Forward - 07.26.2002

FBI's Red Tape Puts Refugees In Visa Limbo

By E.J. KESSLER
FORWARD STAFF

Several hundred Iranian Jewish refugees have been stranded for months in Vienna, some living in squalid conditions, as a result of the FBI's enhanced security reviews of Middle Eastern nationals bound for the United States after the September 11 attacks.

The refugees — 141 men traveling with 191 family members — are subsisting in what observers call "limbo" while they await what the FBI calls "security advisory opinions," required for all males between the ages of 16 and 50 who seek to enter the United States from countries known to harbor or sponsor terrorists.

The plight of the Iranian Jewish refugees — the changes also affect Iranian Christians, Zoroastrians and Bahais — occasioned a meeting at the White House last week, as representatives of the State Department, National Security Council, Domestic Policy Council and refugee agencies tried to ameliorate what has become a vexing humanitarian problem.

"To hold up someone in Vienna for months is insane," said the executive vice president of the Hebrew Immigrant Aid Society, Leonard Glickman. "It's inhumane."

Glickman said he attended the meetings in his capacity as the professional head of HIAS, which is an overseas processing entity that works on behalf of refugees applying for U.S. entry. He also serves as chairman of Refugee Council USA, a consortium of refugee relief agencies.

"The government has stumbled all over its implementation of its new procedures," Glickman said. "They've made it up as they've gone along. They're scared of their own shadows."

The hold-up has come as the FBI and the State Department "try to make sure that they know who these people are," Glickman said. In the case of the Iranians, he said, "we know very thoroughly who they are. They have family in the United States."

At a Senate hearing in February, various federal officials pledged to expedite refugee admissions, which had been halted after September 11 pending a review. At the time, the commissioner of the Immigration and Naturalization Service, James Ziglar, pledged to do his utmost to meet President Bush's target of 70,000 refugee admissions in 2002. "I realize that meeting the 70,000 ceiling will be a difficult task, that we must overcome logistical barriers, and that we need, to a great extent, to rely on excellent interagency cooperation, but I believe this is so important that we must try," he testified.

Glickman said he was hopeful that the White House meeting would put pressure on the FBI to sort out its security-related priorities and admit the Iranians. "I think the FBI will hear from the White House," he said. "For humanitarian reasons, the refugee cases will move to the front of the line. I find it unimaginable that an Iranian Jew or Bahai would pose a security threat to the United States."

Glickman said no refugee has ever been accused of being a security threat to the United States.

The situation of the Iranian Jews reminded some observers of what happened to many German Jews during World War II, when many Jews were interned by the Allied powers because their papers identified them as enemy nationals.

The promise of help from American authorities cannot come fast enough for the family of Kambiz Frosannasab, a 33-year-old man from Shiraz who has been stranded with his wife and two children in Vienna for 14 months.

According to Frosannasab's brother Roni, a New York businessman, the family went to Vienna prepared to stay the three or four months it typically takes to process refugees. In the interim, however, the immigration fallout from the September 11 attacks has left the family in limbo. Roni said the family has no money, no work permit and no way of schooling its children.

"They live like dogs over there," said Roni, who declined to give his last name, describing an apartment with "no shower, no bathroom, no nothing." He said the family keeps kosher, raising the cost of food.

"My mom, she's crying all the time," Roni said.

Sam Kermanian, head of the Iranian American Jewish Federation in Los Angeles, said his group had sent delegations periodically to check on the stranded Iranians, and hoped to set up classes and social activities. He said the boredom and stress of waiting had caused social problems, including family fights and out-of-control youth. 

The FBI's legal attache in Vienna, Steve Grantham, declined to comment on the Iranian Jews' situation, saying it was a consular matter.

The deputy director for press affairs of the State Department's Near East bureau, Gregg Sullivan, did not return calls by deadline.