Becoming a Refugee in the United States: A Step-by-Step Illustration

This article illustrates some of the circumstances of refugee resettlement and possible reverification while highlighting principles of Mormon Women for Ethical Government.

“People have moral responsibilities to provide succor and relief to their fellow human beings fleeing war, violence, persecution, and natural disasters, regardless of their race, nationality, or religion.” Principles of Ethical Government 3D

Most U.S. refugee programs remain on hold. This leaves tens of thousands of refugees suspended in various phases of the approval and resettlement process. Among this group, some refugees in the U.S. will be reverified according to a memo issued by the presidential administration in November 2025.

Follow a Refugee Family

Follow a family as they take the necessary steps to qualify for refugee status and be admitted into the United States. This particular family is a fictional illustration of the real circumstances, steps, and timeline typical of a refugee’s experience.

The Mokosso family

In October 2015, Sita Mokosso was working with her husband on their farm outside Goma in the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) when they were confronted by a group of M23 rebels. Killing her husband on sight, the rebels ordered Sita to leave and overtook the homestead. The 35-year-old mother gathered her six children, ages 18, 17, 15, 13, 10, and 7, and her mother, Tulunga, and fled with nothing more than the clothes and shoes they were wearing.

Escape to safety

After seeking temporary shelter with Tulunga’s sister on the opposite end of Goma, the Mokosso family applied for U.S. refugee status at a resettlement support office in Goma. The Mokossos completed initial paperwork for the U.S. Refugee Admissions Program (USRAP), qualifying with higher priority due to the violent circumstances that forced them to flee and lose their farm. During the initial application process, which lasted four months, the Mokossos stayed in tents at a small camp in the North Kivu province.

Applying for refugee status in the U.S.

USRAP assigned the family to a refugee camp in Rwanda called Mahama. The family made the 100-mile journey from Goma to Mahama mostly on foot, with an occasional short ride on an overcrowded bus. In order to maintain an active application, the Mokossos had to wait in Mahama for as long as it took to process their application. They were not guaranteed resettlement.  

Life at the refugee camp

Mahama Camp lies across the border from eastern Congo in neighboring Rwanda and houses more than 62,000 refugee applicants. Upon arrival, the Mokosso family settled into one of the thousands of duplex-like structures made of thatch and mud bricks.

Sita, her mother, and the children accepted camp assignments like cleaning, cooking, and making repairs. Infrastructure was lacking in many areas. Running water and toilets worked only sporadically, and supplies were limited. Food rations were inconsistent, though the family was able to grow vegetables and fruit on a shared plot at the camp. 

A United Nations Refugee Agency (UNHCR) worker noticed Sita’s 13-year-old son’s adept language skills, and he was allowed to attend school outside of camp. There he learned math, science, and English (the official language of Rwanda), all in preparation for resettling in the U.S. He and other children who attended school outside of camp informally taught family members and neighbors inside the camp.

During this time, multiple U.S. government agencies conducted extensive vetting of the family. The FBI, Department of Homeland Security, U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS), and Department of Defense opened files on each family member, initiating thorough background checks.

Without birth records or other official documents, each family member was interviewed by government officials to corroborate the family’s relationships and claims before, during, and after the attack on the farm. Previous neighbors and Tulunga’s sister in Goma were interviewed. Sita, Tulunga, and the children all underwent biometric testing. During the family’s time at Mahama, Sita’s 15-year-old daughter was raped and delivered a baby. The baby was added to the application and investigations.

Approval and travel preparation

In July 2022, after seven years at Mahama and when all but Sita’s two youngest children and her grandchild had grown into adulthood, the family was approved to resettle in the U.S. Knowing they had no family there, a USRAP agent suggested two locations for the family’s resettlement, either Fort Worth, Texas, where there were many other Congolese refugees, or Salt Lake City, Utah, where a smaller number had settled. Sita chose Texas based on the warmer climate. 

Sita signed a promissory note to the U.S. government agreeing to pay back the transportation costs of all nine family members within three years of her arrival in the U.S. The family was instructed about what to expect upon arrival in the U.S. while government officials conducted one last security check on the family. Travel arrangements were made by UNHCR officials in Rwanda, and five months later the Mokosso family boarded a plane for Fort Worth.

Arriving in the U.S.

Before arriving in Fort Worth, the Mokossos were assigned to a caseworker from the refugee resettlement agency Catholic Charities Fort Worth. The caseworker met the family at the airport and managed aspects of the family’s resettlement for the first few months. The Mokosso family settled into a partially furnished rental home reserved by the host agency. The caseworker assisted the family in applying for housing, food, and other benefits provided by the U.S. government and nonprofit organizations.

Adjusting 

The Mokosso family began the process of adapting to their new home, where the language, culture, weather, resources, and opportunities differed from life at both the refugee camp and their farm in Goma. The family took classes to learn English, the two teens attended public school, and the adults other than Tulunga searched for work they could do with limited English. Grandma Tulunga provided care for her great-grandchild while Sita’s daughter joined the family in looking for work. Sita’s son who had attended school outside of the Rwandan camp became fluent in English and enrolled in a local college. The family also connected with other Congolese refugees in their community.

Reverifying Refugees

“Refugees are vetted more intensively than any other group seeking to enter the U.S. In fact, the hardest way to come to the country is as a refugee.” International Rescue Committee

Refugees admitted into the U.S. are legal, documented immigrants; however, their status is considered conditional. Applying for permanent residency is also called “adjustment of status.” Refugees are required by law to apply for lawful permanent residency, a “green card,” after one year of residence in the U.S. However, the government is not held to the same timeline to process a refugee’s green card application. For this reason, refugees might remain in conditional status longer than one year and their cases can be reexamined by the Department of Homeland Security if the applicants failed to adjust their status within a year of arrival.

The federal government has two mechanisms for cancelling someone’s refugee status within the timeframe before approval. They can reexamine by looking backward (was the individual eligible for admission when they arrived?) or forward (are they eligible for legal permanent residence since arriving?). All individuals in the U.S. with refugee status who have applied for permanent residence have their applications on hold while this reexamination takes place.

Backward: If the government believes the person committed fraud in their initial admission as a refugee, they can determine they were never eligible in the first place and revoke their refugee status, leading to deportation.

Forward: The government can also examine whether since admittance to the U.S., a refugee has become ineligible for lawful permanent residence. Some of the reasons their refugee status might end include allegations that the individual has committed a crime, is a “security risk,” is a suspected terrorist or spy, or has a communicable disease.

Last November, U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS) issued a memo detailing plans to reopen the cases of all refugees that arrived in the U.S. between January 20, 2021, and February 20, 2025. Processing of green-card applications from refugees was temporarily suspended, and even those who had already received green cards would have their cases reviewed. 

The memo, signed by USCIS director Joseph Edlow, argued that under the Biden administration, the focus was on speed and the number of cases rather than thorough screening and vetting. However, the memo did not include details or identify specific problems that warranted the reopening of nearly 200,000 refugee cases. A former senior official in the refugee division of USCIS who served under multiple administrations explained that on the rare occasions when there is evidence of fraud or a national security concern, a refugee may be reexamined, but, “There has never been a systematic effort to reexamine refugees.”

The administration followed through on its plan and in January 2026 began to review the cases of refugees who still had not adjusted their status under Operation Post-Admission Refugee Reverification and Integrity Strengthening (PARRIS). More than 100 refugees living in Minnesota were detained and sent to Texas to be interviewed. After being interviewed, some were released in Texas with no way to return to Minnesota. Soon after, a judge barred the government from continuing to detain refugees until a lawsuit challenging the policy is resolved. 

Domestic and International Obligations

“Governments have an ethical obligation to abide by international agreements and honor their nation’s treaty commitments.” Principles of Ethical Government 1F

The U.S. has both set laws to govern refugee admissions and entered into related international agreements with other countries.

Internationally, the U.S. is a party to the principles of the 1951 Refugee Convention and its 1967 Refugee Protocol, which define who qualifies as a refugee and establish core protections for those fleeing persecution.

Central among these is the principle of non-refoulement, which prohibits states from returning individuals to countries where they face threats to life or freedom on the basis of race, religion, nationality, political opinion, or membership in a particular social group. This principle is widely recognized as a cornerstone of international human rights law.

Congress codified the international commitments through the Refugee Act of 1980, which brought U.S. law into alignment with international standards and established a formal framework for the admission, resettlement, and protection of refugees. The act affirms that refugee protection is a humanitarian obligation and assigns Congress a central role in setting refugee admissions policy. In doing so, it embeds non-refoulement and refugee protections into U.S. statutory law, making them legally enforceable within the American legal system.

While it is true that, under U.S. constitutional law, an act of Congress may supersede an international treaty if the two conflict, that principle is crucial here for a different reason: As of 2025, departures from refugee admissions are not the result of congressional action but rather are largely driven by executive orders and administrative decisions that restrict or suspend refugee admissions without congressional approval. In effect, these actions abandon not only international legal obligations but also the domestic statutory framework established by Congress. The changes we are witnessing are not regulated and lawful recalibrations of domestic refugee policy but instead are a circumvention of both international commitments and U.S. law undermining the legal and moral foundations of refugee protections upheld globally.

This article was researched and written by Mormon Women for Ethical Government's Sherilyn Stevenson, lead researcher and writer, Alexa Alvarado and Nori Gomez, immigration program specialists, and Yvette Baker Farnsworth, legal researcher.