The Refugee Act of 1980 and the Depoliticization of Refugee/Asylum Admissions

Abstract

One of the objectives of the Refugee Act of 1980 was to eliminate a bias that existed in U.S. refugee admissions in favorof aliens from hostile countries of origin (countries with communist, socialist, and leftist forms of government). This analysis finds that the hostile country bias in refugee admissions was perpetuated (and even, in the case of the State Department, intensified) through policy implementation by agencies within the immigration bureaucracy since passage of the Refugee Act of 1980. Specifically, the INS and the State Department, in their post-1980 decision making on asylum and refugee applications, continue to favor aliens from hostile countries.