U.S. Veteran Seeks Asylum for Iraqi Who Saved Him
VAUSE: Welcome back, everybody. You are watching CNN NEWSROOM live from Los Angeles. I'm John Vause.</s>SIDNER: And I'm Sara Sidner. Headlines for you at this hour. One woman is dead and five other people have been wounded following a knife attack in central London. Officers used a taser to arrest a 19-year-old man involved in that incident. Police say mental health is possibly a major factor in the attack. But terrorism is also under investigation.</s>VAUSE: Hurricane Earl is heading to Belize. Rain is already battering the country and a category 1 storm hasn't made landfall yet. Earl could drop up to 30 centimeters of rain. In some areas, there could be a storm surge to almost 2 meters.</s>SIDNER: Terrifying pictures here. 300 people on board an Emirates flight were able to escape after the plane crash landed and burst into flames at the Dubai airport. A firefighter, though, was killed while responding to the accident. It's not clear yet what exactly caused the plane to crash land. And the divisive U.S. campaign for the presidency, it seems most Americans agree that going after families of fallen soldiers should be off limits. Democrats and some Republicans are condemning Donald Trump for saying that the father of a U.S. Muslim soldier who died in Iraq had no right to criticize him.</s>VAUSE: The Republican presidential candidate also implying that the soldier's mother was forced to stay silent while her husband spoke at the Democratic convention because she is Muslim. And then there is this new poll out from "Fox News" that shows the substantial majority, 69 percent of those surveyed saying Trump's response to the Khan Family was out of bounds. Trump, not backing down.</s>DONALD TRUMP (R), PRESIDENTIAL NOMINEE: I don't regret anything. I said nice things about the son, and I feel that very strongly. But, of course, I was hit very hard from the stage and, you know, it's just one of those things. But I don't know, I don't regret anything.</s>VAUSE: Many Muslims stood shoulder to shoulder with American troops during the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. A U.S. veteran says a former Iraqi officer saved his life while on patrol in 2006.</s>SIDNER: Chase Millsap is trying to pay back that ultimate debt. He's helping the man known as "The Captain" seek asylum here in the United States. Millsap said that officer later injured in an IED blast now lives in legal limbo in Turkey. Millsap spoke to "National Geographic" about how the "The Captain" risked his life to spare Millsap's.</s>CHASE MILLSAP, U.S. MARINE VETERAN AND FORMER GREEN BERETS: And we were at the check point together. The sun was going down. It was another day in Iraq. And we were shot at by a sniper. He pushed me down. And he ran toward the sniper. Directly at him. Risking his own life to protect mine. He saved my life that day. We became more than friends. We became brothers.</s>SIDNER: And that U.S. veteran joins us now here in Los Angeles. Chase Millsap, thank you so much for being here. You're a former Green Beret with three tours in Iraq, right?</s>MILLSAP: Right. That's right. That's right.</s>SIDNER: Something extraordinary was done for you. Your life was saved because of this captain. And now you are doing something frankly extraordinary for him. I'm curious as to the lengths that you are going to, to try and get him legally into United States and what you discovered as you were trying to do that, whether the process was extremely difficult or not?</s>MILLSAP: It's absolutely difficult. But it's one of those things that, you know, as a veteran, especially Special Forces veteran, you know, we live by the motto, "De oppresso liber," which means free the oppressed. So when The Captain called me and said, Chase, I need some help. It was sort of a no-brainer to say, obviously, I'm going to help you out and I'm going to continue to follow you down this path as long as I can help. And, you know, we found barriers consistently across the way. I mean, we're dealing with one of the largest refugee crisis since World War II. And we're looking at barriers both internationally. And internationally, and especially an election year, it makes it very difficult when we start talking about immigration policy and things like that. So with this, you know, I knew it was going to be a daunting task, but you know, bottom line I knew the story needed to be told and the best thing that I could do and other things likely to do was tell that story. And that's why I went to Turkey and met with The Captain years later after I left Iraq and said, how can I help?</s>SIDNER: Yes, this wasn't just Skype and phone calls. You actually went with him to try and get some of the things sorted out.</s>MILLSAP: Yes, absolutely. And, you know, a lot of it is, you know, as a Special Forces guy, as a military adviser, we want to get on the ground and see it for ourselves. You know, Skype only goes so far. But being able to see it, being on the ground and literally see the rejection in somebody's face when they come up against a barrier and just that sheer thought of, I've got to wait even longer, that's something that I never wanted to see, but wanted to show and really help people understand that there is a human element to this especially it's helped and save American lives.</s>VAUSE: It's, you know -- it's difficult not to link this with what is happening with Captain Khan right now and the Republican campaign. Donald Trump has made it a part of his platform for this temporary ban on Muslims entering the United States. Most people seem to think that would never happen, but the mere fact that he has put it out there, it's a major part of his stump speech wherever he goes and it does have considerable support from, you know, a large number of Americans in this country. How does that complicate everything for you?</s>MILLSAP: Well, I'll tell you, you know, things for me are pretty simple. You know, when you are overseas and you are on the ground, you work with and advise, train soldiers from all over. And it doesn't really matter the religion. I trained Muslim soldiers and serve right next to Muslim soldiers and fought in battle with Muslim soldiers. And I look at this now and I think, you know, this is so -- so political at this point. But also, you've got to go back to the human side of it. I looked at it and said it doesn't really matter. And I hear things, though, that come over and come out and a lot of it is hate, but it comes out as toxic. And for those of us that are on the ground that do this every day, we have to trust the people next to us regardless of religion. And when we hear things like that coming out through both parties, frankly, it makes our job very, very difficult on the ground.</s>VAUSE: I thought the whole issue of Iraqis and Afghans who served alongside the U.S. in the military or as translators or fixers or whatever, I thought that was being resolved with the 2007 Refugee Act. 5000 pages issued for a five-year period. That has now expired. Is there a legal framework still in place? Has anything replaced that? Or is it just now you are a refugee, you stand in line with everyone else.</s>MILLSAP: Yes. It's actually complicated. Every year the quotas have to get re-evaluated when they go through Congress and you know, honestly, the backlog keeps getting longer as things sort of deteriorate overseas. And then you get into the technicalities of Afghans versus Iraqis. And, you know, a lot of it, if you can just look in the history, right after World War II, there are a lot of Eastern Europeans that were fleeing an they ended up coming here to the United States. And we actually put them back in an American uniform and sent them back as a Special Forces soldier. In fact, my old heritage comes from that. So I look at this and say, yes, it's complicated but we have done it before.</s>SIDNER: I want to ask you about the specifics in this case, because he save your life, but you've been talking to him for such a long time. He's on a really difficult spot. He's got three kids, correct, and his wife. They are in a country. They don't even speak the language. How far have you gotten? I mean, how hard is it? Because there is a lot of talk about it being easy to come over to the United States and it shouldn't be.</s>MILLSAP: Yes. Well, it's definitely not easy. And, you know, one of the things we first had to get through was the U.N. I mean, he had to officially be declared a refugee before he could even start the process. And for almost a year, he was just kind of in limbo. Nothing happened. And, finally, he was able to get through that. And he's now at the system where we can actually look at him from the U.S. refugee side and say, OK, this is somebody that we would even consider letting come in here. And, you know, for the captain, obviously, this has an emotional toll. But I really truthfully worry about his children. The three kids that he has that, you know, have been forced to flee Iraq to another country that no one knows and picked up everything and now they are sort of like what am I going to do?</s>VAUSE: They've left everything behind. They are living in a small apartment in Turkey. They are in a strange place. He was injured by an IED. This is a guy who, you know, has done his duty for his country. Chase, thanks very much for coming here.</s>MILLSAP: Thank you.</s>SIDNER: Thanks for coming out. The Obama administration says a $400 million payment secretly sent to Iran was not ransom for the release of four American prisoners. We'll explain the controversy surrounding that story coming up next.