We welcome the Iraqi family that is scheduled to relocate to Corvallis this week. We trust that this community will embrace them, and the other refugee families who could follow.

Regardless of what you might think about the war in Iraq, it cannot be denied that many Iraqis put themselves in harm's way by doing nothing more than helping Americans during the war.

Many are still in danger and, indeed, millions already have fled the country: An article last year in The New Republic estimated the number of Iraqi refugees in Jordan and Syria at 1.5 million. Of those, the article reported, some 70,000 have identified themselves as asylum-seekers. Other estimates put the number of refugees at closer to 2 million.

The United States' outreach to these people as a nation thus far has been, well, less than inspiring: As of last year, the United States had taken in 466 refugees from Iraq since the war began in 2003, although the Bush administration had announced plans to take in another 7,000.

It's telling - and, truth be told, disgraceful - that most of the heavy lifting to get this Iraqi family (a mother, a father, a teenage son and two adult daughters) to Corvallis is being done not by the government but by private organizations.

When the family arrives, its refugee status makes it eligible to use the Oregon Health Plan and to apply for food stamps and housing. The hope is that they can find employment here.

In the week after the news about this effort broke, we've heard comments suggesting that we should take care of our own people before we attend to the needs of others outside our borders. During a time when our neighbors struggle economically, when they fight for decent health care, it's a sentiment that we understand.

But surely this is a false choice. Surely we can find the resources, the wherewithal, the gumption, to help both our old neighbors and our new neighbors - especially in cases where actions we have taken as a nation have displaced others and even put them at risk.

We don't know very much about the family that's scheduled to arrive in Oregon this week; the state organization that's working with the family, citing reasons of safety and privacy, has given the Corvallis group handling the resettlement effort only minimal information.

But this we know for sure: The family has been uprooted from its home and is looking to put down roots in a new home. As a nation, we owe a debt to this family and to many other Iraqis. In Corvallis, we can start paying that debt, just a bit of it, beginning this week.