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The Making of Modern Immigration: An Introduction | xvii conditions are such that they either seek asylum elsewhere or they may be con- sidered by the international community as stateless persons. In either case, they often petition for some form of residency in the United States. These are typically refugees, who, since ratification of the 1951 Convention on the Status of Refu- gees, have been of primary concern to the U.S. government. That United Nations Convention defined a refugee as a person who, “owing to well-founded fear of being prosecuted for reasons of race, religion, nationality, membership of a par- ticular social group or political opinion, is outside the country of his nationality and is unable or, owing to such fear, is unwilling to avail himself of the protection of that country.” This convention was further complemented by the 1967 protocol, in which nations must refrain from refoulement of refugees to countries in which they would face persecution. To gain recognition as a refugee, asylum applicants must demonstrate, first, that the level of harm they have experienced rises to per- secution second, that their own government cannot or will not protect them from the harm and, third, that the persecution is based on one of the protected grounds included in the definition contained in the convention. As recently as 2002, the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) has issued two sets of guidelines on international protection to as- sist states that are parties to the convention (like the United States) and national authorities that determine refugee status in gender-sensitive assessment and in the processing of asylum claims by particular social groups. The guidelines on gender-related persecution state that, “Even though gender is not specifically ref- erenced in the refugee definition, it is widely accepted that it can influence, or dictate, the type of persecution or harm suffered and the reasons for this treat- ment. The refugee definition, properly interpreted, therefore covers gender- related claims. As such, there is no need to add an additional ground to the 1951 Convention definition.” 24 The UNHCR guidelines on membership of a particular social group define a social group as “a group of persons who share a common characteristic other than the risk of being persecuted, or who are perceived as a group by society. The characteristic will often be one which is innate, unchange- able, or which is otherwise fundamental to identity, conscience or the exercise of one’s human rights.” 25 These international legal instruments not only have their own historical context, stemming as they do from the old League of Nations and given further impetus through the United Nations, but they also drive a mutually reinforcing set of poli- cies among individual states. As Saskia Sassen points out, individuals and nonstate actors can make claims on states based on basic human rights norms codified in international law. For example, the Helsinki Accord’s guideline that states should promote family reunification has bolstered the support of churches, ethnic groups, and civil rights associations in the United States for this principle. 26 These groups are often at odds with government policies, though, and have given sharp witness