Introduction to Refugees, Asylees, and Displaced Persons

A refugee is a person who flees a nation or regime to escape persecution or violence. An asylee is an individual, unable or unwilling to return to her nation of origin, who seeks the protection of another nation. To seek asylum in the United States an individual must have a well-founded fear of persecution based on their race, ethnicity, religion, or political or social associations. Although the difference between these two groups rests on a technicality of immigration law, they share the experience of being uprooted from their homes by tragic or violent circumstance.

The refugee and asylee groups featured in this chapter have fled warfare, famine, political persecution, torture, and genocide. Throughout the chapter, images capture the drama of flight and the struggle for asylum: the Camarioca Boatlift from Cuba, a dangerous escape from the former communist bloc across the heavily guarded Berlin Wall, the Vietnamese boat people, and the controversial removal of the young Elian Gonzalez from the home of his relatives after he arrived from Cuba.

Several of the sources in this chapter highlight the plight of Jewish Holocaust victims after World War II. Allied-administered camps in Germany, Austria, Poland, and Italy housed over a quarter-million displaced persons (DPs). After its founding, the United Nations also administered aid and provided housing to DPs, but a long-term solution was slow in its evolution. Many victims did not have family or homes to which they could return; others feared further persecution or did not wish to return. Most Allied nations failed to intervene in the post-Holocaust immigration crisis for several years; many refused to alter their immigration laws to permit a mass immigration of DPs. The article "Displaced Persons Act of 1948" marks the dramatic change in U.S. policy that permitted large-scale immigration of DPs to the United States. Also included here are articles on the founding of the nation of Israel and influence of Zionism on post-Holocaust Jewish immigration.

In 2002, there were approximately sixteen million refugees across the globe who fled conflict and warfare. The editors of this volume on immigration have chosen to focus on refugees in a transnational context—those who have fled across international borders seeking refuge. The millions of internally displaced persons (IDPs) who have fled strife, but remained within their national borders, such as the recent victims of war and genocide in Sudan, are discussed in the volume on human rights.