Refugees International

Refugees International was founded by Sue Morton in 1979 as a citizens' movement to protect Indochinese refugees. Sue Morton resided in Tokyo and Singapore in the first vital year of Refugees International. In Washington, D.C., the founding Director of Refugees International was Dianne L. Lawson, who incorporated Refugees International in the U.S. (Washington, D.C.), and oversaw of the first public actions taken by Refugees International, a full-page ad in the Washington Post, July 19, 1979, in which Refugees International requested that the Executive and Legislative Branches of the U.S. Government act to rescue Vietnamese and Cambodians (Kampucheans) at sea. On the date the ad appeared in the Washington Post, Morton and Lawson were part of a peaceful, candlelit march, led by then Senator Paul Simon (D-IL) and the singer Joan Baez, from the Lincoln Memorial to the north side of the White House. At the end of that march, the crowd sang "Amazing Grace" and, to the crowd's surprise, President Jimmy Carter strode out from the doors of the White House and announced that he had just ordered the U.S. 7th Fleet to pick up all refugees on boats who were fleeing from Southeast Asia for freedom.

Refugees International, powered by only volunteers at its beginning, grew to hire paid staff and expand its scope beyond Southeast Asia in 1990 and advocated for protection for Liberian refugees in Guinea and Kuwaitis in the Iraq-Jordan desert. Today, Refugees International conducts around 15 field missions to identify displaced people's needs for basic services such as food, water, health care, housing, access to education and protection from harm. Based on their field findings in humanitarian emergencies, they advocate to policy makers and aid agencies to improve the lives of displaced people around the world and urge the strategic benefits of a continuation of United States funding for foreign aid.[3][4] The organization currently focus their work on displacement crises in and around Colombia, Democratic Republic of Congo, Mali, Myanmar, Somalia, South Sudan, and Syria.