U.S. Makes Great Strides to Help Iraqi Christians

Over the past year, the United States has taken steps to aid Christians driven from their homes in Iraq after ISIS swept through the region. Nevertheless, much remains to be done to rebuild the communities of Christians, Yazidis, and other religious minorities.

Earlier this week, President Donald Trump signed into law the Iraq and Syria Genocide Relief and Accountability Act, which will help the United States channel humanitarian and rebuilding assistance to Christians and other religious minorities in Iraq and Syria.

According to Crux, the bill, which was first introduced two years ago, authorizes funding for both faith-based and non-faith-based groups aiding recovery in the region and support for investigations into members of ISIS who perpetrated genocide. The bill also encourages "foreign governments to add identifying information about suspected ISIS perpetrators to security databases and screening and to apprehend and prosecute perpetrators."

Rep. Chris Smith (R., N.J.), who introduced the bill, emphasized the importance of saving evidence to prosecute ISIS perpetrators of genocide.

"You have to capture, save, chronicle the evidence or else convictions are not forthcoming," Smith told the Washington Free Beacon. One of the primary goals of the bill, he added, is to ensure "every way of effectively prosecuting war criminals for the genocide can be forthcoming."

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