This blog is an effort to shed some light on global human rights issues. It’s a topic I am passionate about, and want everyone else that reads this blog to start feeling the same way.
Since I am currently doing work with refugees, I thought I would make my first post about who exactly a ‘refugee’ is and the process that goes into determining this and their journey to our country.
A refugee is a person that is outside of his/her own country and is either unable or unwilling to return due to persecution or a fear of being persecuted.
There are currently 5 types of persecution that the U.S. recognizes when determining refugee eligibility:
1. Race
2. Religion
3. Nationality
4. Social Group
5. Political Opinion
The U.S. will decide who to allow into the country through a priority system and allocation. The U.S. has divided the world into 5 regions on how many refugees may be accepted per year (based on 2010):
- Europe & Central Asia = 2,000 (former Soviet Union)
- Latin America & Caribbean = 5,500 (Cuba)
- East Asia = 19,000 (Burma – Chin, Koren, Karenni)
- Africa = 15,000 (Somalia, Eritrea, Ethiopia, Sudan)
- Near East & South Asia = 35,000 (Bhutan, Iraq, Iran)
- Individual Referrals
- Compelling issues/need to require a 3rd country resettlement
- Referral from UNHCR, US Embassy or NGO working overseas
- Group Referrals
- Groups of special interest to the United States
- Jewish minorities from former Soviet Union, Lost Boys of Sudan and the Somali Bantu are examples
- Family Reunification
- Parents, spouses and unmarried children under 21
- It is important to note this has currently been suspended since 2008 but will be re-instituted.
The UNHCR says that “by the end of 2010, three quarters of the world’s refugees were residing in a country neighboring their own”.
Currently only 1% of refugees world-wide are granted resettlement; the U.S. welcomes more than 50% of those resettled.
Definitions are always a good start PB. It gives you something to explore, expand on, and take apart.
ReplyDeleteIt’s a topic I am passionate about, and want everyone else that reads this blog to start feeling the same way.
That sentence runs on a bit. You might as well chop it into two.
And I like lists, but the first one is simple enough that a sentence could do the job.
You get a good amount of information across in a short space.
My thought so far has to do with your goal. You want to make the audience as passionate as you?
What does that mean specifically? Do you need donations from your audience? Do you need more hands and thus feet to walk around the world? Do you just need awareness? I feel causes like yours are always talking about awareness, but I never quite get the value there. I’m aware of specific problems in regions all over the world, but I don’t think that helps anyone.
Is it all of the above?
I’m always excited by the different problems each student brings to the course. I had a missionary in a previous class and he worked in the same arenas you do. I could never get him to simply tell his stories though – what he personally encountered. I thought that would get more interest than anything else he could do.
Looking at your tweets so far, and the short bulletin on Myanmar posted above, you are increasing awareness by retweeting and linking. You slightly repackage the facts. You aggregate for those already seeking the subject and direct their eyes, but you are not pulling in new eyes.
How do you get people who have no intention of radically changing their lives to still help with human rights issues? What can the average person do to assist a refugee in Jordan? Is there anything? And how could you reach and increase that audience if there was?
That’s my question. Is that your question?
Thank you for sharing.