Chapter 4
The Refugee Influx

In the October 2006 issue of Refugees, the magazine of the Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR), Rupert Colville reflects on the fiftieth anniversary of the Hungarian revolution—"the first major refugee relief operation of its kind" since the UNHCR was established by the UN General Assembly on December 14, 1950 (http://www.unhcr.org/publ/PUBL/4523caa32.pdf). The UNHCR grew out of the post-World War II efforts to deal with some forty million people displaced by the war.

On October 23, 1956, Hungarian citizens overthrew their communist government. Twelve days later the Soviet army crushed the revolution. Thousands of people were killed, arrested, or simply disappeared. Frightened Hungarians poured across the border into Austria. Within just nine weeks 200,000 Hungarians became refugees. The UNHCR and the French Red Cross took action to house refugees in Austria using camps with barracks recently vacated by post-World War II peacekeeping forces. The UNHCR set to work resettling the refugees. By the end of 1959, 180,000 refugees had been resettled in 37 countries. The UNHCR reported that the United States accepted the largest share (40,650 or 22%) of the refugees.

WHO IS A REFUGEE?

Every year millions of people around the world are displaced by war, famine, civil unrest, and political turmoil. Others are forced to flee their country to escape the risk of death and torture at the hands of persecutors on account of race, religion, nationality, membership in a particular social group, or political opinion.

The United States works with other governmental, international, and private organizations to provide food, health care, and shelter to millions of refugees throughout the world. Resettlement in another country, including the United States, is considered for refugees in urgent need of protection, refugees for whom other long-term solutions are not feasible, and refugees able to join close family members. The United States gives priority to the safe, voluntary return of refugees to their homelands. This policy, recognized in the Refugee Act of 1980, is also the preference of the UNHCR. If repatriation is not feasible, refugees can be resettled in countries within their geographic region or in more distant countries, such as the United States.

The UNHCR reports in Measuring Protection by Numbers, 2005 (November 2006, http://www.unhcr.org/publ/PUBL/4579701b2.pdf) that in 2005 forty-six thousand refugees were referred to twenty-five countries for resettlement. The United States continued to take the lead in receiving refugees referred by the UNHCR, by accepting 23,289 cases in 2005. This was a significant decrease from the 28,253 refugees referred by the UNHCR in 2004 but still more than four times the number received by any other country. In 2005 Thailand replaced Kenya as the number-one source country from which refugees were resettled. The UNHCR notes that refugees from African countries comprised 51% of the worldwide total number of resettled refugees in 2005.

Legally Admitting Refugees

Before World War II the U.S. government had no arrangements for admitting people seeking refuge. The only way oppressed people were able to enter the United States was through regular immigration procedures.

After World War II refugees were admitted through special legislation passed by Congress. The Displaced Persons Act of 1948, which admitted 400,000 Eastern Europeans displaced by the war, was the first U.S. refugee legislation. The Immigration and Nationality Act of 1952 did not specifically mention refugees, but it did allow the U.S. attorney general parole authority (temporary admission) for oppressed people, such as Hungarians after their unsuccessful uprising in 1956. Other legislation—the Refugee Relief Act of 1953, the Fair Share Refugee Act of 1960, and the Indochinese Refugee Act of 1977—responded to particular world events and admitted specific groups.

Refugees were legally recognized for the first time in the Immigration and Nationality Act Amendments of 1965 with a preference category reserved for refugees from the Middle East or from countries ruled by a communist government.

Refugee Act of 1980

The Refugee Act of 1980 established a geographically and politically neutral adjudication standard for refugee status. The act redefined the term refugee as:

(A) 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, or (B) in such circumstances as the President after appropriate consultation … may specify any person who is within the country of such person's nationality or, in the case of a person having no nationality, within the country in which such person is habitually residing, and who is persecuted or who has a well-founded fear of persecution on account of race, religion, nationality, membership in a particular social group, or political opinion.

The Refugee Act of 1980 required the president, at the beginning of each fiscal year, to determine the number of refugees to be admitted without consideration of any overall immigrant quota. The 1980 law also regulated U.S. asylum policy.

REFUGEES AND ASYLEES

The Refugee Act of 1980 made a distinction between refugees and asylees. A refugee is someone who applies for protection while outside the United States; an asylee is someone who is already in the United States when he or she applies for protection.

Lautenberg Amendment

Normal procedures required refugees to establish a well-founded fear of persecution on a case-by-case basis. A provision of the Foreign Operations, Export Financing, and Related Programs Appropriations Act of 1990, called the Lautenberg Amendment, addressed persecution based on group identity. Applicants are only required to prove that they are members of a protected category (or group) with a credible, but not necessarily individual, fear of persecution. According to the U.S. Department of State in "Refugee Admissions Program for Europe and Central Asia" (May 9, 2006, http://www.state.gov/g/prm/rls/fs/2006/66015.htm), since 1989 the United States has processed nearly 430,000 refugees under the Lautenberg Amendment, which applies to individuals within specified categories and who have qualifying relatives in the United States. In fiscal year (FY) 2005 most of the 11,316 refugees from Europe, Central Asia, and the Baltics who entered the United States came under the Lautenberg Amendment.

HOW MANY ARE ADMITTED?

The United States has resettled refugees for more than fifty years. Figure 4.1 shows recent trends in refugee arrivals from 1990 through 2005. The range is wide from a peak of roughly 135,000 refugee arrivals in 1992 to a low of about 25,000 in 2002.

Annual Refugee Admissions Limits

Before the start of a new fiscal year (October 1), the president sends to Congress a Proposed Refugees Admissions report, which sets limits on the maximum number of refugees to be admitted in the coming fiscal year. Table 4.1 compares actual refugee arrivals in FY2005, the approved number (ceiling) of refugees allowed for FY2006, projected 2006 arrivals, and the proposed FY2007 ceiling. Refugee numbers are established by geographic regions. The total refugee ceiling for 2005 (not shown in the chart) was 50,000. Actual arrivals exceeded the ceiling by 3,813 refugees. This was accomplished by applying the U.S. attorney general's parole authority.

By contrast, 2006 is an example of a year in which arrivals did not meet the ceiling. Because the president's request was prepared before the 2006 fiscal year ended, Table 4.1 estimates 41,500 arrivals in FY2006. The State Department's FY2006 Performance and Accountability Report (November 2006, http://www.state.gov/s/d/rm/rls/perfrpt/2006/html/76611.htm) provides the final count of 41,277 refugees resettled in FY2006—69% of the 60,000 allowable refugee admissions by region. The State Department notes the reasons for the low number of 2006 admissions were "(1) delays due to material support issues; and (2) funding levels sufficient for only 54,000 refugees."

"Material support issues" refers to provisions of the 2001 USA PATRIOT Act and the 2005 REAL ID Act that prohibit granting entrance to the United States to anyone who has given money or other support to terrorists or terrorist organizations. In the Material Support Backgrounder (October 31, 2005, http://www.rcusa.org/finmatsupback10-31-05w.pdf), the Refugee Council USA argues that people who had been "coerced under extreme duress to make payments to armed groups on the State Department's list of foreign terrorist organizations" are being denied admission to the United States as refugees. The Refugee Council cites as an example Colombian refugees who gave money to the United Self-Defense Forces of Colombia, the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia, or the National Liberation Army. Payments to these groups were made under threat of torture or death to self or a loved one. Making such payments became a necessity of survival for many Colombians. The Refugee Council contends that such nonvoluntary material support should not deny these refugees admission to the United States.

In the Proposed Refugees Admissions, the president specifies that certain otherwise qualified people may be considered refugees of special humanitarian concern to the United States, although they are still within their countries of nationality. In FY2007 (2006, http://www.state.gov/documents/organization/74762.pdf) the president recommended continuing such in-country processing for specified groups in Cuba, Vietnam, and the countries of the former Soviet Union.

The "unallocated reserve" in the Proposed Refugees Admissions is to be used at the discretion of the secretary of state (with notice to the congressional Judiciary Committee), where additional refugee needs arise.

Table 4.2 profiles FY2005 refugee admissions by median age and gender for the top twenty countries of origin. The youngest refugee population came from Burundi, with a median age of 18.4. Cuban refugees had the highest median age of 33. Even though most refugee groups hovered near a fifty-fifty mix of males and females, 75.7% of refugees from Eritrea were male. Most likely these men were escaping being forced into the military or rebel militias.

The largest share of refugee admissions between FY2003 through FY2005 were dependent children—a range from 44.8% in 2003 to 48.6% in 2004. In FY2005 dependent children accounted for 46.5% of the total 53,813 refugee admissions. (See Table 4.3.)

GAINING ENTRY INTO THE UNITED STATES

Processing Priority System

The United States has established three priority categories for admitting refugees. Table 4.4 lists the 2007 refugee ceilings by region and priority categories. Besides the three priority categories, refugees already in the approval process from the previous year are counted as "approved pipeline from fiscal year 2006."

PRIORITY 1: INDIVIDUAL REFERRALS

This category is available to individuals with compelling protection needs or those for whom no other durable solution exists and who are identified and referred to the program by the UNHCR, a U.S. embassy, or a designated nongovernmental organization (NGO). This processing priority is available to people of any nationality.

PRIORITY 2: GROUP REFERRALS

This category is used for groups of special humanitarian concern to the United States that are designated for resettlement processing. It includes specific groups (which can be defined by their particular nationalities, clans, ethnicities, religions, location, or a combination of such characteristics) identified by the State Department in consultation with U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS), NGOs, the UNHCR, and other experts.

Priority 2 groups processed outside their countries of origin include Burmese in the Tham Hin Refugee Camp, Iranian religious minorities (primarily in Austria), certain Burundi refugees in Tanzania, Kunama in Ethiopia, Tibetans in Nepal, and Congolese Banyamulenge in Burundi. The program is expected to continue to expand and include new Priority 2 groups.

PRIORITY 3: FAMILY REUNIFICATION CASES

This category is used for spouses, unmarried children under twenty-one, parents of people admitted to the United States as refugees or granted asylum, or people who were lawful permanent residents or U.S. citizens and were initially admitted to the United States as refugees or granted asylum. In FY2007 Priority 3 eligibility was extended to nationals of particular countries based on the UNHCR's annual assessment of refugees in need of resettlement, prospective or ongoing repatriation efforts, and U.S. foreign policy interests. For FY2007 the president recommended the following as Priority 3 countries: Afghanistan, Burma, Burundi, Colombia, Congo (Brazzaville), Cuba, Democratic People's Republic of Korea, Democratic Republic of Congo, Eritrea, Ethiopia, Haiti, Iran, Iraq, Rwanda, Somalia, Sudan, and Uzbekistan.

United States Responds to Special Needs

In October 2006 the State Department announced that, at the request of the UNHCR, the United States would offer permanent resettlement to approximately ten thousand refugees from Burundi beginning in FY2007 (October 17, 2006, http://usinfo.state.gov/). Tom Casey, the State Department spokesperson, described the plight of the Burundian refugees as "a long-standing issue." He noted that only in 2006 did the UNHCR ask the United States and other countries to resettle them. The group of Burundian refugees fled in 1972 from the Tutsi-dominated government's ethnic killings directed against the country's Hutu population. They had been living in refugee camps in western Tanzania. Many had been displaced multiple times, and the majority had spent their lives in exile. More than 315,000 Burundian refugees had been able to return home since 2002, but because of a critical shortage of land, the group remaining in the western Tanzanian camps was seen as being unlikely to return. Casey said the refugees would be brought to the United States over the next two years and would be eligible to apply for U.S. citizenship. Since 1975 the United States has offered more than 2.6 million refugees a permanent home as part of its ongoing refugee resettlement program according to Casey.

SEEKING ASYLUM

Like a refugee, an asylee is someone who wants refuge in another country. The only difference is the location of the alien when he or she applies for refuge: a refugee is outside the United States when applying for refuge, whereas an asylee is already in the United States, perhaps on an expired tourist visa or at a port of entry. Just like a refugee applying for entrance into the country, an asylee seeks the protection of the United States because of persecution or a well-founded fear of persecution.

Countries of origin differ between refugees and asylees in any given year. (See Table 4.5.) In 2003 the total refugee admissions (28,422) nearly matched granted asylums (28,684). In 2004, however, refugee admissions rose to 52,868, whereas granted asylums dipped to 27,169. The greatest number of refugees admitted in 2003 came from the Ukraine, and Somalia produced the most refugees admitted in both 2004 and 2005. Other major sources of refugees were Liberia (2003 and 2004), Laos (2004 and 2005), Cuba (2005), and Russia (2005). From 2003 to 2005 China produced the most asylum seekers, followed by Colombia and Haiti. Only two countries, Russia and Ethiopia, appear in the top ten source lists for both refugees and asylees.

Asylees in the United States include sailors who jumped ship while their boat was docked in a U.S. port, athletes who asked for asylum while participating in a sports event, and women who based their claim on a fear of being compelled to undergo a coercive population-control procedure such as abortion or sterilization. Any alien physically present in the United States or at a port of entry can request asylum in the United States. It is irrelevant whether the person is a legal or illegal alien. Like refugees, asylum applicants do not count against the worldwide annual U.S. limitation of immigrants.

In the fact sheet "Asylum Protection in the United States" (April 28, 2005, http://www.usdoj.gov/eoir/press/05/AsylumProtectionFactsheetQAApr05.htm), the U.S. Department of Justice notes that certain individuals are barred from obtaining asylum, including those who:

• Have firmly resettled in another country prior to arriving in the United States
• Have ordered, incited, assisted, or otherwise participated in the persecution of any person on account of race, religion, nationality, membership in a particular social group, or political opinion
• Were convicted of a particularly serious crime (includes aggravated felonies)
• Committed a serious nonpolitical crime outside the United States
• Pose a danger to the security of the United States
• Are members or representatives of a foreign terrorist organization
• Have engaged in or incited terrorist activity

Filing Claims

Asylum seekers must apply for asylum within one year from the date of last arrival in the United States. If the application is filed past the one-year mark, asylum seekers must show changed circumstances that materially affect their eligibility or extraordinary circumstances that delayed filing. They must also show that they filed within a reasonable amount of time given these circumstances. The Justice Department identifies two types of asylum claims: affirmative and defensive. Aliens in the United States can apply for asylum by filing an Application for Asylum (Form I-589) with the U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services. Initiating this process is called an affirmative asylum claim. Aliens who have been placed in removal proceedings and who are in immigration court can request asylum through the Executive Office of Immigration Review. This last-resort effort is called a defensive asylum claim.

Expedited Removal

In Immigration Enforcement Actions: 2005 (November 2006, http://www.dhs.gov/xlibrary/assets/statistics/yearbook/2005/Enforcement_AR_05.pdf), Mary Dougherty, Denise Wilson, and Amy Wu report that the 72,911 expedited removals in 2005 accounted for 35% of all formal removals. Aliens already in the country without authorization and those who attempted entry by fraud, misrepresentation, or without documents accounted for 71% of expedited removals. Nineteen percent of removals were related to criminal charges.

Under the expedited removal provisions of the 1996 Illegal Immigration Reform and Immigrant Responsibility Act, any alien subject to expedited removal because of fraud, misrepresentation, or a lack of valid documents must be questioned by an immigration officer regarding the fear of persecution at home. Aliens who express such a fear are detained until an asylum officer can determine the credibility of the fear. Aliens found to have a credible fear are referred to an immigration judge for a final determination and are generally released until their cases are heard. In some cases an alien is detained while his or her case is pending before an immigration judge. If the fear is deemed not credible, the alien is refused admission and removed.

Critics charge that the expedited removal process denies aliens a fair chance to fully present their asylum claims, places unprecedented authority in the hands of asylum officers, is conducted so quickly that mistakes are inevitable, limits an alien's right to review of a deportation order, and results in the wrongful expulsion of individuals with legitimate fears of persecution. An alien who is deported under the expedited removal process is barred from returning to the United States for five years.

According to Daniel Gilbert, in "Immigration Appeals Pile Up" (Potomac News, June 19, 2006), increased immigration enforcement in the mid-1990s led to a backlog of asylum claims. Appeals of decisions by the Board of Immigration increased from 1,723 in 2000 to 12,349 in 2005. For example, the median time for resolving an appeal in Ninth Circuit courts rose to more than sixteen months.

Nina Bernstein reports in the New York Times that 218 immigration judges in 53 immigration courts nationwide handle 350,000 asylum cases annually ("In New York Immigration Court, Asylum Roulette," October 8, 2006). Bernstein notes allegations of vast disparity in decisions "like 90 percent of asylum cases granted by one judge and 9 percent [by another judge] down the hall." Concerning asylum cases, "the wrong decision can be a death sentence. In others, banishment hangs in the balance, with the prospect of families split up or swept into harm's way." Judges face challenges, including understanding changing conditions in distant lands and asylum seekers speaking 227 different languages who are "vulnerable to an interpreter's mistake as small as pronouncing 'rebels' like 'robbers.'" According to Bernstein, in April 2006 the chief judge of the Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit urged the Senate Judiciary Committee to double the number of immigration judges.

Affirmative and Defensive Asylum Claims

Figure 4.1 shows refugee admissions from 1990 through 2005, and Figure 4.2 shows affirmative and defensive asylum claims for the same period. The pattern of asylum claims is almost the reverse of refugee admissions. The volume of asylum claims in the early 1990s was less than five thousand, perhaps because so many people were being admitted as refugees in that period. Defensive asylum claims increased steadily from less than three thousand in 1994 to a high of more than thirteen thousand in 2003. Affirmative claims rose dramatically from four thousand in 1991 to eighteen thousand in 1996, dipped in 1997 and 1998, then hit a peak of more than twenty-eight thousand in 2001.

Affirmative and defensive asylum claims differ by countries of origin. Table 4.6 compares affirmative and defensive data from 2003 to 2005. In all three years studied Haitian and Colombian asylees were granted more affirmative claims than defensive claims, whereas Chinese asylees were granted more defensive than affirmative claims. In 2005, 2,309 Haitians received asylum affirmatively and 653 defensively. In the same year 3,008 Chinese were granted defensive asylum and 2,217 were granted affirmative asylum. From 2003 to 2005 there were nearly twice the number of affirmative asylees from Colombia as defensive asylees.

How Many Asylees?

Thousands of people apply for asylum in the United States every year, but under the Immigration Act of 1990, only ten thousand asylees per year can be granted lawful permanent resident (LPR) status. Moreover, LPR status cannot be granted until the asylee has been in the country for one year. The REAL ID Act of 2005 removed the ten-thousand-per-year limit on asylee adjustments of status to LPR. Whereas the total number of LPRs granted rose from 946,142 in 2004 to 1,122,373 in 2005, the number of asylees granted LPR status tripled from 10,217 to 30,286. (See Table 4.7.)

Critics charge that many people seek asylum in the United States to avoid dismal economic conditions at home rather than the legitimate reasons to seek asylum under U.S. law—to escape political or religious persecution or because of a well-founded fear of physical harm or death. In addition, some illegal aliens try to obtain the legal right to work by filing for asylum.

Criteria for Granting Asylum

Under the Immigration and Nationality Act, as amended, a person can be granted asylum only if he or she establishes a well-founded fear of persecution on account of one of five protected grounds: race, religion, nationality, membership in a particular social group, or political opinion. Some people charge that the United States constantly changes its definition of what constitutes "membership in a particular social group" to accommodate the growing number of asylum seekers. The Refugee Act of 1980 defined a social group as comprising people who all "share a common characteristic that is either immutable [not susceptible to change], or should not be required to change because it is fundamental to their individual identities and consciences."

Those who believe the term should be interpreted broadly argue that the intent of the law is to provide a catch-all to include all the types of persecution that can occur. Those with a narrow view see the law as a means of identifying and protecting individuals from known forms of harm, not in anticipation of future types of abuse.

Persecution Based on Gender and Sexual Orientation

As the United States and the world became more aware of persecution based on gender and sexual orientation, victims came to be considered members of a social group. In Guidelines on International Protection: Gender-Related Persecution within the Context of Article 1A(2) of the 1951 Convention and/or Its 1967 Protocol Relating to the Status of Refugees (May 7, 2002, http://www.unhcr.org/publ/PUBL/3d58ddef4.pdf), the UNHCR issues the formal statement in that countries "are free to adopt the interpretation that women asylum seekers who face harsh or inhuman treatment due to their having transgressed the social mores of the society in which they live may be considered as 'a particular social group.'"

In 1994 nineteen-year-old Fauziya Kasinga fled her native Togo to escape genital mutilation. When she arrived in the United States, she asked for asylum and was held in a detention center for sixteen months waiting for her case to be heard by the Board of Immigration Appeals. On June 13, 1996, the board ruled in her favor in In re Fauziya Kasinga (A 73 479 695); she became the first individual granted asylum on the basis of gender persecution.

On August 24, 2000, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit, in Hernandez-Montiel v. INS (No. 98-70582), ruled that "gay men with female sexual identities" constitute a "particular social group" eligible for asylum and withholding of deportation.

VICTIMS OF TRAFFICKING AND VIOLENCE

The Attorney General's Report to Congress on U.S. Government Activities to Combat Trafficking in Persons Fiscal Year 2005 (June 2006, http://www.usdoj.gov/ag/annualreports/tr2005/agreporthumantrafficing2005.pdf) estimates that 600,000 to 800,000 people are trafficked across international borders each year and 14,500 to 17,500 victims may be trafficked into the United States annually. Many more are trafficked within their own national borders for a variety of purposes, including forced labor, bonded labor, sexual servitude, and involuntary servitude.

In the United States the Trafficking Victims Protection Act of 2000 (TVPA) makes victims of severe forms of trafficking eligible for benefits and services to the same extent as refugees. In addition, the law attempts to identify and prosecute traffickers. The Trafficking Victims Protection Reauthorization Act of 2003 mandates informational awareness campaigns and created a new civil action provision that allows victims to sue their traffickers in federal district court. It also requires an annual report to Congress on the results of U.S. government activities to combat trafficking. The Trafficking Victims Protection Reauthorization Act of 2006 appropriated over $361 million in funding through FY2007. The act also amended the Violent Crime Control and Law Enforcement Act of 1994 to include foreign offenses in the sexually violent offender registration program and expanded efforts to combat trafficking.

Trafficking victims in the United States are eligible for Continued Presence (CP) or T (nonimmigrant visa) status. CP authorizes the victim to remain in the United States as a potential witness in the investigation and prosecution of traffickers. Victims who are over age eighteen and have complied with reasonable requests for assistance in the investigation and prosecution of acts of trafficking may apply for a T visa. The T visa allows the victim to remain in the United States for three years and then apply for lawful permanent residence. The U.S. attorney general reports that there were 160 requests for CP status in FY2005. Two requests were withdrawn and the remaining 158 were awarded CP status. The requesting victims came from twenty-nine countries, with the highest number of victims coming from Korea, Peru, and Honduras. In addition, ninety-two extensions of existing CP status were granted. A total of 229 people applied for T visas in 2005. Of these, 112 were approved and 213 denied (170 denials were from one trafficking case and the applicants did not meet the TVPA definition of trafficking victims). There were also 124 applications for T visas by victims' family members; all but 18 were approved.

Monitoring Foreign Governments

The TVPA requires the State Department to monitor the efforts of foreign governments to eliminate trafficking. The State Department identifies governments in full compliance with TVPA (Tier I), governments in compliance with minimum standards of TVPA (Tier II), governments that have shown positive efforts toward minimum compliance (Tier II Watch List), and those countries that have not taken serious action to stop trafficking (Tier III). (See Table 4.8.)

VICTIMS OF TORTURE

The Torture Victims Relief Act of 1998 provides federal funds to help support treatment centers for refugees and asylees who are victims of torture in their home country. In his testimony before the House Committee on International Relations, Wade F. Horn of the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) stated that at the end of FY2004 organizations providing services reported that 6,600 victims of torture received services, including mental health, medical, legal assistance, and other kinds of social services (June 23, 2005, http://www.foreignaffairs.house.gov/archives/109/21978.pdf).

REFUGEE ADJUSTMENT TO LIFE IN THE UNITED STATES

Table 4.9 lists the number of refugees resettled in FY2005 by state. More than one-third (35%) of all refugees were initially settled in three states: California (13.9%), Minnesota (11.8%), and Florida (8.9%).

According to Table 4.10, the U.S. government expected to spend $852.9 million on processing and resettling refugees in FY2007. The bulk of this budget—$614.9 million—supported the Office of Refugee Resettlement (ORR) under the HHS. The ORR administers programs to assist refugees and asylees in adjusting to life in the United States. The U.S. resettlement program is designed to function as a public-private partnership, with NGOs playing a key role. Through the Reception and Placement Program refugees are welcomed on arrival and provided essential services (housing, clothing, food, and referrals to medical and social services) during the first thirty days in the United States. During this initial period the resettlement agencies also link refugees to longer-term resettlement and integration programs funded by the ORR.

The State Department makes funds available for the transportation of refugees resettled in the United States. The cost of transportation is provided to refugees in the form of a loan. Refugees are responsible for repaying these loans over time, beginning six months after their arrival.

Some of the NGOs recruit church groups and volunteers from local communities to provide a variety of services and to contribute clothing and household furnishings to meet the needs of arriving refugees. In addition, they often become mentors and friends of the refugees, providing orientation to community services, offering supportive services such as tutoring children after school, and teaching families how to shop and handle other essential functions of living in the community.

Mutual Assistance Associations, many of which have national networks, provide opportunities for refugees to meet their countrymen who are already settled in the United States. These associations also help refugees connect with their ethnic culture through holiday and religious celebrations.

Benefits to Assist Transition

Ongoing benefits for the newly arrived refugees include transitional cash assistance, health benefits, and a wide variety of social services, which are provided through grants from the Office of Refugee Resettlement. English-language training is a basic service offered to all refugees. The primary focus is preparation for employment through skills training, job development, orientation to the workplace, and job counseling. Early employment leads not only to early economic self-sufficiency for the family but also helps establish the family in their new country and community. Special attention is paid to ensure that women have equal access to training and services leading to job placement. Other services include family strengthening, youth and elderly services, adjustment counseling, and mental health services.

Support for Elderly and Disabled Refugees

Refugees who are elderly or disabled receive benefits from the Social Security Administration, the same as U.S. citizens. However, changes by Congress in the late 1990s limit the eligibility of noncitizens to their first seven years in the United States. Time limits for noncitizens do not apply once they become U.S. citizens. The refugee program offers citizenship classes to assist refugees who want to study for the citizenship test.

UNACCOMPANIED MINOR CHILDREN

Each year thousands of children enter the United States illegally and unaccompanied by a parent or guardian; some of them are sent away by parents who fear for their safety in war-torn regions of the world. Beginning in 1984 the U.S. Immigration and Naturalization Service (INS, now the USCIS) refused to release these children to anyone other than a parent or legal guardian. As a result, children whose parents were not in the United States were detained for months or years while immigration authorities decided what to do with them. In 1985 the National Center for Youth Law filed a class action lawsuit in which it challenged INS policies governing the release of children and the conditions of confinement of those who were not released.

Following the 1993 U.S. Supreme Court ruling in Flores v. Reno (507 U.S. 292), the INS pledged to improve conditions for children in its custody. However, in Why Am I Here? Children in Immigration Detention (June 18, 2003, http://www.amnestyusa.org/refugee/pdfs/children_detention.pdf), Amnesty International charges that more than five thousand children who enter the country illegally and alone are being locked up each year, and some of them are "shackled, strip-searched, or subject to physical or verbal abuse." As of March 1, 2003, the Homeland Security Act transferred responsibility for the care and custody of these children to the Office of Refugee Resettlement.

Unaccompanied Children Seeking Asylum

Jacqueline Bhabha and Susan Schmidt address the plight of child refugees arriving in the United States in Seeking Asylum Alone: Unaccompanied and Separated Children and Refugee Protection in the U.S. (June 2006, http://www.humanrights.harvard.edu/conference/Seeking_Asylum_Alone_US_Report.pdf). They find it difficult to identify the actual number of unaccompanied children entering the United States each year because records of many agencies do not specify ages of arriving aliens. Bhabha and Schmidt note that the ORR reported 6,200 unaccompanied alien children in its custody during FY2004. Central American countries were the primary sources of unaccompanied children in ORR custody, with nearly one-third (30%) coming from Honduras. (See Table 4.11.)

Bhabha and Schmidt report that unaccompanied children face an increased risk of military recruitment, sexual violence, deprivation, exploitation, and abuse. Concerns identified by Bhabha and Schmidt include the need to separate children from adults in detention facilities, providing legal counsel to assist children in articulating their claims for asylum, and establishing a more child-focused approach to children seeking asylum. According to Bhabha and Schmidt, applicants with legal representation are six times more likely to be granted asylum than those appearing without an attorney. They note an overall decline in rates of approval for asylum applications by children from 63% in 1999 to 31% in 2003. The 2003 approval rate for children was slightly higher than the 29% total approval rate for all asylum applications. Bhabha and Schmidt also identify vast differences in approval rates for children among the eight USCIS asylum offices—a high of 49% in Arlington, Virginia, compared with a low of 17% in the Chicago Asylum Office.

Children without parents in the United States who are granted asylum are eligible for the Specialized Refugee Foster Care Program, which is coordinated by the Lutheran Immigration and Refugee Service and the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops. Benefits include financial support for housing, food, clothing, and other necessities; case management by a social worker; medical care; independent living skills training; education and English as a second language; tutoring and mentoring; job skills training and career counseling; mental health services; ongoing family tracing; cultural activities and recreation; special education where needed; and legal assistance.

Debra Fergus, a child welfare supervisor for a Catholic Charities foster care program in Phoenix, Arizona, believes time spent in foster care is good for young asylum seekers. According to Fergus, it often takes several months in foster care before the children open up and tell their stories: "The majority of the kids have witnessed death…. Whether they're trafficking victims is very difficult to determine…. They're ashamed of what happened, they're scared, they've been threatened" (Patricia Zapor, "Minors Who Cross U.S. Border Hit a Muddle of Legal Issues, Options," Catholic News Service, October 31, 2006).

Bhabha and Schmidt advocate legislation to improve treatment of children seeking asylum. The Child Status Protection Act of 2002 increased the benefits eligibility age from eighteen to twenty-one and essentially froze a child's age at the date of application. This prevented the child from passing the maximum age and becoming ineligible for benefits because of bureaucratic delays in application processing. In January 2005 Senator Dianne Feinstein (D-CA) introduced the Unaccompanied Alien Child Protection Act of 2005 (S.119). The bill passed the Senate in December 2005, but by the end of 2006 it was still in committee with the U.S. House of Representatives. Similar legislation was introduced in both 2001 and 2003 without success. The proposed legislation was intended to prohibit placing such children in adult detention facilities or facilities housing delinquent children; prohibit the unreasonable use of restraints, solitary confinement, and strip searches; provide for appointing qualified and trained guardians for such children; and require guidelines be developed to ensure the children received appropriate legal counsel.

Angelina Jolie, an actress, UNHCR goodwill ambassador, and advocate for the protection of unaccompanied alien children, launched the National Center for Refugee and Immigrant Children in March 2005 in Washington, D.C. The center's focus is providing better access to free legal counsel for children who arrive alone in the United States and are fleeing persecution. In December 2006 the center (http://www.refugees.org/uploadedFiles/Participate/National_Center/NovDecember.pdf) reported receiving over 1,550 requests in the previous 18 months. More than 1,350 children had received assistance with change of venue, social service referrals, and information on continuances. A total of 480 children had been matched with pro bono (services offered for free) attorneys across the country.