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Oct 23, 2020 · After first cropping up in 2018, the encampment across the border from Brownsville, Texas, exploded to nearly 3,000 people the following year under a policy that has required at least 60,000 asylum...
- Introduction
- What Is A Refugee?
- How Long Has The United States Accepted Refugees?
- How Many Refugees Are Allowed Into The country?
- Where Are They from?
- How Are Refugees Screened and approved?
- What Government Agencies Are Involved?
- Where Are Refugees Resettled?
- What Roles Do State and Local Governments Play?
- Do Refugee Populations Pose Security Risks to The United States?
For decades, the United States was a world leader in refugee admissions. From taking in hundreds of thousands of Europeans displaced by World War II to welcoming those escaping from communist regimes in Europe and Asia during the Cold War, the United States has helped define protections for refugees under international humanitarian law. Beginning i...
There are several different terms used to describe people who move from one place to another, either voluntarily or under threat of force. With no universal legal definition, migrant is an umbrella term for people who leave their homes and often cross international borders, whether to seek economic opportunity or escape persecution. As defined by U...
For more than seventy-five years, the United States has accepted migrants who would be identified under current international law as refugees. In the wake of World War II, the United States passed its first refugee legislationto manage the resettlement of some 650,000 displaced Europeans. Throughout the Cold War, the United States accepted refugees...
The number of refugees admitted into the United States annually has generally declinedfrom more than 200,000 at the start of the program in 1980 to 60,014 in 2023. Levels of refugee admissions fluctuated dramatically throughout that time period, falling through the 1980s and spiking again in the 1990s after the collapse of the Soviet Union, before ...
The United States has consistently received refugees from Asia, Africa, Europe, and Latin America, though the total number of admissions has changed dramatically for some regionsin the time since the U.S. refugee resettlement program was created. Immediately following passage of the 1980 act, more than two hundred thousand refugees—the highest tota...
The U.S. State Department, in consultation with a constellation of other agencies and organizations, manages the process through its refugee admission program, USRAP. The first step for a potential refugee abroad is most often to register with the UN High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR). UNHCR officials collect documentation and perform an initia...
The three primary federal government agencies involved in the refugee resettlement process are the State Department, the Department of Homeland Security (DHS), and the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS). The State Department’s Bureau of Population, Refugees, and Migration (PRM)is the first U.S. government point of contact; it coordinates...
Today, refugees are resettled in forty-nine U.S. states, though there are several states that generally resettle higher numbers than others. According to the U.S. State Department, California, Texas, New York, Pennsylvania, and Washington have taken in the highest number of refugees as of February 2024, making up approximately 31 percent [PDF] of a...
The logistics of refugee resettlement are largely handled by ten domestic resettlement agencies, many of them faith-based organizations such as the Church World Service and the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops. Representatives of these organizations meet and review the biographical data of the refugees selected by the State Department’s Refugee ...
Out of the more than three million refugees accepted by the United States over the past four decades, a handful have been implicated in terrorist plots. According to a 2019 studyby the libertarian-leaning CATO Institute, of the 192 foreign-born terrorists who committed attacks in the United States between 1975 and 2017, 25 were refugees. Of these a...
- Diana Roy
Jan 24, 2023 · The Biden administration is encouraging ordinary U.S. citizens to help resettle refugees, via the newly launched sponsorship program Welcome Corps in partnership with non-profit organizations.
Mar 25, 2021 · In Newark, Del., Pathy and Acastela Mulema were admitted to the U.S. in 2018 from a refugee camp in Ghana, where they had fled after a civil war broke out around them in the Central African...
- Tom Gjelten
May 5, 2024 · The American refugee program, which long served as a haven for people fleeing violence around the world, is rebounding from years of dwindling arrivals under former President Donald Trump. The Biden administration has worked to restaff refugee resettlement agencies and streamline the process of vetting and placing people in America.
- rsantana@ap.org
- Homeland Security Reporter
May 7, 2024 · A family of 10 American citizens who were held for years in a Syrian refugee camp and detention center for relatives of Islamic State militants are now back in the United States, the result...
May 23, 2021 · The US has a vast system of detention sites scattered across the country, holding more than 20,000 migrant children. In a special investigation, the BBC has uncovered allegations of cold...
