Prior to the 19th century the movement from one country to another did not require passports and visas; the right to asylum was commonly recognized and honoured. Although there have been numerous waves of refugees throughout history, there was no refugee problem until the emergence of fixed and closed state frontiers in the late 19th century. 

Refugee movements started with religious and racial intolerance. Entire groups were uprooted, exiled, or deported by secular or religious authorities in an effort to enforce conformity. Politically motivated refugee movements frequent in modern times, have occurred intermittently since the development of governments powerful enough to oppress nonconformist minorities.
Several major refugee movements have been caused by territorial partition.

The partition of the Indian subcontinent in 1947 resulted in the exchange of 18 million Hindus from Pakistan and Muslims from India—the greatest population transfer in history. Some 8–10 million persons were also temporarily made refugees by the creation of Bangladesh in 1971.

International action for refugees did not start until the 1920s. In 1921 Fridtjof Nansen of Norway was appointed by the League of Nations as high commissioner for refugees and devised a so-called League of Nations Passport (“Nansen Passport”), a travel document that gave the owner the right to move more freely across national boundaries. After Nansen’s death, the protection of refugees was entrusted to the Nansen International Office for Refugees, but this office accomplished little before its mandate expired in 1938. Other refugee-assistance organizations have included the Intergovernmental Committee on Refugees, the United Nations Relief and Rehabilitation Refugee Organization, and the Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees. The Intergovernmental Committee for European Migration (renamed the Intergovernmental Committee for Migration) was founded in 1951. Several voluntary agencies, such as the International Rescue Committee, have also been established throughout the world.

And yet, in its 11th year, the Syrian Refugee Crisis remains the world’s largest refugee and displacement crisis of our time. 
About 6.6 million Syrians are refugees, and another 6.2 million people are displaced within Syria. About half of the people affected by the Syrian refugee crisis are children!

June 20- Not a day to celebrate, just a day to ponder. “No one puts their children in a boat unless the water is safer than the land."