USA Refugee Policy: A Human Rights Analysis Update

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Abstract
A human rights analysis provides important information about the probability of persecution occurring and its likely severity. American policy is analyzed to determine the relationship during the past decade between the level of political terror in other countries and the refugee/asylum response of the United States. Contrary to many of the pronouncements from the Reagan administration, the vast majority of asylum seekers in the USA were from countries experiencing gross levels of human rights abuses. In terms of asylum adjudications, a modest relationship exists between the level of political terror and the granting of asylum. Most successful asylum seekers were in fact from countries experiencing very high levels of human rights abuses. However, vast numbers of individuals from countries experiencing some of the most violent human rights abuses in the world were denied refugee status in the United States. Overseas refugee determinations exhibited virtually no relationship between human rights abuses and refugee admissions. In fact, this already tenuous connection grew even weaker during the course of the 1980s. The article concludes by suggesting policy avenues that ought to be pursued by the USA government.

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