How Race Impacts the Resettlement of Refugees in the United States
Refugee Pathways acknowledges that the movement for refugee rights is deeply connected to the broader movement for racial justice. Our vision for refugees to relocate safely and in a humane and dignified way recognizes that racial discrimination is often a barrier to that vision for refugees in both their home and host countries. In order to create this vision of a more just world, the advocacy for the protections of refugee rights and the movement for racial justice must be seen as interconnected. Creating space for the empowerment of refugees requires the protection of their full experience as it intersects with their multi-layered identities. While Refugee Pathways primarily focuses on refugees from the Middle East, we are aware of the challenges faced by refugees from other parts of the world, and will highlight some of these challenges in the article in an effort to advocate for all refugees who are impacted by racial discrimation.
It is of great importance that we examine how racism is rooted in global migration governance. People often become refugees at the hands of oppressive governments and upon fleeing they continue to experience prejudice in the form of exclusionary border control policies, threatening rhetoric and a myriad of other discriminatory actions. There are nearly 80 million displaced people in the world, who carry varying legal statuses as well as experiences of discrimination. However, this article will specifically examine the racism that exists within the resettlement process for refugees in the United States.
While we examine the experience of racial discrimination against refugees in the United States, pariticulary Black refugees, it is not to say that these exclusionary practices are not seen globally. The rise of xenophobia and racist violence against refugees does not stop at the United States border. The European Council of Refugees and Exiles stated that European countries have reflected this increased intolerance through means such as, but not exclusively, “physically abusive methods of restraint used in the process of deporting rejected asylum seekers and undocumented migrants” and “overt and subtle forms of racist and xenophobic rhetoric — and the stereotyping of asylum seekers and migrants as criminals.” The criminialization and detaining of refugees and aslyees is also prevalent in Australian detention network where “Brown, Black, and Muslim refugees deserve the harshest treatment imaginable.” Racism is deeply rooted in global migration governance — so much so that it can be found in essentially all countries’ policies and practices.
Discrimination Before Arrvival
It is important to note that prior to being selected for resettlement to the United States, refugees are intensively vetted through multiple security screening and background checks. Upon selection, refugees are guided through a process of rigorous integration orientations. Selected refugees are then resettled across states by the U.S. Department of State with the assistance of nine resettlement agencies, such as International Rescue Committee and World Relief. The process of resettlement to the United States, on average, takes 18 to 24 months.
Refugees who receive resettlement to the United States, can be impacted by dicrimination based on race, class and citizenship before even arriving in the United States. This is due to enhanced border patrol and immigration policies which seek to limit the number of resettled refugees and control which countries refugees can resettle from.
Refugee Admission Ceiling
In the United States, refugee quotas are decided each year by the current president and their administration. This leads to a great variable of refugee admissions as administrations and their priorities towards immigration shift over time.
Since the creation of its program, the United States has always been the leader in refugee resettlement, usually taking in more refugees than the rest of the world combined. In 2017, under the Trump Administration, the United States took in less refugees than the rest of the world for the first time. From January through June of 2020, there have only been just over 10,000 resettlement departures to the United States, which remains the lowest numbers of resettlement since the enactment of the Refugee Act of 1980. To put it in perspective, there are over 1.4 million refugees worldwide who are in need of resettlement.
According to the UNHCR, the population of African refugees grew by 150 percent from 2010 to 2016 while simultaneously there has been a plummet of U.S. resettlement of refugees. The number of refugees resettled from Africa to the United States dropped from over 30,000 in 2016 to just 10,000 in 2018. Halfway through the 2020 fiscal year, only 3,000 African refugees have been resettled. Without any adjustments to resettlement pace before the end of the year, the United States is on track to resettling 90% fewer African refugees than in 2016.
The exclusionary policies of the United States refusing to accept a greater number of refugees are denying an increasing number of African refugees protections they deserve. These policies are also leaving refugees in harm’s way as they wait for longer periods of time, in possibility dangerous places, for the opportunity to resettle. The purposeful weakening of the right to resettlement in recent years has impacted refugees of color at far greater lengths — as policies are exclusionary based on one’s race, religion and place of nationality.
Selection
While it is most accurately seen as a positive effect that migration tends to produce an increasingly diverse ethnic and racial host society, right-wing governments, such as the Trump Administration, seek to limit the number of refugees from certain countries completely.
Since taking office, the Trump administration has repeatedly issued executive orders which shrink paths to asylum and severely decrease the number of refugees able to resettle in the United States. Earlier this year, Trump added six countries to the travel ban including Nigeria, Myanmar, Eritrea, Kyrgyzstan, Sudan and Tanzania. This essentially aimed to block immigration from Africa’s most populous nation, Nigeria, as well as implementing restrictions on three other African countries, Eritrea, Sudan and Tanzania. All countries have substantial Muslim polulations and are also primarily Black. The exclusion of Black refugees is a purposeful tactic aimed at population control under right-wing leadership — seen also in Spain, Australia and Italy.
Just because resettlement options are not available, does not mean the need for such opportunities disappears. These policies limiting resettlement in the United States, paired with the crackdown on migration from Northern Africa to Europe through the Mediterrrean Sea, has led an increasing number of African refugees to Central American smugglers. Guerline Jozef, director and co-founder of the Haitian Bridge Alliance told the LA Times, “Even within the immigration movement, you see a lack of visibility of Black narratives with what is happening at the border.” The conversation surrounding refugees and immigration at large in the United States does not often capture the stark increase in African refugees in need of resettlement, as well as the dire situations they are enduring to reach the United States.
Racism while in the United States
The refugees of color who do overcome any travel bans, admission quotas, and the 18 to 24 month wait to receive a resettlement opportunity in the United States, are likely to experience additional racial discrimination upon their arrival.
Dangerous Rhetoric Surrounding Refugees
Popular public discourse of government officials in the United States has been to characterize asylum seekers and migrants as primarily threats to the country. The President of the United States has referred to asylees at the U.S. Mexican border as “not people, these are animals.” This dehumanization of refugees and asylees, particularly refugees of color, who are coming to the United States in search of protection is a gross violation of their human right to seek asylum regardless of their nationality or color of their skin.
A quote from Brad Evans and Zygmunt Bauman in the 2016 New York Times piece explained the rhetoric surrounding refugees systematically, as:
“Refugees end up all too often cast in the role of a threat to the human rights of established native populations, instead of being defined and treated as a vulnerable part of humanity in search of the restoration of those same rights of which they have been violently robbed.”
This xenophobic shift in dialogue aimed to villainize refugees results in the stripping of their protections and creates a dangerous environment for refugees of color in the United States.
Criminal Justice System
Since there is strong rhetoric which casts refugees as a threat to the existing population within the United States, their criminalization is more easily accepted by society. Black refugees in particular are more vulnerable to repercussions of the criminal justice system due to both their Blackness and their refugee status. This dual identity risks Black refugees of both police encounters and threat of deportation by immigration officers (though the status of a refugee is legal status in the United States, it does not stop refugees from being stereotyped and targeted by immigration officers).
Individual Cases
In September of 2016, Alfred Olango, a 38-year-old Ugandan refugee was shot and killed by police in El Cajon, California. Olango arrived in the United States from Uganda in 1991 after his family lived in a refugee camp from fleeing war and persecution. He also suffered from mental illness and was in distress when the police were called to the scene to assist with an emergency psychiatric aid. The El Cajon police shot Olango four times, ultimately leading to his death. Community outrage was sparked by this shooting and people took to the streets to demand justice for an unarmed Black refugee who was murdered by police — the police officer who killed Olango was never held accountable and the San Diego District Attorney found the shooting justified.
That same month, a short distance from where Olango was killed in El Cajon, thousands were also protesting the treatment of Haitian refugees on the U.S. and Mexico border. Recent data published by RAICES, a nonprofit agency that promotes justice by providing free and low-cost legal services to underserved immigrant families, recently published data on injustices faced by Black refugees in the United States immigration system. Focusing on Haitian refugees, the likelihood of Haitain families being detained is much higher than Central American families, the cost of an immigration bond for Haitian families is also 54% higher than other immmigration bonds. These additional methods of criminalization also make Black immigrants in total more likely to be deported compared to non-Black immigrants.
As if restricting access of primarily Black countries for resettlement was not enough, Black refugees who do find resettlement in the United States must also be fearful of the criminal justice system targeting them for being who they are — both Black and a refugee.
The Way Forward
Solutions to racial discrimination in migration must awknowldge that, regardless of legal status, all refugees and migrants must never be denied their most fundamental human rights. Racial justice and refugee rights movements must come together to end the criminalization of migrant populations. Recently, the Black Lives Matter movement has released a platform calling for the protection of migrant communities. This type of unity is crucial as justice for either group is deeply entwined in the other.
Learning from Organizations that Center on Migrants of Color
Many US-based local non-governmental organizations are already engaged in the work of protecting migrants of color in the United States. Many of these organizations accept donations, volunteers and other forms of engagement from individuals interested in protecting migrants.
For example, the Black Alliance for Just Immigration (BAJI) is a racial and migrant rights organization that has been engaging within advocacy and organizing spaces to protect the rights of Black immigrants, refugees and migrants. Partnership for the Advancement of New Americans (PANA) promotes the equitable inclusion of refugee communities. UndocuBlack Network (UBN) is a “network of currently and formerly undocumented Black people that fosters community, facilitates access to resources.” The Coalition of Immigrants Refugees & Communities of Color is a group combining multi-cultural organizations and individuals dedicated to building informed, engaged, and equitable communities. All of these organizations center Black migrants in the mission of their work, and aim to build community and justice from there. Organizations operating in the migration space can learn from their racial justice initiatives.
This barrier of racism is entwined with Refugee Pathways work of advocating for safe and legal complementary pathways for all refugees in need of one. Opportunities for complementary pathways such as family reunification or community sponsorship programs, begin with an accepting government which is willing to increase the number of refugees entering their country. At this point in time, refugees, and particularly refugees of color are not encouraged, and often even restricted, to resettle in many countries. There is racial justice work to do in order to achieve complementary resettlement pathways for all refugees.
