IDPs in the United States

Two Katrina refugees being spoken to by President Bush.

There are about 1,000,000 internally displaced persons (IDPs) in the United States.

These are people from the Gulf States region in the southern United States, most notably New Orleans, Louisiana, collectively known as the New Orleans diaspora, who have been forced to leave their homes due to the devastation brought on by Hurricane Katrina in 2005.^[1]

See also

• Internally displaced person
• Refugee
• Political asylee
• Emergency evacuation

Notes

1. Katrina and Rita IDPs are not of concern to, and therefore not counted by, UNHCR ("2005 Global Refugee Trends" (PDF)., UNHCR, Table 14, p. 94). They therefore do not appear in many international numbers. However, they are often discussed under the IDP definition. (Example: Harvard Educational Review editorial)