Who we serve
What is a refugee?
International law defines refugees as “people who are unable or unwilling to return to their countries because of a well-founded fear of persecution based on their race, religion, nationality, political opinion, or belonging to a particular social group.”
In the real world, many of them have already been persecuted - family members killed or raped, houses and businesses seized, detained in concentration camps or primitive refugee camps for several years. The lucky ones are eventually resettled, but extended families may be scattered around the world. Approximately 80% of refugees are women and children.
Worldwide, how many refugees are there?
According to the U.N. Refugee Agency UNHCR – an organization which takes responsibility for protecting refugees and other displaced persons - there were 9.9 million refugees at the end of 2006 including 6.2 million in protracted situations (more than 5 years to date) - more detail at HYPERLINK “http://www.unhcr.org/cgi-bin/texis/vtx/home/opendoc.pdf?id=478ce0532&tbl=STATISTICS“. This excludes some 4.9 million Palestinians who are the responsibility of another UN organization. In addition, there were 12.9 million Internally Displaced Persons (living in U.N. camps in their home countries), and another 5.8 million stateless persons. (A stateless person is someone with no state or nationality, sometimes because the state that gave their previous nationality has ceased to exist and there is no successor state. People may also be stateless if they are members of a minority ethnic group which is denied citizen status in the country on whose territory they are born. The three largest groups of stateless persons are Kurds, Bidoon, or Palestinians living in the Middle East – see HYPERLINK “http://www.refugeesinternational.org/section/publications/stateless_mideast/“.
Who funds UNHCR?
Many of the more industrialized nations donate to UNHCR. The USA makes the biggest contribution followed by Japan and the European Commission. On a per capita basis, the USA at $1.10 is only the 8th. largest donor. Luxembourg contributes $16.66 per capita while Norway, Denmark, Sweden, The Netherlands, Finland, Ireland and Switzerland all contribute more than $3 per capita – see HYPERLINK “http://www.unhcr.org/publ/PUBL/449267630.pdf“.
Which countries accept most refugees for resettlement?
17 countries have formal refugee resettlement programs. In most recent years the USA has accepted more refugees than all the other countries combined. However, the number has been dropping significantly over the last 10 years and particularly since 9/11.
An annual ceiling on the number the USA will accept is established by the President. This has dropped from 150,000 under President Clinton to 70,000 under President Bush. In recent years, the USA has actually accepted far less then the ceiling – just 41,000 in 2006. HYPERLINK “http://www.migrationinformation.org/USFocus/display.cfm?ID=664“.
From which countries has the USA accepted most refugees in the last 30 years?
*There are various sources for refugee statistics – they don’t always agree.!!*
Probably the largest number is from Cuba – more than 1 million according to some sources.
The second largest number is from the former Soviet Union – some 493,000 according to HYPERLINK “http://www.migrationinformation.org/Feature/display.cfm?id=585“. Most of these came in during the early 1990s as a result of the Lautenberg amendment to the refugee legislation. Under this amendment would be immigrants from certain countries need only attest that they are Jews, Orthodox Christians or evangelical Christians rather than demonstrate persecution.
When Saigon fell in 1975 the USA accepted 135,000 Vietnamese who fled the communists. Shortly thereafter an additional 100,000 “Amerasians” – children of US servicemen and Vietnamese women were accepted. Together with smaller numbers of recent arrivals and their children there are now more than 1.4 million people of Vietnamese descent in the USA. More than 80% are naturalized citizens. HYPERLINK “http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vietnamese_American“. Almost 180,000 Bosnian and Croatian refugees from the former Yugoslavia were accepted during the 1990s. As conditions have improved many have returned.
After the Khmer Rouge was overthrown in 1975 more than 150,000 Cambodians were able to escape and were resettled in the USA between 1980 and 1985 – many in Los Angeles. HYPERLINK “http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cambodian_American“. Many were unable to read or write and their integration was not handled well. In 1996 a survey by the United Way of Greater Los Angeles showed that 46 % lived below the poverty line, ¾ didn’t speak English very well and only 1/3 were part of the labor force. Some current groups of refugees suffer from a similar lack of education which emphasizes the importance of ESLC’s tailoring of instruction to the needs of the students.
Currently, where are the largest groups of refugees?
The largest number – some 4.7 million – are Palestinians. Almost 2 million live in Jordan, almost 1 million in the West Bank, 700,000 in the Gaza strip and several hundred thousand in Lebanon, Syria, and Saudi Arabia with smaller numbers in Egypt and some other Arab countries. Only Jordan allows Palestinians a path to citizenship. Originally less than 1 million fled Palestine during the 1948 war. However, the UN also counts their descendants - the only refugee group for which this rule applies. See HYPERLINK “http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Palestinian_refugee” for details and discussion.
The second largest group according to an UNHCR news release on World Refugee Day (June 20, 2007) are 2.1 million Afghanis, followed by 1.5 million Iraqis. Some sources now say that the Iraqi figure is now over 2 million. There are also 686,000 Sudanese, 460,000 Somalis, and 400,000 from each of Congo and Burundi.
Myanmar ( or Burma) has been much in the news recently and considerable numbers of refugees are now being admitted to the USA. Primarily as the result of a decades long ethnic conflict some 120,000 refugees have been living in camps in Thailand for more than 10 years – see HYPERLINK “http://www.unhcr.org/publ/PUBL/449676844.pdf“. Another 20,000 are in Bangladesh and 40,000 in Burma. Some estimates suggest that Burmese living outside those camps without UN assistance are at least as many again.