The Syrian conflict is dividing more and more along sectarian lines, according to the story, with the opposition drawing mostly from the Sunni majority, while President Bashar Al-Assad’s Alawite sect is a branch of Shia Islam. The Shiite-dominated Iraqi government has claimed to be neutral to the Syrian conflict, and supported the United Nations resolution against the Syrian government last week. But the predominately Sunni Syrian opposition accuse Iraqi President Nouri al-Maliki, a Shiite, of turning a blind eye to the passage of Iraqi Shiite militamen traveling across Iraq to Syria to fight for President Bashar Al-Assad. Meanwhile, some Sunnis in Iraq claim to be arming the Sunni opposition in Syria, and hundreds of Iraqi Sunnis rallied in support of the opposition in Fallujah last week.

As a result, Iraqis in Syria face pressure to choose sides. Iraqi refugees had benefited from Syria’s open-door policy, and the government had allowed them to access services like education and healthcare. But now, the instability and tension is prompting many to leave. On one Iraqi woman’s return to Baghdad, Syrian opposition fighters stopped her bus at a checkpoint and demanded to know if the passengers were Sunni or Shiite. Another Iraqi man was ordered to say a prayer cursing Bashar Al-Assad by a gunman at a security checkpoint. The man has since returned to Iraq, and said: ”Nobody has suffered like the Iraqi people… This should be a cautionary tale for the Syrians.”

As of Feburary 2012, there were literally no options available for Iraqi refugees stranded in Syria, other than to return to their persecutors in Iraq.

Read the full story here.

Al-Jazeera interviewed some of the women hiding in the safe-house, including a woman whose family wanted to kill her after she was kidnapped by strangers, a woman whose brother tried to rape her, and a former professor who received death threats because she is a lesbian. While these women have found relative safety with the help of this organization, there are thousands more like them across Iraq who cannot leave and would have no place to go if they left.

Watch the report here.

The size of the embassy raised questions among some Iraqis about America’s intentions. According to the article, Iraqi lawmaker Nahida al-Dayni expressed a common sentiment among Iraqis when she said: “The U.S. had something on their mind when they made it so big. Perhaps they want to run the Middle East from Iraq, and their embassy will be a base for them here.”

Some officials believe that a smaller staff in Iraq might actually increase American influence in Iraq: reducing the number of contractors could help build trust with Iraqis who have come to distrust the security firms. The embassy would compensate for the cuts by hiring Iraqis and sourcing more goods to the local economy, according to the story.

With this dramatic decrease in its diplomatic presence coming so shortly on the heels of military withdrawal, the United States must make Iraqi refugees a priority. The U.S. must ensure that the embassy in Baghdad has sufficient staff support to process requests for Chief of Mission (COM) approval, the first, lengthy step in a Special Immigrant Visa application that involves investigation into whether or not derogatory information pertaining to the applicant exists and, if it does, whether that information should bar him or her from receiving an SIV. These cuts cannot further delay a process that is already far too drawn out for far too many.

Read the full story here.

The result? “After more than 36,000 Iraqi refugees were resettled in the U.S. between October 2008 and September 2010, only 9,400 refugees were resettled here the following year. In the last three months of 2011, only 826 Iraqi refugees have been resettled in the United States,” according to the story. More than 29,000 Iraqis referred for resettlement are waiting for their clearances, including Iraqis who risked their lives to serve as interpreters and advisors to U.S. troops and diplomats during the war.

Becca Heller met with Obama’s deputy national security adviser, Denis McDonough to discuss the issue. Heller said that McDonough told her and other advocates that the administration has an obligation to ensure national security, but also acknowledged the advocates’ frustration.

“He told us that the issue was getting attention at the highest level, but they don’t know when it will be resolved and they don’t know if we’ll love what their resolution is,” Heller said.

Read the full story here.

Hayley Peterson: What now?

Becca Heller: I’m quite anxious about the situation in Iraq right now, because the only way out of the country has typically been through Syria and that’s not possible anymore. So I’m looking at other evacuation channels for people who are in immediate or acute danger

Read the rest of the interview here.

Although no one knows exactly how many Iraqis have been kept waiting, IRAP estimated last July that 62,000 Iraqis were waiting for their applications to be processed – 29,000 of whom had worked with Americans. Now, IRAP believes that 19,000 of those applications have dropped from the process, possibly because people went into hiding.

As the New York Times says: “The United States has a responsibility to rigorously screen visa applicants and ensure they pose no threat to this country. The process needs to be transparent and accountable — and it needs to work expeditiously.”

Read the full editorial here.

Read more to learn about why policy considerations support videoconferencing and legal arguments against it are unfounded: Memo on the Use of Videoconferencing to Deal with Refugee Applicant Delays in Syria, drafted by IRAP at USC.

The U.S. is concerned, and indeed there is great cause for concern, that the security situation in Syria is too volatile to have DHS officers on the ground. “A simple solution to that would be too agree to conduct interviews by videoconference,” Becca Heller, IRAP Director, told the New York Times. But the US government has argued in the past that the law requires in person interviews. In its Memo on the Use of Videoconferencing in Syria, IRAP explains why the U.S. government should take advantage of this technology as soon as possible, and why legal arguments against videoconferencing are unfounded.

“I think we should really be worried about another refugee crisis,” Yasir Imad, an Iraqi who was recently allowed entry to the United States after living in Syria for almost four years, told the New York Times. He added, “the general feeling in Syria is that it is still better to be in Syria than Iraq.”

Read the full New York Times story here.

The wave of attacks, carried out mainly by Sunni extremists from Al-Qaeda in Iraq against Shia communities, has alarmed many who fear the country could descend into chaos once more, with the government itself acknowledging it is not capable of ensuring security on its own.

Read the IRIN report here.

Read the Christian Science Monitor’s interview with Becca Heller in Thirty ideas from people under 30: The Change Agents.