LSS Refugee Services:
About Refugees
Refugee: A refugee is any person, living outside of his or her home country, who is unable or unwilling to return to his or her home country due to a well-founded fear of persecution on the basis of race, religion, nationality, membership in a particular social group, or political opinion.
Asylee: An asylee is an individual who traveled to the United States, applied for and was granted asylum status by US Immigration, thereby acknowledging that he or she met the definition of a refugee and allowing him or her to remain legally in the United States.
Immigrant: A person who leaves one country to permanently settle in another country.
Resettlement Through the Years
LSS Refugee Services began operating in the mid-1970’s in response to the crisis occurring in Southeast Asia. Refugees started to arrive in Minnesota from countries such as Cambodia, Vietnam, and Laos.
During the 1980’s, LSS Refugee Services continued to resettle refugees from Asia, as well as countries such as Ethiopia.
During the 1990’s and into the twenty-first century, conflicts in different regions of the world, such as in East and West Africa, as well as changing political situations, such as in Eastern Europe, brought refugees from these regions into Minnesota.
LSS Refugee Services, as it has in the past, continues to play an instrumental role in assisting refugees, no matter where they come from, in starting their new lives in Minnesota.
