For years, Chamber of Commerce types have bemoaned the fact that Houston has not been considered a “Destination City” by tourists. That was even one of the reasons cited when NASA decided to award the Johnson Space Center with a fake shuttle instead of a real one.
Now, Houston has truly become a destination city – for refugees.
According to statistics just released, 2011 saw Texas become the state of choice for refugees entering the U.S. and Houston was the number one city.
They come, literally, from virtually every corner of the globe, but the vast majority of refugees to the United States are now coming from Burma, Bhutan and Iraq - a demographic echoed by the people arriving in Houston.
Last year, a total of 56,419 refugees were settled in the United States, according to data released by the Office of Refugee Resettlement, an agency of the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services.
A refugee is defined by the federal government as someone who is "unable or unwilling to return to his or her country of nationality because of persecution or a well-founded fear of persecution on account of race, religion, nationality, membership in a particular social group, or political opinion."
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