Since
Hurricane Katrina, various political leaders, pundits and the
general public
have debated about how to describe Black people displaced by
one of the greatest “natural disasters” ever to hit the US. In particular, there has
been a great deal of tension regarding whether or not to describe
Black people
as “refugees.” Various African American political leaders and
celebrities, including Jesse Jackson and Oprah Winfrey, have
spoken out against the term refugee being applied to Black people,
pointing out that African Americans are US citizens.
This criticism and dismissal
of the term refugee has raised a red flag among many “progressives,” some
of whom are suggesting that African Americans are attempting
to distance themselves from the third world where refugees are
everywhere. Others have suggested that African Americans are
getting more attention, sympathy and services from the Federal
Government, the media and the public than other non-whites because
they are not refugees or are refusing to accept such a label. Some
are even suggesting that African Americans are being treated
as “real Americans” whereas those groups with a history as refugees
in the US are being “forgotten.”
I will not try to determine
whether African Americans are refugees. But I do want to contribute
to this debate by exploring the distinctions between being displaced
and being granted refugee status.
First and most important,
there are distinctions between being displaced, being recognized
as a refugee
by different world organizations, and being granted refugee status
in the US. Displaced people are basically people who have nowhere
to go or at least cannot stay where they are at without the threat
of violence, genocide, etc. Refugee status is a formal category.
On many blogs, people have
discussed how they looked up the definition of refugee in order
to figure
out their own thoughts regarding the current debate about its
usage. The most obvious site to look up such a term is the United
Nations website. So let us turn there.
When you look up refugee on the UN website,
you will be directed to the site for the United Nations High
Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR),
which was established in 1950. In 1951, the UN convened a conference
to discuss the status of refugees. That gathering produced a
formal definition of refugee, which, according to the website
of the UNHCR, is still the common definition employed today. As
described by the 1951 convention, a refugee is someone 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 the country of his nationality,
and is unable to or, owing to such fear, is unwilling to avail
himself of the protection of that country...”
Along with refugee, there
are other various categories of displaced people used to assess
the world
refugee situation. The other category that concerns us here
is Internally Displaced Persons (IDPs), who basically are displaced
for the same reasons as refugees but have not crossed international
borders and therefore will probably experience different legal
and political responses to their situations.
Distinctions Among the World’s Displaced
Peoples
It is important to note
that refugees in the US do not usually come directly from their
country of
origin but rather will often come from a country in which they
have been resettled. But the UNHCR does account for a refugee’s
region of origin. This information can be helpful in assessing
what national/racial groups are acquiring refugee status.
According to the UNHCR
Statistical Yearbook, in 2003 there was a total number of 9,680,263
refugees around
the world. The main origins of world refugees were the following:
Afghanistan (2,136,000), Sudan (606,000), Burundi (532,000),
Democratic Republic of the Congo (453,000), Occupied Palestinian
Territory (428,000), Somalia (402,000), Iraq (369,000), Vietnam
(363,000), Liberia (353,000), and Angola (330,000). By the end
of 2003, 48% of the world refugees originated from the Asian
region, 36% from the African region, and 11% from Europe. It
is not entirely clear where exactly each refugees was placed
but we do know that in 2003, 38% of all global refugees were
hosted by Asia, 32% were hosted by Africa, 23% by Europe, and
6% by North America.
Yet there is a distinction
between being recognized as a refugee and as an Internally Displaced
Person. In
2003, there were 4,186,759 people categorized as IDPs. Countries
with some of the largest numbers of IDPs are Columbia (1,244,072),
Azerbaijan (575,609), and Liberia (531,616). While there are
certainly more refugees than IDPs recognized by the UN, the distinction
is not insignificant considering that refugees often have access
to some level of protection and forms of assistance to deal with
their displacement not always or equally available to IDPs.
Overall, then, we see that
there are significant distinctions between the different categories
employed
to address the global situation and that not everyone who is
displaced around the world is categorized as a refugee by the
UN. While some debate the relevancy of the UN in really shaping
world affairs, the UNHCR does play an extremely important function
in determining who meets the requirements for refugee status,
assisting many countries in this process. And as stated on the
website of the Bureau of Citizenship and Immigration Services
(BCIS), in order to be eligible for refugee status in the US,
one must be referred by the UNHCR or be part of a group that
the US Government considers at risk. In other words, resettlement
in the US is usually a third effort at resettlement that is bureaucratically
determined and more often than not involves the UNHCR.
World Refugee Status v. US Refugee Status
More central to the conversation
about Hurricane Katrina’s survivors is the crucial difference between
being a world refugee and being a US refugee. In short, being
recognized as a refugee by the UNHCR is not the same as being
given access to US refugee status. For one, to be defined as
a US refugee, one must, according to the Immigration and Nationality
Act be “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.”
This description of course
reads strikingly similar to the 1951 UN definition. But the US, like any other
nation-state, can arbitrarily determine who meets their criteria
even if its guidelines are similar to those of other supposedly
neutral world organizations like the UN. As such, the US determines
who out of the world’s displaced population it will accept and
confer refugee status upon.
Indeed, in 2003 the US
only had 452,548 people who were recognized by the UN as refugees,
which means
that the US housed a little less than 5% of the 2003 global refugee
population. Thus, access to US refugee status is difficult to
get and is only given to a small number of the world’s refugees. Simply
put, US refugee status is a relatively exclusive one.
Who Gets Refugee Status?
This of course raises the
important and interrelated questions: who is applying for refugee
status
and who is getting denied? The Yearbook of Immigration Statistics
helps us answer this question. In 2003, there were 42,705 refugee
applications filed, there were 25,329 refugee applications approved,
and 16,550 denied.
In terms of who applied
for US refugee status in 2003, people were from the following “regions of chargeability”:
Europe (18,960 applications), Asia (6,235 applications), Africa
(12,522 applications), and North America, which includes the
Caribbean (4,963 applications). Bear in mind that there may be
a difference in region of chargeability and the origins of the
refugee given the bureaucratic process that requires people to
have crossed an international border so as to be given (global)
refugee status.
The 2003 total percent
approved for all of the regions who applied was 60%. But of course
not all
of the regions had the same percentage approved in 2003. Those
from the geographic area of Europe had 62% approved, those from
the geographic area of Asia had 81% approved, those from Africa
had 56% approved, and those from North America had 37% approved. The
BCIS calculated the total percent for the year by dividing applications
approved by the sum of applications approved and applications
denied. More, the numbers regarding Asia may actually be an
undercount given that the figures for the Vietnamese only include
those who were processed through the Resettlement Opportunity
for Vietnamese Returnees (ROVR) Program, a special program that
is not replicated for all ethnicities.
Conclusion
Overall, we find that there
are important distinctions between being displaced and being
a refugee. Further,
what the 2003 data provided by both the United Nations and the
US Bureau of Citizenship and Immigration Services tell us is
that we cannot conflate the experiences of people recognized
as US refugees with the situations of global refugees or internally
displaced persons. To do so dismisses the internal global refugee
hierarchy but also the exclusive nature of US refugee policy
in terms of who can apply and who gets approved and the politics
involved in such policies.
While it is of course not
a privilege to be displaced and in search of a place to live,
getting US
refugee status IS a privilege on a global scale because it means
that the US government takes some level of responsibility for
helping people move towards resettlement. As described by the
BCIS, resettlement means: “Permanent relocation of refugees in
a place outside their country of origin to allow them to establish
residence and become productive members of society there.” Resettlement
involves getting access to various forms of assistance in the
areas of education, housing, and economic development in order
to be “productive,” although there may be variations in terms
of which groups get what.
In sum, US refugee status
is a relatively exclusive status that is denied to many who apply
or is just
downright difficult to be eligible for. Moreover, further examination
of the applicability of the term refugee to African Americans
should consider an area that is not explored here but is certainly
relevant to what was: US refugee policy and its relationship
to thwarting opposition movements against capitalism, forging
possibilities for emerging markets and maintaining white racial
hegemony. These dynamics are of course central to the
current debate about whether African Americans are refugees.
Tamara K. Nopper
is a sociology graduate student at Temple University whose
research explores immigration,
race, and citizenship. Direct all correspondence to [email protected].
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