Kelly Ryan, President George W. Bush’s deputy assistant secretary of state in charge of refugee issues, knew all about the refugees from Burma. She spent the previous decade at the Department of Justice, helping Burmese democracy activists win political asylum in the United States. Refugees from Vietnam and Laos had adapted to America, so she thought newcomers from nearby Burma could do so, too.

Bringing some of those people to America would help fulfill Bush’s goal of settling 70,000 refugees in the United States every year. The U.S. dramatically increased its security checks for refugees after the Sept. 11, 2001, terror attacks. That meant only 27,109 refugees came to the United States in fiscal 2002. “Muslims were difficult to get into the U.S. system,” recalled Jack Dunford, who ran the charitable consortium that operates the Thai refugee camps. “The U.S. was casting around for new caseloads.”

So Ryan asked the Thai government to allow refugees from Burma to come to America – an idea Thai officials had refused to consider, fearing it would prompt more people from Burma to rush into Thailand. Ryan kept pressing, and by the spring of 2005, she had a deal. The United States would start small, taking refugees from just one camp at first.

The United States also agreed to a key Thai request. The Thai negotiator “asked the United States to pursue the program as discreetly as possible,” U.S. diplomats in Thailand said in a cable to colleagues in D.C. There is no mention of the 10-year resettlement deal in the State Department’s press releases from 2005, no mention of it in news stories that year.

Thai officials later agreed to expand the resettlement program, and the U.S. did the same by easing restrictions on people who had helped rebel soldiers in Burma. Congress further expanded the program in 2007 with legislation that welcomed former rebel fighters like Nay Htoo.

Thanks to those moves, the number of refugees from Burma arriving in America multiplied eightfold in the 12 months ending Sept. 30, 2007. The influx continued for years, ultimately bringing more than 160,000 people from Burma to the United States.