PanARMENIAN.Net - The United States Department of State and Austria are “working together on protection options” for dozens of Iranian refugees who were denied admittance to the U.S., a spokeswoman said, citing, as one such option, resettlement in Armenia, Fox News says.
Members of Iranian religious minorities left their homeland more than a year ago at Washington’s invitation with the intention of coming to America. But now they may be barred from the U.S. for security reasons and could be placed in imminent danger of deportation back to the Islamic Republic – where they likely would face persecution.
This crisis began in fall 2016 when 87 members of Iran’s repressed religious minority communities were selected to benefit under the Lautenberg Amendment – a process initially adopted to rescue Jews from the former Soviet Union and expanded in 2004 for Iran’s religious minorities.
After a preliminary review of their cases, the minority members – ranging from Armenian and Assyrian Christians to Mandeans and Zoroastrians – were invited to travel to Vienna, Austria for final vetting before resettlement in the U.S. Soon after arriving in Vienna, however, they were put on a security hold, and last month were finally rejected for undisclosed security reasons by the U.S. Homeland Security Department.
The refugees include: a wheelchair-bound, 87-year-old grandmother; a Mandean man whose wife and 4-year-old twin daughters were admitted i...
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