Middle East and South Asia
Iraq: Refugees Who Became U.S. Diplomats
From Iraq to the service of the United States.
The Kurds
Iraq's Kurds rose repeatedly against Baghdad. After a Kurdish revolt collapsed in 1975, many Kurdish families fled to Iran and onward, and some were resettled in the United States. Saddam Hussein's later campaigns against the Kurds drove still more into exile.
After 2003
The Iraq War and its aftermath displaced millions of Iraqis. Congress created Special Immigrant Visa programs for Iraqis who had worked for the U.S. government, alongside refugee admissions.