What is a Refugee?
More than 140 governments have now signed the 1951 convention relating to the status of refugees (the Refugee Convention). According to the 1951 Geneva Convention, a refugee is a person who has fled his country "owing to a well-founded fear of being persecuted for reasons of race, religion, nationality, membership of a particular social group, or political opinion" (Convention relating to, 1951). He or she cannot or will not return because her government cannot or will not protect her.
Refugees are invited guests of the United States; they are legal residents and enjoy all privileges of their status.
The United Nations works in conjunction with national governments to find recipient nations for these individuals. The United States accepts thousands of refugees every year from around the world.
The Center for Applied Linguistics has an excellent FAQ page pertaining to how refugee status is determined and how refugees are resettled in the United States.
Click Here to see the Center for Applied Linguistic's statistics relating to how many refugees the United States accepts per year and how many have been accepted thus far in the year, categorized by world region and country.
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