WNR Alum Amelia Templeton '06
 Advocates for Iraqi Refugees

by Alisa Giardinelli
07/30/2008

Responding to the news that the State Department had expanded its program to help Iraqi employees of the American government there to obtain visas and ultimately citizenship in the U.S., Amelia Templeton '06 told the New York Times, "We have to push the U.S. to increase the number of refugees it resettles because this is a massive crisis and we do have primary responsibility."  Templeton, a refugee analyst at the New York-based advocacy group Human Rights First, added that the ceiling for the region that includes Iraq is 28,000 people and that the U.S. target for Iraqi refugees was 12,000.  more 

Last year, Templeton discussed her work on behalf of refugees displaced by the Iraq war in this Washington Post profile.  "The truth is nobody has thought of a good long-term solution for any of these people," she said. "We're trying to get people across the U.S. to care about this issue and understand how important it is."  Her interest in the issue largely began with her work for War News Radio.