Beyond those who immigrate via legal and illegal channels each year, 70,000–80,000 people also enter the United States as designated “victims” of political and other repressive conditions worldwide. Some of these people have established flourishing communities in the US, while others struggle to gain the support granted to those identified with Cold War struggles.

In the aftermath of the Second World War, US government policy favored refugees from “enemy” nations (and failures of US foreign policy—hence 38,000 Hungarians were accepted after the failed uprising of 1956). Later, thousands arrived after Castro’s emergence in Cuba and plans to reunify families, as well as massive boatlifts and escapes from the island. Other large populations of refugees followed the Vietnam War, including those evacuated for political reasons and subsequent waves of boat people who survived ocean travails and refugee camps to find American sponsorship. Many of these refugees were initially dispersed as church and civic groups across the country supported them. In time, new and specialized enclaves emerged—100,000 Hmong resettled in the Minnesota area, while other Southeast Asians clustered in Los Angeles and suburban Washington, DC.

Refugee policy has shifted only slowly from its anti-communist visage to wider political and human-rights issues, including right-wing regimes in Central America and those oppressed by conditions of poverty exacerbated by globalization. Nonetheless, families from Bosnia and Kosovo or leaders of the Tiananmen incidents in China have been lionized in mass media and popular support, while those fleeing female circumcision in Africa or other human-rights issues have faced more obstacles. Also, many, especially those from Latin America, contest the marginal status they are given as illegal immigrants rather than escapees from terror abetted by American intervention in their homelands.