U.S. Refugee Resettlement Consultations with Communities Come Up Short Amid Rapidly Evolving Protection Landscape
WASHINGTON, DC — The refugee resettlement consultation process between federal, state and local stakeholders is falling short as the U.S. government has turned to new temporary and emergency humanitarian pathways to bring in sizeable numbers of people in need of protection, a Migration Policy Institute (MPI) report out today finds.
Between 2021 and mid-2023, approximately 500,000 Afghans, Cubans, Haitians, Nicaraguans, Ukrainians and Venezuelans entered the United States through population-specific temporary protection programs such as Operation Allies Welcome and Uniting for Ukraine. Countless others, from a wide range of nationalities, have been allowed into the country under immigration parole, with many expected to file asylum claims in immigration court.
While the entrance of historic numbers of humanitarian arrivals has occurred outside the traditional resettlement pipeline – and the established network meant to coordinate the placement of refugees – the newcomers are using many of the same services. The impact on U.S. communities of these large, fluctuating numbers “cannot be overstated,” the report from MPI’s National Center on Immigrant Integration Policy says.
Local institutions and service providers have come under pressure to quickly increase capacity in everything from public health clinics and schools to temporary housing yet are hindered by a consultation process that remains narrowly focused on formally resettled refugees. As a result, these quarterly consultations, which are the place where government agencies and non-governmental organizations (NGOs) share information on refugee arrivals and community capacity, fail to capture the full scope of local resource needs for the broader category of humanitarian migrants.
The report, The Unmet Potential of Community Consultations in U.S. Refugee Resettlement, also reveals the rigid consultation structure allows little time for genuine two-way dialogue or relationship building among federal, state and local actors responsible for refugee reception and integration.
To remedy these gaps, the report recommends that data and information shared during consultations be expanded to include additional humanitarian populations, so that local capacities can be better understood. Among other recommendations, the report also suggests facilitating opportunities for dialogue outside the quarterly process, inviting high-level representation from state and local governments and involving newer actors, such as private sponsors. It also suggests that the Office of Refugee Resettlement and State Department’s Bureau of Population, Refugees and Migration seek and designate more funding for state refugee coordinators and local resettlement agencies, respectively, to support the consultation process.
“As the patchwork of local, state and federal actors that form the U.S. refugee resettlement network continues to grow and local communities face new challenges amid the expansion of humanitarian pathways, the need for effective communication and coordination has never been greater,” report author Lillie Hinkle writes. “Like other aspects of the resettlement system, formal consultation processes are coming to a crossroads at which it must be decided whether they will embrace new realities or, by remaining as they are, wane in relevance.”
Read the report here: www.migrationpolicy.org/research/consultations-us-refugee-resettlement.
For a companion report on improving refugee resettlement stakeholder coordination at international, regional, national and local levels, click here. The report draws on interviews with stakeholders primarily from Argentina, Finland, Germany, Spain, Sweden and the United States.