In-Country Refugee Processing: In Brief

Summary

The Obama Administration has established a new refugee program for certain minors in El Salvador, Guatemala, and Honduras with a parent who is lawfully present in the United States. Created in response to the FY2012-FY2014 surge in unaccompanied child arrivals to the United States from these countries, the Administration has described the new Central American Minors (CAM) program as providing an alternative to a dangerous journey to the United States.

The CAM program is an in-country refugee processing program, which means that eligible minors will be processed by the U.S. government from within their countries of origin for possible admission to the United States as refugees. Under the program, a parent who is lawfully present in the United States can request a refugee resettlement interview for an unmarried child in El Salvador, Guatemala, or Honduras.

The Immigration and Nationality Act (INA) defines a refugee, in part, as a foreign national who has experienced, or has a well-founded fear of, persecution on account of race, religion, nationality, membership in a particular social group, or political opinion. Refugees are processed and admitted to the United States from abroad.

Typically, a refugee being considered for resettlement in the United States is outside his or her country of origin (in a host country). The INA, however, also authorizes the President, after appropriate consultation with Congress, to specify groups for in-country refugee processing. Since the late 1980s, Presidents typically have specified three or four groups as being eligible for in-country processing in a fiscal year.

In addition to the new CAM program, there are several ongoing in-country refugee processing programs operating in FY2015. These previously established programs are for designated groups in an independent state of the former Soviet Union or of Estonia, Latvia or Lithuania; in Cuba; and in Iraq, as well as, in exceptional circumstances, for persons identified by a U.S. embassy in any location.

This report supplements CRS Report RL31269, Refugee Admissions and Resettlement Policy, which provides a broader look at the U.S. refugee program.