The history of refugees in the United States is long and confusing.
The first act specified to refugees wasn’t passed until 1948. According to the U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services’ (USCIS) website, “The Displaced Persons Act of 1948 aimed to address the nearly 7 million displaced persons in Europe as a result of World War II.”
Before the act was passed, refugees were just treated and classified as immigrants. This meant they had to go through the same process other non-refugee immigrants to gain entry to the United States.
During the Mexican Revolution in the 1910’s, many refugees from Mexico attempted to flee to the United States. Legally speaking, the refugees had to go through the same process immigrants coming from Ireland went through. This made things more difficult for the refugees to get into the U.S. despite them being in a potentially dangerous situation.
The Quota Acts were passed from 1921-1924. The USCIS website says, “The Quota Acts set specific limits (quotas) on how many immigrants the U.S. would admit from every country each year. These acts made immigration easier for northern and western Europeans and much harder for immigrants from the rest of Europe and other nations.”
Refugees were included in the “quotas” until the Displaced Persons Act was passed in 1948. After this act was passed, the United States started to focus on how to address the refugee crisis created by World War II.
In 1952, the Immigration and Nationality Act was passed. For refugees, this meant they could be allowed into the country without having to worry about the immigration quotas.
The number of refugees the United States has had that have come from Afghanistan is astounding. According to the “New York Times”, the U.S. has received 76,000 refugees due to the Taliban’s takeover in Afghanistan.
In recent times, Afghanistan has experienced a change in their government. The Taliban took over parts of Afghanistan in August of 2021. Since then, many citizens of Afghanistan have been forced to flee the country in order to seek safety. According to UNHCR, 2,478 refugees came from Afghanistan to the United States in 2022.
More recently, the United States has accepted refugees from the country of Ukraine. On February 24th, 2022 Russia invaded Ukraine which started a war between the two countries. With many Ukrainian citizens now in danger, they were forced to flee their country.
According to NBC News, since the Russian invasion, the United States has admitted 271,000 refugees from Ukraine. The U.S. has continued to welcome more and more refugees from Ukraine during their ongoing war.
According to the Department of State, “since the passage of the Refugee Act in 1980, the United States has admitted more than 3.1 million refugees.” The United States will no doubt continue to welcome refugees for the foreseeable future.
