The State Department said it is reviving an Iraqi refugee program that was abruptly shut down early last year after investigators discovered government employees had been pilfering files to help people file bogus applications.
Department officials insisted the vulnerabilities that led to the massive fraud that tainted thousands of applications have been fixed, though they were cagey on the details and wouldn’t say whether anyone has lost status because of the breach.
“During our review of the Iraqi P-2 Program, we identified and resolved the issues that led to our suspension of the program in January of 2021. We are committed to ensuring that only bonafide and qualified Iraqis who supported U.S. efforts in Iraq are considered for this important humanitarian program,” State Department spokesman Ned Price said Tuesday in announcing the restart.
The P-2 program is a special refugee category that’s supposed to reward Iraqis who assisted the U.S. in the lengthy war effort.
It was abruptly shut down just after President Biden took office last year, when authorities revealed a major breach in the P-2 program’s files. They found that two Homeland Security contractors had gotten access to hundreds of applicants’ files and were shipping the information to their ringleader, Aws Abduljabbar, who was using it to help other Iraqis file bogus applications.
Abduljabbar pleaded guilty to his role in the scam this year.
Robert Law, a former senior official at U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services, said he’s wary of the State Department’s assurances that they’ve fixed things.
“Those claims deserve proper scrutiny before any additional Iraqis are allowed into the country,” said Mr. Law, who is now director of regulatory affairs and policy at the Center for Immigration Studies.
He pointed to an inspector general’s report late last month that found significant security lapses in vetting Afghan evacuees who were brought to the U.S. under a justification similar to that of the Iraqis.
“The Biden administration continues to double down on its desire to get as many aliens into the country as possible without regard to proper vetting,” Mr. Law said.
The Iraqi program restart comes as Mr. Biden finds himself in need of an immigration win after the botched Afghanistan airlift, which evacuated tens of thousands of average Afghan nationals but left behind tens of thousands of allies who assisted the U.S. war effort.
The State Department has offered few answers for those left behind in Afghanistan, but said it will try to help those in Iraq.
“After an extensive review, we have resumed case processing for a select number of Iraqi P-2 cases that had been previously suspended during our review of the program,” Mr. Price said. “In coordination with the Department of Homeland Security, we will continue to review and process all other existing Iraqi P-2 cases that can move forward as well as accept new applications to the program.”
The program was suspended Jan. 22, just two days after Mr. Biden took office. Originally, it was supposed to be a 90-day pause while authorities figured out the extent of the breach, but it stretched to more than a year.
According to Abduljabbar’s plea deal, he said he was paying a Jordanian man who worked for USCIS at the U.S. Embassy in Amman to pore over files in the agency’s refugee system and pull out details of cases dealing with Iraqis. That Jordanian’s time at USCIS ended in 2016, but he managed to get into the computer system remotely, and illegally, for months afterward.
By then, the Jordanian had recruited another henchman for Abduljabbar — a Russian woman who worked at the U.S. Embassy in Moscow and could pull files. From 2016 to 2019, the Russian woman stole access into at least 591 cases involving Iraqis applying for the P-2 program. She sent hundreds of screenshots and documents to Abduljabbar so he could keep tabs on those cases.
That knowledge helped him coach Iraqis on how to craft their applications. He provided inside information on what questions might be asked in interviews and what stories worked and what didn’t.
“As a result, the State Department, DHS and other agencies will spend millions of dollars to investigate and mitigate the damage,” prosecutors and Abduljabbar said in the statement of facts supporting his plea deal. “Among other tasks, this continuing effort involves the identification of [refugee] cases affected by the scheme, review of all cases to identify fraud and/or previously unidentified security risks, and an array of subsequent remedial steps.”
Reuters reported last summer that authorities suspect the fraud scheme tainted about 4,000 refugee cases. More than 500 of those had already been approved and admitted to the U.S.
Reuters said investigators found no connections to terrorism in the cases. Still, the Justice Department, in announcing the guilty plea, said the fraud ring was a risk “to public safety and national security” and potentially blocked legitimate refugees whose lives were in danger.
The State Department said this week it upgraded its databases last year and “addressed the vulnerabilities exposed by this case.” It also said it has re-verified the employment documents of applicants.
But the department declined to say anything more on changes, and said it couldn’t comment on whether anyone has had refugee status revoked, citing the ongoing case against the fraudsters.
The P-2 program is supposed to reward people in danger because they assisted with American efforts in the war in Iraq.
Refugees accepted by the U.S. generally have fled their home countries, fear returning and are referred to the U.S. by the United Nations Refugee Agency. But the P-2 program, also known as “direct access,” allows people to apply from their home countries without undergoing U.N. vetting.
“All refugees undergo the highest level of security screening and vetting, including extensive interviews and the vetting of biographic and biometric information,” Mr. Price said Tuesday. “Only after an applicant has cleared all security vetting can they be deemed eligible for admission to the United States. In the admission of refugees to the United States, the safety and security of the American people is our highest priority.”
• Stephen Dinan can be reached at sdinan@washingtontimes.com.
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