Refugees Arrive in New York: Where Are They From?

Within the first five months of Russia's invasion of Ukraine in early February 2022, the U.S. admitted more than 100,000 Ukrainian refugees. Most of these refugees were admitted through a special program called humanitarian parole, which falls outside the scope of the data tracking carried out by the Refugee Processing Center. Humanitarian parole allows refugees who meet certain criteria to gain temporary legal status in the U.S. and applications are processed differently than traditional refugee resettlement applications.

In January 2023, the greatest number of refugees admitted by the U.S. came from the Democratic Republic of Congo, Syria, and Afghanistan. Each nation struggles with a unique set of circumstances that can make its citizens unsafe if they stay in their home country.

Discover Where Refugees Are Coming to New York

For the last three decades, the DRC has been struggling with a vast humanitarian crisis that has left millions of people displaced, both internally and externally, with many people fleeing to neighboring countries. Syria has seen nearly 7 million refugees leave the country since 2011 while a longstanding civil war rages and has displaced an additional nearly 7 million people internally. Afghan refugees have been fleeing to neighboring countries for decades, especially Pakistan and Iran, which combined host nearly 2 million Afghans.

Stacker referenced data from The Refugee Processing Center to compile statistics on the number of refugees and their countries of origin resettled in New York in January 2023.

January refugee statistics
Countries where refugees arrived from in January
New York
#1. Democratic Republic of the Congo: 28
#2. Burma: 26
#2. Colombia: 26
#4. Afghanistan: 12
#5. Eritrea: 9
#6. Ukraine: 4
#7. Kyrgyzstan: 3
#7. Senegal: 3
#9. Syria: 2
#10. Iraq: 1
#10. Somalia: 1

National
#1. Democratic Republic of the Congo: 752
#2. Afghanistan: 284
#3. Syria: 284
#4. Burma: 264
#5. Colombia: 193

States that accepted the most refugees in January
#1. Texas: 194
#2. Kentucky: 176
#3. California: 163
#4. Pennsylvania: 139
#5. Ohio: 127

Read on to see the countries that New York has accepted the most refugees from since January 2023.