Responding to the needs of people on the move since 1951, ICMC serves and protects uprooted people: refugees,internally displaced persons (IDPs) and migrants, regardless of faith, race, ethnicity or nationality.

Working directly with migrants and refugees in more than 40 countries around the world and providing a dignity-driven voice for migrants and ICMC Members in international policy-making debates and processes, ICMC responds to the challenges of people on the move with expertise and action. Together with our worldwide membership of Catholic Bishops Conferences, and alongside government and non-governmental partners, ICMC advocates and implements rights-based policies and durable solutions for vulnerable men, women and children across the globe.

ICMC was established by the Holy See in 1951 and was further granted public canonical juridical status in 2008. ICMC is an international commission of Catholic Bishops Conferences, and Episcopal assemblies of similar status, working with migrants and refugees on national and regional levels.

The ICMC Secretariat is located in Geneva, Switzerland, and is further supported by the work of liaison offices in Brussels, Belgium (ICMC Europe) and Washington, D.C, USA (ICMC, Inc.). In addition to field offices located in Indonesia, Jordan, Pakistan and Turkey, more than 100 ICMC expert resettlement personnel are currently supporting UNHCR in field offices throughout Africa, Asia, Europe, Latin America and the Middle East through the ICMC-UNHCR Deployment Resettlement Scheme.

ICMC holds the US Government contract for Resettlement Support Center (RSC) Turkey and Middle East. For three decades, ICMC has partnered with the U.S. Department of State, Bureau of Population, Refugees and Migration to conduct refugee resettlement processing and such associated services as cultural orientation and medical exams for thousands of refugees seeking to be resettled in the U.S.; it has resettled approximately 40,000 refugees out of its Turkey and Middle East RSC, based in Istanbul. ICMC also has a sub-office in Beirut, Lebanon, and an ad hoc region consisting of Yemen, Kuwait, and UAE. The caseload includes a variety of different nationalities, including Iraqis, Iranians, Sudanese, Somalis, and Afghanis.