Background on Refugees and the U.S. Refugee Program
Updated April 2005
Who is a refugee?
As set forth by the United Nations High Commissioner on Refugees’ 1951 Refugee Convention, a refugee is a person outside of his or her country of nationality who seeks protection on the grounds that he or she fears persecution in his or her homeland. To obtain refugee status, a person must prove that he or she has a “well-founded fear of persecution” on the basis of one of five grounds: race, religion, membership in a social group, political opinion, or national origin.
How many refugees are there?
There are an estimated 11.5 million refugees worldwide. The majority of the world’s refugees come from Africa and Asia. Among the principal refugee producing countries are: Sudan, Afghanistan, Burma, Democratic Republic of Congo, Liberia, Vietnam, Iraq, and Colombia.
What is being done to help refugees worldwide?
The United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) is the primary international body that responds to refugee situations around the world. UNHCR works in partnership with a number of other UN agencies, as well as local governments and private voluntary agencies. In the short term, UNHCR seeks to protect the basic human rights of refugees and provides for their daily needs. As refugee-producing crises dissipate, UNHCR’s role is to assess the long-term durable solutions for refugee populations, including voluntary repatriation, local integration, or third-country resettlement.
How does the United States assist refugees?
The U.S. refugee system was created in 1948 through the passage of the Displaced Persons Act. This milestone legislation provided a new homeland for the more than 250,000 Europeans who found themselves displaced from their homes at the conclusion of the Second World War. Congress’ next major piece of refugee specific legislation was the Refugee Act of 1980, which standardized resettlement services, as provided by the Department of State, Department of Health and Human Services, and private voluntary agencies, for all refugees admitted into this country.
While legislation aiding refugees was first passed in the twentieth century, America’s tradition of assisting those in need can be traced back to our nation’s founding. Following independence, the U.S. opened its arms to scores of Europeans seeking freedom from the religious, political, and economic hardships afflicting them in their native lands. Today, over two hundred years later, the United States reflects its tradition of providing a safe haven for the oppressed by continuing to admit to this country refugees of special humanitarian concern.
The U.S. Refugee Program serves our country’s humanitarian and foreign policy interests by offering safety and security to those who have been subjected to persecution – including victims of rape, torture, and other forms of violence. While this form of third-country resettlement is the best option for just a small percentage of the world's refugees, it remains the only life-saving durable solution for certain refugees.
Although the U.S. has been a historic leader of the international effort to protect refugees, there has been a trend of declining admissions in the past ten years. Beginning in the early 1990s, the Department of State's Bureau for Population, Refugees, and Migration (PRM), began to set continually lower targets for refugee admissions, only to consistently fail to meet these targets. For fiscal year (FY) 1992, the president authorized 142,000 admissions, but only 132,173 individuals were admitted. By FY 2001, the target had fallen to 80,000 admissions – and again, the actual number of individuals resettled fell short, reaching only 68,426.
Throughout the United States’ existence, refugees seeking a safe haven have been assisted in the transition to their new homes by private ethnic, religious, and civic organizations such as the Hebrew Immigrant Aid Society (HIAS). As the Jewish Community's international migration agency, HIAS has led the way for the resettlement of over 350,000 Jews from the former Soviet Union and Iran – as well as tens of thousands of non-Jewish refugees.
How was the U.S. Refugee Program affected by 9/11?
Following the 9/11 terrorist attacks, the Administration imposed a moratorium on the refugee admissions program, asserting a need to review the program and increase security procedures to thwart would-be terrorists. The moratorium was implemented despite the fact that none of the 9/11 terrorists were refugees, that extensive security provisions were already in place (including several in-person interviews, security checks, and medical screening), and that the difficult conditions that refugees endure in their countries of first asylum make the refugee program a highly unlikely channel for terrorists to use to enter the U.S.
Refugees did not begin arriving again until December 2001, and then at a dramatically reduced pace. The new security procedures instituted in November 2001 – including expanded Security Advisory Opinion (SAO) requirements, a process that can take several months or more, and additional fingerprinting of arriving refugees – significantly increase the amount of time necessary for processing. In the two years following 9/11, refugee admissions were considerably lowered, with fewer than 28,000 refugees admitted annually in both FY 2002 and 2003 – out of a target of 70,000 set by the president |
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