Lives stalled: the costs of waiting for refugee resettlement

Fee, Molly

doi:10.1080/1369183x.2021.1876554

Cited by 15 publications

(12 citation statements)

References 21 publications

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“…So far, some countries have increased their quotas to include Afghan evacuees, others have included them in their existing quotas (although these were already filled for 2021, which meant that Afghans jumped the queue), and yet others have granted them asylum. From the point of view of fairness and protection, the trade‐offs involved in prioritising refugees who are vulnerable because of their expertise and skills are therefore complicated and raise not only the question ‘who will have to wait?’, but also the difficult question ‘who has lost their place in the queue?’ 10 For some people, the queues for resettlement can mean years of waiting in transit and entail material, emotional and physical costs (Fee, 2021). The selection procedures can take years, even decades, and only a small minority of refugees manage to get included in them.…”

Section: Implications For Policy and Advocacymentioning

confidence: 99%

“…', but also the difficult question 'who has lost their place in the queue?' 10 For some people, the queues for resettlement can mean years of waiting in transit and entail material, emotional and physical costs (Fee, 2021). The selection procedures can take years, even decades, and only a small minority of refugees manage to get included in them.…”

Section: Implications For Policy and Advocacymentioning

confidence: 99%

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Protecting skilled Afghan women: Brain save and the politics of vulnerability

et al. 2022

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Considering the Afghan evacuation of 2021 and its aftermath, this article suggests the term ‘brain save’ to characterise emerging protection discourses and practices concerning the resettlement of skilled women refugees. Resettlement has traditionally focused on women as vulnerable because of their gender. Drawing on examples of the evacuation and prospective resettlement of Afghan women professionals, the article develops the analytic concept of brain save to label these discourses and practices. Unlike ‘brain drain’, brain save challenges established politics of vulnerability and has progressive potential for resettlement as a durable solution. However, it also implies problematic prioritisation of particular resettlement candidates.

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Section: Implications For Policy and Advocacymentioning

confidence: 99%

Section: Implications For Policy and Advocacymentioning

confidence: 99%

Protecting skilled Afghan women: Brain save and the politics of vulnerability

et al. 2022

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“…Since the creation of the Liberian state in 1847, Liberians have come to conceptualise and practicalise their existence as 'small America' or America's stepchild (Bright, 2002). In the past 30 years, Liberian refugees in Ghana crystallised their protracted 'hanging in the air' displacement by believing that their resettlement to the US is their God-given right because of the unique historical connection between the two countries (Holzer, 2012;Fee, 2021). The harsh reality however, is that both the annual refugee resettlement ceiling in the US and actual refugee admissions have fallen drastically over the last four decades (UNHCR, 2021;Rosenberg, 2018;Times, 2017;Goździak, 2021;Elacretaz et al, 2016).…”

Section: Resettlement To the United Statesmentioning

confidence: 99%

‘Hanging in the Air’: The Experiences of Liberian Refugees in Ghana

Crawley

Bruey

2022

IMISCOE Research Series

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The civil wars that devastated Liberia between 1989 and 2003 displaced an estimated 800,000 people internally, with more than a million people travelling to neighbouring countries in West Africa in search of protection and the opportunity to rebuild their lives. More than 15 years after the Accra Comprehensive Peace Agreement was signed, tens of thousands of Liberians continue to be displaced in Liberia, Ghana, and Côte d’Ivoire. Whilst some have been resettled – primarily to Canada, the US, Australia, and European countries – most have been left ‘hanging in the air’, living in extreme poverty, marginalised from mainstream development policies and planning, and unable to either contribute to, or benefit from, efforts to rebuild peace and security in their home country. Their needs, interests and aspirations have been largely ignored by academics and policymakers in the Global North whose focus, particularly over recent years, has been primarily on the drivers of migration from West Africa across the Mediterranean to Europe. At a regional level, there have been efforts by the Economic Committee of West African States (ECOWAS) to provide alternative models of integration, particularly since the United Nations High Commissioner Refugees (UNHCR) announced the cessation of refugee status for Liberian refugees in Ghana and Côte d’Ivoire in June 2012. However, significant barriers to both local integration and safe-third country resettlement remain. This chapter examines the experiences of Liberian refugees living in Ghana and their struggles to secure national and international protection in a context where returning to Liberia remains impossible for many.

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“…Time outside the labor market can lead to skill atrophy by hampering the development of new skills and diminishing old ones, thereby depressing earnings and employability (Mincer 1974;Albrecht et al 1999). For refugees, time spent in transit countries is often time spent outside the labor market (Fee 2021). Policies vary across national contexts, but many transit countries limit or discourage labor market access for humanitarian migrants (Norman 2019).…”

Section: Journeys Waiting and Economic Integrationmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Social scientists have long understood that migration journeys—characterized by long periods of uncertainty under difficult material and psychological conditions—are formative experiences (Kunz 1973; Kunz 1981; BenEzer 2002; Hagan 2008; Fee 2021). However, systematically studying how and why journeys affect migrants is difficult for a number of conceptual and methodological reasons (BenEzer and Zetter 2015).…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Journey Effects? Waiting Periods in European Transit Countries and Subsequent Economic Integration of Refugees in Switzerland

Kuhn

2022

International Migration Review

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Refugees face difficult journeys to receiving countries. These journeys often include waiting periods in transit countries, as refugees plan and collect resources for the next leg of transit. Sociological theories of waiting suggest that longer sojourns in transit countries may hamper subsequent economic integration in receiving countries. However, studying the effect of journey duration on refugee economic integration is difficult due to data constraints and endogeneity issues. In this article, I leverage a natural experiment. For refugees who entered Switzerland through the European Refugee Relocation Program in 2016 and 2017, waiting periods for relocation from Greece and Italy varied quasi-randomly from three to 17 months. My analysis shows that longer waiting periods in European transit countries did not reduce subsequent labor market participation. However, female refugees who waited longer worked less after arrival than male refugees who had comparable waits. This gap is partially driven by a positive effect of wait times on labor market participation among male refugees. These conditional results have implications for understandings of asylum-seeker integration, the gendered risks and opportunities that arise during refugee journeys, and migration policy making.

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Lives stalled: the costs of waiting for refugee resettlement

Cited by 15 publications

References 21 publications

Protecting skilled Afghan women: Brain save and the politics of vulnerability

Protecting skilled Afghan women: Brain save and the politics of vulnerability

‘Hanging in the Air’: The Experiences of Liberian Refugees in Ghana

Journey Effects? Waiting Periods in European Transit Countries and Subsequent Economic Integration of Refugees in Switzerland

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