Sam Ahmad is a war hero and has the medals to prove it - the Navy-Marine Corps Achievement Medal and the War on Terrorism Expeditionary Medal. But he's a civilian, not a soldier, and an Iraqi citizen to boot. After putting his life on the line for the United States in Iraq, death threats by anti-coalition forces forced Sam - whose entire family had been wiped out by Saddam Hussein's gas attack on Halabja - to flee to the United States under the auspices of a 2006 law granting visas to Iraqi translators. Sam was granted the visa, and subsequently granted asylum.
The next step is the "green card," or permanent residence. But in a stunning case of the left hand not knowing the right hand is even on the same planet, the government turned Sam down, saying he is "inadmissible" because he once belonged to a "terrorist" group. That group would be the Kurdish Democratic Party (KDP,) a group that sought the overthrow of Saddam Hussein and now holds seats in the Iraqi parliament.
Is the KDP on a U.S. government list of terrorist organizations? No. USCIS decided the KDP is a bad apple based on one unofficial nongovernmental website, a DHS-funded anti-terrorism think tank in Oklahoma.
Did Sam hide his KDP past on his translator visa and asylum applications? No. That was fully disclosed from the get-go.
But really, what more do we owe any Iraqi after so graciously liberating them?
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