The Politics of American Refugee Policy

Report Outline
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Introduction

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Overview

Nearly 10 years after passage of the 1980 Refugee Act, U.S. refugee policy is mired in just the kind of political discord the legislation was intended to eliminate.

In an attempt to depoliticize refugee policy, the act eliminated preferences for those fleeing communist countries. Decisions about whether a person was to be admitted into the United States were to be made not on the basis of the refugee's ideology, or the ideology of his homeland, but rather because the individual could demonstrate “a well-founded fear of persecution,”