Google lifeline to Iraqi refugees from US veterans

From despair to hope via Google: US veterans help Iraqi refugees

by Karin Zeitvogel
Mon Aug 11, 2:13 AM ET



AMMAN (AFP) - It has been more than two years since Ali Salah arrived in Jordan, one refugee among hundreds of thousands who have fled the violence in Iraq.

Salah was forced to flee Iraq as months after the US-led invasion of Iraq, he volunteered to work with US troops as an interpreter, earning himself the hatred of some Iraqis who branded him an enemy collaborator.

"I felt I wasn't safe, and that meant that my family wasn't safe," said Salah, who worked with the Americans at the Al Waleed border crossing, which sits at the point where Jordan, Iraq and Syria meet.

Once in Jordan, Salah should have been fast-tracked for a visa to resettle in the United States under US policies which are supposed to ease the immigration process for those who worked alongside Americans during the war.

But instead, he was stonewalled by international officials and was even told that he never worked with US troops because he was unable to produce a US-issued badge that would provide proof in the eyes of official.

"I put the name of the American commanding officer I worked with at Al Waleed in Google and I couldn't believe it when I found him and saw his picture. I screamed to my brother: 'Look! It's Luis,'" Salah said

This week, Salah was reunited in Amman with former US Army captain Luis Montalvan, who retired from the army last year after 17 years' service and recently set up an association to help Iraqi refugees.

"If it weren't for you, many of my soldiers would have died," Montalvan said to Salah as the two men embraced, four years after they last saw each other in Iraq.

Montalvan was in Jordan on a mission for Iraq Veterans' Refugee Aid Association (IVRAA), the non-profit he founded with fellow Iraq veteran, former Marine captain Tyler Boudreau.
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