Preserve the Refugee Resettlement Program

The U.S. has a long history of welcoming persecuted peoples and refugees, even going back to the nation’s founding. The Refugee Act of 1980 created our modern-day refugee system by adopting a standardized definition of a “refugee,” providing the first statutory basis for asylum, and formalizing the United States Refugee Admissions Program (USRAP). Every year since then, the president has set a cap for the maximum number of refugees that the U.S. will resettle in that given fiscal year. Since the program began, the U.S. has resettled more than 3.2 million refugees, more than any other country in the world.

In fiscal year 2024, the U.S. vetted and resettled the most refugees in over three decades, amounting to just over 100,000 people. This is a tremendous accomplishment after significant work was done to rebuild the infrastructure of the refugee resettlement program after the COVID-19 pandemic. The U.S. Refugee Admissions Program (USRAP) remains one of the safest, most orderly processes we have to assist those fleeing persecution, including many Christian brothers and sisters. In 2024, 29,493 Christian refugees were resettled to the United States from the 50 countries where Open Doors US finds that Christians face the most severe persecution in the world.