Forced Displacement
Forced Displacement
You’ve probably heard the terms refugee, asylum seeker, and IDP. But what do they really mean?
A refugee is someone who’s been forced to flee their home country due to war or violent persecution. They’ve been recognized—usually by the United Nations or a national government—as qualifying for international legal protection, known as asylum.
The term asylum seeker refers to someone who has typically fled the same dangers as a refugee, and is asking for the same legal protection, but their claim is still being reviewed. If approved, they’ll become a refugee. However, the asylum process is often lengthy and expensive, and requires legal representation and documentation that many have trouble obtaining.
Then there are IDPs—internally displaced persons. Like refugees and asylum seekers, IDPs have fled their homes seeking safety from imminent danger, but they haven’t crossed an international border. Rather, they are displaced inside their own country, and enjoy fewer international rights and protections.
All three terms are types of what humanitarians call forced displacement. In places like the United States, we tend to hear more about refugees and asylees, because they sometimes seek protection in western countries. However, among the more than 120 million forcibly displaced people in the world today, approximately 60% are IDPs who remain in their country of origin, and nearly 3/4 are hosted in low- and middle-income countries in Africa, Asia, Latin America, and the Middle East.
This means that, contrary to popular belief, the global refugee crisis is not only—or even primarily—a problem affecting the U.S. and Europe. Rather, most of the responsibility for hosting and protecting refugees and other displaced people is borne by disaster-affected countries and their neighbors in the developing world.
For more information:
https://www.unhcr.org/global-trends
https://www.cfr.org/backgrounder/how-us-asylum-process-works
https://www.migrationpolicy.org/research/outmatched-us-asylum-system
https://www.internal-displacement.org/global-report/grid2025