Across the world, there are more than 100 million people who are refugees - people forcibly displaced because of war, political turmoil, and other hardships. Some of these individuals will come to the United States and request refugee status, enabling them to live and work in America. This status enables individuals to skip to the front of the immigration line, thereby bypassing the complex application process that limits the number of people who can legally enter the U.S. each year.

Many Americans say they would prefer to vote for candidates with centrist (moderate) preferences. Yet very few Republican and Democratic candidates for Congress run for office on moderate campaign platforms or behave as moderates in office. Why don’t more candidates respond to the public’s demands for moderate issue positions?

Although public debate often treats unauthorized immigration as strictly a border issue, millions of people without legal status live and work far from U.S. points of entry. In this brief, we examine who is living in the U.S. without authorization and where they live.