49 Nations Accept Asylees & Refugees at Higher Rates Than America

On numerous occasions, President Trump has described America ’s asylum laws as the most accepting—or, inhis words, “dumbest,” in the world. “When people, with or without children, enter our Country, they must be told to leave… only country in the World that does this!” hetweeted this month. But many other countries are much more accepting of asylum seekers than the United States is. In fact, the United States ranks 50th in the world in net increase in asylees, refugees, and people in similar situations as a share of its population since 2012.The United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) publishesdata on the number of refugees and asylum seekers in each country. From 2012 to 2017, UNHCR finds that the United States accepted a net increase of 654,128 asylees, refugees, and people in similar circumstances. That amounted to 0.2 percent ofthe U.S. population in 2017. As the Figure below shows, 49 other countries had higher rates of acceptance than the United States did. The average rate of acceptance for the top 50 countries was 1.2 percent of the population —six times higher than the U.S. rate.Figure: Top 50 refugee-asylee receiving nationsIn absolute terms, the United States does rank in the top 10, but it is important to control for the size of the population of the receiving country both to understand the likely effects of the absolute numbers on the country and to allow a legitimate comparison across countries. This is the same reason why per capit...

Source: Cato-at-liberty - July 20, 2018 Category: American Health Authors: David Bier Source Type: blogs