Immigration strategies

Special collection

Every day, organizations worldwide are engaged in a collective two steps forward, one step back march toward improved immigration services and policies. What hard-earned lessons are these nonprofits, and the foundations that support them, learning from their persistent efforts? This collection of evaluations, case studies, and lessons learned exposes and explores the nuances of effective collaboration, the value of coordinated messaging, the bedrock of ongoing advocacy efforts, and the vital importance of long-term and flexible funding.

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Ready to Learn, Eager to Earn: A youth-led market and wellbeing assessment in Rohingya camps

July 28, 2023

Without access to quality, relevant education, or dignified work, Rohingya refugee youth face bleak and limited futures. Within the camp setting, they are unable to meet their immediate basic needs and are at high risk of violations of their rights, wellbeing, and security.The Rohingya community is about to mark six years since its exodus from Myanmar. The state of Rohingya youth remains a blur: what are the barriers related to livelihood opportunities and social engagement? What are the skill-development needs for Rohingya youth residing in the refugee camps of Cox's Bazar?

Refugees & Asylum Seekers

Facing an Impossible Choice: Experiences of Asylum Seekers in Matamoros and Reynosa Two Months into the Biden Asylum Ban

July 24, 2023

The National Immigration Project and Together & Free document their observations from trips to Matamoros and Reynosa, Tamaulipas, Mexico in June and July 2023, where they conducted interviews with asylum seekers, service providers, and advocates. The report calls on the Biden administration to end and rescind the Asylum Ban and to urgently make changes to the CBP One appointment system.

Refugees & Asylum Seekers

Refugee Protection Travesty: Biden Asylum Ban Endangers and Punishes At-Risk Asylum Seekers

July 12, 2023

On May 12, 2023, the Biden administration began implementing its new bar to asylum through a final rule (the asylum ban). While Biden administration officials have inaccurately touted it as "working," the grim reality is that the asylum ban is a refugee protection, humanitarian, and legal travesty. As detailed in this report, in the two months since its implementation, the Biden asylum ban has stranded vulnerable people in places where they are targets of kidnapping and violent assaults, rigged the credible fear process against people seeking asylum, and deported many without meaningful access to counsel and despite potential eligibility for asylum under U.S. law. The harm inflicted by the asylum ban is compounded by U.S. and Mexican government policies that block, deny, meter or further impede access to asylum and leave people in atrocious conditions as they wait to seek asylum under the ban.

Refugees & Asylum Seekers

The U.S. Refugee Admissions Program

July 5, 2023

The United States has the largest refugee resettlement program in the world and has resettled over 3 million refugees since 1975. The U.S. Refugee Admissions Program (USRAP) resettles and assists refugees in host communities nationwide through public-private partnerships between the U.S. government and 10 resettlement agencies. HIAS is one of these agencies and is the oldest resettlement organization in the world. This explainer provides an overview of how the USRAP admits, resettles, and integrates refugees in the United States, and the role refugee resettlement agencies like HIAS play in this program.

Refugees & Asylum Seekers

Limits on Access to Asylum After Title 42: One Month of Monitoring U.S.-Mexico Border Ports of Entry

June 23, 2023

Following the end of Title 42 and the implementation of new restrictions, a working group of U.S., Mexican, and international NGOs that provide humanitarian and legal support to asylum seekers and migrants in the border region conducted targeted in-person monitoring at ports of entry to understand the impact of these policy shifts on access to asylum. Between May 11 and June 12, 2023, observations took place at six ports of entry in California (San Ysidro and Otay Mesa), Arizona (Dennis DeConcini), and Texas (Bridge of the Americas, Paso Del Norte and Ysleta) that adjoin the Mexican cities of Tijuana, Nogales, and Ciudad Juárez.The monitors' key findings include practices by U.S. and Mexican authorities that restricted asylum seekers without CBP One appointments from physically reaching ports of entry; limited processing or metering of asylum seekers without CBP One appointments; and a lack of adequate and accurate information for asylum seekers.

Refugees & Asylum Seekers

Starting Anew: The Economic Impact of Refugees in America

June 20, 2023

A record 100 million people around the globe were forced to flee their homes in 2022, up from 65 million in 2015. Of those displaced last year, 32.5 million were refugees who had to leave their country in fear of persecution due to their race, religion, nationality, political opinion or group membership. Political debates on how to handle recent refugees often focus on questions of humanitarian obligation or public safety concerns. While these are critical considerations, they fail to capture what many Americans experience as the most enduring legacy of refugees: the positive social and economic impact these newcomers have on their cities and towns.This report builds on the previous work published by New American Economy (now a part of the American Immigration Council) and provides updated analyses of how recent refugees are contributing to the U.S. economy. Using the 5-year American Community Survey (ACS) from 2019, we identify a pool of nearly 2.4 million likely refugees based on their country of origin and year of arrival in the United States. This method is conservative in nature but provides us with a large and representative picture of the 3.5 million refugees who have arrived since 1975. The results our work produces are clear. Refugees pay tens of billions of dollars in taxes each year. And in a country where immigrants have long been known to be more likely than the U.S.-born to start businesses, refugees show a particular willingness to make such long-term investments in the country. They found companies, become U.S. citizens, and buy homes at notably high rates.

Refugees & Asylum Seekers

Building Meaningful Refugee Participation into Protection Policymaking

June 14, 2023

Around the world, many refugees find themselves in situations of protracted displacement. As states and international actors search for more effective ways to address protection and displacement challenges, one promising—but often underutilized—approach is to meaningfully involve refugees in crafting and implementing policy responses.Engaging affected communities in protection policymaking can take a variety of forms, including one-off consultations, individual refugee advisors or advisory boards, and refugees being appointed as senior leaders or hired as staff within organizations. Such approaches hold the potential to foster policies that better reflect the needs and priorities of refugee communities and, in doing so, improve protection outcomes. But care must be taken to go beyond tokenistic and inconsistent engagement, and more evidence is needed to understand which approaches are most impactful and under what circumstances.

Refugees & Asylum Seekers

Refugees welcome? Understanding the regional heterogeneity of anti-refugee hate crime

June 8, 2023

In this article, we examine anti-refugee hate crime in the wake of the large influx of refugees to Germany in 2014 and 2015. By exploiting institutional features of the assignment of refugees to German regions, we estimate the impact of unexpected and sudden large-scale immigration on hate crime against refugees. Results indicate that it is not simply the size of local refugee inflows which drives the increase in hate crime, but rather the combination of refugee arrivals and latent anti-refugee sentiment. We show that ethnically homogeneous areas, areas which experienced hate crimes in the 1990s, and areas with high support for the Nazi party in the Weimar Republic, are more prone to respond to the arrival of refugees with incidents of hate crime against this group. Our results highlight the importance of regional anti-immigration sentiment in the analysis of the incumbent population's reaction to immigration.

Refugees & Asylum Seekers

More Humane Immigration Policies Will Reduce Migrant Trauma: A Conversation with Dr. Alfonso Mercado

May 25, 2023

Hostile immigration enforcement policies and anti-immigrant actions against refugees and asylum seekers are causing trauma to migrant families and exposing them to dangerous living conditions on both sides of the U.S.-Mexico border. In recent years, stress from the COVID-19 pandemic has compounded the negative effects of these policies on the health of migrants.This policy brief outlines a conversation held with Dr. Alfonso Mercado, a clinical psychologist and associate professor at the University of Texas Rio Grande Valley School of Medicine. He has conducted extensive clinical work in migrant tent encampments at the U.S.-Mexico border, and on Feb. 28, 2023, he met with migration policy experts and community leaders to discuss the detrimental mental health effects of the ongoing migrant crisis there. The conversation focused on the impact of key policies, such as the use of Title 42 on migrants' mental health and well-being.

Refugees & Asylum Seekers

Improving Language Access in the U.S. Asylum System

May 25, 2023

The lack of adequate interpretation and translation services in U.S. Department of Homeland Security (DHS) and Department of Justice (DOJ) proceedings can have devastating consequences for asylum-seekers. Yet under U.S. law, asylum-seekers with limited English proficiency (LEP) have a right to an interpreter and to translated materials while they navigate the asylum system. For more than 20 years, the federal government has required all federal agencies—including those that regularly come into contact with migrants and asylum-seekers—to provide meaningful language access to individuals with LEP. But the increasing diversity of languages spoken by migrants and asylum-seekers, a shortage of interpreters, and a lack of translated materials, among other factors, have led to a significant failure of the asylum system to ensure that everyone has access to information in a language they understand.This report is presented in four sections. The first section highlights the diversity of the languages spoken by migrants and asylum-seekers and describes how the arrival of more non-English speakers poses a new set of challenges to language access needs in the asylum system. The second section outlines the major challenges government agencies that regularly come into contact with migrants and asylum-seekers face in ensuring language access. The third section lays out the various ways in which the Biden administration has prioritized language access since taking office. Finally, the fourth section makes agency-specific recommendations that would allow DHS and DOJ to overcome challenges and ensure meaningful language access at every step of the asylum process. These agencies must implement solutions to protect asylum-seekers' right to due process.

Refugees & Asylum Seekers

Lives at Risk: Barriers and Harms As Biden Asylum Ban Takes Effect

May 19, 2023

This joint report presents findings and recommendations regarding the end of the Title 42 policy and the implementation of punitive policies along the border, including the Biden administration's new asylum ban. From May 10 to 12, adelegation of human, civil, and immigrants' rights leaders saw firsthand the difficulties that people seeking asylum face when attempting to secure appointments at U.S. ports of entry via the CBP One app; the barriers some face waiting and trying to seek asylum at ports of entry without a CBP One appointment; the squalid and inhumane living conditions of migrants at the border; and the violence and anti-Black racism that people seeking asylum endure while waiting in Mexico.

Refugees & Asylum Seekers

Displaced Ukrainians in European Labour Markets: Leveraging Innovations for More Inclusive Integration

May 17, 2023

The war in Ukraine has led millions of displaced Ukrainians to seek protection in European countries since February 2022, and welcoming new arrivals has put enormous pressure on reception and integration systems. But with the right supports, displaced Ukrainians could also potentially help address some of Europe's pervasive skill shortages. Many newcomers have a tertiary education, and the EU decision to activate the Temporary Protection Directive has provided swift access to clear residence and work rights.Early evidence suggests that displaced Ukrainians' labor market entry is progressing well, with many working-age adults finding jobs. However, challenges such as language barriers, difficulties getting foreign credentials recognized, and trouble securing child care have limited some Ukrainians' ability to enter the labor market and find a job commensurate with their skills. A desire among many to return to Ukraine, as circumstances allow, is also shaping their decisions about finding work and participating in integration and training programs.

Refugees & Asylum Seekers