1. Who is a refugee? 

According to United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) a refugee is "someone who has been forced to flee his or her country because of persecution, war or violence. A refugee has a well-founded fear of persecution for reasons of race, religion, nationality, political opinion or membership in a particular social group. Most likely, they cannot return home or are afraid to do so. War and ethnic, tribal and religious violence are leading causes of refugees fleeing their countries."

They left their countries because of their extreme situation. Their lives are at risk. They have no option; they are victims.

2. How many refugees are in the world?

UNHCR says by the end of 2017 "68.5 million individuals were forcibly displaced worldwide." The highest number in history. The organization also explains: "Two-thirds of all refugees worldwide come from just five countries: Syria, Afghanistan, South Sudan, Myanmar, and Somalia." If we want to see closer, this year the UNHCR determined citizens from Venezuela, Honduras, El Salvador and Honduras could become refugees.

Today, the countries hosting the major number of refugees are Turkey, Pakistan, Lebanon, Islamic Republic of Iran, Ethiopia, Jordan, Kenya, Uganda, Chad and Sudan. In Europe, the principal countries hosting refugees are France, Germany, Sweden and the United Kingdom.

To understand refugees' situation: "One person becomes displaced every 2 seconds – less than the time it takes to read this sentence. That's 30 people who are newly displaced every minute."

3. How risky it is to help refugees?

One of the major fears with new refugee politics is the risk of accepting several people from other countries with no money. However, "Science Advances" magazine published recently a study where they found that both immigrants and refugees, since the year of their arrival or request for asylum, favor economic activity although the first years the increases are not statistically significant.

In the case of refugees, when their rate (measured per 1,000 inhabitants) rises by one point, GDP per capita improves in the following four years, reaching a rise of 0.32% in the second year after arrival. The effects are also positive in the income from taxes and, although more modest, in the reduction of unemployment.

Researchers at the National Center for Scientific Research of France (CNRS) analyzed the impact of the massive arrival of immigrants on the evolution of a series of economic variables from 1985 and until 2015, the year of the great refugee crisis. The study separately reviews the effect of immigrants and refugees seeking asylum. The 15 countries studied received 89% of asylum requests in 2015, according to Eurostat data.

4. What are American policies about refugees?

The refugee's politics in the US is based on the Refugee Act of 1980. In order to become a refugee in the US, these families have to request their asylum with the US embassy in the countries where they are living. This process can take a couple of years, and only a small percent of the requests is approved.

In the last ten years, the US accepted 693,872 refugees which means less than 1% of the total of refugees in the world. Actually, in the last two years, the number of accepted cases dropped in 33 thousand cases, the lowest numbers in thirty years. If we want to see the number better, Turkey hosted over 1.5 million refugees only in one year while the US accepted 70 thousand.

The number of refugees accepted to the United States each year is set by the President in consultation with Congress. Then, this decrease in the numbers of accepted cases is related to the politics of the Trump administration.