News Update - October 8, 2008

By Alan Lee, Esq.^†‡

Fiscal Year 2009 Refugee Admission Numbers

The President of the United States, George W. Bush authorized the admission of up to 80,000 refugees for fiscal year 2009. The distribution of refugees admitted by region of origin will be as follows:
Africa – 12,000
East Asia – 19,000
Europe and Central Asia – 2,500
Latin America/Caribbean – 4,500
Near East/South Asia – 37,000
Unallocated Reserve (allocated by region as needed) – 5,000

The total is to be considered the maximum number of refugees admitted and not a minimum to be achieved. Unused admissions in a particular region may be transferred to another region should there be a need.

In addition, the president authorized persons from the following regions, if otherwise qualified, to be considered refugees for the purpose of admission to the United States.
a. Person in Vietnam
b. Persons in Cuba
c. Persons in the former Soviet Union
d. Persons in Iraq
e. In exceptional circumstances, persons identified by a United States Embassy in any location

† The author is a 26+ year practitioner of immigration law based in New York City. He was awarded the Sidney A. Levine prize for best legal writing at the Cleveland-Marshall College of Law in 1977 and has written extensively on immigration over the past years for the ethnic newspapers, World Journal, Sing Tao, Pakistan Calling, Muhasha and OCS. He has testified as an expert on immigration in civil court proceedings and was recognized by the Taiwan government in 1985 for his work protecting human rights. His article, "The Bush Temporary Worker Proposal and Comparative Pending Legislation: an Analysis" was Interpreter Releases' cover display article at the American Immigration Lawyers Association annual conference in 2004, and his victory in the Second Circuit Court of Appeals in a case of first impression nationwide, Firstland International v. INS, successfully challenged INS' policy of over 40 years of revoking approved immigrant visa petitions under a nebulous standard of proof. Its value as precedent, however, was short-lived as it was specifically targeted by the Administration in the Intelligence Reform Act of 2004.

‡ This article © 2008 Alan Lee, Esq.

Copyright © 2003-2012 Alan Lee, Esq.
The information provided here is of a general nature and may not apply to any particular set of facts or circumstances. It should not be construed as legal advice and does not constitute an engagement of the Law Office of Alan Lee or establish an attorney-client relationship.