The Refugee Act of 1980

The law that turned America's improvised refugee rescues into a permanent system.

Before 1980

Before 1980, the United States admitted refugees through a patchwork of special laws and emergency "parole" decisions. Each crisis, from postwar Europe to Hungary, Cuba, and Indochina, was handled on its own.

What the Act did

President Jimmy Carter signed the Refugee Act on March 17, 1980. It:

• Adopted a definition of "refugee" based on the 1951 UN Refugee Convention and its 1967 Protocol: a person unable or unwilling to return home because of persecution, or a well-founded fear of persecution, on account of race, religion, nationality, membership in a particular social group, or political opinion.
• Created a regular process for setting annual refugee admissions, in consultation with Congress.
• Established a statutory basis for asylum for people already in the United States.
• Created the Office of Refugee Resettlement to fund resettlement services.

Why it matters here

Many of the diplomats on this site arrived under the earlier, improvised system. Those who came later, like Mustafa Popal and Gai Nyok, came through the system the Act created.