About
Durable Solutions
Refugee Admission into the US
Security Screening

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About Refugees in the United States

From the earliest days of European settlement of North America, persecuted people have sought and found refuge here. The Pilgrims established Plymouth Plantation in 1620 in search of freedom to practice religion without harassment or imprisonment and by the time of the founding of the republic, the United States of America had become a symbol of hope for people seeking justice and freedom. Throughout the history of the United States, refugees have come, settled and integrated into American society. Only in modern times, however, has the opportunity for refugees to seek the protection of the U.S. government become codified into law.

The end of the Vietnam War left hundreds of thousands of Vietnamese searching for safety in a new country. In 1975, President Ford signed the Indochina Migration and Refugee Act upon the realization that refugee policies created after WWII were inadequate for dealing with the large numbers of Vietnamese, Laotian, and Cambodian refugees. Subsequently, the Refugee Act of 1980 was passed to set up systems to deal with the increasing number of refugees from Vietnam, and other countries of the world.
(From Refugees to Americans, The American Immigration Law Foundation)

Today, refugees are admitted to the U.S. in accordance with federal law and are resettled in hundreds of communities throughout the country. The Refugee Act defines a refugee as “any person who is outside any country of such person's nationality or, in the case of a person having no nationality, is outside any country in which such person last habitually resided, and who is unable or unwilling to return to, and is unable or unwilling to avail himself or herself of the protection of, that country because of persecution or a well-founded fear of persecution on account of race, religion, nationality, membership in a particular social group, or political opinion.” Under special circumstances, the President of the United States may designate certain persons who remain in their countries of nationality or habitual residence to be refugees, as well. 

Since 1975, the U.S. has resettled approximately 2.6 million refugees, with nearly 77% being either Indochinese or from the former Soviet Union. In the last decade, however, there has been a dramatic increase in the diversity of refugee groups admitted, including numerous new ethnicities from Africa, Europe, Central and South Asia and the Near East. Since the enactment of the Refugee Act of 1980, annual admissions figures nationwide have ranged from a high of 207,116 in 1980 to a low of 27,100 in 2002. (Office of Refugee Resettlement)

For more information and frequently asked questions about refugees please visit http://www.cal.org/co/refugee/
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Durable Solutions

The United States government, in concert with the international community, recognizes three durable solutions for refugees who have fled their homelands because of the inability or unwillingness of their governments to provide for their protection. 
Voluntary Repatriation: The first, and typically the most desirable, solution is to seek resolution of the problems that have caused the refugee exodus and to allow people to return voluntarily to their countries of origin in safety and security. 
Local Integration: When repatriation is not possible, nor likely to become possible in the foreseeable future, a second durable solution may be considered. This solution involves refugees being allowed to remain permanently in the countries—often neighboring countries—that have provided asylum and those countries developing opportunities for the refugees to become integrated into society.
Resettlement: The resettlement option may be considered when voluntary repatriation and local integration are not feasible and refugees are unprotected and vulnerable in their countries of first asylum. Permanent resettlement in a third country is an option for a very small fraction of the world’s refugees. The United States, Canada, Sweden, Australia, Norway and Finland resettle the largest numbers of refugees each year.
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Refugee Admissions to the U.S.

The Department of State, Bureau of Population, Refugees and Migration, administers the U.S. refugee admissions program and is responsible to identify the countries that have bona fide refugee situations and assess the importance to the U.S. of providing protection to refugees fleeing these countries. While refugee protection is an inherently humanitarian endeavor, foreign policy considerations and other interests of the U.S. government are weighed when determining which refugee groups will be afforded the opportunity to resettle permanently in this country. Annually, fewer than one-half of one percent of the world’s refugees gains admission to the United States. 
Each year, the Secretary of State consults with the Congress about the need to provide protection to refugees through resettlement and, based on these consultations, the President issues a Presidential Determination of the numbers of refugees to be admitted in the following year, broken out by six major regions of the world.
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Security Screening

Refugees are among the most heavily screened group allowed to enter the U.S. from a foreign country. In fact, most refugees must wait months for final clearance to be admitted because of the rigorous process they must undergo to assure their identity and protect the citizens of the U.S. from any security risk.

Step 1. The UN High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR), the agency mandated by the international community—including the United States—to protect and assist refugees, must first determine that individuals it refers for resettlement in the United States for Priority 1 processing qualify as refugees under international law. A UNHCR legal officer interviews each individual to determine if the reason for flight from the individual's country of origin meets the United Nations' definition of a refugee.

Step 2. The UNHCR submits the refugee's name to the U.S. embassy in the host country.

Step 3. The U.S. embassy asks a U.S. government approved resettlement organization or other organization contracted by the U.S. Department of State to compile the personal data and background information of refugees referred by UNHCR, or those identified as resettlement candidates by the U.S. government because they are of special interest to the United States (Priority 2) or have close relatives in the United States (Priority 3). Caseworkers meet in person with the refugee to compile the information required by the U.S. government.

Step 4. The U.S. government-contracted resettlement organization then normally forwards the refugee's case file and application for resettlement to the U.S. embassy.

Step 5. The State Department runs the names of all refugees who apply to the United States for resettlement through a standard CLASS (Consular Lookout and Support System) name check. Since September 11, 2001, the State Department has almost doubled the number of names and the amount of information in this lookout system database.

Step 6. If the refugee passes the CLASS name check (meaning that the name check did not find any record of security or other concerns regarding the refugee), the U.S. embassy in the host country schedules an interview for the refugee with an officer of U.S. Department of Homeland Security (DHS). 

Step 7. A specially-trained DHS officer will travel to the host country to conduct a detailed, face-to-face interview with each refugee being considered for resettlement. Based on the information in the refugee's case file and on the face-to-face interview, the DHS officer will determine if the individual qualifies as a refugee under U.S. law.

Step 8. If the DHS officer finds that the individual qualifies as a refugee and meets other U.S. admissions criteria, the officer will approve the refugee's application for resettlement and submit it to the U.S. Department of State for final processing. In most overseas posts, the refugee will then be fingerprinted and photographed. The photos are checked against embassy records at several points in the admissions process to ensure there has been no substitution of applicants.

Step 9. Before the admission of refugees of certain nationalities can be processed (mostly, though not exclusively, refugees from Middle Eastern countries), the refugee's case is referred to the U.S. Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) and U.S. Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) for a further security review, called a Security Advisor y Opinion (SAO).

Step 10. If the refugee is cleared by the FBI and CIA, his or her case is submitted to the State Department for final approval for admission.

Step 11. For refugees who are considered for resettlement because they have close relatives in the United States, the DHS checks the files of the relative in the United States to ensure that when that relative first entered the United States, he or she listed the refugee seeking resettlement as a relative. If the claimed relationship is contradicted by anything in the U.S. relative's file, the refugee's resettlement application is not processed.

Step 12. Upon arrival in the United States at one of eight designated airports, a DHS Inspection and Admissions Officer will again interview the refugee and compare the refugee with host country U.S. embassy records to ensure that the arriving refugee is the same person who was screened and approved for admission to the United States. If the refugee had not been fingerprinted and/or photographed overseas, he or she will be fingerprinted and/or photographed at this time.

Step 13. At the airport, the DHS officer also issues the refugee photo identification that confirms the refugee's identity and authorizes his or her employment in the United States. 
U.S. Committee for Refugees and Immigrants, January 2003)
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