US Resettlement Research Articles

Surviving and Resisting Retrenchment: US Resettlement Organizations’ Responses to Trump-era Anti-refugee Policy

Abstract Retrenchment and erosion of refugee protections have been on the rise in multiple contexts around the world. In the United States, the Trump Administration’s refugee policies threatened the very survival of domestic resettlement institutions. The administration reduced the number of refugees, cut funds, and sewed confusion. In the face of restrictionist policies, how did refugee advocates respond? Leveraging a case study of resettlement organisations’ responses to Trump-era anti-refugee policies, this article demonstrates that administrators not only adapted creatively to survive the barrage of attacks but also engaged in meaningful political contestation. In circumscribed moments, administrators defied theoretical expectations: they placed the collective above the individual and challenged exploitative dynamics fundamental to US refugee programmes. This article draws on critical theory to analyse administrative resistance, repositioning bureaucrats as advocates in the process. In doing so, the article makes three main contributions. First, it elucidates the unseen role of bureaucrats as agents of progressive institutional change. Next, it offers new analytic purchase into puzzling organisational behaviour by foregrounding social relations of power. Finally, the article provides tools and resources for resettlement organisations navigating retrenchment globally.

Racialising Refugees: The Global Colour Line in US Resettlement

Abstract Following the 2021 Taliban takeover of Afghanistan and the 2022 Russian invasion of Ukraine, there were notable differences in access to resettlement and other pathways of humanitarian migration. Drawing on an analysis of statements by US policymakers, this article considers the global context and implications of the disparate language and approaches used in responses to Afghan and Ukrainian displacement. It shows how racialised and gendered narratives contributed to and were constituted within a broader international hierarchy and global colour line. The positioning of Ukrainians as possessing higher civilisational attributes deserving of solidarity and support, and their portrayal through prisms of strong agency, sovereignty, and kindred Western values, echoed across transnational constructions of collective white identity. In contrast, Afghan resettlement was rendered conditional on extensive security vetting and proof of loyal service to US and NATO missions in Afghanistan. Portrayals of Afghans as less assimilable, as potential terrorist infiltrators, as incapable of self-governance and unable to generate their own progress perpetuated features of the global colour line. Attending to the different logics used to construct refugee and parolee groups and policies broadens our understanding on how multilayered processes of Orientalism and racialisation shape resettlement and disparities in access to protection.

The Time Politics of Refugee Resettlement and Higher Education in the United States

This paper sheds light on experiences within systems of US resettlement and its structures of (un)welcome. There is considerable evidence that the policy framework of these systems complicates the possibilities of higher education for refugees. Drawing on interviews with residents with a refugee background and resettlement service providers, we explore how US refugee resettlement policy creates obstacles for refugees in pursuing higher education and professional work by imposing a particular regimentation of time on refugees’ lives that impels them to rapidly integrate into low-income employment markets. We argue that such a time politics of speed hastens the resettlement process to advance the goal that residents with refugee background obtain rapid economic self-sufficiency and discuss the policy implications.

Making a National Program National: The US Resettlement of Displaced Persons After World War II

The end of the Second World War in Europe left millions of people out of place, including Jews left in concentration camps, forced laborers in the huge Nazi work camp system, and many Germans as well. For roughly a million of these people, no immediate return to their home countries was possible, and the United States—although very slowly—ultimately resettled the largest number of them. One important thread in these US efforts was the intent to make the resettlement program a fully national one. Those efforts are seen most clearly in states that would not at that time have been obvious destinations for displaced persons, or at least not obvious destinations for relatively large numbers of them. This article examines three states—North Dakota, Minnesota, and Mississippi. The resettlement program may not have been fully coherent in policy goals, including veering sharply at times from the original humanitarian intent. Yet the program worked well on its own terms and set a new standard for state and local involvement in resettlement that has continued through the major surges of refugees to the United States since then, including recent efforts on behalf of those from Afghanistan and Ukraine. This US experience of refugee resettlement through a flexible federal/state/local system, with strong involvement from both public and private sectors, remains a crucial experiment in resettlement and a reminder of the ways refugee and immigration policies and programs are intertwined.

Localizing refugeehood: norms and the US resettlement of Afghan allies

Abstract A central challenge for the study of norms in International Relations entails understanding how meaning is enacted through use and local context. Amid trends towards governments reducing pathways of humanitarian migration, local constructions of meaning around refugeehood and the obligations owed to people fleeing persecution can influence global trajectories of containment and responsibility-sharing. As a means of advancing our understanding of norm localization and contestation, this article provides an account of how obligations around refugee protection are configured and contested among national and subnational authorities. Using a case study of discourses (re)produced among United States' federal, state and municipal leaders, it explores the multiple, complex layers of meaning which emerged around duties of care owed to foreign civilian ‘allies’ in the context of the 2021 Taliban takeover of Afghanistan. Beyond illustrating dynamics of localization and contestation, the article shows how domestic resistance to norm implementation can operate as a surrogate for wider visions of resisting liberal international principles. The case study more broadly contributes to understanding the conflicting logics associated with duties of care in the aftermath of military interventions.

Refugee-Led Organizations' Crisis Response during the COVID-19 Pandemic

Scholarship on disaster response and recovery has focused on local communities as crucial in developing and implementing timely, effective, and sustainable supports. Drawing from interviews with refugee leaders conducted during the spring and summer of 2020 at the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic, this study examines crisis response activities of refugee-led grassroots groups, specifically within Bhutanese and Congolese refugee communities in a midwestern metropolitan area in the US resettlement context. Empirical findings illustrate how refugee-led groups provided case management, outreach, programming, and advocacy efforts to respond to the pandemic. These findings align with literature about community-based and strengths-based approaches to addressing challenges stemming from the pandemic. They also point to local embeddedness and flexibility as organizational characteristics that may have helped facilitate crisis response, thereby warranting reconsideration and re-envisioning of the role of refugee-led grassroots groups in crisis response.

Charting a Course to Rebuild and Strengthen the US Refugee Admissions Program (USRAP): Findings and Recommendations from the Center for Migration Studies Refugee Resettlement Survey: 2020

Charting a Course to Rebuild and Strengthen the US Refugee Admissions Program (USRAP): Findings and Recommendations from the Center for Migration Studies Refugee Resettlement Survey: 2020

When ‘Self-Sufficiency’ Is Not Sufficient: Refugee Integration Discourses of US Resettlement Actors and the Offer of Refuge

Abstract Resettlement in a third country is fundamental in the protection of displaced persons, yet the offer of refuge encompasses more than mere admission into a country. In the US, various resettlement organizations provide arrival services; however, the resettlement programme’s ability to support long-term integration is restricted by an emphasis on economic self-sufficiency. Resettlement practices are shaped by the integration discourses of multiple resettlement actors, a term encompassing expectations, aspirations, and conceptions of ‘ideal’ refugee integration. This article explores the work of resettlement agencies and refugee ‘third sector’ organizations (RTSOs) by examining three organizations in a southeastern US city. Contesting government expectations of rapid ‘self-sufficiency’, RTSOs expand the offer of refuge provided in resettlement. They provide opportunities for social contact between volunteers and refugees and prioritize the formation of community and relationships. However, these organizations also reproduce neoliberal discourses of integration, ultimately constraining possibilities for expanded refugee integration.

Refugees and the transforming landscapes of small cities in the US

ABSTRACT Over the past thirty years, immigrants in the US have been settling outside of gateway cities, going instead to a number of other new locations across the country. While much of the extant literature has focused on economic and family-based migration, in this paper I look at a different subgroup, officially resettled refugees. I explore the rationales that lie behind such a trend by examining placement data and a number of interviews with key figures in the US resettlement system at multiple levels. In particular, I examine the idea of refugees as an instrument of urban revitalization for smaller cities as well as the opportunities and challenges that their arrival has presented for these sites. I contextualize the arrival of refugees in smaller cities in the US within the current moment of rising racism, xenophobia and anti-immigrant sentiment across the country, as well as a resettlement program undergoing radical changes..

Refugee-Run Grassroots Organizations: Responsive Assistance beyond the Constraints of US Resettlement Policy

Abstract Refugee-resettlement policy as constitutive of neoliberal governance has been critically examined as delimiting service provision by state-contracted refugee-serving agencies. What remains unexamined is how state-detached refugee-run organizations at the grassroots fit into the privatized, marketized and technocratic modalities of such governance. This study examines Refugee Community Organizations (RCOs) in the US and their scope of services in relation to publicly funded resettlement services, drawing on focus groups and 40 interviews with RCO leaders of Bhutanese communities in 35 US cities. Findings illustrate RCOs with a wide scope of services, in terms of eligibility, time limits, proximity and modality. Who and when: RCOs target those neglected by work-oriented policies and provide assistance well beyond policy time limits. Where and how: RCOs are closer to communities in terms of both geographical and sociocultural proximity. Issues of equity and social justice are thus raised, as RCOs aim to assume important functions of the state and pursue the mandates of federal policy, without adequate resources and legitimacy.

Qualitative exploration of critical health literacy among Afghan and Congolese refugees resettled in the USA

Objectives: Previous research that revealed a high prevalence of low health literacy among immigrants and refugees tended to over emphasise functional health literacy as a risk factor for low health status and poor disease management. Despite a significant knowledge gap, little has been investigated regarding critical health literacy (CHL) in refugee populations whose culture deeply interweaves individual and contextual capacity to promote health. Design: This study adopted a qualitative approach to explore CHL that is built through community health workshops (CHWs) with Afghan and Congolese refugee communities in US resettlement. Setting: As part of a community-based participatory research project, the study was conducted with Afghan and Congolese refugees resettled in the USA. Method: A series of open-ended questions for focus group interviews were embedded in each workshop session explore health literacy skills and capacity over time. This study adopted a hybrid thematic design whereby the conceptual framework of CHL was applied to emergent themes from the data. Results: Thematic analysis revealed four major CHL thematic domains, as experienced and demonstrated by Afghan and Congolese refugee participants: (1) critical appraisal, (2) self-efficacy and confidence, (3) empowerment, and (4) collective problem solving. Conclusion: Study findings underline the importance of health education validating existing cultural knowledge and practices in a group setting so as to facilitate the building and enhancement of social support systems and community action for health promotion.

Paper integration: The structural constraints and consequences of the US refugee resettlement program

AbstractThe migration literature contends that, unlike other immigrants, refugees resettled in the US benefit from a federal program of integration. These claims do not consider the barriers that may complicate the implementation of resettlement policy. Based on 16 months of ethnographic fieldwork at a refugee resettlement agency in California, I argue that the organizational structure of the US Resettlement Program shapes how caseworkers provide resettlement services on a daily basis. The financial insecurity of Resettlement Agencies coupled with high stakes government oversight creates an organizational culture of vulnerability where caseworkers rely on discretion as they put resettlement policy into practice. Caseworkers develop coping mechanisms to get by as they simultaneously attend to the demands of their funders and their refugee clients. Given these structural constraints and limited resources, caseworkers instrumentalize paperwork as a discretionary tool. When files and documents are privileged over the quality and extent of resettlement services, caseworkers creatively utilize paperwork to separate policy from practice in order to protect themselves and appease their refugee clients. This policy of integration instead becomes a practice of paper integration, which problematizes prior theories and assumptions about US refugee resettlement. This practice of paper integration ultimately affects the services that arriving refugees receive and the degree to which they benefit from this ostensible program of integration.

The academic case for repealing Trump's refugee and travel ban

Academics provide education and undertake research to improve understanding, and hopefully make the world a better place. US President Donald Trump's recent executive order on Jan 27, 2017, 1 The White HouseExecutive Order: Protecting the nation from foreign terrorist entry into The United States. https://www.whitehouse.gov/the-press-office/2017/01/27/executive-order-protecting-nation-foreign-terrorist-entry-united-statesDate: Jan 27, 2017 Google Scholar banning travel to the USA from seven predominantly Muslim countries (Iran, Iraq, Libya, Somalia, Sudan, Syria, and Yemen) for 90 days, suspending the US resettlement programme for all refugees for 120 days, indefinitely suspending the entry of Syrian refugees, and reducing the number of resettled refugees from 110 000 to 50 000, has dramatically and negatively affected millions of people's lives. Academics from around the world have an obligation to provide quality evidence to students, the public, and policy makers about the impact of this order to ensure informed decisions are made. Toward this end, faculty at the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health, in Baltimore, MD, USA, sent the President a letter 2 Klag MJ Baral S Barry C et al. Letter from faculty at the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health to President Trump. http://www.jhsph.edu/research/centers-and-institutes/center-for-refugee-and-disaster-response/News/Johns-Hopkins-faculty-urge-Trump-to-not-issue-Executive-Order-halting-refugee-admissions.pdfDate: Jan 27, 2017 Google Scholar urging him not to sign what was then a draft order, and after its release held a symposium on the executive order and emerging public health crisis on Feb 2, 2017. 3 Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public HealthThe executive order on refugees: an emerging public health crisis. http://www.jhsph.edu/events/2017/the-executive-order-on-refugees/index.htmlDate: Feb 2, 2017 Google Scholar We encourage others to do the same. Implications of a travel ban on US medical education and trainingWe write in response to the recent Comment1 on the academic consequences of President Donald Trump's Executive Order 13769 to restrict travel into the USA for citizens from seven countries. This has affected ourselves, our friends, our colleagues, our students, and our patients. Full-Text PDF

Making Refuge: Somali Bantu Refugees and Lewiston, Maine by Catherine Besteman

Reviewed by: Making Refuge: Somali Bantu Refugees and Lewiston, Maine by Catherine Besteman Cindy Horst Catherine Besteman, Making Refuge: Somali Bantu Refugees and Lewiston, Maine. Durham: Duke University Press, 2016. 352 pp. Making Refuge explores the question of how people whose entire way of life has been destroyed construct a new future for themselves. In this beautifully written book, Catherine Besteman argues that in the process of trying to rebuild life, refugees and those who host them transform each other. She shows how refugees and their hosts are affected by the slow border crossings of all kinds that accompany human mobility. The book is highly relevant at a time when the hosting of refugees is debated extensively across the world. The renewed interest in the hosting of refugees has been sparked by the fact that Europe, the continent whose historical events led to the adoption of the 1951 Refugee Convention, is facing tremendous challenges providing refuge for the refugees at its borders today. The focus of the book is on "Somali Bantu" who aim to establish new lives in Lewiston, Maine. Besteman describes the process by which many different groups "became Bantu" when resettlement to the United States became an option for them. She describes how the Italian colonial authorities may have been the first to use the term "Bantu" in the 1930s to distinguish the riverine farmers from the pastoralist Somalis. Yet the Somali Bantu were not an actual group, but consisted of a range of widely divergent communities, many with a slave ancestry from Tanzania, Malawi, Mozambique, and Kenya. The Bantu then became a group worthy of resettlement in the US resettlement scheme due to their particularly oppressive past and minority status in Somalia, making them a good objective of relocation from the region. Besteman shows how the strategic actions of both various Bantu leaders and those working for the UN and Anthropological Quarterly, Vol. 90, No. 2, p. 549–552, ISSN 0003-5491. © 2017 by the Institute for Ethnographic Research (IFER) a part of The George Washington University. All rights reserved. [End Page 549] donors on resettlement, solidified the case for resettling them as Somali Bantu to the United States. With this she reclaims the figure of the refugee as an individual with political agency, which is far too rarely done in academic texts on refugees. The book offers important perspectives on the transformations and border crossings taking place as a consequence of this group's arrival in Lewiston. This happens in three ways, reflected in the three parts of the book: the first discusses the process of becoming refugees, the second describes the reception in Lewiston from the perspective of the hosts, and the third the process of making refuge in Lewiston from the perspective of the Somali Bantu. The first strength of the book is that Besteman's interaction with those who came to be known as Somali Bantu, started long before they arrived in the US and in Lewiston. As a young anthropologist, Besteman lived in Banta in Southcentral Somalia in 1987–1988, just a few years before the collapse of the Somali state. There, she conducted extensive fieldwork for her doctoral research while her photographer husband engaged in taking pictures of the community and way of life. Within three years after their departure, the village was consumed by civil war and they never managed to go back to Banta. Almost two decades later, Besteman is reunited with some of the people she knew from her stay in Banta and their neighbors in surrounding villages, when she meets them in Lewiston. Sharing everyday life in Banta before the war and having access to the many pictures of life her husband took, Besteman has an in depth understanding of the entire way of life that has been destroyed and an extremely valuable tool to inspire people's memories of that time. She also knows many of those who lost their lives in the war or during flight and can relate to the life histories she is being told on a deeply personal level. A second strength of the book is that in Part 2, Besteman presents three different perspectives on the arrival of Somali Bantus...

Refugee patients.

This short story focuses on refugee patients. Family members talk about the horrific struggles of civil war, refugee camps, and promises of US resettlement. Their harsh reception into a brutal world includes unemployment, food scarcity, and isolation. (PsycINFO Database Record

Using mixed methods to build knowledge of refugee mental health

Mixed methods research, which combines elements of qualitative and quantitative research approaches, should be well suited to studying refugee mental health.However, thishas not yet been adequatelydiscussed nordemonstratedwithin the existingscienti¢c literature.This paper aims to begin to ¢ll this gap and describes how mixed methods have been used in refugee mental health research. Twenty-nine articles from the health and social sciences literature were systematically reviewed with a focus on study designs and key ¢ndings.The studies reviewed were mostly conducted in high income countries inEurope, Australia, and North America.The mixed methods studies largely involved surveys and interviews, and the designs were mostly sequential and explanatory. The key mixed methods ¢ndings were in the domains of loss of connection, loss of status, lack of adequate services and resilience. Onemixedmethods research example, which studied protective resources among adolescent refugees in US resettlement, is oiered to illustrate some advantages of mixed methods data collection and analysis.There is, however, a need for further research on refugee mental health which takes advantage of the full spectrum of mixed methods designs to address priority needs and questions, especially involving resilience and resilience focused interventions.

Hepatitis E Outbreak, Dadaab Refugee Camp, Kenya, 2012

Hepatitis E Outbreak, Dadaab Refugee Camp, Kenya, 2012

Malnourished Children in Refugee Camps and Lack of Connection with Services After US Resettlement

Identifying and addressing malnutrition among US-bound refugee children is an important human rights issue. Failure to address childhood malnutrition can impair cognitive development and productivity. The target population was children aged 6-59 months, originating from eight countries representing 51 % of US-resettled refugees for 2005-2011, living in 22 camps prior to potential US-resettlement. The corresponding camp-level nutritional survey data were evaluated. State Refugee Health Coordinators were surveyed on nutritional assessment, reporting and referrals for their US-refugee medical screenings. From 2004 to 2010, half of the camps (63 total surveys) had global acute malnutrition prevalence over 15 % at least once (surveys not done annually) and anemia prevalence greater than 40 %. The majority of US-refugee medical screenings included height and weight measurements but few used national or WHO standards to evaluate presence or level of malnutrition. Improve overseas camp monitoring and link these nutritional data to US-resettling refugee children to inform potential nutritional interventions. Domestically, use WHO or US growth standards for anthropometrics to determine presence of malnutrition and need for corrective action.

HIV/AIDS and associated conditions among HIV-infected refugees in Minnesota, 2000–2007.

In 2010, the requirement for human immunodeficiency virus (HIV) testing of adult refugees prior to US resettlement was removed, thus leading to a potential for missed diagnosis. We reviewed refugee health assessment data and medical charts to evaluate the health status of HIV-infected refugees who arrived in Minnesota during 2000–2007, prior to this 2010 policy change. Among 19,292 resettled adults, 174 were HIV-infected; 169 (97%) were African (median age 26.4 (range: 17–76) years). Charts were abstracted for 157 (124 (79%) with ≥1 year of follow-up). At initial presentation, two of 74 (3%) women were pregnant; 27% became pregnant during follow-up. HIV clinical stage varied (59%, asymptomatic; 11%, mild symptoms; 10%, advanced symptoms; 3%, severe symptoms; 17%, unknown); coinfections were common (51 tuberculosis, 13 hepatitis B, 13 parasites, four syphilis). Prior to arrival 4% had received antiretrovirals. Opportunistic infections were diagnosed among 13%; 2% died from AIDS-related causes. Arrival screening may be needed to identify these HIV-infected refugees and prevent HIV-related morbidity and mortality.

Translating Race across Time and Space: The Creation of Somali Bantu Ethnicity

This article reviews the creation of Somali Bantu ethnicity as an object of humanitarian intervention during Somalia's civil war. A variety of local, regional and international actors combined to create the ethnonym Somali Bantu for a group of refugees identified as a persecuted minority by the UNHCR and the US government and selected for resettlement in the United States. I track the emergence of the name and its affective dimensions for those who embrace Somali Bantu identity and assess criticisms of its authenticity and legitimacy. The creation of Somali Bantu identity reveals critical dimensions of how race is translated across time and space. Since a fundamental dimension of Somali Bantu identity is based on presumptions of racial difference, the article traces the salience of constructed difference for social hierarchies within Somalia, colonial projects in Somalia, refugee camp life in Kenya, US resettlement policy and diaspora politics in the United States.