Americas
The 1951 Refugee Convention, also known as the UN Refugee Convention, is a treaty established at the end of World War II to protect refugees.
A total of 149 countries have signed the treaty. Most European nations, along with North and South American countries (including the United States, Canada, and Brazil), Australia, and a large share of African and Asian countries have also acceded to the Refugee Convention.
The core obligation of the treaty is that a refugee can’t be legally forced to return to a territory where they face threats to their life or freedom.
The UN Refugee Convention provides safety for millions fleeing war. Still, critics and many studies show it can strain host-country citizens through public service costs, competition for resources, and social friction.
The most recent example of citizens and local government being strained by the treaty is in the tiny village of Piddington, U.K. (population 358), where the British government plans to house more than 1,200 asylum seekers in an unused local military facility.
Piddington, an affluent village with an overwhelmingly white, British-born population, is about 38 miles from London and a short drive from Winston Churchill’s birthplace.
A month ago, without consulting the residents, Westminster announced that Piddington would soon be home to 1,250 single adult male asylum seekers, ages 18-65, who are free to come and go as they please.
Many of these male asylum seekers are from Sudan, Eritrea, Iran, Afghanistan, Pakistan, and Somalia. These countries are among the most violent in the world, where women and girls are routinely sexually exploited and mistreated—the violence against them justified by local men.
Residents fear potential crime, safety risks, and the strain on local resources. The government-approved asylum seekers will be housed next to a children’s play area and granted a minimum 10-year stay.
The U.K. government defends using ex-military sites like the one in Piddington as a necessary measure to prevent housing asylum seekers in expensive hotels and to reduce overall asylum system costs.
The Piddington residents are furious but powerless to do anything about it. What’s happening in Piddington is just one small example of the larger political refugee crisis in the United States and worldwide.
By mid-2024, the cumulative number of asylum seekers who had arrived in New York City since the spring of 2022 surpassed 200,000, and by mid-2025, the total had reached between 237,000 and 239,000.
The New York City administration processed tens of thousands of work authorizations, asylum applications, and public school enrollment applications for new arrivals.
In Fiscal Year 2024 alone, New York City spent about $3.75 billion in taxpayer funds on shelter, food, and emergency operations for asylum seekers.
New York State committed more than $4.3 billion in multi-year funding statewide through fiscal commitments to support shelter and social service operations.
Chicago has spent approximately $639.6 million on asylum seekers since 2022, housing more than 46,000 individuals. Roughly 29% came from federal sources, and 23% from state funding.
New York City has the highest concentration and total number of asylum seekers in the United States, followed closely by major urban centers such as Chicago, Miami, Denver, and Los Angeles. These cities have received hundreds of thousands of new arrivals through direct migration or state-level bus programs.
In 2024, the countries with the highest concentration of new individual asylum applications globally were the United States (729,100 new claims in the first half of the year alone), Egypt (433,900), Germany (229,800), and Canada (174,000).