Leadership
Steve Bucher is the Associate Director, Refugee, Asylum and International Operations.
Mission
The Refugee, Asylum, and International Operations Directorate (RAIO) leverages its domestic and overseas presence to provide protection, humanitarian, and other immigration benefits and services throughout the world, while combating fraud and protecting national security.
Vision
With a highly dedicated and flexible workforce deployed worldwide, the Refugee, Asylum and International Operations Directorate will excel in advancing U.S. national security and humanitarian interests by providing immigration benefits and services with integrity and vigilance and by leading effective responses to humanitarian and protection needs throughout the world.
What We Do
Our nation is committed to an immigration system that operates with integrity and facilitates the lawful immigration of eligible persons, while preventing the immigration of ineligible individuals, especially those who pose a national security risk. Within this context, our nation has a particularly strong tradition of opening its doors to people:
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Fleeing oppression, persecution and torture because of their race, religion, nationality, membership in a particular social group, or political opinion
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Confronting an urgent humanitarian situation and needing authorization to enter the United States on a temporary basis
In addition, the United States Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS) recognizes that there are other categories of people seeking immigration benefits who are more effectively served overseas than within the United States itself. These people include:
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Active duty members of our Armed Forces serving overseas who seek to become naturalized citizens
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Lawful permanent residents who are overseas and have lost documentation that would enable them to lawfully return to the United States
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Individuals who live overseas and seek to be reunified with relatives in the United States.
The responsibility of extending protection and humanitarian assistance and providing other immigration benefits and services to these people has been assigned to the USCIS Refugee, Asylum, and International Operations Directorate (RAIO).
RAIO’s mission requires a widely dispersed domestic and international presence. In addition to RAIO’s Washington, D.C., headquarters operations, including the home base of the Refugee Corps, our global presence now includes:
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28 overseas field offices
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8 domestic Asylum offices
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2 domestically-located branches of the International Operations division (IO) tasked with the adjudication of overseas applications not requiring interview
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An IO office in Miami responsible for administering a cooperative agreement that provides resettlement and orientation benefits to Cuban and Haitian parolees.
Additionally, RAIO sends officers on circuit rides overseas to adjudicate refugee benefits, frequently in remote locations, and domestically to adjudicate asylum benefits.
Organization
RAIO is made up of three divisions.
The Refugee Affairs Division, a principal partner in the United States Refugee Admissions Program, is responsible for providing the humanitarian benefit of refugee resettlement to applicants in need of protection throughout the world while diligently protecting the U.S. homeland through careful national security screening.
The Asylum Division manages the U.S. affirmative asylum process, which permits individuals already in the U.S. or at a port of entry, who are not in immigration proceedings, to request asylum if they are unable or unwilling to return to their country of origin due to past persecution or a well-founded fear of future persecution.
The International Operations Division, with 28 international field offices around the world, is the face of USCIS overseas. Our international offices play a critical role in extending immigration benefits to eligible individuals and exercising vigilance in matters of fraud detection and national security, thereby supporting the mission of USCIS in Securing America's Promise.
