Canada has also stepped up deportations of refugee candidates suspected of terrorist leanings and begun using fraud-resistant identity cards for foreign permanent residents.
"We discovered that doing the whole process yourself takes too much time", says Mekki. "Getting refugee candidates and employers on board, finding the match, preparing candidates for the interview, following up with the company".
But, in a sign of the increasingly polarised nature of Germany's political debate, pro-refugee candidates also achieved two resounding victories in the elections – the first to take place in Germany since the chancellor embarked on her flagship open-doors approach to the migration crisis.
How would Iraqis who had no Kirk Johnson to help them — the military interpreters, the Embassy staff, the contractors, the drivers — be able to sign up as refugees or candidates for special immigrant visas?
How would Iraqis who had no Kirk Johnson to help them the military interpreters, the Embassy staff, the contractors, the drivers be able to sign up as refugees or candidates for special immigrant visas?
The bipartisan race to the bottom began in the 2013 election, and by 2016 had become so entrenched that any expression of compassion by a Labor candidate for refugee children facing deportation to Nauru was fodder for an immediate "soft on people smugglers" political attack.
The United States is considering Iraqi candidates for refugee status from countries in the region, but the overwhelming majority are in Syria and Jordan.
Washington has insisted that candidates for refugee status must first be vetted by the United Nations, which has already identified nearly 10,000 Iraqis as desperately in need of resettlement in the United States.
In short, candidates for refugee status are screened according to the above criteria — not their country of origin.
As a result, the project has been put on temporary hold while the mayor distributes fliers into the refugee camp and interviews candidates for the position, all in a show of transparency.
