Types of Refugees

What is a Refugee?

Under U.S. law, a “refugee” is a person who is unable or unwilling to return to his or her home country because of a “well-founded fear of persecution” due to race, membership in a particular social group, political opinion, religion, or national origin. This definition is based on the United Nations 1951 Convention and 1967 Protocols relating to the Status of Refugees, to which the United States became a party in 1968. In 1980, the US Congress passed the Refugee Act of 1980, which incorporated the Convention’s definition into U.S. law and provides the legal basis for today’s U.S. Refugee Admissions Program (USRAP). There are other international conventions applying to specific regions, such as the 1969 OAU Convention Governing the Specific and the Cartagena Declaration on Refugees, Colloquium on the International Protection of Refugees in Central America, Mexico and Panama (1984).

Different Types of Refugees

Asylum Seekers

An asylum-seeker is a person who has left their country and is seeking protection from persecution and serious human rights violations in another country, but who hasn’t yet been legally recognized as a refugee and is waiting to receive a decision on their asylum claim. Seeking asylum is a human right. This means everyone should be allowed to enter another country to seek asylum.

Migrants

In the global context, a migrant is a person who is outside the territory of the State of which they are nationals or citizens and who has resided in a foreign country for more than one year irrespective of the causes, voluntary or involuntary, and the means, regular or irregular, is used to migrate. Some migrants leave their country because they want to work, study, or join a family, or leave because of political unrest, gang violence, natural disasters, or other serious circumstances. Although there is no international law per se for migrants, the UN Global Compact for Migration of 2018, represents the first-ever agreement calling for “a common approach to international migration in all its dimensions.”

Internally Displaced Persons (IDPs)

The international definition of a “refugee” encompasses only a subset of the entire population of forcibly displaced individuals. While there is no international convention governing the protections for internally displaced persons (IDPS), the UN Guiding Principles call for IDPs to enjoy, without discrimination, the same rights and freedoms under international and domestic law as do other persons in their country. Further, the principles restate the right not to be arbitrarily displaced and prohibit displacement on ethnic, religious, or racial grounds.