The Iraq war has displaced up to 5 million people and left more than two million Iraqi refugees stranded in Syria, Jordan and other neighboring countries. Denied basic freedoms such as the right to work and unable to return to their homes because of ongoing violence, refugees struggle to subsist on dwindling savings. While some hope for a better life in the West, very few have been resettled-the United States will take in about 12,000 Iraqi refugees this year, a tiny fraction of those in need. Other countries are accepting even fewer. The result is perhaps the gravest humanitarian crisis facing the region in more than half a century.


The Iraqi Refugee Assistance Project (IRAP) is a student-run organization with chapters at Yale Law School, New York University Law School and Boalt School of Law at Berkeley working to improve the plight of Iraqi refugees. It was founded by students in the summer of 2008. IRAP's mission is to facilitate the resettlement of refugees from abroad, improve U.S. policy toward the refugee crisis, and ease the transition of newly resettled refugees to American life.

Welcome to the
Iraqi Refugee Assistance Project