this refugee family can return to safety together in the United States,” she added.

But time is running out. The children’s approval to return to the US expires next month. If they do not board the plane sooner, they will not be able to submit a new application and will lose the opportunity to return as refugees.

Meanwhile, Lamia says the militia has threatened to hurt her husband unless he stays away from her. They rarely see each other. Lamia does not leave her home and her children no longer go to school.

Lamia said she has developed asthma and suffers from constant dizziness, which she believes is caused by stress. Her mental health has deteriorated rapidly.

“I honestly regret it,” she said. “My children blame me and they know they are unsafe. I just want to come back.”