A refugee, according to the 1951 U.N. convention relating to the Status of Refugees, is a person who has fled his or her home country due to persecution or fear of persecution based on race, religion, nationality, membership in a particular social group, or political opinion.

More than 12 million refugees currently roam the globe in seek of a safe home. These refugees come from many different countries and many continents. Currently, many refugees have fled from Sudan, the Congo, Iraq, Burma (Myannmar), Somalia, Bhutan, and Afghanistan. However, as conflicts shift across the world, the population of refugees also changes.

According to the US Office of Refugee Resettlement:
"It is the historic policy of the United States to admit to this country refugees of special humanitarian concern, reflecting our core values and our tradition of being a safe haven for the oppressed....Since 1975, the U.S. has resettled approximately 2.6 million refugees, with nearly 77% being either Indochinese or citizens of the former Soviet Union. Since the enactment of the Refugee Act of 1980, annual admissions figures have ranged from a high of 207,116 in 1980 to a low of 27,100 in 2002." (http://www.acf.hhs.gov/programs/orr/) 

The process for selecting the number of refugees to enter the US in a given year and the locations they will arrive from involves the UN High Commissioner for Refugees, the US State Department, Congress and our President. In past years the US has received as many as 250,000 refugees in a year. The president has authorized 80,000 refugees to be admitted into the US in 2009, according to the US Conference of Catholic Bishops (http://www.usccb.org/).