Who is a refugee?

  • A refugee is a person who has been forced to flee from his or her own country because of persecution or a threat of persecution. Unlike immigrants, refugees have no choice but to abandon their homeland and seek refuge in another country. There are nearly 14 million refugees in the world today. Most of them live in dire conditions in refugee camps. There are only 17 countries world-wide with formal refugee resettlement programs. The United States by far leads the world accepting an estimated 70,000 refugees for resettlement in our country during 2006.

    Once refugees have fled their homeland, the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) is charged with their care and protection. The UNHCR seeks durable solutions for the refugees. The goal is always repatriation to the refugee's home country. For this to occur, the UNHCR must be convinced that the area is safe and secure, and that refugees will receive support and protection from their home country. Repatriation is often bittersweet as many refugees face the desperate effects of the conflict or disaster that uprooted them in the first place.

    If repatriation is not possible, the UNHCR seeks for naturalization possibilities in the country to which the refugee has fled. Often, refugees have been in this country for so long, they have already begun to integrate into the social and cultural life. When neither of the first two solutions is tenable, third country resettlement, in countries like the U.S., remains an option. Less than .1% of the total refugee population is accepted for resettlement.

    Refugees who qualify for the U.S. Resettlement Program undergo security and medical checks and prepare for travel with the help of overseas offices of domestic resettlement agencies. If accepted for resettlement, refugee bios go to the Refugee Processing Center in Arlington, Virginia. The RPC allocates each refugee case to a domestic resettlement agency like Church World Service or Episcopal Migration Ministries.

A refugee is a person who, “owing to a well-founded fear of being persecuted for reasons of race, religion, nationality, membership in a particular social group, or political opinion, is outside the country of his nationality, and is unable to or, owing to such fear, is unwilling to avail himself of the protection of that country.”

- 1951 United Nations Convention on Refugees

Find out more

What is Resettlement?

  • Resettlement involves helping a refugee family begin a new life in the U.S. by greeting them at the airport; providing them with housing, food, clothing and household goods for their first 30 days; registering children for school and adults for English classes; taking the family to appointments with medical providers and social service agencies; and helping the adults find work. Exodus provides a one-time cash grant to each refugee family to help with initial resettlement expenses. Through the state of Indiana, refugees are eligible for other forms of assistance, most importantly Medicaid.

    The Exodus mission is to see the family achieve economic and cultural self-sufficiency in three to six months or sooner, although we hope the relationships formed during this process will last much longer.

    In 2005, Exodus Refugee Immigration resettled individuals from Afghanistan, Burma, Cuba, Eritrea, Iran, Liberia, Russia, Somalia and Sudan. Exodus Refugee Immigration projects to resettle over 300 individuals in 2006.

Find out more