Bishop Dobbs: U.S. State Department Denies Visa for Assyrian Christians facing Imminent Threats from ISIS

By Isaiah Narciso
May 20, 2015

The U.S. State Department may have sent a signal to an Anglican bishop in Iraq that despite persecution and harassment from the terror group known as ISIS, Christians in that country will not find any support from the United States government. According to Faith J.H. McDonnell of Philos Project, the Rt. Rev. Julian M. Dobbs, bishop of the Diocese of CANA East (Convocation of Anglicans in North America), revealed that part of U.S. foreign policy during an interaction with the State Department's Bureau of Population, Refugees and Migration (PRM).

Dobbs made his case to the State Department on behalf of a group of Assyrian Christians who are desperate to leave northern Iraq. "There is no way that Christians will be supported because of their religious affiliation," the State Department said the rest

"Donors in the private sector have offered complete funding for the airfare and the resettlement in the United States of these Iraqi Christians that are sleeping in public buildings, on school floors, or worse," McDonnell wrote. "But the State Department - while admitting 4,425 Somalis to the United States in just the first six months of FY2015, and possibly even accepting members of ISIS through the Syrian and Iraqi refugee program, all paid for by tax dollars, told Dobbs that they 'would not support a special category to bring Assyrian Christians into the United States.'"

McDonnell contended that the United States government made it clear religious affiliation does not mean support for Christians in the region in the form of asylum.