JUL 6 2020
By Lauren Husband, Communications Team
Although the United States is a nation founded by refugees and is known for its reputation as a refuge for immigrants around the world, we’ve only had comprehensive refugee admission policies for 40 years.
The Refugee Act of 1980 standardized federally-supported resettlement services for all refugees admitted to the US. This Act incorporated the definition of “refugee” used in the U.N. Refugee Convention and provided for regular and emergency refugees admissions of all nationalities. This landmark act also provided the legal basis for the establishment of The Office of Refugee Resettlement (ORR) at the Department of Health and Human Services (DHHS).
The Bureau of Immigration was created in 1891 to oversee the admission of immigrants and those considered to be “refugees” (hello, most of our ancestors!) Because early US immigration laws did not restrict immigrant intake, no separate laws existed for refugee admissions. This was a policy that was inspired by our country’s original colonizers— to accept those fleeing persecution, war, and violence in hope of finding freedom in a new home. During this time, thousands of refugees were resettled in the US with the only qualification that they met the regular requirements for immigrant admissions.
According to a timeline provided by the the Bureau of US Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS), the US has increasingly restricted immigrant and refugee admissions over time. The Emergency Quota Act of 1921 and the Immigration Act of 1924, together known as “The Quota Acts,” set specific limits on how many immigrants the U.S. would admit from every country each year.
These acts made immigration easier for northern and western Europeans and much harder for everyone else.
The quota system continued until 1965, when Congress established a preference category for conditional entrants. These were “aliens in noncommunist countries who had fled a communist country or the Middle East and were unwilling to return due to persecution or fear of persecution on account of race, religion, or political opinion”. They also included people who were uprooted by “catastrophic natural calamities as defined by the president.
The end of the Vietnam War created a large flow of refugees, many of whom had supported the US war effort. As a result, approximately 130,000 Southeast Asian refugees entered the US in the months immediately following the fall of Saigon. The Indochinese Immigration and Refugee Act funded their transportation and resettlement. Evidence of this large resettlement effort can be seen it Northwest Arkansas today, with the large selection of Thai restaurants in Washington county and significant Vietnamese population in Fort Smith. Many Marshallese refugees also resettled in Springdale during this time to seek refuge from deadly radiation as a result of a series of nuclear bomb tests conducted by the US on the islands in the 1950s.
This began the refugee admission system that we are familiar with today. Specifically, the Act created a comprehensive policy to proactively address refugee admissions by:
- Removing the geographic and ideological limits on the definition of “refugee” that had been introduced in 1965. The new law formally adopted the United Nations’ definition.
- Providing the first statutory basis for asylum.
- Increasing the number of refugees who could be admitted annually.
- Creating the Office of Refugee Resettlement to oversee resettlement programs.
Under the Act, the president, in consultation with Congress, sets the annual number of refugee admissions and the allocation of these admissions to refugees coming from various parts of world.
Refugee admissions dropped immediately following the 1980 determination; however, people continued to be displaced by conflict and persecution at growing rates. Today, the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) has identified over 79.5 million forcibly displaced people worldwide at the end of 2019, 30 million of which are refugees under UNHCR and UNRWA’s mandate.
This is the largest number of displaced peoples in modern history. The US is on track to resettle fewer than 18,000 of those 30 million refugees in the 2020 fiscal year— 0.06% of the global refugee population.
…What Changed?
Did the US run out of room to house people? Did we run out of money to fund our programs? Did we find out that refugees were ruining our country? How did one of the largest, richest, most diverse countries in the world decide to only accept 18,000 of the world’s most vulnerable?
If you ask me— I think we’ve forgotten as a nation that refugee resettlement is the absolute embodiment of the American Dream. We are a nation founded by and for refugees.
“The Bosom of America is open to receive not only the opulent and respectable stranger, but the oppressed and persecuted of all nations and religions.” — George Washington
“The United States should be an asylum for the persecuted lovers of civil and religious liberty.” — Thomas Paine
“Everywhere immigrants have enriched and strengthened the fabric of American life.” — John F. Kennedy
“Remember, remember always, that all of us, you and I especially, are descended from immigrants and revolutionists.” — Franklin D. Roosevelt
Nothing regarding America’s capability to accept tired, broken, and abused people has changed since George Washington declared “May America be an Asylum to the persecuted of the earth!” in 1783.
We’ve only forgotten our history.
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