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Refugee Resettlement in Transition
By Kathleen Newland
Migration Policy Institute
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September 2002
From Europe to the US, and beyond, changes are being made to policies that
determine who among the world's roughly 12 million refugees will be able to
resettle in a safe third country. Today's transformations will have a critical
impact on refugees, from their personal safety to their place of residence and
family unity. For many, the outcome will have a long-term effect on their life
chances.
Most refugees, fleeing to escape violence or persecution, come to rest in the
border regions of neighboring states. Their troubles are rarely over at that
point. The conflicts they have fled may pursue them across the border, the host
country may threaten to return them to the dangers they have just escaped, or
they may face years of bare subsistence cut off from their usual means of
livelihood and unable to integrate into the economy and society of the host
country. Refugee resettlement is the process by which some refugees are allowed
to leave a country of asylum and start life anew in a third country that is
willing to receive and protect them on a permanent basis. Resettling refugees
are, in this way, distinct from asylum seekers, who arrive without prior
authorization to seek refugee status.
Out of roughly 12 million refugees in the world today, only about 100,000 per
year have been selected for resettlement in the late 1990s and the early years
of this decade. Ten countries -- Australia, Canada, Denmark, Finland,
Netherlands, Norway, New Zealand, Sweden, Switzerland, and the United States --
have, since the 1970s, set annual quotas or ceilings for a certain number of
resettlement slots, though the Swiss quota is suspended. Since 1998, another
eight have started to cooperate with the Office of the UN High Commissioner for
Refugees (UNHCR) in providing resettlement places. Four additional states --
Belgium, France, Germany, and the United Kingdom -- accept refugees for
resettlement on an ad hoc basis. UNHCR normally refers 35-40,000 refugees for
resettlement each year, and receiving countries directly select approximately
60,000 more.
The year 2002 has not been a normal year for refugee resettlement around the
world, however. The number resettled will be far below the norm of 100,000,
particularly because of the impact of the events of September 11 on the
US resettlement program. The United States accounted for between 60 and 85
percent of all refugees resettled in 1998-2001. In 2002, security concerns
slowed the US resettlement program to the point where no more than 25-30,000
refugees are likely to enter through this channel, against a ceiling of 70,000.
The future size and shape of the program is unclear.
At the same time that the US resettlement program is being scaled back, at
least temporarily, Western European countries are re-examining their
involvement in resettlement. Some individual countries, such as the United
Kingdom, are considering the establishment of national resettlement programs.
The European Union is also investigating the feasibility of a union-wide
resettlement plan that could involve all fifteen member states and expand as
more states become EU members. These deliberations are taking place against a backdrop of growing concern about the considerable number of spontaneous
asylum seekers arriving in Europe, and the suggestion by some politicians that
a tougher line on asylum seekers might be counterbalanced by a more expansive
resettlement program. Outside the EU, Australia has become the first country
explicitly to reduce resettlement in proportion to unauthorized arrivals of
asylum seekers.
UNHCR continues to push for an expansion of resettlement, both by recruiting
new participant countries and by urging existing ones to maintain or expand
their quotas. First asylum countries hosting large numbers of refugees urge the
application of faster and more flexible resettlement procedures to take some of
the pressure off their own communities. With all of these pressures, refugee
resettlement clearly is going through a period of transition, whose outcome
remains to be seen.
The Purposes of Resettlement
Refugee resettlement has multiple personalities within the international
refugee regime. It is a powerful tool of protection for individual refugees, a
means to secure other rights, a durable solution for those who cannot go home
or integrate in the country of first asylum, and a means by which states can
share the responsibility for refugees with overburdened host countries and by
doing so bolster their commitment to providing first asylum.
For some refugees, the country of first asylum is not safe. Refugees escaping
persecution may find that the agents of their persecutors -- the government of
the home country, or a rebel group -- operate with impunity across the border,
or that there are groups with similar agendas in the place of exile. Afghan
women who escaped the misogynistic rule of the Taliban often have found
themselves at risk in Pakistan, especially if they transgressed the strictures
on female education, work, or dress. Women who do not have the protection of a
male relative are particularly vulnerable to exploitation and abuse in that and
many other settings.
Refugee camps sometimes fall under the control of one faction in a
multi-faceted conflict, as was the case among Cambodian refugees in Thailand
and Rwandan refugees in eastern Zaire. In such situations, refugees associated with different
factions are often targeted. Ethnic minorities among refugees, like the Roma
among ethnic Albanian Kosovar refugees in Macedonia, may be scapegoated, abused,
or excluded from assistance.
Very often, local law enforcement is unable or unwilling to intervene when
refugees are victimized. UNHCR may conclude that the only way it can guarantee
the protection of some refugees is to refer them for resettlement, usually on
an individual basis. The United States, Canada, and Australia also accept
protection cases identified through means other than UNHCR referrals, but UNHCR
remains the main gatekeeper for resettlement as a means of protection.
The ability to move from one place of refuge to another is one of the few means
that refugees have to effect the human right to family unity. Refugee families
are often separated in the process of flight and may end up in different
countries. The countries with the largest resettlement programs (Australia,
Canada, and the United States) give some preference to close relatives of
refugees already settled in these countries. Resettlement is also used to
enable refugees to get vital medical treatment not available to them in the
country of first asylum. Some countries with relatively small resettlement
programs specialize in these resource-intensive cases.
The search for a durable solution to the refugee's plight can end in one of
three ways: repatriation, integration in the country of first asylum, or
settlement in a third country. Planned resettlement has an important role to
play in bringing exile to an end, not only for individual refugees, but also as
part of a comprehensive plan for an entire refugee population. In the aftermath
of a peace agreement, for example, as in Angola in 2002, the majority of
refugees may choose to return home. Some may prefer and may be allowed to
remain permanently in the country of first asylum, eventually assuming
citizenship. Zambia is opening this possibility for some Angolans who have
lived there for many years. But there are also likely to be some refugees who
for some reason are not able to return safely or to integrate locally, and for
them resettlement may be the only solution in sight. Several thousand Somali
Bantu, a minority group descended from slaves and subject to brutal
discrimination by the dominant clans in Somalia, are being processed for
resettlement in the United States. Repatriation would place them in renewed
danger, and their host country is not willing to have them remain indefinitely.
Beyond providing individual protection and a durable solution for some
refugees, resettlement can function as a broader support for refugee protection
by assuring countries of first asylum that other countries are willing to share
responsibility for refugees. Resettlement can act as a safety valve where the
presence of a particular group within a refugee population may cause tensions
with the local people or create security concerns. In a few cases, countries of
first asylum have demanded resettlement as the price for keeping their borders
open to refugees: in Macedonia in 1999 or Southeast Asia in the late 1970s and
early 1980s. With such a small number of resettlement places available, there
is an obvious danger in this pattern becoming widespread.
Unmet Needs, Unfilled Places, Uncertain Future
The number of refugees seeking resettlement hugely exceeds the number of places
available. Paradoxically, and despite this overwhelming imbalance, more than
10,000 agreed resettlement slots expire unfilled in an average year. As Mark
Hetfield of the Hebrew Immigrant Aid Society, a US resettlement agency, points
out, "Over the last decade more than 100,000 refugees in need of resettlement
could have been rescued from danger, or been provided with an opportunity to
lead productive fulfilling lives, rather than living off handouts in squalid
camps or struggling underground as urban refugees."
Part of the explanation for the "unfilled seats in the resettlement lifeboat,"
as Hetfield puts it, lies in the difficulties in identifying who among the
millions of refugees worldwide is most in need of resettlement as a means of
protection.
UNHCR has established criteria that are supposed to be applied uniformly, but
the work of identification is extremely labor-intensive and subject to many
pitfalls. The pressures on resettlement staff from desperate refugees can be
intense, endangering objectivity. With so precious a resource at stake, fraud
and corruption are constant dangers. Refugees often have genuine difficulty in
establishing their identity by modern bureaucratic standards, having lost, been
robbed of, or never possessed documents recording their birth, residence, and
relationships. These concerns have been greatly heightened by post-September 11
security developments.
Refugee resettlement remains an essential tool of protection, solution, and
international burden sharing. But with the US resettlement program on an
uncertain trajectory, Europe contemplating a new approach, and new countries
starting to participate, refugee resettlement at the end of this decade may
look very different than it does today.
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Copyright @
2009 Migration Policy Institute.
All rights reserved.
MPI · 1400 16th St. NW, Suite 300 · Washington, DC 20036
ph: (001) 202-266-1940 · fax: (001) 202-266-1900
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