Refugees
The Census Bureau produces an estimate of the number of refugees admitted to the U.S. each year by using data from the Office of Refugee Resettlement (ORR) of the Department of Health and Human Services (DHHS). After the ORR data on refugees are compiled, we use INS microdata to impute missing age and sex data for this population. Imputing race and Hispanic origin characteristics for refugees is done similarly, but uses the 1990 census data on foreign-born migrants who entered the United States in the preceding five years.

The refugee component is unique in that refugees often arrive in the U.S. in sudden "waves" as a result of sudden political upheaval in foreign countries. Consequently, there is no assumption of a year-to-year stability in the flow of refugees from a particular country. Because of the instability in refugee flows, the time series of when refugees adjust to legal permanent residence would not be an accurate reflection of their original entry to the United States. Refugees adjusting to legal permanent residence are thus included as refugees at their time of arrival, based on time series of arrival data from ORR, and are not included in the proxy rule.

For DAPE, our goal was to estimate the legal immigration component for the period 1990 to 2000. We limited our refugee component to include only those refugees who arrived in the United States after April 1, 1990 and received legal permanent residence before April 1, 2000. While 1.04 million people entered the United States as refugees during the 1990s, only 0.8 million received legal permanent residence before April 1, 2000. Some of the remaining 0.2 million refugees who have not yet received legal permanent residence will undoubtedly adjust their status in the future.

Asylees
The Census Bureau does not currently include asylees in the population estimates universe until they apply for permanent residence status. Consequently, asylees' legal immigration information does not coincide with their initial entry into the United States. Data for asylees who have adjusted their status are available in the INS microdata file, and are processed in the same manner as the data for the rest of the adjustee population. They are tallied and accounted for separately in the total adjustee population.

Asylees changing status to legal permanent residence are constrained by statutory limits. Through 1990, the limit was 5,000 asylees adjusting status per year. In 1990 the limit was changed to 10,000 (effective in 1991), with 22,700 asylees adjusting status in 1991 under a grandfather clause in the 1990 legislation. For fiscal years 1992 through 1998, asylee adjustees have averaged slightly under 9,500 per year. Asylees adjusting status are also subject to country limitations (as are the balance of the adjustees). This requires that they wait until slots are available for their country of nationality.

There has been a large increase in the number of applications for asylum in recent decades. In the 1970s applications averaged 3,100 per year. In the 1980s, applications increased to an average of 55,000 per year, and in the 1990s further increased to an average of 123,000 per year. A relatively small and declining percentage of the applicants are granted asylum: from 22.5 percent of those applying in the 1970s to 7.8 percent in the 1990s. Some applicants have become legal permanent residents through legislation benefiting specific countries, such as El Salvador, Guatemala, Haiti, Nicaragua, and countries of the former Soviet Union. Applying for legal permanent residency through this legislation removes the applicants from the regular asylum process.⁴

Once applicants are granted asylum, they must wait one year to apply for legal permanent residence, and are subject to the same overall limit, and specific country limits, set for all adjustees. About 71,000 people were granted asylum by INS in fiscal years 1993 through 1997. During that same time, about 44,000 asylees became legal permanent residents. People can also appeal to Executive Office of Immigration Review (EOIR) for asylum. Between 1993 and 1997, an additional 21,000 people received asylee status through EIOR. These figures are not included in any INS statistics on asylees. Thus, while a total of 92,000 people were granted asylum between 1993 and 1997, only 44,000 were granted legal permanent residence, resulting in a backlog of more than 48,000 registered asylees awaiting adjustment to legal permanent residence (Table 5).

Table 5. People Granted Asylum by INS and EOIR in FY 1993-1997, Compared to Asylees Granted Legal Permanent Residence One Year Later