This article focuses on the numbers of refugees in the world by major areas. It gives some background on refugee movements and characteristics in order to suggest parameters of future movements, and especially of those that may have implications for the United States with respect to (1) assistance programs in situ or (2) acceptance of refugees into the United States.
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References
1.
1. U.S. Committee for Refugees, American Council for Nationalities Service, World Refugee Survey 1982 (New York: U.S. Committee for Refugees). This publication, supplemented by the 1981 World Refugee Survey, was a major source for data on and clues to patterns of refugee movements. Information contained in the Survey by geographic area in lead articles and by specific country alleviates the need for extensive documentation.
2.
2. Joseph C. Kennedy, “Refugees in Africa: The Continuing Challenge,”World Refugee Survey 1982, pp. 6-8.
3.
V. S. Naipaul , in Bend in the River (New York: Vintage, 1980), fictionalizes the conflicting traditions and rivalries and consequent population movements as a former colony seeks to form a nation.
4.
4. H. Eugene Douglas, “Pakistan: Country of First Asylum,”World Refugee Survey 1982, pp. 14-16.
5.
cited in World Refugee Survey 1982, p. 37.
6.
6. Ibid.
7.
7. Erwin Lanc, Austrian minister of the interior, “Austria as a Country of Asylum” (Talk delivered at Georgetown University, Washington, DC, 14 Apr. 1982).
8.
8. James Allman, “Fertility and Family Planning in Haiti,”Studies in Family Planning, 13(8/9):244[Aug./Sept. 1982] (New York: Population Council).
9.
9. 1981 World Refugee Survey, p. 31.
10.
10. U.S., Senate, Committee on the Judiciary, Subcommittee on Immigration and Refugee Policy, Refugee Problems in Southeast Asia: 1981, Staff Report, 97th Cong., 1st sess., 21 Sept. 1981, pp. 2, 14, 49.
11.
11. Ibid.
12.
12. Deputy Assistant Secretary of State Kenneth Dam, in testimony before the Senate Judiciary Committee, quoted in “Refugee Level of 98,000 in '83 Proposed,”Washington Post, 30 Sept. 1982.
13.
13. Refugee Problems in Southeast Asia, p.
14.
14. “1982 World Population Data Sheet” (Washington, DC: Population Reference Bureau, Inc.).
15.
15. Council on Environmental Quality and Department of State, “Summary,”The Global 2000 Report to the President of the U.S.: Entering the 21st Century (Elmsford, NY: Pergamon Press, 1980), vol. 1, pp. 1-42.
17. Kathleen Newland, Refugees: The New International Politics of Displacement, Worldwatch Paper no. 43 (Washington, DC: World-watch Institute, Mar. 1981).
18.
18. Astri Suhrke comments that “previous studies of refugee movements have generally excluded pull factors as it was assumed that refugees moved in response to push factors.... This is not very satisfactory.” See her “Global Refugee Movements and Strategies of Response,” in U.S. Immigration and Refugee Policy: Global and Domestic Issues, ed. Mary M. Kritz (Lexington, MA: D.C. Heath, 1983). Suhrke goes on to classify possible refugees as “quasi refugees.” Such persons might be helped by U.S. aid programs, but for our purposes the concept of refugees is limited to persons pushed out of their country of origin.
19.
19. William Overholt, testimony in Select Commission on Immigration and Refugee Policy, Papers, B:366 (1981).
20.
20. Ibid., p. 365.
21.
21. Astri Suhrke, “Global Refugee Movements and Strategies: An Overview” (Unpublished paper, July 1981), p. 24.
22.
As recently as April 1982, the Mexican volcano El Chichon spewed into the stratosphere debris that not only reached Montana, but also spread westward to Japan, the Indian Ocean, and Africa. See Time, 5 July 1982, p. 70.
23.
23. “1982 World Population Data Sheet.”
24.
24. Kingsley Davis, Human Society (New York: Macmillan, 1949), p. 592.
25.
25. Cited in L. Bouvier, H. Shryock, and H. Henderson, “International Migration: Yesterday, Today, and Tomorrow,”Population Bulletin, 30:23 (Sept. 1977).
