Asylum in The United States - Character of Refugee Inflows and Resettlement

Character of Refugee Inflows and Resettlement

During the Cold War, and up until the mid-1990s, the majority of refugees resettled in the U.S. were people from the former-Soviet Union and Southeast Asia. The most conspicuous of the latter were the refugees from the Vietnam War, sometimes known as "boat people". Following the end of the Cold War, the largest resettled group were refugees from the Balkans who were fleeing the Yugoslav wars. In the 2000s, the proportion of Africans fleeing various ongoing conflicts in the annual resettled population rose.

Large metropolitan areas have been the destination of most resettlements, with 72% of all resettlements between 1983 and 2004 going to 30 locations. The historical gateways for resettled refugees have been California (specifically Los Angeles, Orange County, San Jose, and Sacramento), the Mid-Atlantic region (New York in particular), the Midwest (specifically Chicago and Minneapolis-St. Paul) and Providence, Rhode Island. In the last decades of the twentieth century, Washington, D.C.; Seattle, Washington; Portland, Oregon; and Atlanta, Georgia were recognized as new gateways for resettled refugees. Particular cities are also identified with some national groups: metropolitan Los Angeles received almost half of the resettled refugees from Iran, 20% of Iraqi refugees went to Detroit, and nearly one-third of refugees from the former Soviet Union were resettled in New York. These ethnic enclaves partially result from attempts by the agencies organizing resettlement to place newly arrived refugees with family members already in the U.S. and in locations where government agencies and charities are known to have staff that speak the pertinent language. Ethnic grouping also results as refugees and migrants seek out the comfort of familiar languages, food and customs.