{"id":19,"date":"2018-01-03T11:07:21","date_gmt":"2018-01-03T11:07:21","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/help.unhcr.org\/usa\/?page_id=19"},"modified":"2018-03-09T20:05:16","modified_gmt":"2018-03-09T20:05:16","slug":"what-is-asylum","status":"publish","type":"page","link":"https:\/\/help.unhcr.org\/usa\/applying-for-asylum\/what-is-asylum\/","title":{"rendered":"What is asylum?"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Asylum is a form of protection which allows an individual to remain in the United States instead of being removed (deported) to a country where he or she fears persecution or harm. Under U.S. law, people who flee their countries because they fear\u00a0persecution can apply for asylum. If they are granted asylum, this gives them protection and the right to stay in the\u00a0United States. Those who are granted asylum are called <a href=\"https:\/\/help.unhcr.org\/usa\/rights-and-duties\/rights-and-duties-of-asylees\/\">asylees<\/a>.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Note:<\/strong> According to U.S. immigration law, a refugee is someone who has been resettled to the United States through the U.S. resettlement program. This is a separate process than asylum. For more information on resettled refugees, please see <a href=\"https:\/\/help.unhcr.org\/usa\/rights-and-duties\/rights-and-duties-of-refugees\/\">Rights and Duties of Refugees<\/a>.<\/p>\n<p>To apply for asylum in the U.S., you must be physically present in the U.S. or be seeking entry into the U.S. at a port of entry.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Persecution<\/strong> can be harm or threats of harm to you or your family or to\u00a0people similar to you. A person can also obtain asylum if he or she has suffered persecution\u00a0in his or her country in the past.<\/p>\n<p>You only can win asylum if at least one of the reasons\u00a0someone harmed or may harm you is because of your race, religion, nationality, political\u00a0opinion (or a political opinion someone thinks you have), or the fact that you are part of\u00a0a \u201cparticular social group.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Asylum is a form of protection which allows an individual to remain in the United States instead of being removed (deported) to a country where he or she fears persecution or harm. Under U.S. law, people who flee their countries because they fear\u00a0persecution can apply for asylum. If they are granted asylum, this gives them [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"parent":17,"menu_order":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","template":"","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"class_list":["post-19","page","type-page","status-publish","hentry"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/help.unhcr.org\/usa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/19","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/help.unhcr.org\/usa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/help.unhcr.org\/usa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/page"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/help.unhcr.org\/usa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/help.unhcr.org\/usa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=19"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/help.unhcr.org\/usa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/19\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":551,"href":"https:\/\/help.unhcr.org\/usa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/19\/revisions\/551"}],"up":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/help.unhcr.org\/usa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/17"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/help.unhcr.org\/usa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=19"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}