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The Refugee Crisis: Smarter, Better Resettlement

Silva Mathema explains how the United States can rebuild its refugee resettlement program.

Even as COVID-19 pandemic raged across the world, the number of people forcibly displaced in 2020 reached the highest level ever recorded as ongoing and new conflicts forced people to flee their homes. While recognizing that, in general, less than 1 percent of the refugee population is resettled each year, 2020 was still one of the worst years for resettlement as a result of COVID-19 pandemic-induced travel restrictions. Only about 34,400 refugees of the 1.4 million in need of resettlement were actually resettled in 2020, compared to 107,800 in 2019—a sharp 69 percent decrease.

The above excerpt was originally published in Democracy Journal. Click here to view the full article.

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Authors

Silva Mathema

Director, Immigration Policy