In 2016, we published an article in Forced Migration Review called ‘Choices, preferences and priorities in a matching system for refugees’[1] in which we argued that refugees to be resettled should be allocated to countries through a centralised matching system,…
While the assumptions underlying the current refugee resettlement system in the United States (US) may have been true 35 years ago, the likelihood of an arriving refugee having no connections in the US diminishes every year. Every year the odds…
Legal advocates are particularly well suited to compile a refugee’s narrative and explain why the facts of the individual’s case demonstrate that the individual should be considered for resettlement. At each step of the resettlement process, legal advocates can assist…
Resettlement opportunities for Syrian refugees are allocated to those who are deemed to be particularly vulnerable, and thousands of Syrian men, women and children have now been resettled. However, single Syrian men (‘unattached’ or ‘unaccompanied’ adult males) living in Middle…
While one can easily grow impatient with resettlement’s shortcomings, it is important to consider how far resettlement has come over the past decades and the role that non-governmental organisations (NGOs) have played in its evolution. The involvement of civil society…
Camps, for better or worse, have been the backbone of global refugee resettlement, with most referrals coming from camp-based populations and submitted to resettlement countries (those countries offering to resettle refugees) almost exclusively by UNHCR, the UN Refugee Agency. With…
Today, more than half of refugees and asylum seekers worldwide are children under the age of 18. Displaced girls and boys leave behind not only homes and family members but also the safety and stability essential to their long-term development.…
In September 2015 the Australian government announced that it would provide an additional 12,000 places to resettle refugees from Syria and Iraq, begging the question of how the government would facilitate their resettlement. In Australia, the government relies on Civil…
Until Canada’s recent intake of Syrian refugees, New Zealand was the only country in the world that received more refugees through a UNHCR resettlement system than through asylum seeker applications. To make up for the fact that only 300 asylum…
In response to the war in Syria, the Irish government undertook to welcome 4,000 refugees. Civil society and the Irish people at large shared the feeling of solidarity for those who suffered in Syria and the cry ‘refugees welcome’ has…