refugee

One who flees in search of refuge, as in times of war, political oppression, or religious persecution.

[French réfugié, from past participle of réfugier, to take refuge, from Old French, from refuge, refuge. See refuge.]

noun

One who flees, as from home, confinement, captivity, or justice: escapee, fugitive, runaway. See seek/avoid.

n. a civilian who, by reason of real or imagined danger, has left home to seek safety elsewhere.

See the Introduction, Abbreviations and Pronunciation for further details.

A refugee is defined by the UN Convention relating to the Status of Refugees 1951 and the UN Protocol 1976 as a person who, owing to a well-founded fear of persecution for reasons of race, religion, nationality, membership of a particular social group or political opinion, is outside her or his country of nationality and who is unable or unwilling to return.

In the South the spatial pattern of countries receiving refugees is marked by proximity to the country of origin of the refugees; thus, Pakistan has some 2 million refugees, owing to its common border with Afghanistan. In the North the pre-existence of expatriate communities in receiving countries, together with proximity, tends to affect the policies of the receiving countries.The breakdown of the 16 980 refugees who entered the UK in 1999 was, by continent of origin:

The 1951 United Nations Convention relating to the Status of Refugees (as a mended by a Protocol, 1967) defines a refugee as any person who, owing to a well-founded fear of being persecuted for reasons of race, religion, nationality, membership of a particular social group, or political opinion, is outside the country of his or her nationality and is unable or, owing to such fear, is unwilling to avail him- or herself of the protection of that country; or who, not having a nationality and being outside the country of former habitual residence as a result of such events, is unable or, owing to such fear, is unwilling to return to it.

Originating during the Cold War, and drafted by the West, the UN definition looks increasingly outdated and overly restrictive. The majority of involuntary migrations have arisen in the Third World, following war, civil war, or general civil disorder, often producing an indiscriminate deprivation of basic human rights and economic destruction. But broader definitions still distinguish in principle between refugees and displaced persons, who remain in their country of origin, economic migrants, and ‘environmental refugees’ fleeing some natural catastrophe.

Refugees who seek political asylum should not be forcibly repatriated, according to the UN Convention. Around half of the world's refugees are reckoned to be children, the majority of adults being women.

— Peter Burnell

For more information on refugee, visit Britannica.com.

The idea of a refugee as a person who, for various possible reasons, can no longer live safely in a particular country and is therefore due special care has ancient religious roots. The humanitarian concept of special care owed to refugees has evolved substantially, however, to the point where it has anchored a fundamental shift in accepted notions of human rights under international law.

The problem of refugees is one of the most important public policy issues in the world today. It is estimated that more than 12 million refugees meet the currently accepted legal definition. However, tens of millions more are "internally displaced" refugees within their own countries. Millions more may be displaced for reasons that are not strictly within the current legal definition. Thus, to speak of refugees is to speak of an evolving set of extremely compelling moral and legal problems.

Refugees and World War II

The modern legal concept of a refugee may be most specifically traced back to 1921, when the League of Nations created a high commissioner for Russian refugees, which led to the development of a specific travel document. This sort of provision, however, proved woefully inadequate to deal with the massive persecutions and displacements of World War II. Part of the reason for this was a lack of public consciousness of and support for the plight of refugees. During the 1930s, the United States government resisted the strenuous efforts of various groups to permit Jewish refugees to flee Nazi persecution in Europe and seek safety in the United States. Although the reasons for this failure were complex, one legal aspect of the debate at the time involved the lack of a specific provision in U.S. immigration law to exempt refugees from generally applicable immigration quotas. During the war years, however, from 1941 to 1945, a series of ad hoc measures permitted more than 200,000 refugees to enter the United States.

After the war, it became clear that the problem of millions of "displaced persons" across Europe was a humanitarian crisis. At the Yalta conference, measures were agreed upon by the Allies that, by the end of 1948, resulted in the repatriation of millions to their native countries. Large numbers of people from Eastern Europe, however, opposed repatriation to their countries of origin because they feared persecution by new governments. Populations in displaced persons' camps grew at an unsustainable pace. At the same time, millions of ethnic Germans were forcibly transferred from various countries to Germany. It became clear that the newly developing West Germany could not and would not accommodate nearly a million displaced persons of various nationalities and ethnic groups. Thus, in 1947, the United Nations established the International Refugee Organization to facilitate the resettlement of the displaced persons in the United States, Canada, Australia, and Western Europe.

The U.S. government began to take the refugee problem more seriously as a matter of law and policy at this time. In 1948, the Displaced Persons Act was enacted, which authorized some 200,000 persons to enter the United States over a two-year period. The law, however, was limited to those who had registered as displaced persons on 22 December 1945, which excluded tens of thousands of people, primarily Jews, who had registered in 1946 and 1947. By 1950, a new law permitted 400,000 more refugees to enter, as it moved the cutoff date to 1 January 1949.

The Refugee Convention

Important developments also took place in international law in the early 1950s. In 1950, the United Nations formally established the Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR). The mandate of the UNHCR included "providing international protection" for refugees. In addition, permanent solutions were sought in a nonpolitical and humanitarian manner. In 1951, the United Nations adopted the 1951 Convention Relating to the Status of Refugees (the Refugee Convention). Article 1 of the Refugee Convention specifically defined the term "refugee" to include any person who, "as a result of events occurring before 1 January 1951 and owing to well-founded fear of being persecuted for reasons of race, religion, nationality, membership in a particular social group, or political opinion, is outside of the country of his nationality and is unable, or owing to such fear, is unwilling to avail himself of the protection of that country." The definition also included those who had been considered refugees under certain prior laws and protected certain persons who had no nationality or had multiple nationalities.

The convention included provisions for civil rights for refugees in contracting states and protections against the expulsion of refugees lawfully in their territory "save on grounds of national security or public order." Article 33 specifically prohibited the expulsion or return ("refoulement") of a refugee "in any manner whatsoever to the frontiers of territories where his life or freedom would be threatened" on account of one of the grounds listed above. Article 34 provided that the contracting states "shall as far as possible facilitate the assimilation and naturalization of refugees." Protections under the convention, however, were denied to persons who had committed various types of crimes, especially war crimes, or who had been "guilty of acts contrary to the purposes and principles of the United Nations." Over time, strong sentiment developed to eliminate the 1951 dateline of the convention. Therefore, in 1967, a protocol entered into force that extended the provisions of the 1951 convention without the 1951 dateline.

U.S. Law

The United States did not become a party to the convention until 1968, when it acceded to the 1967 protocol as well. Thus, through the 1950s and 1960s, U.S. actions for refugees were largely ad hoc. Similarly, in the 1970s, though it had ratified the protocol, the United States had no specific statutory mechanism to implement its obligations under the Refugee Convention and Protocol. In 1965, amendments to the 1952 Immigration and Nationality Act had allocated 10,200 visas each year to refugees. However, the definition of refugee was limited to those who had fled "from any Communist or Communist dominated country or area," from "any country within the general area of the Middle East," or those who were "uprooted by catastrophic natural calamity." As a result, throughout the 1970s, refugee admissions to the United States were highly ideologically biased in favor of those fleeing the Soviet Union and other communist regimes. Special laws continued to be passed for certain groups, such as Hungarians and Cubans. Indeed, to date, more than 500,000 Cubans have become lawful permanent residents as a result of the Cuban Adjustment Act of 1966.

The ostensible goal of the Refugee Act of 1980 was to bring U.S. law into compliance with the requirements of international law. For example, it removed the ideological requirement of flight from a communist country. The Refugee Act sought to prohibit the use of so-called "parole" power to admit groups of refugees as it prescribed a formula and procedures for refugee admissions that involve both the president and the Congress. The act contains a definition of the term "refugee" that is derived from that of the 1951 convention. It excludes those who have "ordered, incited, assisted or otherwise participated in [such] persecution." Since the passage of the act, some 70,000 to 100,000 refugees have been authorized for admission each year. Since its passage, more than a million refugees have obtained permanent resident status.

Such status can be obtained in two basic ways. In addition to overseas application, the law of the United States now permits individuals within the territory and at the border to apply for "asylum" or "restriction on removal" (formerly known as "with holding of deportation"). Both refugees and those granted asylum may apply for lawful permanent residence status after they have been physically present in the United States for at least one year. Asylum seekers must, among other statutory and discretionary requirements, qualify under the statutory refugee definition. Applicants for restriction on removal, a form of relief derived from Article 33 of the Refugee Convention ("non-refoulement"), must prove a threat to life or freedom.

In the decades since its passage, the Refugee Act has been subject to elaborate regulatory explication and extensive judicial interpretation. Among the most important issues in the 1980s were the relationship between the "well-founded fear" standard of proof in the refugee definition and the standard of former section 243(h) of the Immigration and Nationality Act that a person's life or freedom "would be threatened." In INS v. Stevic (1984) the Supreme Court held that a noncitizen seeking "with holding of deportation" under the latter standard had to prove a threat was "a clear probability," meaning "more likely than not." As applied to asylum-seekers this holding seemed to contradict accepted understandings about the burden of proof for a refugee claiming a "well-founded fear." The issue was resolved by the Supreme Court in INS v. Cardoza-Fonseca (1987). The Court made clear that a well-founded fear meant something less than "more likely than not." As the Court put it, "One can certainly have a well-founded fear of an event happening when there is less than a 50 percent chance of the occurrence taking place."

Since the passage of the Refugee Act the United States and other Western nations have confronted serious theoretical and practical problems in the development of refuge and asylum law. Throughout the 1980s, for example, according to many refugee rights advocates, considerable ideological bias remained in the supposedly objective refugee and asylum process of the United States. On the other hand, increasingly large numbers of asylum applicants caused political backlash, which was often accompanied by charges that the refugee/asylum system was being abused. One of the first major governmental responses to this allegation was an "interdiction" program, started during the Reagan administration, that authorized U.S. officials to board Haitian vessels on the high seas and forcibly return the vessel to Haiti. Although the United States agreed that it would not return any refugee to Haiti, human rights organizations and others criticized the program as a violation of basic principles of human rights. The Supreme Court, however, ultimately upheld the interdiction program in Sale v. Haitian Centers Council (1993), holding that neither section 243(h) of the Immigration and Nationality Act nor Article 33 of the U.N. protocol apply to actions taken by the Coast Guard on the high seas. The program, however, was eventually discontinued by the Clinton administration.

In the mid-1990s, continuing criticism of asylum practices in the United States spawned further special measures such as increased authority to border personnel, known in the United States as "expedited removal," and time limits on filing claims. Such measures were designed to distinguish legitimate from fraudulent or frivolous claims and to discourage the latter. Another such measure, applied in Europe but not the United States as of 2002, is the development of lists of "safe" countries from which asylum claimants may be presumed ineligible. A variant on this theme is an agreement whereby states may agree on which country will adjudicate a claim made by a person who has traveled through signatory states en route to the place where asylum is finally claimed. The United States has authorized such agreements by statute but to date has concluded no such bilateral arrangement with another country.

Certain substantive issues have also generated great controversy. In 1996, for example, after years of debate and litigation over asylum claims arising out of China's so-called "one-couple, one-child" policy, the U.S. Congress amended the statutory definition of a refugee. The new definition includes "a person who has been forced to abort a pregnancy or to undergo involuntary sterilization, or who has been persecuted for failure or refusal to undergo such a procedure or for other resistance to a coercive population control program." The question whether neutrality can constitute a political opinion spawned years of complex litigation, though the Supreme Court's decision in INS v. Elias-Zacarias (1992) established some guidelines. In the 1990s powerful arguments were also made, with considerable success, to expand the protections of refugee and asylum law to women who face harsh or inhuman treatment due to their gender, women who suffer more specific physical and mental abuse by men in societies where legal protection may be unavailable, women who flee the practice of female genital mutilation, and people who fear persecution on account of their sexual orientation.

Among the more interesting recent legislative trends in the United States has been the ratification of the Convention Against Torture (CAT), which protects the removal or extradition of any person to a state "where there are substantial grounds for believing that he would be in danger of being subjected to torture." The United States passed implementing legislation in 1998 and CAT claims in the United States are now an important source of protection. Finally, special temporary protection laws, such as so-called "Temporary Protected Status" in the United States, have aided many persons fleeing natural disasters and others with compelling claims that do not fit within the refugee law parameters.

Bibliography

Aleinkoff, T. Alexander, David A. Martin, and Hiroshi Motomura. Immigration and Citizenship Process and Policy. 4th ed. St. Paul, Minn.: West Group, 1998.

Goodwin-Gill, Guy S. The Refugee in International Law. 2d ed. Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1996.

Legomsky, Stephen H. Immigration and Refugee Law and Policy. 3d ed. New York: Foundation Press, 2002.

Musalo, Karen, Jennifer Moore, and Richard Boswell. Refugee Law and Policy. Durham, N.C.: Carolina Academic Press, 1997.

According to the 1951 Geneva Convention, a refugee is someone with "a well-founded fear of being persecuted in his country of origin for reasons of race, religion, nationality, membership of a particular social group or political opinion." The U.S. Senate accepted this definition sixteen years later, but it was not officially made part of immigration law until the enactment of the Refugee Act of 1980. From 1789 to 1875 the states controlled immigration policy and admitted refugees, but they did not label them as such. From 1875 to the 1940s the federal government continued this policy. During the early years of the Cold War, refugees were generally defined as persons fleeing communism.

In admitting refugees, foreign policy has often played a key role, but it has not been the only factor. Economic conditions in the United States have helped determine how generous the nation would be in accepting refugees. Lobbying by particular ethnic, nationality, and religious groups also has influenced refugee flows. Finally, Americans liked to think of the nation as, in George Washington's words, an "asylum for mankind." This humanitarian impulse often dovetailed with foreign policy as the United States wanted to appear generous to other nations. It is also important to realize that many refugees also have economic motives for wanting to escape their home countries and seek their fortunes in the United States. Indeed, the line between "a well-founded fear" and the desire for an improved lifestyle is often blurred.

The New Republic

The American colonies had little control over the admission of newcomers; they could not even halt the English practice of sending convicts to the New World. Americans began to shape their own destinies after 1789 when the nation's Constitution went into effect. That document said nothing about refugees, or immigrants for that matter. Moreover, the federal government did not begin to regulate the flow of newcomers until 1875. Three events and subsequent flows of migrants to the United States emerged in the 1790s. First was the French Revolution (1789), second, the Haitian Revolution (1791), and third, the failure of the United Irishmen to win independence for Ireland in the 1790s.

The first test of the nation's policy occurred when French émigrés, fleeing the increasing violence of the French Revolution, began to come to America. Those arriving in the fall of 1789 were mostly of the elite classes who witnessed the collapse of the old regime and who feared that their wealth, status, and privileged positions were under siege. Their numbers were small by comparison to those who followed. The second wave consisted of patriotic and intellectual nobles and the middle classes who had supported them. These refugees, who had backed liberal reform, watched with dismay as the French Revolution turned radical and violent. A few priests who opposed the confiscation of their lands and secularization of the revolution joined them, as did some members of the military who did not favor the ideals of the French Revolution. Numbers are not precise, but between ten and fifteen thousand crossed the Atlantic. They settled in Atlantic coastal towns and cities, with Philadelphia receiving the largest number.

Americans, including George Washington and the ruling Federalist Party, were supportive of the revolution in its first days. The Marquis de Lafayette sent the key to the Bastille to Washington, but as bloodshed increased, many Americans turned against the revolution. The Federalists especially were shocked by the growing violence. When war broke out between England and France, the Jeffersonian Republicans supported France and the Federalists England. Yet neither party wished to go to war, and the government's policy of neutrality was widely accepted. The cities and states where the refugees settled raised money to aid them, many of whom had brought little money and few possessions with them. In other cases, individuals and voluntary groups assisted in finding employment. The refugees themselves raised funds and even published several newspapers. The French minister Edmond-Charles Genet was not sympathetic to the refugees, especially those who seemed to favor England over revolutionary France. When he tried to influence American politics, he won little favor and was recalled to France. Yet the intrigues of a French minister and the radicalization of the revolution in France did not change the official neutrality of the United States, and émigrés were still permitted to enter even though the two political parties differed over aspects of exile culture and politics. However, as conditions changed in France some of the refugees returned.

Closely allied to the events in France was the slave uprising in St. Domingue (Haiti) in the 1790s. The revolt erupted in 1791, three years before revolutionary France outlawed slavery. After thirteen years of civil war, Haiti achieved independence in 1804 and became the first independent black state in the Western Hemisphere. Initially, the United States supported white planters' efforts to put down the revolt, but the French were ultimately unsuccessful. After 1791, as the white planters witnessed losses of their estates and power and increasing violence, they fled—a few to France, some to Cuba and Jamaica, and others to the United States. These refugees differed from those from France proper. To be sure, the elite planters held political views similar to the elite of France, but the refugees were not limited to the white elite; only a minority of the newcomers were white. Some planters carried their slaves with them. These slaves remained slaves whether they were brought to slaveholding states or even if they were brought to northern cities such as Philadelphia and New York, for the northern states were just beginning to end slavery in the 1790s. In addition, "free people of color"—a mixed-race group in Haiti who were not equal to whites in law but who were free and often skilled workers—believed that they would not prosper in a successful slave rebellion and fled too.

The slave revolt posed the question of whether Americans should receive another influx of refugees and how the United States should respond diplomatically if the uprising succeeded. The white Haitians were welcomed especially by American slaveholders who sympathized with the principle and reality of slavery. Some others believed the nation should receive the refugees because it would maintain the principle of America as an "asylum for mankind." The refugees settled in coastal cities, with New Orleans the center of their community. That city did not become part of the United States until after the Louisiana Purchase, but even then it continued to receive refugees when many of the St. Domingue exiles who at first went to Cuba were forced by the Spanish to settle elsewhere in 1809.

Like those fleeing France, many of these exiles brought few possessions and little money with them. Funds were raised by cities, states, and community groups to assist them. An official position was taken by the U.S. Congress when it appropriated $15,000 to assist the refugees and suspended duties on French ships arriving in American ports if they were carrying exiles.

While welcoming St. Domingue's planters, slaveholders grew alarmed that so many slaves and free people of color entered. They feared that persons from these two groups were too familiar with events in Haiti and might attempt to stir up opposition to slavery in the United States. To white southerners a black-ruled Haiti was a symbol of decadence and ruin. Moreover, they were alarmed by the rise of antislavery sentiment and groups in the North. Faced with these perceived threats, the southern states tightened restrictions on slavery. Several banned the importing of slaves from the Caribbean, but the federal government did not outlaw the international slave trade until 1808 as it was required to do by the Constitution. In 1861 the United States finally recognized the black republic and established diplomatic relations.

The third revolution of the 1790s was a failed one, but it sent refugees to the United States and prompted a debate about foreign policy and immigration. The Society of United Irishmen, composed of both Catholics and Protestants, sought to end English control of Ireland. However, Ireland did not win its freedom; England crushed the rebels, tried and sentenced some leaders to jail, and encouraged others to leave. England also passed the Act of Union in 1800, which merged the mother country with Ireland and divided the Protestant-Catholic alliance. The failure to win Irish independence led thousands of Irish refugees to immigrate to America in the next one hundred years.

The Jeffersonian Republicans generally sympathized with the rebels, but the Federalists wanted to align American foreign policy with that of Great Britain against France. Many Federalists also believed the Irish were a "wild horde" and were none too eager to see them settling in American coastal towns and cities. The Irish refugees in turn sided with the Jefferson party. As a result, the Federalists succeeded in raising the number of resident years needed for naturalization from two to fourteen. Some Republicans joined the Federalists in raising the time required for naturalization because they believed the Naturalization Act of 1790, which set two years as the required period, did not provide enough time for newcomers to be indoctrinated in the principles of republicanism. Congress also passed the Alien and Sedition Acts, one of which gave the president power to deport immigrants even in peacetime if they were considered dangerous. President John Adams did not exercise this provision, but the Sedition Act did lead to several newspaper editors being arrested and sent to jail, including the Irish-born Representative Matthew Lyon of Vermont.

One wing of the Federalist Party favored war against France and alliance with England. But while fighting an undeclared war against France in the last few years of the 1790s, President Adams blocked efforts for a declaration of war, and the crisis passed. With the election of Thomas Jefferson as president in 1800, the naturalization period dropped from fourteen to five years, where it has remained ever since. The Alien and Sedition Acts were also allowed to lapse.

The Nineteenth and Early Twentieth Centuries

The crisis of the 1790s set the tone for the next century. The United States would proclaim neutrality but permit refugees from foreign lands undergoing war or revolution to settle in the United States. In the 1820s, when the Greeks revolted against Turkish rule over Greece, most Americans sympathized with the Greek cause, and they willingly received a few Greek refugees in the United States. However, the official position of the United States was the new Monroe Doctrine (1823). President James Monroe declared that he expected European powers to refrain from ventures in the Western Hemisphere and not attempt to halt the revolutionary process there, and in return the United States would stay out of European affairs.

In 1831, Poles sought to overthrow Russian domination of their land. After exchanges of notes between the United States and Russia, the former remained neutral in the dispute and both powers agreed to a commercial treaty in 1833. However, important American citizens expressed their sympathy with the Poles and warmly welcomed several hundred Polish exiles who fled when the rebellion failed and raised money to assist in their settlement. Some Poles wanted Congress to grant them a tract of land in the West that was to become a new Poland in America. The legislators, while willing to permit the refugees to obtain land on the same terms as all others, rejected the scheme.

Revolutions broke out once more in Europe in 1848, and when they failed, thousands of refugees, chiefly Germans, fled to the United States. Once again, many Americans hailed the principles of the "forty-eighters" in their quest for constitutional government in their homelands, but officially the United States government elected to pursue a policy of neutrality. No case represents this position more than that of Hungarian Lajos Kossuth. While American officials proclaimed to the Austrians that they favored the principles of liberty anywhere, and sympathized with those Hungarians seeking independence from Austria, the United States did not intervene in the affairs of Hungary and Austria. When the Hungarian leader Kossuth arrived in the United States in 1852, he drew large crowds, but there was no chance that America would intervene in European affairs.

When the Irish Revolutionary Brotherhood, called the Fenian Brotherhood in the United States, launched two attacks on Canada from the United States in 1866 and 1870, America was faced with a diplomatic crisis or embarrassment. As much as many Americans opposed English rule in Ireland, the government moved to halt these assaults, which seemed to many to have the flavor of a comic opera. Moreover, the United States was at peace with Great Britain, and American officials said that the Irish question was Britain's affair, not that of the United States.

In Latin America the United States pursued a different policy. Americans sympathized with the Cuban revolt against Spain that began in 1868 and lasted until the Spanish-American War (1898) ended Spanish rule. In the early years of the rebellion, when conditions deteriorated for the rebels, many sought asylum in the United States, where they settled in New York and Florida and began to organize again to overthrow Spanish control. American politicians demanded that Spain grant Cubans their independence. Relations between the United States and Spain deteriorated in the 1890s, and when the battleship Maine exploded in Havana's harbor, the cries for action led to a congressional declaration of war in 1898. As a result of the ensuing Spanish-American War, Cuba received independence but found itself closely tied to America.

A Modified Refugee Policy

The federal government finally took control of immigration in 1875 when it banned prostitutes from entering the United States, as well as convicted felons and Asians said to be "coolies." Coolies were defined as Asians brought into the United States without their consent. Seven years later, Congress barred Chinese immigrants, but not dissenters of one kind or another from Europe. After President William McKinley was assassinated by an American-born anarchist in 1901, Congress passed the first law barring immigrants because of their political beliefs when it restricted anarchists from coming to the United States.

Various ethnic groups put pressure on the federal government to take an active role in aiding their people in their homelands, either by admitting refugees or by condemning the oppression faced by their countrymen. Armenian groups periodically attacked the government of Turkey for fostering massacres of Armenians under Turkish rule, especially the particularly violent one in 1915. In a similar manner, American Jews attacked Russia for permitting and even fostering pogroms. German Jews organized the American Jewish Committee in 1906 in order to influence the U.S. government to put pressure on Russia to end such violence and to assist Jewish immigrants. These efforts by various groups had only limited success until 1945, but they did foster aid to fellow ethnics in their homelands.

During and after World War I, which witnessed the communist seizure of power in Russia, some European refugees considered too radical and sympathetic to communism found themselves unwanted. Raids carried out by the federal government, peaking in 1920, led to thousands of arrests and deportation of foreign-born immigrants. In addition to shipping some radicals to Russia, the federal government refused to recognize the Soviet Union until 1933.

With the rise of fascism in Italy in the 1920s and Adolf Hitler's winning power in Germany in 1933, a new crisis of refugees loomed. As nazism spread, thousands of Jews and political dissenters searched for a haven outside Germany. Many fled to neighboring countries, but as the German army overran those nations, to emigrate was under-standable, but getting into the United States was difficult. High unemployment tempered the desire to immigrate to America, and if they did want to come, the "likely to be a public charge" provision of the immigration laws was strictly enforced during the early days of the Great Depression. Moreover, the national origins quotas established during the 1920s limited the number of Europeans who would come.

Groups working to aid immigrants did suggest that the nation open its doors, but Congress was in no mood to change laws, and public opinion polls indicated strong opposition to admit many immigrants. In the depression years and during World War II, advocates of a tight immigration policy, such as the Daughters of the American Revolution and the American Legion, even suggested that all immigration be halted. The Roosevelt administration did ease its restrictions in 1938 but then tightly enforced the rules again in 1939. With nearly a quarter of the labor force unemployed during the worst years of the Great Depression, the Roosevelt administration was reluctant to embark upon a liberal policy for refugees. Because many of those trying to leave were Jews, anti-Semitism also played an important role. President Franklin Roosevelt denounced the atrocities in Germany, but the plight of refugees did not prompt the administration to change immigration policy. Several hundred thousand refugees did manage to come to the United States during the 1930s, but overall only one half million immigrants were admitted, a figure considerably less than admitted during a single year between 1900 and 1914.

Fewer people arrived during World War II when shipping was disrupted. Roosevelt and his cabinet and other government officials were informed about the Holocaust by reports from Europe relayed to Washington by Jewish organizations, but the administration insisted that defeating Germany quickly was the best way to bring the Holocaust to an end. As more news about the Holocaust reached Washington, the president expressed concern and other officials hinted that refugees be allowed to come to America. In June 1944, President Roosevelt admitted 1,000 persons who were living in North African internment camps to a temporary refuge shelter at Fort Ontario in Oswego, New York. The president's action was meant to provide an emergency home for these refugees, but they were eventually allowed to stay.

Refugees and the Cold War

It was after World War II that the United States finally recognized refugees in law, with foreign policy playing a key role in the emerging legislation and executive action, especially the Cold War between the United States and Russia. It is also important to note that American refugee policy was not limited to the admission of immigrants. During the 1930s a number of organizations, operating in an international arena, were formed to deal with the European crisis, but they had little impact. These groups continued to function in the postwar decades. Moreover, the newly formed United Nations also played a growing role in settling refugees. Building upon the work of the League of Nations, the United Nations emerged as the most important international agency coping with refugees when it created the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) and adopted the Convention on Refugees in 1951. The United States supported the UNHCR financially and eventually accepted the convention's statement as its own. While more than three million refugees settled in the United States from 1945 to 2000, American support of the UNHCR was based on the belief that most refugees wanted to return home when conditions permitted and not necessarily immigrate to the United States.

The sweep of the Allies across Europe in 1944 and 1945 made possible a huge population movement as persons enslaved in Germany attempted to go home, as ethnic Germans were forcibly removed from nations where they had lived, and as millions who had seen their villages and cities destroyed sought refuge. The liberation of Jews from the concentration camps also left these survivors homeless, and most were in poor health. Other persons fled the approaching Russian army and ended up in the Western powers' territory. Many of these unfortunate people found themselves housed in displaced persons camps.

On 22 December 1945, President Harry S. Truman directed that 40,000 refugees be admitted and charged against national origins quotas, in the future if necessary. Truman's action was only a first step in dealing with the postwar refugees, and it hardly scratched the surface. American authorities and their European allies realized that the refugee situation had to be resolved if the economies and societies of western Europe were to be rebuilt. And as relations between the United States and the Soviet Union deteriorated, American leaders also developed other programs to bolster their allies. These included the Truman Doctrine of aid to Turkey and Greece in combating communism (1946), the Marshall Plan for stimulating the economies of western Europe (1948), and the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (1949) for its collective security. Congress barred communist immigrants from coming to America and voted to admit others by passing the Displaced Persons Act of 1948. As amended in 1950, the measure eventually permitted roughly 400,000 persons to immigrate to the United States, which relieved the western Europeans of some of their financial and population burdens.

While the immediate crisis in western Europe eased, there still remained people without homes. President Dwight D. Eisenhower asked Congress for a law to admit additional refugees, and the legislators responded with the Refugee Relief Act of 1953 that admitted another 189,000 persons. The measure also included a few thousand Palestinians from the Middle East and 5,000 Asians. This marked the first time that the term "refugee" appeared in U.S. law. Subsequent legislation in the 1950s admitted other persons fleeing communist nations and the Middle East. Most Middle Easterners came under regular immigration laws, even though many were stateless or fleeing from violence. It is not known how many were Palestinians because many entered as immigrants from Jordan or other nations.

The emerging Cold War refugee policy faced another test when the Hungarian Revolution of 1956 failed. Some 180,000 Hungarian "freedom fighters," as they were called, fled to Austria before the Austrians closed the border. The Austrian government was willing to temporarily aid them but wanted the Western powers to provide for their permanent settlement. The Hungarian quota allowed for only 865 immigrants, but President Eisenhower established a precedent that evoked the "parole" power of the McCarran-Walter Act of 1952 to admit nearly 40,000 refugees. Being classified as "parolees" left them in limbo because parolees could remain in the United States but were not permanent resident aliens (immigrants) or refugees. Congress had to pass legislation to permit them to change their status. Because this provision had been intended for individual cases, some in Congress protested. In the Cold War climate of the 1950s, however, the desire to strike a blow against communism and aid these anticommunists overcame congressional qualms, and the lawmakers passed the Hungarian Escape Act of 1958 to grant the Hungarians refugee status.

The ad hoc nature of refugee admissions bothered some legislators, and when Congress revamped the national origins system in 1965 they provided for a more organized policy. The Immigration and Nationality Act Amendments of 1965 created seven preferences for the Eastern Hemisphere, mostly based on family unification. However, the seventh preference set aside 10,200 places for refugees, defined as persons fleeing communist or communist-dominated nations or the Middle East. Under this provision several thousand Czechoslovakian refugees came to the United States when the Soviet Union and its allies crushed the "Prague Spring" rebellion in 1968. Thousands of Soviet Jews also entered under the new laws. The president was also given the power to admit refugees from a "natural calamity." The last part of the definition was meant to be humanitarian. For example, some refugees had come in the 1950s following an earthquake in the Azores. Originally, the new system covered only the Eastern Hemisphere, but when a uniform worldwide system was created in 1978, the seventh preference increased to 17,400.

Thousands of Soviet Union Jews also entered under the new laws, but Jewish immigration became a foreign policy matter when Congress put in place trade restrictions against the Soviets. A bill sponsored by Senator Henry Jackson and Representative Charles Vanik passed in late 1974 and was signed by President Gerald Ford in early 1975. The Jackson-Vanik Amendment to a trade bill made future trade and credit policies tied to Jewish immigration. The Soviets responded by severely curtailing Jewish emigration and thereby cutting trade with the United States. Jewish immigration from the Soviet Union had to wait until the end of the 1980s for a major increase.

The Cold War was by no means limited to Europe. In Asia the United States intervened in the Korean War (1950–1953) and again in the Vietnam War in the 1960s and 1970s. In the Western Hemisphere, Fidel Castro seized power in Cuba in 1959 and embarked upon a policy making it a communist country. These wars, along with Castro's victory, led to another wave of refugees. Shortly after Castro won control, some elite Cubans fled to Miami. As the flow grew, Presidents Eisenhower, John F. Kennedy, and Lyndon Johnson used the parole power to admit them. From 1959 to the Cuban missile crisis of 1962, more than 200,000 arrived. Flights were suspended after the missile crisis, although some escaped by boat to Florida. In early 1965 Castro indicated that he was interested in renewing the exodus, and when President Johnson signed the new immigration act at the foot of the Statue of Liberty in October, he said that the United States was willing to accept all who desired to leave Castro's communist state. American policymakers believed that accepting refugees would demonstrate the failure of communism in Cuba and also be a humanitarian gesture. Once again the president paroled them. In 1966, Congress passed the Cuban Adjustment Act that assumed that any Cuban to reach American soil was a refugee from communism and was welcome in the United States. Several hundred thousand Cubans took advantage of the new law, but the flow slowed to a trickle in the early 1970s. In addition, the federal government provided aid for these newcomers, which marked the first time after World War II that the government gave monetary assistance for refugee resettlement.

Another wave from Cuba entered in the spring of 1980. They sailed from the Cuban port of Mariel and were thus called "Marielitos." The Marielitos were picked up by boats operated by Cubans already in the United States, and by the time the U.S. government halted the exodus, about 130,000 had arrived. President Jimmy Carter did not use immigration laws to admit them; he created a new classification called "conditional entrants," a limbo status. Eventually, they were permitted to change their status under the Cuban Adjustment Act. The entire episode made it seem that immigration policy was out of control, especially in view of the fact that Castro dumped criminals and mental patients into the boats heading for America.

As Cuban emigration slackened, that of Southeast Asia began. The Vietnam War uprooted tens of thousands of Vietnamese, many of whom left rural areas for cities. The U.S. government aided these persons in settling in their new homes in Vietnam, but officials had no thought of bringing them to America. Then came the 1975 collapse of the American-backed regime in Vietnam. As Saigon was besieged and conquered by communist forces, tens of thousands of Vietnamese were rescued by helicopters and thousands more fled by boat. Roughly 130,000 came in this first wave of 1975. They were brought to the United States for resettlement. In view of the American military role in Vietnam, U.S. officials believed that the United States had to accept them. In 1978 and 1979 Vietnam's ethnic Chinese also fled, largely by boat, which earned them the name "boat people." Moreover, conditions in Cambodia and Laos deteriorated, which prompted many to cross the Thailand border for the safety of refugee camps supported by the United States and the United Nations. The total from 1975 to 1980 vastly exceeded the 17,400 slots provided annually for refugees. Presidents Gerald Ford and Jimmy Carter paroled them into the United States, and Congress provided funds for their settlement and allowed them to become refugees.

It seemed to many that refugee policy, other than aiding those fleeing from communism, still lacked coherence. In 1980, Congress passed a new law, the Refugee Act of 1980. It increased the annual "normal flow" of refugees to 50,000 and established and funded programs to assist them. In addition, it dropped the anticommunist definition of "refugee" and substituted for it the United Nations statement. While the law said 50,000 refugees were the "normal flow" to be admitted annually, the president retained the power to permit more to arrive, and in no year after 1980 did the number drop as low as 50,000; it usually averaged twice that figure. More than one million Vietnamese, Cambodians, and Laotians alone came to the United States from 1975 to the 1990s.

Cubans and Southeast Asians were the main beneficiaries of American foreign and refugee polices, but others also managed to become refugees. When the anticommunist Polish Solidarity movement sputtered in the early 1980s, Poles in the United States were permitted to remain temporarily and eventually to become refugees. It was a common practice to permit citizens of another nation visiting or studying here to win a temporary reprieve from returning home when their visas expired if their country suddenly experienced violence. Eventually, like the Poles, many were able to stay permanently in the United States.

The Cold War mentality was clearly evident when citizens of countries who were not fleeing communist regimes tried to win refugee status. After the successful 1973 revolt against the socialist government of Chile led to the execution and internment of thousands of Chileans, the United States took in fewer than 1,700 Chilean refugees. Since the United States had opposed the socialists and had been involved with the revolt, the American acceptance of so few refugees is understandable.

The government's position on communism and the admission of refugees also explain why so few refugees were admitted from Haiti. The dictatorial regime there run by the Duvalier family from 1957 to 1986 supported American positions taken on Western Hemisphere affairs and the Cold War, which pleased the State Department. There is no doubt that Haitians lived under oppressive rule, but there is also no doubt that Haiti was one of the poorest nations in the world. Immigration officials stressed the poverty of potential immigrants, not their lack of political rights and the violence conducted by authorities. Consequently, few immigrants were granted refugee status from Haiti. During the Mariel Cuban crisis, thousands of Haitians also made it by boat to Florida. They were included in President Carter's "entrant" category, but their status remained in limbo until the Immigration and Reform Control Act of 1986 (IRCA) granted amnesty to those in the United States before 1982.

The IRCA did not mean a new policy for Haitians coming after 1982. The immigration authorities and the State Department continued to call them economic migrants. Federal officials insisted that if Haitians were considered refugees, a tide of boat people would head for America. After the end of Duvalier rule, a democratically elected president, Jean-Bertrand Aristide, took power. When the Haitian military overthrew the regime of Aristide in 1991, the boat exodus picked up again. Under presidents Ronald Reagan and George H. W. Bush, the U.S. Navy and Coast Guard seized boats trying to escape from Haiti to Florida and sent them back to Haiti or temporarily housed them at the Guantánamo naval base in Cuba, where their claims could be processed. Bill Clinton had criticized the policy of President Bush, but he continued it when he became president in 1993. Moreover, the fear of Haitians fleeing the military regime and flocking to America, without proper documents and claiming asylum, motivated President Clinton to order an invasion of Haiti in the fall of 1994 to restore democracy. Among other reasons, the president repeated the belief that if democracy were not restored to Haiti, tens of thousands would try to come to America.

A similar situation prevailed in Guatemala and El Salvador and to a lesser extent in Honduras. These nations lived under right-wing and dictatorial governments recognized and supported by the United States and were plagued by civil wars. Many Salvadorans, Guatemalans, and Hondurans claimed that they should be considered refugees, but the Immigration and Naturalization Service (INS) insisted that, like Haitians, they were economic migrants and not legitimate refugees fearing persecution. Nor did the INS believe that the fear of being killed in a civil war was sufficient for winning refugee status; hence, few managed to emigrate as refugees.

In Nicaragua a different situation prevailed. There, the left-wing movement, the Sandinistas, overthrew the dictatorial rule of the Somoza family. The Carter administration attempted to work with the new government, but under Ronald Reagan the Central Intelligence Agency armed so-called contra forces that crossed Nicaragua's border in guerrilla raids attempting to overthrow the Sandinistas. Yet Nicaraguans fleeing to the United States also had difficulty emigrating as refugees.

There was another way to become a refugee, an immigrant, and eventually a U.S. citizen. According to immigration law, if a migrant was on American soil, even if one had entered illegally, one could claim asylum, arguing that the applicant had a "well founded fear" of persecution if returned home. Only two thousand or so persons won asylum annually in the 1970s. For example, the government denied asylum to most of the Haitian boat people during the 1970s and deported them. After the 1980 refugee act incorporated the new UN definition of refugee status in place of the anticommunist one, and when the civil wars in Central America escalated, the number applying for asylum skyrocketed. More than 140,000 applied in 1995, for example, and by the end of the 1990s the backlog reached several hundred thousand. Haitians came by boat, but tens of thousands of Central Americans illegally crossed the border separating the United States and Mexico. The State Department and the INS insisted they were mostly illegal immigrants who should be deported. INS officials in Florida did modify policy slightly toward Nicaraguans. An official said that he could not deny asylum to Nicaraguans when the United States insisted that the government of that country was undemocratic and that the CIA-backed contras were trying to overthrow it. Nicaraguans still had difficulty in winning asylum status, but their approval rate was more than double that of their neighbors. In 1989, for example, 5,092 Nicaraguans won asylum, compared with 102 Guatemalans and 443 Salvadorans.

Friends of these contestants for asylum insisted that a double standard was being applied: Cubans merely had to get to the United States, but Central Americans had to win their claims on an individual basis. Many undocumented immigrant Salvadorans, Guatemalans, Hondurans, Haitians, and Nicaraguans did adjust their status due to an amnesty for undocumented immigrants passed in 1986. As noted, the law covered those in the United States before 1982, but for others fleeing violence in Central America after that date individual asylum was required, which was even more difficult to demonstrate when the civil wars in Central America ended in the early 1990s. Fewer than 10 percent of Salvadorans, Guatemalans, and Hondurans were granted asylum in 1999—up slightly from the rate of the 1980s but less than half of the general approval rate. Those who came after the IRCA amnesty were left in limbo, although minor modifications in immigration policy did permit some to remain. Moreover, once these Central Americans won asylum, they were eligible to adjust their status to that of regular immigrants and could then use the family preference system to sponsor their relatives. For example, in 1996 Haitian immigrants numbered 18,386, with 8,952 of these under the family preference system and another 4,815 coming as immediate family members of U.S. citizens who were exempt from the quotas. Comparable figures for Salvadorans were 17,903; 8,959; and 5,519. Data for Hondurans and Guatemalans were similar. The United States did permit Salvadorans and Hondurans the right to stay temporarily in the United States when earthquakes and hurricanes struck in the 1990s. These temporary stays, called temporary protected status (TPS), were not asylum; when TPS ended, the undocumented aliens were expected to go home.

Although during the Cold War the United States clearly favored persons fleeing communism, it also accepted those seeking refuge from other oppressive regimes. The United States accepted more than 20,000 refugees from Afghanistan when the Soviets invaded in 1979, but after the Soviets left and the Islamic fundamentalist Taliban took control of the nation in the 1990s, the United States still accepted some Afghan refugees, numbering about 2,000 annually.

American relations with Iran changed dramatically when another Islamic movement overthrew the American-backed shah of Iran in 1979. U.S. policy was aimed at keeping Iran's oil flowing to the West and at using the shah's government as a buffer against Soviet expansion. Anti-shah Iranians stormed the U.S. embassy in Tehran and imprisoned fifty-three Americans for more than a year. They were released at the same time that Ronald Reagan replaced Carter as president. Clearly, the United States could not oppose this new government holding American employees and at the same time deny refugee status or asylum to those Iranians already in the United States who did not want to return to Iran. In the 1980s, 46,773 persons from Iran arrived as refugees or recipients of asylum. Over 60 percent of those applying for asylum won it, which was among the highest rates of acceptance of any group.

Post–cold War Refugees and Policy

The end of the Cold War in Europe in 1989 changed the nature of refugee policy, but it was still closely tied to foreign affairs, if not to the Cold War's anticommunism. The United States gave asylum to Chinese dissidents, the largest single group being Chinese students in the United States when the pro-democracy demonstrators were violently repressed in China in 1989. When the movement collapsed in bloodshed at Tiananmen Square in Beijing, President George H. W. Bush granted the students the right to remain in the United States on a temporary basis. The students' allies pointed out that because some of the students had been outspoken in their opposition to the Chinese government, they faced persecution at home. Congress later made them refugees; they did not have to prove on an individual basis that they qualified under the principles of the 1980 immigration act.

In 1996 Congress also provided 1,000 asylum places for Chinese who opposed the one-child-per-family policy of the Chinese government. There had been precedent for this political decision. When the Golden Venture, a ship loaded with 282 Chinese immigrants without legal documents, ran aground off the coast of Long Island in 1992, the INS took the passengers into custody and heard their claims for asylum. About one-third of the passengers' claims were denied and they were deported; another third were settled in Latin America, and the rest were eventually allowed to stay in the United States. Some had claimed that they were refugees because they opposed the one-child-per-family policy and forced abortions in China.

Refugees also continued to arrive from Russia and other nations of the former Soviet Union. Senator Frank Lautenburg of New Jersey convinced Congress in 1989 to amend the Foreign Aid Appropriations Act to permit Jews and evangelical Christians to be considered religious refugees provided that they could demonstrate a "credible basis for concern about the possibility" of persecution rather than the more difficult to prove "well founded fear." This shift was motivated by political factors rather than anti-Russian fears or fears of communism. Congress extended it until 1994 and eventually 300,000 persons came to America under the Lautenburg amendment.

Immigrants still came from Indochina. Most were Vietnamese; only a few thousand Cambodians and Laotians arrived. Even the Vietnamese numbers were drastically cut by the 1990s, and most simply arrived under the family unification preferences of the immigration system. Indeed, relations improved between the United States and Vietnam in the 1990s, and the U.S. government no longer perceived communism to be a threat in Asia.

Armed conflict against Iraq during the Gulf War of 1991 was hardly a Cold War affair. The United States marshaled military support from several Arab and European nations after Iraq occupied Kuwait. While the struggle was unfolding, persons from Kuwait and Iraq were granted temporary protected status. The U.S. led forces quickly drove the Iraqis out of Kuwait, so a large stream of refugees did not develop. Nonetheless, Iraqis who managed to leave before the war began or after were given refuge in the United States. The INS could hardly do otherwise. More than a thousand per year were admitted as refugees in the last years of the twentieth century.

A sign of the shifting priorities of the post–Cold War era was the treatment of Cubans trying to reach the United States by boat in 1994. Because the Mariel exodus included mentally ill and criminal passengers, the U.S. and Cuban governments argued about Cuba taking back these persons considered undesirable. Negotiations partly resolved the crisis, with Cuba receiving some Marielitos and the United States agreeing to process Cubans who wanted to emigrate. Roughly 11,000 Cubans managed to come through regular channels between 1985 and 1994. A few also reached Florida by boat after the Mariel exodus ended, but their numbers were not large from 1980 to 1994.

As social and economic conditions deteriorated in Cuba, many more Cubans, using what boats they could find, headed for Florida in the summer of 1994. These "rafters" posed a diplomatic problem for the Clinton administration. Not wishing to see a repeat of the Mariel crisis, when more than 130,000 entered the United States without inspection, the president announced that the "rafters" would not be allowed to reach the United States. Rather, the Coast Guard returned them to Cuba or detained them at the Guantánamo naval base in Cuba. The administration knew that if the Cubans reached Florida, they would be covered by the 1966 Cuban Adjustment Act. Eventually, Cuba and the United States worked out an agreement for an orderly process to admit eligible Cubans, up to 20,000 annually, and in return Cuba would try to halt the exodus. Those at the Guantánamo base were to be processed through careful screening. Cuban Americans and their friends in the United States claimed that under this arrangement the Cuban Adjustment Act was effectively repealed, but the Clinton administration did succeed in preventing another Mariel exodus. With no support from the Soviet Union, Cuba seemed much less threatening—hardly a danger to the noncommunist nations of the Western Hemisphere.

American interest in Africa was considerably less than its interest in Latin America, Europe, and Asia during the Cold War years. As a result, few African refugees entered, and most of them originated in Ethiopia. That country had been an American ally in the Cold War until 1974, when a military and left-wing revolution succeeded in overthrowing the existing government. Washington gave Ethiopians who were in the United States at that time the right to remain temporarily. When it did not appear that the leftwing government would be replaced, the State Department and INS agreed to the admission of a few thousand Ethiopians annually and granted asylum to many who were already in the United States. By the end of the Cold War confrontation with the Soviet Union, about 20,000 Ethiopians had won asylum cases or had been permitted to enter as refugees. These numbers are not large compared to Asian, European, and Cuban refugees, but until the early 1990s, Ethiopians constituted the vast majority of African refugees.

Ethiopians continued to arrive as refugees after 1989, but American policy toward Africa looked to other issues than Marxism or communism. Stability and humanitarian concerns were at the center of the new policy. In 1992 the United States entered a civil war in Somalia. The effort to stabilize Somalia failed, and U.S. troops were ordered home. However, as an aftermath to aid those caught in the war, the door was opened to Somali refugees, numbering nearly 30,000 during the 1990s. In 1997, Somalis accounted for half of all African refugees.

Somalia was by no means the only nation divided by civil war and violence. Other African nations experienced such upheavals, and although U.S. forces were not engaged in a major way, the Clinton administration admitted African refugees from some of these conflicts. When Liberia, a nation that the United States had helped establish in the nineteenth century, experienced violence, Liberians in the United States received temporary protected status and others became refugees. The State Department and INS also admitted several hundred ethnic Nuer from the Sudan. Included were the "Lost Boys of Sudan," part of a group of 10,000 boys who had fled the Sudan's violence in 1992 and had lived in various African refugee camps. The United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees and the State Department recommended that 3,600 of these young men be admitted, and the first group of 500 arrived in the United States in 2001. Sudanese, Ethiopians, Liberians, and Somalis arrived from Africa in the largest numbers, but a few hundred others also found a safe haven in the United States during the 1990s. Among these were the sensational cases of several African women who received asylum on the grounds that if they returned to their homeland they would be subject to genital mutilation. The INS announced that it would consider mutilation as a factor in determining what a "well-founded fear" meant for asylum cases. While the United States avoided military intervention in the ethnic bloodshed in Rwanda, it announced that more refugees from that nation would be admitted. However, the numbers were only a few hundred.

While the decisions rested in part on humanitarian considerations, President Clinton was also responding to the pressures of the Black Caucus in Congress and various lobbying groups that wanted to increase the number of refugees arriving from Africa. The Black Caucus also attacked the INS and the State Department for sending Haitian refugees back to Haiti or interning them at the Guantánamo naval base for careful screening. Clinton signaled a shift in foreign policy to give more attention to Africa during two visits he made there toward the end of his second term. After his first trip in 1998, the president announced that the refugee quota from all of Africa would be increased. African quotas were upped to 7,000 in 1997 and 12,000 the next year. After Clinton's second visit in 2000, the State Department said that the African quota would be increased to 20,000. The figure was still only 25 percent of the total, but it marked a major increase in African refugees.

The last area of foreign policy considerations with implications for refugee policy was the Balkans and the bloodshed there in the 1990s. When Yugoslavia began to disintegrate in the 1990s, ethnic violence erupted. The Bosnian parliament declared independence from Yugoslavia in 1991, but Bosnian ethnic Serbs violently opposed it. Soon a three-way war broke out between Bosnia's Serbs, Muslims, and Croats. Serbs massacred thousands of Muslims and engaged in "ethnic cleansing" to drive Muslims out of Bosnia. The western European powers and the United States condemned Serbs for their killing and raping in Bosnia and finally negotiated a peace in 1995 and put in place an international peacekeeping force. The truce was an uneasy one, and before it and after, tens of thousands of Bosnians fled to western Europe and the United States for refuge. The flow continued even after the peacekeepers arrived. From 1986 to 1999 more than 100,000 Bosnians entered as refugees, with 30,906 recorded in 1998 and 22,697 the next year. In 1991, 1,660 refugees from Croatia were also received as refugees. The INS does not keep religious data, but most Bosnian refugees were Muslims.

When Yugoslavian Serbs expanded the ethnic conflict to Kosovo and killed many ethnic Albanians or sent them across the border to Albania, the West once again witnessed more "ethnic cleansing." This time NATO powers carried out their threat of military force and used airpower to drive the Serbs out of Kosovo and attacked Yugoslavia as well. After a successful air war in 1999, NATO troops occupied Kosovo to try to maintain a truce between those Serbs and ethnic Albanians remaining there. While the "ethnic cleansing" of Albanians was under way and during the war itself, as in so many other cases, the number of refugees increased: 14,280 refugees, who were mainly Kosovars, were received in the United States from Yugoslavia. A few hundred others in the United States won their asylum pleas.

Conclusion

In sum, the United States has always accepted refugees, even though such immigrants were not necessarily defined in the immigration laws. Government officials in Washington, including members of Congress and the president, often responded to overseas crises by linking refugees to foreign policy. A variety of nationality, religious, and ethnic private groups also pressured the government to admit refugees. Most of the admissions, from the arrival of exiles from the French Revolution in the 1790s to World War II, were permitted because the nation wished to inform the world that the United States was an "asylum for mankind."

After World War II, refugee policy underwent change. America's new role in the world prompted political leaders to admit thousands of refugees and displaced persons in Europe. As the Cold War came to dominate American foreign affairs, most refugees were perceived as fleeing communism. With the collapse of the Soviet Union and communism in eastern Europe, America changed the type of refugee it was willing to receive, but that new policy was still heavily influenced by foreign affairs and domestic politics.

From 1789 to the present, refugee policy was often made on an ad hoc basis. Even following the 1965 immigration act's provisions and the Refugee Act of 1980, government officials often responded to political pressure groups in determining which persons were accepted. Cubans were refugees but Haitians were not. Refugee policy differs little from immigration policy in that it is often confused, ad hoc, and constantly changing. For the immediate future it appears that these policies will continue to be the result of foreign affairs and internal pressures.

Bibliography

Catanese, Anthony V. Haitians: Migration and Diaspora. Boulder, Colo., 1999.

Childs, Frances Sergeant. French Refugee Life in the United States, 1790–1800: An American Chapter of the French Revolution. Baltimore, 1940. Short work on the French refugees to the United States during the 1790s.

Coutin, Susan Bibler. Legalizing Moves: Salvadoran Immigrants' Struggle for U.S. Residency. Ann Arbor, Mich., 2000. Careful study of Salvadoran attempts to win refugee status and asylum in the United States.

DeConde, Alexander. Ethnicity, Race and American Foreign Policy: A History. Boston, 1992. An important book on the connection between American ethnic groups and foreign policy.

Dinnerstein, Leonard. America and the Survivors of the Holocaust. New York, 1982. The definitive work on passage of the Displaced Persons Act after World War II.

Gimpel, James G., and James Edwards, Jr. The Congressional Politics of Immigration Reform. Boston, 1999. Detailed study of congressional immigration policy, with a discussion of refugee policy.

Hein, Jeremy. From Vietnam, Laos, and Cambodia: A Refugee Experience in the United States. New York, 1995.

Hunt, Alfred N. Haiti's Influence on Antebellum America: Slumbering Volcano in the Caribbean. Baton Rouge, La., 1988. Solid book on how America responded to Haitian attempts to win asylum.

Keely, Charles B., Robert W. Tucker, and Linda Wrigley, eds. Immigration and U.S. Foreign Policy. Boulder, Colo., 1990.

Koehn, Peter H. Refugees from Revolution: U.S. Policy and Third World Migration. Boulder, Colo., 1991. Good summary of post–World War II immigration policy as it relates to developing nations.

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Masud-Piloto, Felix Roberto. From Welcomed Exiles to Illegal Immigrants: Cuban Migration to the U.S., 1959–1995. Lanham, Md., 1996. Useful summary of American policy toward Cuba, noting the shifts beginning in 1994.

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Schrag, Philip G. A Well-Founded Fear: The Congressional Battle to Save Political Asylum in America. New York, 2000. Detailed summary of congressional politics and recent refugee policy.

Smith, Tony. Foreign Attachments: The Power of Ethnic Groups in the Making of American Foreign Policy. Cambridge, Mass., and London, 2000. Important study of ethnic groups and their role in shaping American foreign policy, with useful material on refugees.

Stepick, Alex. Pride Against Prejudice: Haitians in the United States. Boston, 1998.

Wilson, David A. United Irishmen, United States: Immigrant Radicals in the Early Republic. Ithaca, N.Y., 1998.

Wyman, David S. The Abandonment of the Jews: America and the Holocaust, 1941–1945. New York, 1984. Major study of American policy toward the Holocaust during World War II, critical of U.S. policy.

Zucker, Norman L., and Naomi Flink Zucker. The Guarded Gate: The Reality of American Refugee Policy. San Diego, 1987.

— David M. Reimers

Individuals who leave their native country for social, political, or religious reasons, or who are forced to leave, as a result of any type of disaster, including war, political upheaval, and famine.

Often refugees are unwilling to return to their country of citizenship because they fear political, social, or cultural persecution. The refugees turn to other countries for protection and support. A related problem is statelessness, which occurs when one's country of citizenship has been absorbed by another nation through war or political change. The United States has promulgated policies to aid refugees and stateless persons both internationally, through various international organizations and treaties, and domestically, through national immigration policies.

International Refugee Policies

There have always been refugees, but their plight was first recognized as a major international problem after World War I when the number of refugees in Europe and Asia Minor totaled in the millions. The first world institution to come to the aid of refugees was the League of Nations Office of High Commissioner for Refugees, established in 1921. Although U.S. President Woodrow Wilson was a principal founder of the League of Nations, the U.S. Senate refused to ratify the treaty on which it was based, and the United States never joined the League. This office was later called the Nansen Office in honor of the Norwegian scholar who first headed it. The Nansen Office provided assistance to one-and-a-half million Greeks who were resettling from Asia Minor to Greece, and to the half million Turks resettling from Greece to Turkey.

The rise of Nazi Germany led to another flood of international refugees in 1933. Because Germany would not permit the Nansen Office to assist those individuals, the League of Nations created the Office of the High Commissioner for the Refugees from Germany. By 1938 the office was expanded to help Austrian refugees fleeing the Nazis as well. The two League of Nations offices were later combined into the Office of the High Commissioner for Refugees. In 1938 thirty-two countries met to establish the Intergovernmental Committee for Refugees, at the urging of U.S. President Franklin D. Roosevelt. This time the United States was a member of the organization. These organizations helped European political and social refugees in a variety of ways, including by giving them identity and travel documents.

By 1944 all of the functions of the Office of the High Commissioner for Refugees and the Intergovernmental Committee for Refugees were assumed by the United Nations in an office that was later called the International Refugees Organization (IRO). The United States was a member of the United Nations and participated in this international front as well. The IRO helped one-and-a-half million European and Asian refugees. It was dismantled in 1951, and its duties were taken over by a new Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR).

The UNHCR is responsible for protecting international refugees and assisting with the problems created by mass movements of people resulting from civil disturbance or military conflict. The high commissioner follows policy directives handed down by the U.N. General Assembly. The United Nations encourages countries to admit refugees and stateless persons and provide resettlement opportunities for them. The U.N. also seeks to help refugees achieve self-sufficiency and family security in their new homes. Members of the United Nations agree to help refugees and stateless persons by giving them the same civil liberties afforded their nationals and the same economic rights afforded other foreign nationals.

In 1948 the United Nations also addressed the Palestinian refugee situation in the Middle East by creating a new organization, the United Nations Relief for Palestinian Refugees, later called the United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees in the Near East (UNRWA). The UNRWA assisted more than one-and-a-half million Palestinian refugees through the early 1970s.

In 1982 the UNHCR turned its attention to the 1.2 million African refugees in Somalia, Sudan, Djibouti, Kenya, and the horn of Africa. The majority of refugees were escaping conditions of famine in the underdeveloped African countries. Also in the early 1980s, the UNHCR assisted more than 36,000 Vietnamese boat people in the South China Sea. During the 1980s, the UNHCR helped 2.9 million refugees leave Afghanistan and resettle in Pakistan.

The United Nations also helps refugees by assisting in their voluntary repatriation, or return to their home country. By 1988 the UNHCR helped at least 150,000 refugees return to their countries of origin, mostly in Africa and Central America. The U.N. General Assembly declared in 1988 that voluntary repatriation is the ideal solution to the problems faced by refugees.

In the late 1980s and early 1990s, the UNHCR began to study the particular problems faced by women and children refugees and called for further efforts to protect these special groups.

In addition to the United Nations and the League of Nations, various international charitable organizations, such as Amnesty International, strive to aid refugees and stateless persons. Religious relief organizations also have aided refugees by providing food, clothing, shelter, and resettlement assistance.

Domestic Refugee Policies

In the early years of the United States, the states were responsible for the naturalization of aliens, and the only requirement to be naturalized was a pledge of loyalty. Now the federal government closely regulates the entry of all aliens, including refugees, through the Immigration and Naturalization Service. The standards for naturalization have become more demanding and exacting.

Before the twentieth century, the U.S. approach to admitting refugees was no different from the admission of general immigrants, which was based on quotas for each country. During World War II, the insensitivity of this policy became evident as the United States turned away Jewish refugees because its quota for German immigrants had been met, and the refugees were forced to return to Nazi Germany.

In 1945 President Harry S. Truman signed an executive order that gave displaced persons, or refugees, priority over other immigrants. Congress passed the War Brides Act, 59 Stat. 659, in 1945 and the Displaced Persons Act, 62 Stat. 1009, in 1948 to make the United States more responsive to international immigration and refugee situations. The War Brides Act permitted the immigration of 120,000 alien wives and children of U.S. soldiers. The Displaced Persons Act allowed for more than the normal quota of refugees from Poland, Germany, Latvia, Russia, and Yugoslavia to be admitted.

The Refugee Relief Act of 1953, 67 Stat. 400, allowed for the entry of 214,000 refugees during a limited period on a non-quota basis. Many Hungarian "freedom fighters" were admitted under the act in 1956. President Dwight D. Eisenhower invited another 30,000 Hungarian refugees to come to the United States following their country's revolution on a "parole" status, meaning they were not granted immigrant visas.

The Fair-Share Refugee Act of 1960, 74 Stat. 504, permitted the Department of Justice to admit even more refugees under parole status. Under this act, many refugees from Communist and Middle Eastern countries resettled in the United States.

In the late 1970s and early 1980s, a flood of refugees from Vietnam, Cambodia, and Laos came to the United States. In 1975, 200,000 Indochinese refugees arrived, and by 1985 nearly 400,000 Southeast Asians came to the United States. Throughout this period, Jewish refugees from Russia continued to be admitted to the United States.

The Refugee Act of 1980, 8 U.S.C.A. § 1525, raised the number of annual immigrants permitted from 290,000 to 320,000, of which 50,000 could be refugees. Mass admittance of refugees pursuant to the president's parole authority was not permitted, but the president was allowed to admit refugees over the 50,000 annual limit with congressional consultation.

Cuban and Haitian refugees in the early 1980s tested the ability of the United States to accommodate and assimilate refugees. The Cubans were seen as fleeing from the Communist regime of Fidel Castro and therefore were permitted entry into the United States. Flight from a Communist country was a long-standing accepted qualifying basis for refugee status. The sheer numbers of Cuban refugees who came to the United States by boat made their entry difficult, but not impossible, to process.

Unlike the Cubans, the Haitian refugees claimed that they were fleeing poverty, a condition not recognized by the United States as qualifying one for refugee status. However, the Haitians asserted that once they left Haiti they could not return or else they would face political persecution for having left. The U.S. government did not accept the Haitians' fear of persecution as sufficient to admit them as refugees and concluded that they were economic immigrants. The Haitians were detained in large relocation camps and then deported. In 1981 President Ronald Reagan signed an executive order authorizing the U.S. Coast Guard to stop boats leaving Haiti and turn them around if they were transporting economic immigrants.

; international law.

See: human rights.

(DOD) A person who, by reason of real or imagined danger, has left their home country or country of their nationality and is unwilling or unable to return. See also dislocated civilian; displaced person; evacuee; expellee; stateless person.

People who flee a nation, often to escape punishment for their political affiliations or for political dissent.

A refugee may indicate the dreamer feels like a displaced person, belonging to another place or time.

For other uses, see Refugee (disambiguation).

Under the United Nations Convention Relating to the Status of Refugees, a refugee is a person who, owing to a well-founded fear of being persecuted on account of race, religion, nationality, membership of a particular social group, or political opinion, is outside the country of their nationality, and is unable to or, owing to such fear, is unwilling to avail him/herself of the protection of that country.^[1]

The concept of a refugee was expanded by the Convention's 1967 Protocol and by regional conventions in Africa and Latin America to include persons who had fled war or other violence in their home country.

Refugee was defined as a legal group in response to the large numbers of people fleeing Eastern Europe following World War II. The lead international agency coordinating refugee protection is the Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR), which counted 8,400,000 refugees worldwide at the beginning of 2006. This was the lowest number since 1980.^[2] The major exception is the 4,600,000 Palestinian refugees under the authority of the United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees in the Near East (UNRWA), who are the only group to be granted refugee status to the descendants of refugees according to the above definition.^[3] The U.S. Committee for Refugees and Immigrants gives the world total as 62,000,000 refugees and estimates there are over 34,000,000 displaced by war, including internally displaced persons, who remain within the same national borders. The majority of refugees who leave their country seek asylum in countries neighboring their country of nationality. The "durable solutions" to refugee populations, as defined by UNHCR and governments, are: voluntary repatriation to the country of origin; local integration into the country of asylum; and resettlement to a third country.^[4]

As of December 31, 2005, the largest source countries of refugees are Afghanistan, Iraq, Myanmar, Sudan, and the Palestinian Territories. The country with the largest number of IDPs is Sudan, with over 5 million. As of 2006, with 800,000 refugees and IDPs, Azerbaijan had the highest per capita IDP population in the world.^[5]

Contents 1 History 1.1 World War II and UNHCR 1.2 UNHCR 2 Asylum seekers 3 Refugee resettlement 4 Displaced women and children 5 Refugee law 6 Refugee camps 6.1 Boat people 7 Historical and contemporary refugee crises 7.1 Refugee situations in the Middle East 7.1.1 Palestinian refugees 7.1.2 Jewish refugees 7.1.3 African refugees in Israel 7.1.4 Refugees from the Algerian War 7.1.5 Jordan 7.1.6 Lebanon 7.1.7 Western Sahara 7.1.8 Nagorno Karabakh 7.1.9 Turkey 7.1.10 Refugees from the Iraq wars 7.1.11 Religious minorities in the Middle East 7.2 Refugee movements in Asia 7.2.1 Afghanistan 7.2.2 The Partition of 1947 7.2.3 Bengali refugees in India in 1971 7.2.4 The Himalayas 7.2.5 Sri Lankan Tamils 7.2.6 Kashmir 7.2.7 Tajikistan Civil War 7.2.8 Uzbekistan 7.2.9 Southeast Asia (Vietnam War) 7.3 Refugee movements in Africa 7.3.1 Angola 7.3.2 Uganda 7.3.3 Great Lakes refugee crisis 7.3.4 Darfur 7.4 Refugee movements in and within Europe 7.4.1 European Union 7.4.2 Hungary 7.4.3 Czechoslovakia 7.4.4 Cyprus 7.4.5 Balkans 7.4.6 Chechnya 7.4.7 Georgia 7.5 Refugee movements in the Americas 8 Climate refugees 9 Refugees as security threats 10 Common refugee medical problems 11 Exploitation 12 World Refugee Day 13 See also 14 Notes 15 References 16 External links

History

See also: right of asylum and sanctuary

The concept of the meaning that a person who fled into a holy place could not be harmed without inviting divine retribution, was understood by the ancient Greeks and ancient Egyptians. However, the right to seek asylum in a church or other holy place, was first codified in law by King Ethelbert of Kent in about 600 A.D. Similar laws were implemented throughout Europe in the Middle Ages. The related concept of political exile also has a long history: Ovid was sent to Tomis and Voltaire was exiled to England. Through the 1648 Peace of Westphalia, nations recognized each others' sovereignty. However, it was not until the advent of romantic nationalism in late eighteenth century Europe that nationalism became prevalent enough that the phrase "country of nationality" became meaningful and people crossing borders were required to provide identification.

One million Armenians fled Turkey between 1915 and 1923 to escape persecution and genocide.

The term "refugee" is sometimes applied to people who may have fit the definition, if the 1951 Convention was applied retroactively. There are many candidates. For example, after the Edict of Fontainebleau in 1685 outlawed Protestantism in France, hundreds of thousands of Huguenots fled to England, the Netherlands, Switzerland, South Africa, Germany and Prussia. Repeated waves of pogroms swept Eastern Europe, propelling mass Jewish emigration (more than 2 million Russian Jews emigrated in the period 1881–1920). Since the 19th century, an exodus by the large portion of Muslim peoples (who are termed "Muhacir" under a general definition) from the Balkans, Caucasus, Crimea and Crete,^[6] took refuge in present-day Turkey and moulded the country's fundamental features.^[7] The Balkan Wars of 1912–1913 caused 800,000 people to leave their homes.^[8] Various groups of people were officially designated refugees beginning in World War I.

The first international coordination on refugee affairs was by the League of Nations' High Commission for Refugees. The Commission, led by Fridtjof Nansen, was set up in 1921 to assist the approximately 1,500,000 persons who fled the Russian Revolution of 1917 and the subsequent civil war (1917–1921), most of them aristocrats fleeing the Communist government. In 1923, the mandate of the Commission was expanded to include the more than one million Armenians who left Turkish Asia Minor in 1915 and 1923 due to a series of events now known as the Armenian Genocide. Over the next several years, the mandate was expanded to include Assyrians and Turkish refugees.^[9] In all of these cases, a refugee was defined as a person in a group for which the League of Nations had approved a mandate, as opposed to a person to whom a general definition applied.

The 1923 population exchange between Greece and Turkey involved some two million people, most forcibly made refugees and de jure denaturalized from homelands of centuries or millennia, in a treaty promoted and overseen by the international community as part of the Treaty of Lausanne.

The U.S. Congress passed the Emergency Quota Act in 1921, followed by the Immigration Act of 1924. The Immigration Act of 1924 was aimed at further restricting the Southern and Eastern Europeans, especially Jews, Italians and Slavs, who had begun to enter the country in large numbers beginning in the 1890s.^[10] Most of the European refugees (principally Jews and Slavs) fleeing the Stalin, Nazis and World War II were barred from coming to the United States.^[11]

In 1930, the Nansen International Office for Refugees was established as a successor agency to the Commission. Its most notable achievement was the Nansen passport, a passport for refugees, for which it was awarded the 1938 Nobel Peace Prize. The Nansen Office was plagued by inadequate funding, rising numbers of refugees and the refusal by League members to let the Office assist their own citizens. Regardless, it managed to convince fourteen nations to sign the Refugee Convention of 1933, a weak human right instrument, and assist over one million refugees.

Children preparing for evacuation from Spain during the Spanish Civil War between 1936 and 1939.

The rise of Nazism led to such a severe rise in refugees from Germany that in 1933 the League created a High Commission for Refugees Coming from Germany. The mandate of this High Commission was subsequently expanded to include persons from Austria and Sudetenland. 150,000 Czechs were displaced after October 1, 1938, when the German army entered the border regions of Czechoslovakia surrendered in accordance with the Munich Agreement.^[12]

On 31 December 1938, both the Nansen Office and High Commission were dissolved and replaced by the Office of the High Commissioner for Refugees under the Protection of the League.^[9] This coincided with the flight of several hundred thousand Spanish Republicans to France after their loss to the Nationalists in 1939 in the Spanish Civil War.^[13]

World War II and UNHCR

The conflict and political instability during World War II led to massive amounts of forced migration (see World War II evacuation and expulsion). In 1943, the Allies created the United Nations Relief and Rehabilitation Administration (UNRRA) to provide aid to areas liberated from Axis powers, including parts of Europe and China. This included returning over seven million refugees, then commonly referred to as displaced persons or DPs, to their country of origin and setting up displaced persons camps for one million refugees who refused to be repatriated.

In the last months of World War II some five million German civilians from the German provinces of East Prussia, Pomerania and Silesia fled the onslaught of the Red Army and became refugees in Mecklenburg, Brandenburg and Saxony. After the capitulation of the Wehrmacht in May 1945 the Allies occupied Germany in the borders as they were on 31 December 1937 (Berlin declaration of 5 June 1945), but since the spring of 1945 the Poles had begun expelling the remaining German population (ethnic cleansing) and by the time the Allies met in Potsdam on 17 July 1945 Potsdam Conference, a chaotic refugee situation faced the occupying powers, who, pursuant to Article IX of the Potsdam protocol of 2 August 1945 provisionally placed one fourth of Germany's territory under Polish administration; pursuant to article XIII of the protocol, the remaining German populations in Poland, Czechoslovakia and Hungary were to be transferred West in an "orderly and humane" manner. Although not approved by Allies at Potsdam, hundreds of thousands of ethnic German living in Yugoslavia and Romania were deported to slave labour in the Soviet Union and subsequently expelled to occupied Germany Allied-occupied Germany and subsequently to the German Democratic Republic, Austria and the Federal Republic of Germany. This entailed the largest population transfer in history. In all 15 million Germans were affected, and more than two million perished expulsion of the German population^[14]. (See German exodus from Eastern Europe.) Between the end of World War II and the erection of the Berlin Wall in 1961, more than 563,700 refugees from East Germany traveled to West Germany for asylum from the Soviet occupation.

Also, millions of former Russian citizens were forcefully repatriated (against their will) into the USSR.^[15] On 11 February 1945, at the conclusion of the Yalta Conference, the United States and United Kingdom signed a Repatriation Agreement with the USSR.^[16] The interpretation of this Agreement resulted in the forcible repatriation of all Soviets regardless of their wishes. When the war ended in May 1945, British and U.S. civilian authorities ordered their military forces in Europe to deport to the Soviet Union millions of former residents of the USSR, including numerous persons who had left Russia and established different citizenship many years before. The forced repatriation operations took place from 1945 to 1947.^[17] At the end of the World War II, there were more than 5 million "displaced persons" from the Soviet Union in the Western Europe. About 3 million had been forced laborers (Ostarbeiters)^[18] in Germany and occupied territories.^[19][20] The Soviet POWs and the Vlasov men were put under the jurisdiction of SMERSH (Death to Spies). Of the 5.7 million Soviet prisoners of war captured by the Germans, 3.5 million had died while in German captivity by the end of the war.^[21][22] The survivors on their return to the USSR were treated as traitors (see Order No. 270).^[23][24] Over 1.5 million surviving Red Army soldiers imprisoned by the Germans were sent to the Gulag.^[25][26]

Poland and Soviet Ukraine conducted population exchanges – Poles that resided east of the established Poland-Soviet border were deported to Poland (ca. 2,100,000 persons) (see Repatriation of Poles) and Ukrainians that resided west of the established Poland-Soviet Union border were deported to Soviet Ukraine. Population transfer to Soviet Ukraine occurred from September 1944 to May 1946 (ca. 450,000 persons) (see Repatriation of Ukrainians). Some Ukrainians (ca. 200,000 persons) left southeast Poland more or less voluntarily (between 1944 and 1945).^[27]

The UNRRA was shut down in 1947, at which time it was taken over by the newly instituted International Refugee Organization. While the handover was originally planned to take place at the beginning of 1947, it did not occur until July 1947.^[28] The International Refugee Organization was a temporary organization of the United Nations (UN), which itself had been founded in 1945, with a mandate to largely finish the UNRRA's work of repatriating or resettling European refugees. It was dissolved in 1952 after resettling about one million refugees.^[29] The definition of a refugee at this time was an individual with either a Nansen passport or a "Certificate of Eligibility" issued by the International Refugee Organization.

UNHCR

Main article: United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees

Headquartered in Geneva, Switzerland, the Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) (established December 14, 1950) protects and supports refugees at the request of a government or the United Nations and assists in their return or resettlement. All refugees in the world are under the UNHCR mandate except Palestinian Arabs who fled the future Jewish state between 1947 and 1948 (see below). However, Palestinians who fled the Palestinian territories after 1948 (for example, during the 1967 six day war) are under the jurisdiction of the UNHCR.

UNHCR provides protection and assistance not only to refugees, but also to other categories of displaced or needy people. These include asylum seekers, refugees who have returned home but still need help in rebuilding their lives, local civilian communities directly affected by the movements of refugees, stateless people and so-called internally displaced people (IDPs). IDPs are civilians who have been forced to flee their homes, but who have not reached a neighboring country and therefore, unlike refugees, are not protected by international law and may find it hard to receive any form of assistance. As the nature of war has changed in the last few decades, with more and more internal conflicts replacing interstate wars, the number of IDPs has increased significantly to an estimated 5 million people worldwide.

It succeeded the earlier International Refugee Organization and the even earlier United Nations Relief and Rehabilitation Administration (which itself succeeded the League of Nations' Commissions for Refugees).

UNHCR was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize in 1954 and 1981. The agency is mandated to lead and co-ordinate international action to protect refugees and resolve refugee problems worldwide. Its primary purpose is to safeguard the rights and well-being of refugees. It strives to ensure that everyone can exercise the right to seek asylum and find safe refuge in another State, with the option to return home voluntarily, integrate locally or to resettle in a third country.

Many celebrities are associated with the agency as UNHCR Goodwill Ambassadors, currently including Angelina Jolie, Giorgio Armani and others. The individual who has raised the most money in benefit performances and volunteer work on behalf of UNHCR was Luciano Pavarotti[5].

UNHCR's mandate has gradually been expanded to include protecting and providing humanitarian assistance to what it describes as other persons "of concern," including internally-displaced persons (IDPs) who would fit the legal definition of a refugee under the 1951 Refugee Convention and 1967 Protocol, the 1969 Organization for African Unity Convention, or some other treaty if they left their country, but who presently remain in their country of origin. UNHCR thus has missions in Colombia, Democratic Republic of the Congo, Serbia and Montenegro and Côte d'Ivoire to assist and provide services to IDPs.

As of January 1, 2006 there are 20,751,900 refugees in the world. Asia – 8,603,600 Africa – 5,169,300 Europe – 3,666,700 Latin America and Caribbean – 2,513,000 North America – 716,800 Oceania – 82,500

Asylum seekers

"Asylum seeker" redirects here. For the video game, see Hellboy: Asylum Seeker.

"Asylum seekers" redirects here. For the comedy film, see Asylum Seekers (film).

Power lines leading to a rubbish dump hover just overhead in El Carpio, a Nicaraguan refugee camp in Costa Rica

Refugees are a subgroup of the broader category of displaced persons. Environmental refugees (people displaced because of environmental problems such as drought) are not included in the definition of "refugee" under international law, as well as internally displaced people. According to international refugee law, a refugee is someone who seeks refuge in a foreign country because of war and violence, or out of fear of persecution "on account of race, religion, nationality, political opinion, or membership in a particular social group" (to use the terminology from U.S. law).

Until a request for refuge has been accepted, the person is referred to as an asylum seeker. Only after the recognition of the asylum seeker's protection needs, he or she is officially referred to as a refugee and enjoys refugee status, which carries certain rights and obligations according to the legislation of the receiving country.

The practical determination of whether a person is a refugee or not is most often left to certain government agencies within the host country. This can lead to a situation where the country will neither recognize the refugee status of the asylum seekers nor see them as legitimate migrants and treat them as illegal aliens.

On the other hand, fraudulent requests in an environment of lax enforcement could lead to improper classification as refugee, resulting in the diversion of resources from those with a genuine need. The percentage of asylum/refugee seekers who do not meet the international standards of special-needs refugee, and for whom resettlement is deemed proper, varies from country to country. Failed asylum applicants are most often deported, sometimes after imprisonment or detention, as in the United Kingdom.

A claim for asylum may also be made onshore, usually after making an unauthorized arrival. Some governments are tolerant and accepting of onshore asylum claims; other governments will not only refuse such claims, but may actually arrest or detain those who attempt to seek asylum.

Non-governmental organizations concerned with refugees and asylum seekers have pointed out difficulties for displaced persons to seek asylum in industrialized countries. As their immigration policy often focuses on the fight of irregular migration and the strengthening of border controls it deters displaced persons from entering territory in which they could lodge an asylum claim. The lack of opportunities to legally access the asylum procedures can force asylum seekers to undertake often expensive and hazardous attempts at illegal entry.

Refugee resettlement

State	Quota (2001)	Year established
United States	80,000	1980
Canada	11,000	1978
Australia	10,000	Unknown
Norway	1,500	Unknown
Sweden	1,375	1950
New Zealand	750	1979
Finland	750	1979
Denmark	517	1989
Netherlands	500	1984

Resettlement involves the assisted movement of refugees who are unable to return home to safe third countries.^[30][31] The UNHCR has traditionally seen resettlement as the least preferable of the "durable solutions" to refugee situations.^[32] However, in April 2000 the then UN High Commissioner for Refugees, Sadako Ogata, stated:

“	Resettlement can no longer be seen as the least-preferred durable solution; in many cases it is the only solution for refugees	”
—Sadako Ogata, UN High Commissioner for Refugees,April 2000[32]

UNHCR referred more than 121,000 refugees for consideration for resettlement in 2008. This was the highest number for 15 years. In 2007, 98,999 people were referred. UNHCR referred 33,512 refugees from Iraq, 30,388 from Burma/Myanmar and 23,516 from Bhutan in 2008.^[31]

In terms of resettlement departures, in 2008, 65,548 refugees were resettled in 26 countries, up from 49,868 in 2007.^[31] The largest number of UNHCR-assisted departures were from Thailand (16,807), Nepal (8,165), Syria (7,153), Jordan (6,704) and Malaysia (5,865).^[31] Note that these are the countries that refugees were resettled from, not their countries of origin.

A number of third countries run specific resettlement programmes in co-operation with UNHCR. The size of these programmes is shown in the table.^[32] The largest programmes are run by the United States, Canada and Australia. A number of European countries run smaller schemes and in 2004 the United Kingdom established its own scheme, known as the Gateway Protection Programme^[32] with an initial quota of 500 (2004), which rose to 750 in the financial year 2009/09.^[33]

In September 2009, the European Commission unveiled plans for new Joint EU Resettlement Programme. The scheme would involve EU member states deciding together each year which refugees should be given priority. Member states would receive €4,000 from the European Refugee Fund per refugee resettled.^[34]

Displaced women and children

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An estimated 80% of refugees are women and children. They often carry the heaviest burden of survival for themselves and their families. Women and adolescent girls in refugee settings are especially vulnerable to exploitation, rape, abuse and other forms of gender-based violence.

Children and youth constitute approximately 50 percent of all refugees worldwide. They are the deliberate targets of abuse, and easy prey to military recruitment and abduction. They typically miss out on years of education, particularly the younger ones. More than 43 million children living in conflict-affected areas don’t have a chance to go to school.

Girls in particular face significant obstacles accessing education. Families who lack funds for school fees, uniforms, books, etc. are often influenced by cultural norms to prioritize education for boys over girls. Girls are typically pulled out of school before boys, often to help with traditional care-giving/work roles including care for younger siblings, gathering firewood and cooking. Early or forced marriage can also derail a girl’s education.

Without an education, refugee women and youth often struggle to support themselves and their families. With refugees displaced for longer periods of time than ever before (68% of all refugees are now displaced for an average of 17 years), the ability for refugees—particularly women and youth— to earn a living and sustain themselves and their families (“livelihoods”) is becoming even more critical. Livelihoods are vital for the social, emotional and economic well-being of displaced persons and are a key way to increase the safety of displaced women and adolescents. Lack of education, minimal job prospects, and disproportionate responsibility at home all limit the livelihood opportunities of women and youth.

On occasion, people who have been uprooted from their homes come to the United States in search of safe haven. They may be detained by the U.S. government, often until their asylum cases are decided—which can amount to days, weeks, months or even years. Many of those detained are women and children who seek asylum in the United States after fleeing from gender- and age-related persecution. Sometimes the children are alone, having fled abusive families or other human rights abuses. Detained women asylum seekers are also particularly vulnerable to abuse in detention. Women and children asylum seekers who reach the United States are often imprisoned and at times subjected to inhumane conditions, abuse and poor medical care, and denied legal representation and other services.

Refugee advocacy organizations, including the Women’s Commission For Refugee Women and Children, focus their programs and advocacy specifically on the needs of refugee women, children and youth. There is also a micro-finance program through the Chand Collection that supports women in refugee camps creating their own small businesses of handicrafts.

Refugee law

Main article: Refugee law

Under international law, refugees are individuals who:

• are outside their country of nationality or habitual residence;
• have a well-founded fear of persecution because of their race, religion, nationality, membership in a particular social group or political opinion; and
• are unable or unwilling to avail themselves of the protection of that country, or to return there, for fear of persecution.

Refugee law encompasses both customary law, peremptory norms, and international legal instruments. These include:

• The 1951 United Nations Convention Relating to the Status of Refugees; also referred to as the Geneva Convention;
• The 1967 Protocol relating to the Status of Refugees;
• The 1969 OAU Convention Governing the Specific Aspects of Refugee Problems in Africa

Refugee camps

A camp in Guinea for refugees from Sierra Leone.

Main article: Refugee camps

A refugee camp is a place built by governments or NGOs (such as the ICRC) to receive refugees. People may stay in these camps, receiving emergency food and medical aid, until it is safe to return to their homes or until they get retrieved by other people outside the camps. In some cases, often after several years, other countries decide it will never be safe to return these people, and they are resettled in "third countries," away from the border they crossed. However, more often than not, refugees are not resettled. In the mean time, they are at risk for disease, child soldiering, terrorist recruitment, and physical and sexual violence.

Globally, about 17 countries (Australia, Benin, Brazil, Burkina Faso, Canada, Chile, Denmark, Finland, Iceland, the Republic of Ireland, Mexico, the Netherlands, New Zealand, Norway, Sweden, the United Kingdom, and the United States [6]) regularly accept quota refugees from places such as refugee camps. Usually these are people who have escaped war. In recent years, most quota refugees have come from Iran, Afghanistan, Iraq, Liberia, Somalia, and Sudan, which have been in various wars and revolutions, and the former Yugoslavia, due to the Yugoslav wars.

According to Agence France-Presse, Japan accepted just ten people into the country as refugees in 2003, the lowest number since it let in just one in 1997. Despite denying them refugee status, Japan accepted 16 more people on special humanitarian grounds during the year—also the lowest figure since 1997, when it accepted three. In contrast, 336 people applied for refugee status in Japan over the year, the highest figure in two years. Various international organizations, including the UN High Commissioner for Refugees, have asked Japan to accept more refugees.^[35]

The United States took in 85,010 for resettlement, according to the UNHCR. New Zealand accepted 1,140 refugees in 1999.

Boat people

Main article: Boat people

The term "boat people" came into common use in the 1970s with the mass exodus of Vietnamese refugees following the Vietnam War. It is a widely used form of migration for people migrating from Cuba, Haiti, Morocco, Vietnam or Albania. They often risk their lives on dangerously crude and overcrowded boats to escape oppression or poverty in their home nations. Events resulting from the Vietnam War led many people in Cambodia, Laos, and especially Vietnam to become refugees in the late 1970s and 1980s. In 2001, 353 asylum seekers sailing from Indonesia to Australia drowned when their vessel sank.

The main danger to a boat person is that the boat he or she is sailing in may actually be anything that floats and is large enough for passengers. Although such makeshift craft can result in tragedy, in 2003 a small group of 5 Cuban refugees attempted (unsuccessfully, but un-harmed) to reach Florida in a 1950s pickup truck made buoyant by oil barrels strapped to its sides.

Boat people are frequently a source of controversy in the nation they seek to immigrate to, such as the United States, New Zealand, Germany, France, Russia, Canada, Italy, Japan, South Korea, Spain and Australia. Boat people are often forcibly prevented from landing at their destination, such as under Australia's Pacific Solution (which operated from 2001 until 2008), or they are subjected to mandatory detention after their arrival. Mandatory detention in Australia will cease, announced by the Rudd Labor government in July 2008, unless the person claiming asylum is deemed to pose a risk to the wider community, such as thos ty or health risks.^[36][37]

Historical and contemporary refugee crises

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Refugee situations in the Middle East

Palestinian refugees

Further information: Palestinian refugees

Following the 1948 proclamation of the State of Israel, the first Arab-Israeli War began. Many Palestinians had already become refugees, and the Palestinian Exodus continued through the 1948 Arab-Israeli War and after the armistice that ended it. The great majority have remained refugees for generations as they were not permitted to return to their homes or to settle in the Arab countries where they lived. The refugee situation and the presence of numerous refugee camps continues to be a point of contention in the Arab-Israeli conflict.

The final estimate of refugee numbers was 711,000 according to the United Nations Conciliation Commission. Palestinian refugees from 1948 and their descendants do not come under the 1951 UN Convention Relating to the Status of Refugees, but under the UN Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees in the Near East, which created its own criteria for refugee classification. From the UNRWA web site:

Palestine refugees are persons whose normal place of residence was Palestine between June 1946 and May 1948, who lost both their homes and means of livelihood as a result of the 1948 Arab-Israeli conflict. UNRWA's services are available to all those living in its area of operations who meet this definition, who are registered with the Agency and who need assistance. UNRWA's definition of a refugee also covers the descendants of persons who became refugees in 1948.

As such they are the only refugee population legally defined to include descendants of refugees, as well as others who might otherwise be considered internally displaced persons.

As of December 2005, the World Refugee Survey of the U.S. Committee for Refugees and Immigrants estimates the total number of Palestinian refugees to be 2,966,100.

Jewish refugees

Further information: Jewish refugees and Jewish exodus from Arab lands

Between the first and second world wars, Jewish immigration to Palestine was encouraged by the nascent Zionist movement but was restricted by the British Mandate government in Palestine. In Europe, Nazi persecution culminated in the Holocaust and the mass murder of many European Jews. The Evian Conference, Bermuda Conference, and others failed to resolve the problem of finding a home for large numbers of Jewish refugees from Nazi-occupied Europe. Following its formation in 1948, according to 1947 UN Partition Plan,Israel adopted the Law of Return, granting Israeli citizenship to any Jewish immigrant. Approximately 700,000 refugees flooded into the country, and were housed in tent cities called ma'abarot. After the dissolution of the USSR, a second surge of 700,000 Russian Jews fled to Israel between 1990 and 1995.

Jews have lived in what are now Arab states at least since the Babylonian captivity (597 BCE). The refusal of the Arab world to accept the existence of a Jewish state led to increased discrimination and violence against the Jews. In 1948, the Arab League declared the Jews enemy citizens. Jewish bank accounts and property was confiscated, Jews were arrested and fired from their jobs, and synagogues were attacked.^[38] In the early years after Israeli independence the number of Jews in Arab countries fell steeply: in Yemen, from 55,000 to 4,000; in Iraq from 135,000 to 6,000; in Aden from 8,000 to 800; in Egypt from 80,000 to 50,000; in Libya from 38,000 to 4,000; and in Syria from 30,000 to 5,000.^[38]

According to official Arab statistics, 856,000 Jews left their homes in Arab countries from 1948 until the early 1970s. Some 600,000 resettled in Israel. Their descendants, and those of Iranian and Turkish Jews, now number 3.06 million of Israel's 5.4 to 5.8 million Jewish citizens.^[39] The plight of the Jews in Arab lands worsened following the 1967 Six-Day War, prompting the exodus of most of the remaining Jewish population. Very few Jews live in Arab countries today.

In 2007, similar resolutions (H.Res.185 and S.Res.85) were proposed to the US Senate and Congress, to:

Make clear that the United States Government supports the position that, as an integral part of any comprehensive peace, the issue of refugees and the mass violations of human rights of minorities in Arab and Muslim countries throughout the Middle East, North Africa, and the Persian Gulf must be resolved in a manner that includes (A) consideration of the legitimate rights of all refugees displaced from Arab and Muslim countries throughout the Middle East, North Africa, and the Persian Gulf; and (B) recognition of the losses incurred by Jews, Christians, and other minority groups as a result of the Arab-Israeli conflict. S. Res. 85

These resolutions were discussed on July 19 2007 at the bicameral Congressional Human Rights Caucus in preparation for voting.

African refugees in Israel

Since 2003, an estimated 10,000 non-Jewish immigrants from various African countries have illegally entered Israel ^[40]. Some 600 refugees from the Darfur region of Sudan have been granted refugee status. Another 2,000 refugees from the conflict between Eritrea and Ethiopia have been granted temporary resident status on humanitarian grounds. Israel prefers not to recognize them as refugees so as not to offend Eritrea and Ethiopia.^[40] The remaining immigrants live in Israel illegally. In 2007, Israel deported 48 refugees back to Egypt after they succeeded in crossing the border, of which twenty were deported back to Sudan by Egyptian authorities, according to Amnesty International. In August 2008 the Israel Defense Forces deported at least another 91 African asylum seekers at the border. Throughout this year, Egyptian police have shot dead 20 African asylum seekers attempting to enter Israel.^[41]

Refugees from the Algerian War

The Algerian War of Independence (1954–1962) uprooted more than 2 million Algerians, who were forced to relocate in French camps or to flee to Morocco, Tunisia, and into the Algerian hinterland.

European-descended population,Pieds-Noirs, accounted for 10.4% of the total population of Algeria in 1962. In just a few months in 1962, 900,000 of them fled the country in the most massive relocation of population to Europe since the World War II. A motto used in the FLN propaganda designating the Pied-noirs community was "Suitcase or coffin" ("La valise ou le cercueil").^[42][43]

Jordan

Jordan has one of the world's largest immigrant population with some sources putting the immigrant percentage to being 60%. Jordan's religious toleration, political stability, and economic prosperity has made Jordan attractive to those fleeing violence and persecution. Jordan also has a higher quality of life compared to other countries in the region with high literacy rates, excellent healthcare infrastructure, and a relatively liberal social and economic environment. Jordan has a large immigrant population. Palestinian refugees number almost half of Jordan's population, however they have assimilated into Jordanian society. Iraqi refugees number between 750,000 and 1 million with most living in Amman. Jordan also has Armenian, Chechen, and Circassian minorities.

Lebanon

It is estimated that some 900,000 people, representing one-fifth of the pre-war population, were displaced from their homes during the Lebanese Civil War (1975–90).^[44]

The 2006 Lebanon War displaced approximately one million Lebanese^[45] and approximately 500,000 Israelis, although most were able to return to their homes.^[46] Lebanese desire to emigrate has increased since the war. Over a fifth of Shias, a quarter of Sunnis, and nearly half of Maronites have expressed the desire to leave Lebanon. Nearly a third of such Maronites have already submitted visa applications to foreign embassies, and another 60,000 Christians have already fled, as of April 2007. Lebanese Christians are concerned that their influence is waning, fear the apparent rise of radical Islam, and worry of potential Sunni-Shia rivalry.^[47]

Western Sahara

It is estimated that more than 150,000 Sahrawis – people from the disputed territory of Western Sahara – have lived in five large refugee camps near Tindouf in the Algerian part of the Sahara Desert since 1975.^[48][49] The UNHCR and WFP are presently engaged in supporting what they describe as the "90,000 most vulnerable" refugees, giving no estimate for total refugee numbers.^[50]

Nagorno Karabakh

The Nagorno Karabakh conflict has resulted in the displacement of 528,000 (this figure does not include new born children of these IDPs) Azerbaijanis from Armenian occupied territories including Nagorno Karabakh, and 220,000 Azeris and 18,000 Kurds fled from Armenia to Azerbaijan from 1988 to 1989.^[51] 280,000 persons—virtually all ethnic Armenians—fled Azerbaijan during the 1988–1993 war over the disputed region of Nagorno-Karabakh.^[52] By the time both Azerbaijan and Armenia had finally agreed to a ceasefire in 1994, an estimated 17,000 people had been killed, 50,000 had been injured, and over a million had been displaced.^[53]

Turkey

Between 1984 and 1999, the PKK and the Turkish military engaged in open war, and much of the countryside in the southeast was depopulated, with Kurdish civilians moving to local defensible centers such as Diyarbakır, Van, and Şırnak, as well as to the cities of western Turkey and even to western Europe. The causes of the depopulation included PKK atrocities against Kurdish clans they could not control, the poverty of the southeast, and the Turkish state's military operations.^[54] Human Rights Watch has documented many instances where the Turkish military forcibly evacuated villages, destroying houses and equipment to prevent the return of the inhabitants. An estimated 3,000 Kurdish villages in Turkey were virtually wiped from the map, representing the displacement of more than 378,000 people.^{[55][56][57][58]}

Refugees from the Iraq wars

Main article: Refugees of Iraq

The Iran–Iraq War from 1980 to 1988, the 1990 Iraqi invasion of Kuwait, the first Gulf War and subsequent conflicts all generated hundreds of thousands if not millions of refugees. Iran also provided asylum for 1,400,000 Iraqi refugees who had been uprooted as a result of the Persian Gulf War (1990–91). At least one million Iraqi Kurds were displaced during the Al-Anfal Campaign (1986–1989).

The current Iraq war has generated millions of refugees and internally displaced persons. As of 2007 more Iraqis have lost their homes and become refugees than the population of any other country. Over 4,700,000 people, more than 16% of the Iraqi population, have become uprooted.^[59] Of these, about 2 million have fled Iraq and flooded other countries, and 2.7 million are estimated to be refugees inside Iraq, with nearly 100,000 Iraqis fleeing to Syria and Jordan each month.^[60][61][62] Only 1% of the total Iraqi displaced population was estimated to be in the Western countries.^[63]

Roughly 40% of Iraq's middle class is believed to have fled, the U.N. said. Most are fleeing systematic persecution and have no desire to return. All kinds of people, from university professors to bakers, have been targeted by militias, insurgents and criminals. An estimated 331 school teachers were slain in the first four months of 2006, according to Human Rights Watch, and at least 2,000 Iraqi doctors have been killed and 250 kidnapped since the 2003 U.S. invasion.^[64] Iraqi refugees in Syria and Jordan live in impoverished communities with little international attention to their plight and little legal protection.^[65] In Syria alone an estimated 50,000 Iraqi girls and women, many of them widows, are forced into prostitution just to survive.^[66][67]

According to Washington based Refugees International, out of the 4.2 million refugees fewer than 800 have been allowed into the US since the 2003 invasion. Sweden had accepted 18,000 and Australia had resettled almost 6,000.^[68] By 2006 Sweden had granted protection to more Iraqis than all the other EU Member States combined. However, and following repeated unanswered calls to its European partners for greater solidarity, July 2007 saw Sweden introduce a more restrictive policy towards Iraqi asylum seekers, which is expected to reduce the recognition rate in 2008.^[69]

As of September 2007 Syria had decided to implement a strict visa regime to limit the number of Iraqis entering the country at up to 5,000 per day, cutting the only accessible escape route for thousands of refugees fleeing the civil war in Iraq. A government decree that took effect on 10 September 2007 bars Iraqi passport holders from entering Syria except for businessmen and academics. Until then, the Syria was the only country that had resisted strict entry regulations for Iraqis.^[70][71]

Religious minorities in the Middle East

Although Assyrian Christians represent less than 5% of the total Iraqi population, they make up 40% of the refugees fleeing Iraq, according to U.N. High Commissioner for Refugees.^[72][73] In the 16th century, Christians were half the population of Iraq.^[74] In 1987, the last Iraqi census counted 1.4 million Christians.^[75] But as the current war has radicalized Islamic sensibilities, Christians have seen their total numbers slump to about 500,000 today, of whom 250,000 live in Baghdad.^[76]

Furthermore, the small Mandaean and Yazidi communities are at the risk of elimination due to ethnic cleansing by Islamic militants.^[77][78] Entire neighborhoods in Baghdad were ethnically cleansed by Shia and Sunni Militias.^[79][80] Satellite shows ethnic cleansing in Iraq was key factor in "surge" success.^[81]

The US government position on refugees states that there is repression of religious minorities in the Middle East and in Pakistan such as Christians, Hindus, as well as Ahmadi, and Zikri denominations of Islam. In Sudan where Islam is the state religion, Muslims dominate the Government and restrict activities of Christians, practitioners of traditional African indigenous religions and other non-Muslims [7]. The question of Jewish, Christian and other refugees from Arab and Muslim countries was introduced in March 2007 in the US congress [8].

In the Islamic republic of Iran, Iranian Christians decry minority religions' lack of freedom in Islamic countries [9], while Bahá'ís are also fleeing religious persecution [10].

Refugee movements in Asia

Afghanistan

From the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan in 1979 through the early 1990s, the Afghan War (1978–92) caused more than six million refugees to flee to the neighboring countries of Pakistan and Iran, making Afghanistan the greatest refugee-producing country. At the peak of the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan, close to seven million Afghan refugees sought refuge within Pakistan, making Pakistan the only country to have hosted such a huge number of refugees. The number of refugees fluctuated with the waves of the war, with thousands more fleeing after the Taliban takeover of 1996. The U.S. invasion of Afghanistan in 2001 and continued ethnic cleansing and reprisals also caused additional displacement. Though there has been some repatriation sponsored by the U.N. from Iran and Pakistan, a 2007 UNHCR census identified over two million Afghan refugees still living in Pakistan alone.

As of February 2007^[update], Iran was home to 915,000 Afghan refugees and 54,000 Iraqi refugees.^[82] In 2002, UNCHR began an Afghan voluntary repatriation programme.^[82] Since late April 2007, the Iranian government has forcibly deporting back to Afghanistan mostly unregistered (and some registered) Afghan refugees Afghans living and working in Iran. The forceful evictions of the refugees, who have lived in Iran and Pakistan for nearly three decades, are part of the two countries' larger plans to repatriate all Afghan refugees. Experts say it will be 'disastrous' for Afghanistan.^[83][84] 362,000 Afghans were deported in 2008.^[85]

The Partition of 1947

The partition of the Indian subcontinent into India and Pakistan in 1947 resulted in the largest human movement in history: an exchange of 18,000,000 Hindus and Sikhs (from Bangladesh-65% and Pakistan-35%) for Muslims (from India). During the Bangladesh Liberation War in 1971, owing to the civil war in Bangladesh (formerly east Pakistan) and Operation Searchlight, more than ten million Bengalis fled to neighboring India.

Bengali refugees in India in 1971

As a result of the Bangladesh Liberation War, on 27 March 1971, Prime Minister of India, Indira Gandhi, expressed full support of her Government to the Bangladeshi struggle for freedom. The Bangladesh-India border was opened to allow panic-stricken Bengalis safe shelter in India. The governments of West Bengal, Bihar, Assam, Meghalaya and Tripura established refugee camps along the border. Exiled Bangladeshi army officers and the Indian military immediately started using these camps for recruitment and training members of Mukti Bahini. During the Bangladesh War of Independence around 10 million Bengalis fled the country to escape the killings and atrocities committed by the Pakistan Army. Bengali refugees known as '"Chakmas"' in India.

The Himalayas

After the 1959 Tibetan exodus, there are more than 150,000 Tibetans who live in India, many in settlements in Dharamsala and Mysore, and Nepal. These include people who have escaped over the Himalayas from Tibet, as well as their children and grandchildren. In India the overwhelming majority of Tibetans born in India are still stateless and carry a document called an Identity Card issued by the Indian government in lieu of a passport. This document states the nationality of the holder as Tibetan. It is a document that is frequently rejected as a valid travel document by many customs and immigrations departments. The Tibetan refugees also own a Green Book issued by the Tibetan Government in Exile for rights and duties towards this administration.

In 1991–92, Bhutan expelled roughly 100,000 ethnic Nepalis, most of whom have been living in seven refugee camps in eastern Nepal ever since. In March 2008, this population began a multiyear resettlement to third countries including the United States,New Zealand, Denmark and Australia. At present, the United States is working towards resettling more than 60,000 of these refugees in the US as a third country settlement programme.^[86]

Meanwhile, as many as 200,000 Nepalese were displaced during the Maoist insurgency and Nepalese Civil War which ended in 2006.

More than 3 million Pakistani civilians have been displaced by War in North-West Pakistan (2004–Present) between the Pakistani government and Taliban militants.^[87]

Sri Lankan Tamils

Main articles: Sri Lankan Tamil diaspora and Sri Lankan IDP camps

The civil war in Sri Lanka (1983 to the 2009) has generated millions of internally displaced as well as refugees. Sri Lanka Tamils have fled to India, Europe (mostly France, Denmark, the United Kingdom, and Germany), and Canada (over 103,625 people).

Kashmir

Some 300,000 Kashmiri Pandit Hindus (conservative estimate) have been internally displaced from Kashmr by Pakistan based terrorist organizations. According to the National Human Rights Commission, about 300,000 Kashmiri Pandits have been forced to leave Kashmir. But Kashmiri groups peg the number of migrants closer to 500,000.^[88]

Tajikistan Civil War

Since 1991, much of the country's non-Muslim population, including Russians and Jews, have fled Tajikistan due to severe poverty, instability and Tajikistan Civil War (1992–1997).^[89] In 1992, most of the country’s Jewish population was evacuated to Israel.^[90] By the end of the civil war Tajikistan was in a state of complete devastation. Around 1.2 million people were refugees inside and outside of the country.^[91]

Uzbekistan

In 1989, after bloody pogroms against the Meskhetian Turks in Central Asia's Ferghana Valley, nearly 90,000 Meskhetian Turks left Uzbekistan.^[92][93]

Southeast Asia (Vietnam War)

Following the communist takeovers in Vietnam, Cambodia, and Laos in 1975, about three million people attempted to escape in the subsequent decades. With massive influx of refugees daily, the resources of the receiving countries were severely strained. The plight of the boat people became an international humanitarian crisis. The United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) set up refugee camps in neighboring countries to process the boat people. The budget of the UNHCR increased from $80 million in 1975 to $500 million in 1980. Partly for its work in Indochina, the UNHCR was awarded the 1981 Nobel Peace Prize.

• Large numbers of Vietnamese refugees came into existence after 1975 when South Vietnam fell to the communist forces. Many tried to escape, some by boat, thus giving rise to the phrase "boat people." The Vietnamese refugees emigrated to Hong Kong, France, the United States, Canada, Australia, and other countries, creating sizeable expatriate communities, notably in the United States.
• Survivors of the Khmer Rouge regime in Cambodia fled across the border into Thailand after the Vietnamese invasion of 1978–79. Approximately 300,000 of these people were eventually resettled in the United States, France, Canada, and Australia between 1979 and 1992, when the camps were closed and the remaining people repatriated.
• The Mien or Yao recently lived in northern Vietnam, northern Laos and northern Thailand. In 1975, the Pathet Lao forces began seeking reprisal for the involvement of many Mien as soldiers in the CIA-sponsored Secret War in Laos. As a token of appreciation to the Mien and Hmong people who served in the CIA secret army, the United States accepted many of the refugees as naturalized citizens (Mien American). Many more Hmong continue to seek asylum in neighboring Thailand [11].
• Due to the persecution of the ethnic Karen, Karenni and other minority populations in Burma (Myanmar) significant numbers of refugees live along the Thai border in camps of up to 100,000 people.
• Muslim ethnic groups from Burma, the Rohingya and other Arakanese have been living in camps in Bangladesh since the 1990s [12] [13].

Refugee movements in Africa

Since the 1950s, many nations in Africa have suffered civil wars and ethnic strife, thus generating a massive number of refugees of many different nationalities and ethnic groups. The division of Africa into European colonies in 1885, along which lines the newly independent nations of the 1950s and 1960s drew their borders, has been cited as a major reason why Africa has been so plagued with intrastate warfare. The number of refugees in Africa increased from 860,000 in 1968 to 6,775,000 by 1992 (Encyclopedia Britannica, 2004). By the end of 2004, that number had dropped to 2,748,400 refugees, according to the United Nations High Commission for Refugees [14]. (That figure does not include internally displaced persons, who do not cross international borders and so do not fit the official definition of refugee.)

Many refugees in Africa cross into neighboring countries to find haven; often, African countries are simultaneously countries of origin for refugees and countries of asylum for other refugees. The Democratic Republic of Congo, for instance, was the country of origin for 462,203 refugees at the end of 2004, but a country of asylum for 199,323 other refugees.

Countries in Africa from where 5,000 or more refugees originated as of the end of 2004, arranged in descending order of numbers of refugees are listed below. (UNHCR, 2004 Global Refugee Trends, Table 3.) The largest number of refugees are from Sudan and have fled either the longstanding and recently concluded Sudanese Civil War or the Darfur conflict and are located mainly in Chad, Uganda, Ethiopia, and Kenya.

Angola: 228,838 Burundi: 485,764 Cameroon: 7,629 Central African Republic: 31,069 Chad: 52,663 Côte d'Ivoire: 23,655 Democratic Republic of Congo: 462,203

Eritrea: 131,119 Ethiopia: 63,105 Ghana: 14,767 Liberia: 335,467 Nigeria: 23,888 Republic of the Congo: 28,152 Rwanda: 63,808

Senegal: 8,332 Sierra Leone: 41,801 Somalia: 389,272 Sudan: 930,612 Togo: 10,819 Uganda: 31,963 Zimbabwe: 9,568

Angola

Decolonisation during the 1960s and 1970s often resulted in the mass exodus of European-descended settlers out of Africa – especially from North Africa (1.6 million European pieds noirs),^[94] Congo, Mozambique and Angola.^[95] By the mid-1970s, the Portugal's African territories were lost, and nearly one million Portuguese or persons of Portuguese descent left those territories (mostly Portuguese Angola and Mozambique) as destitute refugees – the retornados.^[96]

The Angolan Civil War (1975–2002), one of the largest and deadliest Cold War conflicts, erupted shortly after and spread out across the newly-independent country. At least one million persons were killed, four million were displaced internally and another half million fled as refugees.^[97]

Uganda

In the 1970s Uganda and other East African nations implemented racist policies that targeted the Asian population of the region. Uganda under Idi Amin's leadership was particularly most virulent in its anti-Asian policies, eventually resulting in the expulsion and ethnic cleansing of Uganda's Asian minority.^[98] Uganda's 80,000 Asians were mostly Indians born in the country. India had refused to accept them.^[99] Most of the expelled Indians eventually settled in the United Kingdom, Canada and in the United States.^[100]

Great Lakes refugee crisis

Refugee camp in Zaire, 1994

Main article: Great Lakes refugee crisis

In the aftermath of the 1994 Rwandan Genocide, over two million people fled into neighboring countries, in particular Zaire. The refugee camps were soon controlled by the former government and Hutu militants who used the camps as bases to launch attacks against the new government in Rwanda. Little action was taken to resolve the situation and the crisis did not end until Rwanda-supported rebels forced the refugees back across the border at the beginning of the First Congo War.

Darfur

Some 2.5, million roughly one-third the population of the Darfur area, have been forced to flee their homes after attacks by Janjaweed Arab militia backed by Sudanese troops during the ongoing Darfur conflict in western Sudan.^[101][102]

Refugee movements in and within Europe

European Union

The European Union is developing a common system for immigration and asylum and a single external border control strategy. This involves categorising refugees as separate from economic migrants – i.e. as political migrants which includes the categories illegal immigrants, asylum seekers, and as refugees.

According to the European Council on Refugees and Exiles, a network of European refugee-assisting non-governmental organizations (NGOs), huge differences exist between national asylum systems in Europe, making the asylum system a 'lottery' for refugees. For example, Iraqis who flee their home country and end up in Germany have a 85% of being recognised as a refugee and those who apply for asylum in Slovenia do not get a protection status at all.^[103] A phenomenon referred to as 'secondary movement' describes the travelling of asylum seekers from one country of the European Union to another.

In France, helping an illegal immigrant (providing shelter, for example) is prohibited by a law passed on December 27, 1994 [15]. The law was heavily criticized by (NGOs) such as the CIMADE and the GISTI, left-wing political parties such as the Greens and the Communists, and trade unions such as the magistrates' Syndicat de la magistrature.

The Turkish newspaper Hürriyet published stories in July 2004 and May 2006 that Hellenic Coast Guard ships were caught on film cruising as near as a few hundred meters off the Turkish coast and abandoning clandestine immigrants to the sea. This practice allegedly resulted in the drowning of six people between Chios and Karaburun Peninsula on 26 September 2006 while three others disappeared and 31 were saved by Turkish gendarmes and fishermen.^[104]

A tough new EU immigration law detaining illegal immigrants for up to 18 months before deportation has triggered outrage across Latin America, with Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez threatening to cut off oil exports to Europe.^[105][106]

Hungary

In 1956–57 following the Hungarian Revolution of 1956 nearly 200,000 persons, about two percent of the population of Hungary, fled as refugees to Austria and West Germany.^[107]

Czechoslovakia

The Warsaw Pact invasion of Czechoslovakia in 1968 was followed by a wave of emigration, unseen before and stopped shortly after (estimate: 70,000 immediately, 300,000 in total),^[108] typically of highly qualified people left for Austria or West Germany .

Cyprus

It is estimated that 40% of the Greek population of Cyprus, as well as over half of the Turkish Cypriot population, were displaced by the Turkish invasion of Cyprus in 1974. The figures for internally displaced Cypriots varies, the United Peacekeeping force in Cyprus (UNFICYP) estimates 165,000 Greek Cypriots and 45,000 Turkish Cypriots. The UNHCR registers slightly higher figures of 200,000 and 65,000 respectively, being partly based on official Cypriot statistics which register children of displaced families as refugees.^[109] The separation of the two communities via the UN patrolled Green Line prohibited the return of all internally displaced people.

Balkans

Following the Greek Civil War (1946–1949) hundreds of thousands of Greeks and Ethnic Macedonians were expelled or fled the country. The number of refugees ranged from 35,000 to over 213,000. Over 28,000 children were evacuated by the Partisans to the Eastern Bloc and the Socialist Republic of Macedonia. This left thousands of Greeks and Aegean Macedonians spread across the world.

The forced assimilation campaign of the late 1980s directed against ethnic Turks resulted in the emigration of some 300,000 Bulgarian Turks to Turkey.

Beginning in 1991, political upheavals in the Balkans such as the breakup of Yugoslavia, displaced about 2,700,000 people by mid-1992, of which over 700,000 of them sought asylum in Europe.^[110][111] In 1999, about one million Albanians escaped from Serbian persecution.

Today there are still thousands of refugees and internally displaced persons in the Balkan Region who cannot return to their homes. Most of them are Serbs who cannot return to Kosovo, and who still live in refugee camps in Serbia today. Over 200,000 Serbs and other non-Albanian minorities fled or were expelled from Kosovo after the Kosovo War in 1999.^[112][113]

Refugees and IDPs in Serbia form between 7% and 7.5% of its population – about half a million refugees sought refuge in the country following the series of Yugoslav wars (from Croatia mainly, to an extent Bosnia and Herzegovina too and the IDPs from Kosovo, which are the most numerous at over 200,000).^[114] Serbia has the largest refugee population in Europe.^[115]

Chechnya

From 1992 ongoing conflict has taken place in Chechenya, Caucasus due to independence proclaimed by this republic in 1991 which is not accepted by the Russian Federation or any other state in the world. As a consequence about 2 million people have been displaced and still cannot return to their homes. At the end of the Soviet era, ethnic Russians comprised about 23% of the population (269,000 in 1989). Due to widespread lawlessness and ethnic cleansing under the government of Dzhokhar Dudayev most non-Chechens (and many Chechens as well) fled the country during the 1990s or were killed.^[116][117]

Georgia

The forced displacement and ethnic-cleansing of more than 250,000 people, mostly Georgians but some others too, from Abkhazia during the conflict and after in 1993 and 1998.^[118]

As a result of 1991–1992 South Ossetia War, about 100,000 ethnic Ossetians fled South Ossetia and Georgia proper, most across the border into North Ossetia. A further 23,000 ethnic Georgians fled South Ossetia and settled in other parts of Georgia.^[119]

The United Nations estimated 100,000 Georgians have been uprooted as a result of the 2008 South Ossetia war; some 30,000 residents of South Ossetia fled into the neighboring Russian province of North Ossetia.^[120]

Refugee movements in the Americas

More than one million Salvadorans were displaced during the Salvadoran Civil War from 1975 to 1982. About half went to the United States, most settling in the Los Angeles area. There was also a large exodus of Guatemalans during the 1980s, trying to escape from the Civil War and genocide there as well. These people went to Southern Mexico and the U.S.

From 1991 through 1994, following the military coup d'état against President Jean-Bertrand Aristide, thousands of Haitians fled violence and repression by boat. Although most were repatriated to Haiti by the U.S. government, others entered the United States as refugees. Haitians were primarily regarded as economic migrants from the grinding poverty of Haiti, the poorest nation in the Western Hemisphere.

See also: Mariel boatlift

The victory of the forces led by Fidel Castro in the Cuban Revolution led to a large exodus of Cubans between 1959 and 1980. Dozens of Cubans yearly continue to risk the waters of the Straits of Florida seeking better economic and political conditions in the U.S. In 1999 the highly publicized case of six year old Elián González brought the covert migration to international attention. Measures by both governments have attempted to address the issue; the U.S. instituted a wet feet, dry feet policy allowing refuge to those travelers who manage to complete their journey, and the Cuban government have periodically allowed for mass migration by organizing leaving posts. The most famous of these agreed migrations was the Mariel boatlift of 1980.

Colombia has one of the world's largest populations of internally displaced persons (IDPs), with estimates ranging from 2.6 to 4.3 million people, due to the ongoing Colombian armed conflict. The larger figure is cumulative since 1985.^[121][122] It is now estimated by the US Committee for Refugees and Immigrants that there are about 150,000 Colombians in "refugee-like situations" in the United States, not recognized as refugees or subject to any formal protection.

During the Vietnam War, many U.S. citizens who were conscientious objectors and wished to avoid the draft sought political asylum in Canada. President Jimmy Carter issued an amnesty. Since 1975, the U.S. has resettled approximately 2.6 million refugees, with nearly 77% being either Indochinese or citizens of the former Soviet Union. Since the enactment of the Refugee Act of 1980, annual admissions figures have ranged from a high of 207,116 in 1980 to a low of 27,100 in 2002.

Currently, ten national voluntary agencies resettle refugees nationwide on behalf of the U.S. government: Church World Service, Ethiopian Community Development Council, Episcopal Migration Ministries, Hebrew Immigrant Aid Society, International Rescue Committee, US Committee for Refugees and Immigrants, Lutheran Immigration and Refugee Service, United States Conference of Catholic Bishops, World Relief Corporation and State of Iowa, Bureau of Refugee Services.

The U.S. Office of Refugee Resettlement (ORR) funds a number of organizations that provide technical assistance to voluntary agencies and local refugee resettlement organizations. RefugeeWorks, headquartered in Baltimore, MD., is ORR's training and technical assistance arm for employment and self-sufficiency activities, for example. This nonprofit organization assists refugee service providers in their efforts to help refugees achieve self-sufficiency. RefugeeWorks publishes white papers, newsletters and reports on refugee employment topics.^[123]

Climate refugees

Main article: Climate refugee

Although they do not fit the definition of refugees set out in the UN Convention, people displaced by the effects of climate change have often been termed "climate refugees"^[124] or "climate change refugees".^[125]

Sea level rise and raising global temperatures threaten food security and state sovereignty for many around the world. Higher temperatures are expected to further raise sea level by expanding ocean water, melting mountain glaciers and small ice caps, and causing portions of Greenland and the Antarctic ice sheets to melt. The IPCC (Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change) estimates that the global average sea level will rise between 0.6 and 2 feet (0.18 to 0.59 meters) in the next century^[126]. While other sources suggest that this conclusion is too conservative. Science and Nature Geoscience used empirical data from last century to project that sea levels could be up to 5 feet higher (0.5 to 1.4 meters) in 2100 and rising 6 inches per decade ^[127][128]. These models provide evidence that people that call low lying atolls, islands, and the Arctic home will become refugees.

In tropical and subtropical regions and even in temperate zones where crops and livestock production play an essential role in a regions economy are highly susceptible to global temperature rise and in turn food security crises ^[129]. Severe drought and hunger related deaths will become more prevalent, causing “unprecedented rates of migration from north to south, from rural to urban areas, and from landlocked to coastal countries” as was seen between the late 1960s to the early 1990s by the Sahal.^[129]

Refugees as security threats

Very rarely, refugees have been used and recruited as refugee warriors,^[130] and the humanitarian aid directed at refugee relief has very rarely been utilized to fund the acquisition of arms.^[131] Support from a refugee-receiving state has rarely been used to enable refugees to mobilize militarily, enabling conflict to spread across borders.^[132]

Common refugee medical problems

Apart from physical wounds or starvation, a large percentage of refugees develop symptoms of post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) or depression. These long-term mental problems can severely impede the functionality of the person in everyday situations; it makes matters even worse for displaced persons who are confronted with a new environment and challenging situations. They are also at high risk for suicide.^[133]

Among other symptoms, post-traumatic stress disorder involves anxiety, over-alertness, sleeplessness, chronic fatigue syndrome, motor difficulties, failing short term memory, amnesia, nightmares and sleep-paralysis. Flashbacks are characteristic to the disorder: The patient experiences the traumatic event, or pieces of it, again and again. Depression is also characteristic for PTSD-patients and may also occur without accompanying PTSD.

PTSD was diagnosed in 34.1% of Palestinian children, most of whom were refugees, males, and working. The participants were 1,000 children aged 12 to 16 years from governmental, private, and United Nations Relief Work Agency UNRWA schools in East Jerusalem and various governorates in the West Bank.^[134]

Another study showed that 28.3% of Bosnian refugee women had symptoms of PTSD three or four years after their arrival in Sweden. These women also had significantly higher risks of symptoms of depression, anxiety, and psychological distress than Swedish-born women. For depression the odds ratio was 9.50 among Bosnian women.^[135]

A study by the Department of Pediatrics and Emergency Medicine at the Boston University School of Medicine demonstrated that twenty percent of Sudanese refugee minors living in the United States had a diagnosis of post-traumatic stress disorder. They were also more likely to have worse scores on all the Child Health Questionnaire subscales.^[136]

Many more studies illustrate the problem. One meta-study was conducted by the psychiatry department of Oxford University at Warneford Hospital in the United Kingdom. Twenty surveys were analyzed, providing results for 6,743 adult refugees from seven countries. In the larger studies, 9% were diagnosed with post-traumatic stress disorder and 5% with major depression, with evidence of much psychiatric co-morbidity. Five surveys of 260 refugee children from three countries yielded a prevalence of 11% for post-traumatic stress disorder. According to this study, refugees resettled in Western countries could be about ten times more likely to have PTSD than age-matched general populations in those countries. Worldwide, tens of thousands of refugees and former refugees resettled in Western countries probably have post-traumatic stress disorder.^[137]

Exploitation

Refugee populations consist of people who are terrified and are away from familiar surroundings. There can be instances of exploitation at the hands of enforcement officials, citizens of the host country, and even United Nations peacekeepers. Instances of human rights violations, child labor, mental and physical trauma/torture, violence-related trauma, and sexual exploitation, especially of children, are not entirely unknown. In many refugee camps in three war-torn West African countries, Sierra Leone, Guinea, and Liberia, young girls were found to be exchanging sex for money, a handful of fruit, or even a bar of soap. Most of these girls were between 13 and 18 years of age. In most cases, if the girls had been forced to stay, they would had been forced into marriage. They became become pregnant on average around the age of 15.This happened as recently as in 2001. Parents tended to turn a blind eye because sexual exploitation had become a ‘‘mechanism of survival’’ in these camps.^[138]

World Refugee Day

World Refugee Day occurs on June 20. The day was created in 2000 by a special United Nations General Assembly Resolution. June 20 had previously been commemorated as African Refugee Day in a number of African countries.

In the United Kingdom World Refugee Day is celebrated as part of Refugee Week. Refugee Week is a nationwide festival designed to promote understanding and to celebrate the cultural contributions of refugees, and features many events such as music, dance and theatre.

In the Roman Catholic Church, the World Day of Migrants and Refugees is celebrated in January each year, having been instituted in 1914 by Pope Pius X.

"Nothing At All" is a folk song by Bob Thomas and Huw Pudner about the plight of a refugee being forced back to his own country against his will.

See also

Asylum shopping Boat people Climate refugee Diaspora, a mass movement of population, usually forced by war or natural disaster Displaced person Emergency evacuation Ethnic cleansing Forced migration Homo sacer Human migration Internally displaced person List of famous refugees

Look up refugee in Wiktionary, the free dictionary. Mandatory detention Merhan Karimi Nasseri, an Iranian refugee who lived in Charles de Gaulle Airport Migrant literature Nansen passport Naturalization (includes denaturalization laws) Population transfer Right of asylum (and political asylum) Stateless persons United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees World War II evacuation and expulsion

Notes

1. ^ [1]
2. ^ Refugees by Numbers 2006 edition, UNHCR
3. ^ "Who is a Palestine refugee?". United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees in the Near East. http://www.un.org/unrwa/refugees/whois.html. Retrieved 2009-09-21. 
4. ^ Framework for Durable Solutions for Refugees and Other Persons of Concern, UNHCR Core Group on Durable Solutions, May 2003, p. 5
5. ^ Education in Azerbaijan. UNICEF.
6. ^ By the early 19th century, as many as 45% of the islanders may have been Muslim.
7. ^ Justin McCarthy, Death and Exile: The Ethnic Cleansing of Ottoman Muslims, 1821-1922, (Princeton, N.J: Darwin Press, c1995
8. ^ Greek and Turkish refugees and deportees 1912-1924. Universiteit Leiden.
9. ^ ^{a b} [http://nobelprize.org/nobel_prizes/peace/laureates/1938/nansen-history.html Nansen International Office for Refugee: The Nobel Peace Prize 1938], nobelprize.org
10. ^ Old fears over new faces, The Seattle Times, September 21, 2006
11. ^ U S Constitution - The Immigration Act of 1924
12. ^ Forced displacement of Czech population under Nazis in 1938 and 1943, Radio Prague
13. ^ Spanish Civil War fighters look back
14. ^ Statistisches Bundesamt, Die Deutschen Vertreibungsverluste, Wiesbaden, 1958; Alfred de Zayas, "Forced Resettlement", "Population, Expulsion and Transfer", "Repatriation" in Encyclopaedia of Public International Law, North Holland Publishers, Vols. 1–5, Amsterdam 1993–2003; Norman Naimark, The Russians in Germany, Harvard University Press, 1995; Alfred de Zayas, Nemesis at Potsdam, Routledge, London and Boston, 1977; Alfred de Zayas, "A Terrible Revenge" Palgrave/Macmillan 2006
15. ^ The United States and Forced Repatriation of Soviet Citizens, 1944-47 by Mark Elliott Political Science Quarterly, Vol. 88, No. 2 (Jun., 1973), pp. 253–275
16. ^ Repatriation -- The Dark Side of World War II
17. ^ Forced Repatriation to the Soviet Union: The Secret Betrayal
18. ^ Final Compensation Pending for Former Nazi Forced Laborers
19. ^ Forced Labor at Ford Werke AG during the Second World War
20. ^ The Nazi Ostarbeiter (Eastern Worker) Program
21. ^ Soviet Prisoners of War: Forgotten Nazi Victims of World War II
22. ^ Soviet Prisoners-of-War
23. ^ The warlords: Joseph Stalin
24. ^ Remembrance (Zeithain Memorial Grove)
25. ^ Patriots ignore greatest brutality
26. ^ Joseph Stalin killer file
27. ^ Forced migration in the 20th century
28. ^ [http://www.infoplease.com/ce6/history/A0850078.html "United Nations Relief and Rehabilitation Administration," The Columbia Electronic Encyclopedia, © 1994, 2000-2005, on Infoplease, © 2000–2006 Pearson Education, publishing as Infoplease. (accessed 13 October 2006)
29. ^ "International Refugee Organization %u2014 Infoplease.com." The Columbia Electronic Encyclopedia, The Columbia Electronic Encyclopedia, © 1994, 2000–2005, on Infoplease, © 2000–2006 Pearson Education, publishing as Infoplease. (accessed 13 October 2006)
30. ^ "What is resettlement? A new challenge". UNHCR. http://www.unhcr.org/pages/4a1d0a9e6.html. Retrieved 2009-07-19. 
31. ^ ^{a b c d} "Resettlement: A new beginning in a third country". UNHCR. http://www.unhcr.org/pages/4a16b1676.html. Retrieved 2009-07-19. 
32. ^ ^{a b c d} "Understanding Resettlement to the UK: A Guide to the Gateway Protection Programme". Refugee Council on behalf of the Resettlement Inter-Agency Partnership. June 2004. http://www.refugeecouncil.org.uk/OneStopCMS/Core/CrawlerResourceServer.aspx?resource=3140698F-6646-468B-AD6E-217439B9ACB5&mode=link&guid=eca93211dd1d4c9585770f026739c401. Retrieved 2009-07-19. 
33. ^ Evans, Olga; Murray, Rosemary (February 2009). "The Gateway Protection Programme: An evaluation". Home Office Research Report 12. http://www.homeoffice.gov.uk/rds/pdfs09/horr12c.pdf. 
34. ^ "EU plans to admit more refugees". BBC News. 2009-09-02. http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/europe/8233187.stm. Retrieved 2009-09-02. 
35. ^ Japan's refugee policy
36. ^ Sweeping changes to mandatory detention announced: ABC News 29/7/2008
37. ^ Australia abandons asylum policy: BBC News 29/7/2008
38. ^ ^{a b} All I wanted was justice http://www.haaretz.com/hasen/spages/941518.html
39. ^ Schwartz, Adi. "All I wanted was justice" Haaretz. 10 January 2008.
40. ^ ^{a b} 1,000 Africans estimated to have infiltrated Israel in 2 weeks, Tani Goldstein, Published: 02.18.08, Ynet news
41. ^ http://www.alertnet.org/thenews/newsdesk/L490874.htm
42. ^ On French immigrants, the words left unsaid
43. ^ For Pieds-Noirs, the Anger Endures
44. ^ Lebanon: Haven for foreign militants
45. ^ Lebanon Higher Relief Council (2007). "Lebanon Under Siege". Retrieved March 5, 2007.
46. ^ "Middle East crisis: Facts and Figures". BBC News Online. 2006-08-31. http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/middle_east/5257128.stm. Retrieved 2008-07-13. 
47. ^ Michael Hirst (2007-04-03). "Rise in radical Islam last straw for Lebanon's Christians". Daily Telegraph. http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/main.jhtml?xml=/news/2007/04/01/wleb01.xml. 
48. ^ EU donates €10 million to Western Sahara refugees
49. ^ Refugees and internally displaced persons
50. ^ Western Sahara: Lack of donor funds threatens humanitarian projects
51. ^ De Waal, Black Garden, p. 285
52. ^ Refugees and displaced persons in Azerbaijan
53. ^ Europe's Forgotten Refugees
54. ^ Radu, Michael. (2001). "The Rise and Fall of the PKK", Orbis. 45(1):47–64.
55. ^ Turkey: "Still Critical" - Introduction
56. ^ DISPLACED AND DISREGARDED: Turkey's Failing Village Return Program
57. ^ Prospects in 2005 for Internally Displaced Kurds in Turkey
58. ^ HRW Turkey Reports
    See also: Report D612, October, 1994, "Forced Displacement of Ethnic Kurds" (A Human Rights Watch Publication).
59. ^ [http://www.unhcr.org/iraq.html UNHCR | Iraq]
60. ^ Iraq refugees chased from home, struggle to cope
61. ^ U.N.: 100,000 Iraq refugees flee monthly. Alexander G. Higgins, Boston Globe, November 3, 2006
62. ^ Anthony Arnove: Billboarding the Iraq disaster, Asia Times March 20, 2007
63. ^ Iraqi refugees facing desperate situation, Amnesty International
64. ^ 40% of middle class believed to have fled crumbling nation
65. ^ Iraq's middle class escapes, only to find poverty in Jordan
66. ^ '50,000 Iraqi refugees' forced into prostitution
67. ^ Iraqi refugees forced into prostitution
68. ^ US in Iraq for 'another 50 years', The Australian, June 2, 2007
69. ^ "Five years on Europe is still ignoring its responsibilities towards Iraqi refugees" (PDF). ECRE. http://www.ecre.org/files/ECRE_Survey_Iraq_2008.pdf. Retrieved 2008-09-03. 
70. ^ Syria moves to restrain Iraqi refugee influx
71. ^ Syria to restricts Iraqi refugee influx
72. ^ Christians, targeted and suffering, flee Iraq
73. ^ Terror campaign targets Chaldean church in Iraq
74. ^ UNHCR |Iraq
75. ^ Christians live in fear of death squads
76. ^ 'We're staying and we will resist'
77. ^ Crawford, Angus (2007-03-04). "Iraq's Mandaeans 'face extinction'". BBC News. http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/middle_east/6412453.stm. 
78. ^ Damon, Arwa; Mohammed Tawfeeq and Raja Razek (2007-08-15). "Iraqi officials: Truck bombings killed at least 500". CNN. http://edition.cnn.com/2007/WORLD/meast/08/15/iraq.main/index.html?iref=topnews. 
79. ^ Iraq is disintegrating as ethnic cleansing takes hold
80. ^ "There is ethnic cleansing"
81. ^ Satellite images show ethnic cleanout in Iraq, Reuters, September 19, 2008
82. ^ ^{a b} "Afghan refugees given repatriation extension". IRIN (UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs). 2007-02-28. http://www.irinnews.org/Report.aspx?ReportId=70450. Retrieved 2009-10-10. 
83. ^ Iranian Deportations Raise Fears of Humanitarian Crisis in Afghanistan
84. ^ To root out Taliban, Pakistan to expel 2.4 million Afghans
85. ^ "Afghanistan denies laxity in visa rules". Fars News Agency. 2009-10-06. http://english.farsnews.com/newstext.php?nn=8807141624. Retrieved 2009-10-10. 
86. ^ Bhaumik, Subir (November 7, 2007). "Bhutan refugees are 'intimidated'". BBC News. http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/south_asia/7082586.stm. Retrieved 2008-04-25. 
87. ^ 3.4 million displaced by Pakistan fighting. United Press International. May 30, 2009.
88. ^ India, The World Factbook. Retrieved 20 May 2006.
89. ^ Russians left behind in Central Asia, by Robert Greenall, BBC News, 23 November 2005.
90. ^ For Jews in Tajikistan, the end of history is looming
91. ^ Tajikistan: rising from the ashes of civil war United Nations
92. ^ Focus on Mesketian Turks
93. ^ Meskhetian Turk Communities around the World
94. ^ For Pieds-Noirs, the Anger Endures, The New York Times, April 6, 1988
95. ^ Flight from Angola, The Economist , August 16, 1975
96. ^ Portugal - Emigration, Eric Solsten, ed. Portugal: A Country Study. Washington: GPO for the Library of Congress, 1993.
97. ^ Refugees Magazine Issue 131: (Africa) – Africa At A Glance, UNHCR
98. ^ Ugandan refugees recount black deeds of 'butcher of Kampala'
99. ^ UK Indians taking care of business
100. ^ Uganda's loss, Britain's gain
101. ^ African Union Force Ineffective, Complain Refugees in Darfur
102. ^ Arabs pile into Darfur to take land 'cleansed' by janjaweed
103. ^ European Council on Refugees and Exiles (ECRE) - Asylum in the EU
104. ^ Delete the Border quoting Khaleej Times; ADN Kronos Survivors of the immigrant boat tragedy accuse Greeks (in English) – [2] [3] [4]. The newspaper Hürriyet (in Turkish). Three of the drowned were Tunisians, one was Algerian, one Palestinian and the other Iraqi. The three disappeared were also Tunisians.
105. ^ Chavez: Europe risks oil over immigrant law
106. ^ Venezuela's Chavez Threatens to Deny Oil, Investments to EU Over Immigration Laws
107. ^ The Lives of the Hungarian Refugees, UNHCR
108. ^ "Day when tanks destroyed Czech dreams of Prague Spring" (Den, kdy tanky zlikvidovaly české sny Pražského jara) at Britské Listy (British Letters)
109. ^ internal-displacement.org
110. ^ Bosnia: Dayton Accords
111. ^ Resettling Refugees: U.N. Facing New Burden
112. ^ Serbia threatens to resist Kosovo independence plan
113. ^ Kosovo/Serbia: Protect Minorities from Ethnic Violence (Human Rights Watch)
114. ^ The World Factbook. "Serbia". Central Intelligence Agency. https://www.cia.gov/library/publications/the-world-factbook/geos/rb.html. 
115. ^ Tanjug (22 October 2007). "Serbia's refugee population largest in Europe". B92. http://www.b92.net/eng/news/society-article.php?yyyy=2007&mm=10&dd=22&nav_id=44785. 
116. ^ Chechnya Advocacy Network. Refugees and Diaspora
117. ^ Ethnic Russians in the North of Caucasus - Eurasia Daily Monitor
118. ^ Bookman, Milica Zarkovic, "The Demographic Struggle for Power", (p. 131), Frank Cass and Co. Ltd. (UK), (1997) ISBN 0-7146-4732-2
119. ^ Human Rights Watch/Helsinki, RUSSIA. THE INGUSH-OSSETIAN CONFLICT IN THE PRIGORODNYI REGION, May 1996.
120. ^ 100,000 refugees flee Georgia conflict
121. ^ "Internal Displacement. Global Overview of Trends and Developments in 2008." (PDF). IDMC. http://www.reliefweb.int/rw/lib.nsf/db900sid/ASHU-7RR7QG/$file/IDMC_Apr2009.pdf?openelement. Retrieved 2009-06-28. 
122. ^ Number of internally displaced people remains stable at 26 million. Source: United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR). May 4, 2009.
123. ^ RefugeeWorks Mission Statement
124. ^ Kirby, Alex (2000-01-24). "West warned on climate refugees". BBC News. http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/sci/tech/613075.stm. Retrieved 2009-07-17. 
125. ^ Strange, Hannah (2008-06-17). "UN warns of growth in climate change refugees". The Times. http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/environment/article4159923.ece. Retrieved 2009-07-17. 
126. ^ (http://www.epa.gov/climatechange/effects/coastal/index.html)Accessed Feb. 10 2009.
127. ^ Rahmstorf, Stephan. "A Semi-Empirical Approach to Projecting Sea Level Rise." Science. vol 315: Jan 19, 2007.
128. ^ Rohling, E.J and Grant, K. et al., "High rates of sea-level raise during the last interglaical period". Nature GeoScience. vol 1, pg 38–42. Published Online Dec. 16, 2007.
129. ^ ^{a b} (Battisti, David and Naylor, Rosamond. "Historical Warnings of Future Food Insecurity with Unprecedented Seasonal Heat". Science.vol 323, pg 240–244. Jan. 9 2009)
130. ^ United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) 1999 “The Security and Civilian and Humanitarian Character of Refugee Camps and Settlements.” UNHCR EXCOM Report
131. ^ Crisp, J. 1999 “A State of Insecurity: The Political Economy of Violence in Refugee-Populated Areas of Kenya.” Working Paper No. 16, “New Issues in Refugee Research.”
132. ^ Weiss, T. G. 1999 “Principles, Politics, and International Affairs,” Ethics &International Affairs, 13: 1–22.
133. ^ CNN.com - Detainee children 'in suicide pact' - January 28, 2002
134. ^ Khamis, V. Post-traumatic stress disorder among school age Palestinian children. Child Abuse Negl. 2005 Jan;29(1):81–95.
     
135. ^ Sundquist K, Johansson LM, DeMarinis V, Johansson SE, Sundquist J. Posttraumatic stress disorder and psychiatric co-morbidity: symptoms in a random sample of female Bosnian refugees. Eur Psychiatry. 2005 Mar;20(2):158–64.
     
136. ^ Geltman PL, Grant-Knight W, Mehta SD, Lloyd-Travaglini C, Lustig S, Landgraf JM, Wise PH. The "lost boys of Sudan": functional and behavioral health of unaccompanied refugee minors re-settled in the United States. Arch Pediatr Adolesc Med. 2005 Jun;159(6):585–91.
     
137. ^ Fazel M, Wheeler J, Danesh J. Prevalence of serious mental disorder in 7000 refugees resettled in western countries: a systematic review. Lancet. 2005 Apr 9–15;365(9467):1309–14.
     
138. ^ Aggrawal A. (2005) "Refugee Medicine" in : Payne-James JJ, Byard RW, Corey TS, Henderson C (Eds.) Encyclopedia of Forensic and Legal Medicine, Elsevier Academic Press: London, Vol. 3, Pp. 514–525.

References

• Mark Bixler, "The Lost Boys of Sudan: An American Story of the Refugee Experience," University of Georgia Press 2005
• Refugee number statistics taken from 'Refugee', Encyclopaedia Britannica CD Edition 2004.
• Peter Fell and Debra Hayes, "What are they doing here? A critical guide to asylum and immigration." Venture Press 2007.
• Matthew J. Gibney, "The Ethics and Politics of Asylum: Liberal Democracy and the Response to Refugees," Cambridge University Press 2004
• Michael Robert Marrus, The Unwanted: European refugees in the 20th century, Oxford University Press 1985
• Dietmar Schultke, refugees in former East-Germany 1945-1990, in: "Keiner kommt durch - Die Geschichte der innerdeutschen Grenze und Berliner Mauer, Aufbau-Verlag, Berlin 2008
• Tony Waters, Bureaucatizing the Good Samaritan, Westview Press, 2001.
• Aristide R. Zolberg et al.,"Escape from Violence," Oxford University Press, 1989.

External links

Wikimedia Commons has media related to: Refugees

• UNHCR United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees
• USCRI The United States Committee for Refugees and Immigrants (prints The World Refugee Survey, a great resource)
• Refugees International

[16]Refugees United an internet search engine designed for refugees looking for lost family and friends worldwide

• Gimme Shelter UNHCR's Gimme Shelter Campaign
• Jesuit Refugee Service: serving, accompanying and advocating for the rights of refugees and internally displaced people in more than 57 countries.
• [http:balgang.org/findit/topics/refugees.aspx Global Gang,]amazing real life stories about kids around the world who have been 'forced to flee' on this website for 7–14 year olds. Resources for teachers on the sister website Learn
• World Refugee Survey
• Pictures of Refugees in Europe – Features by Jean-Michel Clajot, Belgian photographer
• Azerbaijani refugees
• European Council on Refugees and Exiles (ECRE) The European umbrella organization for European non-governmental organizations concerned with refugees and asylum seekers. Website provides weekly updates on European asylum policies, country reports, refugee stories and a comprehensive list of related links among other materials on the issue.
• CBC Digital Archives—Boat People: A Refugee Crisis
• UNHCR Thesaurus of official terminology related to refugees
• Refugee numbers by country
• PARDS.ORG Political Asylum Research and Documentation Service (Princeton, New Jersey)
• Refugee Stories—Listen to People's Experiences The site of the Refugee Communities History Project is full of oral history in mp3 format. The project won the 2006 Charity Award for arts, culture and heritage in the UK.
• Refugee Studies Centre, University of Oxford
• OneWorld Guide to Refugees
• UNHCR RefWorld access to UNHCR Country of Origin and Legal Information databases
• Measuring Protection by Numbers, Report from official UNHCR home page
• Refugee Health ~ Immigrant Health Populations and Issues & Infectious Diseases—from authors of Refugee and Immigrant Health: A Handbook for Health Professionals ISBN 0-521-82859-7
• Australian Labor Party Labor for Refugees (Victorian Branch) website
• British Red Cross refugee service Details of what the Red Cross and other organisations in the UK offer refuges
• The Refuge Media Project is developing several video documentaries and other resources for those working with immigrant torture survivors
• The Refugee Caselaw Site Electronic search able repository of case law relating to the legal definition of refugee status under the 1951 Convention
• Program in Refugee and Asylum Law Leading program in the comprehensive study of international refugee law at the University of Michigan Law School

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Dansk (Danish)
n. - flygtning

Nederlands (Dutch)
vluchteling

Français (French)
n. - réfugié

Deutsch (German)
n. - Flüchtling

Ελληνική (Greek)
n. - πρόσφυγας

Italiano (Italian)
profugo, rifugiato

Português (Portuguese)
n. - refugiado (m)

Русский (Russian)
беженец

Español (Spanish)
n. - refugiado

Svenska (Swedish)
n. - flykting

中文（简体）(Chinese (Simplified))
难民, 流亡者

中文（繁體）(Chinese (Traditional))
n. - 難民, 流亡者

한국어 (Korean)
n. - 망명자, 도망자

日本語 (Japanese)
n. - 避難者, 逃亡者, 亡命者

العربيه (Arabic)
‏(الاسم) لاج‏

עברית (Hebrew)
n. - ‮פליט‬

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