I can certainly tell the committee, Mr. Chair, that in May this year we issued instructions to all visa officers to take into consideration UNHCR's advice that refugees from central and southern Iraq, that is, not from the Kurdish area in the north, were to be considered refugees on a prima facie basis. While this doesn't bind visa officers, we ask officers to take seriously that opinion. The result has been a very significant increase in the acceptance rate for Iraqi refugees at our processing office.
On December 11th, 2007. See this statement in context.