The Refugee Act of 1980 has made it possible for more than 3 million people to find protection and resettlement in the United States. By establishing the legal basis through which individuals can secure refugee or asylum status, the act has extended the nation’s welcoming hand to refugees and asylum-seekers worldwide.*
The Act signaled a fundamental re-thinking of the way the United States fulfills its longstanding commitment to principles of international human rights and refugee relief. In spearheading its passage, the late Senator Edward M. Kennedy helped complete an overhaul of immigration law and policy begun by his brother, President John F. Kennedy, in 1963. The Refugee Act built upon the Immigration and Nationality Act Amendments of 1965 signed by President Lyndon B. Johnson that had ended 40 years of quotas based on national origin and opened the United States to immigrants from all parts of the world.
For 15 years after the adoption of the 1965 amendments, U.S. law continued to limit refugee admissions to those escaping communism or repression in Middle Eastern countries. The Refugee Act of 1980 completed the overhaul, allowing for historic levels of immigration and refugee resettlement that have led some to call the United States the “first universal nation.” The act:
• Adopted the international definition of a refugee established by the 1951 United Nations Convention Relating to the Status of Refugees as someone who is unable to return to his or her country because of a “well-founded fear of persecution” based on race, religion, nationality, political opinion or membership in a social group.
• Replaced ad hoc responses to refugee emergencies with a systematic process for annually reviewing and adjusting refugee admissions ceilings.
• Authorized the granting of refugee status to individuals who are already present in the United States under a legal designation known as political asylum.
• Provided for resettlement assistance — both monetary and through support for sponsorships — to newly arrived refugees to help them rebuild their lives and start anew.
Within weeks of its passage, the provisions of the 1980 act were put to the test.
Between April and October 1980, a boatlift from Mariel, Cuba, brought 125,000 asylum-seekers to Florida’s shores. The boatlift represented the first significant asylum emergency the United States had experienced on its own territory. Before 1980, only those already approved for admission from abroad were eligible to come to the United States as refugees.
Mariel was followed by successive waves of asylum-seekers from Central American countries plagued by long-running civil conflicts. The U.S. response was initially underfunded and fragmented. However, in the early 1990s the United States re-designed its asylum process and established a new system that has proven timely and responsive, as well as fair and impartial. As a result, the United States now grants political asylum to people from more than 105 countries each year.
Likewise, U.S. overseas refugee admissions programs have been transformed. In the 1980s these programs served primarily refugees from the former Soviet Union and Southeast Asia. Today U.S. admissions programs include a much wider range of refugee populations. The programs work in conjunction with key international humanitarian institutions, such as the United Nations High Commission for Refugees (UNHCR), and other countries that share the United States’ commitment to refugees, for example Canada and Norway. As a result, the United States now resettles refugees from more than 65 countries and provides relief and assistance for refugee and displaced populations in all corners of the globe. Each new refugee group expands U.S. diversity and enriches American culture.
While immigration has often been controversial, the U.S. refugee and asylum system is widely accepted as a success. By affirming core principles of international human rights and refugee protection within a legal framework that allows for flexibility to meet new and changing needs, the Refugee Act of 1980 has advanced the U.S. commitment to providing safety to many of the world’s most vulnerable people. As a result millions — from Somalia to Kosovo to Iraq — have found welcome and hope in the United States.
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* Refugees receive permission to enter the United States from another country, while asylum seekers arrive without prior screening and apply for political asylum upon entry into the country.
