Refugees and UNHCR

UNHCR Regional Office for the United States and the Caribbean

History1921 - Nansen named 1st High Commissioner for Refugees

1945 – WWII ends with 3 million refugees still homeless

1950 – UNHCR is founded

1951 – Refugee Convention is adopted

1950-60s – Hungarian, Algerian, Tibetan, and Rwandan outflows

1975 – SE Asia exodus begins

1980’s – Afghan, Ethiopian, Iranian, Central American outflows

1990’s – Bosnian, Liberian, Rwandan, Somali, & Sudanese outflows

2000’s – Darfuri, Iraqi, & Congolese outflows

2012-2013 – 1 million + Syrians flee

Who is a refugee?Of the 7,000,000,000 persons in the world

15,000,000+ are refugees.

“Refugee” – A universal definition Article (1) 1951 Convention Relating to the Status of Refugees

A refugee is any person who owing to a “well-founded fear of being persecuted

for reasons of race, religion, nationality, membership of a particular social group or political opinion,is outside of his country of nationality, and is unable or, owing to such fear, is unwilling to avail himself of the protection of that country …”

Rights of Refugees

Non Refoulement Non- Return

Documentation-I.D. docs-Travel docs

Civil Rights-Religion-Association-Property-Access to courts-Movement-Naturalization

Social Rights-Education-Employment-Public Assistance/Relief-Housing

Durable solutions

Repatriation

Local Integration

Resettlement

Steps for Refugee Resettlement

Refugee status determinationor registration process

Identification of aneed for resettlement

Resettlement country refugee status determination

and admissibilityprocedures

Clearances

TravelReception & Integration

Submis

sion

How Refugees Access the US Resettlement Program

Individual Referrals byUS Embassies

UNHCROverseas NGOs

Designated groups ofconcern to the US

Family Reunion

Nationalities of refugeesresettled to the US in 2012

Nationalities of persons granted asylum in the US in 2012

More information on refugees

WWW.UNHCR.ORG

Data.UNHCR.org

UNHCR Refworld

WWW.UNHCRWASHINGTON.ORG

Refugee Processing Center – www.wrapsnet.org

Office of Refugee Resettlement -http://www.acf.hhs.gov/programs/orr/

Center for Applied Linguistics - www.cal.org

Thank you!