Abstract
For more than 40 years, groups of Canadian residents have raised funds and offered their time and energy to support over 325,000 refugee newcomers to Canada through the Private Sponsorship of Refugees Program. In 2020, targets for private refugee sponsorship in the Canadian context were double the number of government-assisted refugees. Private sponsorship is therefore an important focus of analysis in relation to refugee resettlement, representing a complementary pathway to refugee protection through civil society mobilization. Yet, little research to-date has focused on private sponsorship. Based on an original qualitative study, this paper probes how voluntary sponsorship has beensustainedover decades, despite the high personal and financial costs it entails, by analyzing the insights of those who have experienced sponsorship: former refugees who came through the program, long-term sponsors, key informants, and other community leaders. The authors argue that private refugee sponsorship is a communitypractice, a routine action that is part of a collective commitment, a way of connecting local community actions to global politics of injustice and displacement. Furthermore, refugee newcomers who land in Canada as permanent residents becomepart ofthe communities and society in which they stay. Having left family members behind in refugee camps and cities of refuge, many become sponsors themselves. This phenomenon of ‘family linked’ sponsorship is a defining and sustaining feature of the program, motivating family members in Canada to team up with seasoned sponsors to ‘do more’. Our data show that sponsorship occurs across scales—linking local sites in Canada to countries where human atrocities are common and neighboring states that host those who flee. Sponsorship connects people in various communities across the world, and these transnational links are important to understanding the sustainability of sponsorship over time in Canada. Our research pays attention to the narratives of sponsors and those they support with the objective of documenting the momentous contribution of this complementary, and expanding, pathway for refugee protection.
Highlights
As long as the refugee crisis does not go away, the need to help someone will not go away. . .. we have humanity so there are always people who would respond to the refugee crisis
This paper focuses on private refugee sponsorship, sometimes called community sponsorship, as a complementary pathway to government-sponsored refugee resettlement in providing concrete, permanent protection to displaced persons
Jeremiah explained that the Sponsorship Agreement Holder (SAH) he works for decided not to accept new privately sponsored refugee (PSR) applications, even though requests continue to stream in: We have lots of Syrians, we have lots of Eritreans and Ethiopians, those are the three highest number of groups that are reaching out to us and wanting us to assist with the sponsorship of their relatives who are refugees. - Jeremiah, Key Informant #011, 2020. All those sponsored for resettlement must still meet Canada’s definition of a refugee, yet those who are family linked in the PSR category are sometimes perceived as being less vulnerable than other groups identified by United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) for sponsorship
Summary
As long as the refugee crisis does not go away, the need to help someone will not go away. . .. we have humanity so there are always people who would respond to the refugee crisis. While all refugee resettlement is discretionary, private sponsorship depends not just on the political will of the state but on the commitment, mobilization and resources of members of civil society. Drawing from her experience as a Canadian civil servant who monitored the resettlement of Vietnamese, Cambodian, and Laotian refugees beginning in 1979 and has been a private sponsor herself, Alboim (2016) identifies the key. As civil society actors (in secular groups, communities or as members of faith groups), volunteer sponsors see themselves as acting locally but having impact globally by helping create new homes for refugee newcomers. This work by civil society can be better understood as sustained transnational networks supporting refugees displaced in one part of the world and resettling in a new local community. Why? While the basic requirements outlined by the PRSP provide a structure, recommendations on how to proceed, and contractual obligations, none of these elements reveals how and why sponsors do this work repeatedly over time
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