Integration? The perceptions and experiences of refugees in Yorkshire and the Humber

Using data generated in three focus groups with refugees resident in the Yorkshire and Humber region this report explores refugees’ perceptions and experiences of integration. Initially, refugees’ understandings of integration are explored. Discussions then consider three potentially important areas of integration, that is, refugees’ interactions with their neighbours, activity in the paid labour market and contact with formal welfare agencies. In spite of the barriers that many of them routinely face, the refugees’ interviewed clearly value the opportunity to rebuild their lives in a new location free from persecution

Refugee Resettlement and Integration in Germany: Analysis of Media Discourse

Refugees are among the most discussed and debated topics worldwide; the massive movement of refugees and asylum seekers facing the world today is the largest since the end of the second world war. The United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) estimates the total number of refugees in the world to be almost twenty-six million people, while asylum seekers account for around three million. The concept of a refugee is formally defined by the 1951 Convention on the Status of Refugees, which creates a legal status, and states that a refugee is a person who “faces well-founded fear of being persecuted for reasons of race, religion, nationality, membership of a particular social group or political opinion”. The issues surrounding refugees are vast and complex, with wide-reaching and long lasting effects. As the world continues to face massive human displacement as a result of fragile states, civil wars, and countless other factors, refugees and related issues will continue to be of vital importance. One key element to the issue of refugees is the question of resettlement and even further the issue of integration

Political and Media Discourses about Integrating Refugees in the UK

The file attached to this record is the author's final peer reviewed version. The Publisher's final version can be found by following the DOI link.This article addresses political and media discourses about integrating refugees in the UK in the context of the “refugee crisis”. A discursive psychological approach is presented as the best way to understand what talk about the concept is used to accomplish in these debates. A large corpus of political discussions (13 hours of debate featuring 146 politicians) and 960 newspaper articles from the UK were discourse analysed. The analysis identified five dilemmas about integration: Integration is positive and necessary, but challenging; Host communities are presented as welcoming, but there are limits to their capacity; Refugees are responsible for integration, but host communities need to provide support; Good refugees integrate, bad ones don't; Refugees are vulnerable and are skilled. All are used to warrant the inclusion or exclusion of refugees. The responsibility of western nations to support refugees is therefore contingent on the refugees behaving in specific ways

Finding Their Way: An Information Resource Guide for New Refugees in Southern Nevada

Catholic Charities of Southern Nevada (CCSN) is a nonprofit socialservices provider that serves individuals and families in need in the LasVegas area, including over 3,000 refugees each year. Last year, three MLISstudents from the University of Washington reached out to this organizationand helped to identify an information need for new refugees. Although localcity information for refugees is freely available online, this deliverymethod is not beneficial to individuals with limited English languageproficiency or low digital literacy. In partnership with CCSN, we created aphysical informational resource guide for refugees located in SouthernNevada, which can be updated and translated by resettlement organizationsacross the country

Hannah Ingraham: Loyalist Refugee

Every war produces refugees. Some flee a few hundred metres out of the path of an advancing army, others cross oceans and continents in search of safety. From the Huron survivors of Iroquois attacks in the seventeenth century to African and Asian victims of war in the twenty-first, generation after generation of refugees have built new lives in Canada. During the American Revolution (1775-1783) many Americans, known as Loyalists, supported the British government. When the war ended in an American victory, about 40,000 Loyalists became refugees and made their way to Canada. One of these refugees was Hannah Ingraham

Ethnic enclaves and immigrant labour market outcomes: quasi-experimental evidence

This study investigates empirically how residence in ethnic enclaves affects labour market outcomes of refugees. Self-selection into ethnic enclaves in terms of unobservable characteristics is taken into account by exploitation of a Danish spatial dispersal policy which randomly disperses new refugees across locations conditional on six individual-specific characteristics. The results show that refugees with unfavourable unobserved characteristics are found to self-select into ethnic enclaves. Furthermore, taking account of negative self-selection, a relative standard deviation increase in ethnic group size on average increases the employment probability of refugees by 4 percentage points and earnings by 21 percent. I argue that in case of heterogenous treatment effects, the estimated effects are local average treatment effects

Aiding and Abetting Persecutors: The Seizure and Return of Haitian Refugees in Violation of the U.N. Refugee Convention and Protocol

Pursuant to Executive Order 12,807 of May 23, 1992, the “Kennebunkport Order,” United States Coast Guard cutters have been intercepting boatloads of Haitian citizens in international waters off the coast of Haiti and turning them over to the Haitian authorities in Port-au-Prince. No questions are being asked to determine if any of these citizens are bona fide refugees fleeing persecution. All are simply returned. Does the Protocol relating to the Status of Refugees (Protocol), to which the United States is a party, permit the U.S. government to do this? That question is now before the United States Supreme Court. Regarding United States obligations under the Protocol, the United States government claims that the United States may seize refugees and return them to a country of persecution, as long as such refugees are not within United States borders. This Article examines the Convention Relating to the Status of Refugees (Convention) and the Protocol in light of that claim

Optimizing the Access to Healthcare Services in Dense Refugee Hosting Urban Areas: A Case for Istanbul

With over 3.5 million refugees, Turkey continues to host the world's largest refugee population. This introduced several challenges in many areas including access to healthcare system. Refugees have legal rights to free healthcare services in Turkey's public hospitals. With the aim of increasing healthcare access for refugees, we looked at where the lack of infrastructure is felt the most. Our study attempts to address these problems by assessing whether Migrant Health Centers' locations are optimal. The aim of this study is to improve refugees' access to healthcare services in Istanbul by improving the locations of health facilities available to them. We used call data records provided by Turk Telekom.Comment: version to submit for D4R competitio

The U.S. refugee admissions program in Austin : the story of one Congolese family

textIn 2013, the U.S. Department of State allocated nearly $45 million to the Texas Office of Refugee Resettlement to help aid with the resettlement of 6,922 refugees. Approximately 10 percent of all refugees who were brought to the U.S. that year were resettled in Texas. Austin received 716 of those refugees. For 30 years, the U.S.'s Refugee Admissions Programs has been providing aid and money to help refugees fleeing religious and political persecution resettle in the U.S. The program is a system of public-private partnership in which the U.S. Department of State hands out funds to local non-profit organizations to oversee the initial six months of the resettlement. The current program is largely underfunded and is based on a self-sufficiency model that requires refugees find a job within four months of arrival setting many refugees on a path towards poverty as they are often come from conflict zones with minimal English skills, knowledge of how the U.S. works or programs to help them use whatever skills or education they have to find better paying jobs. This paper critiques elements of the U.S. Refugee Admissions Program through the case study of one family that has recently arrived in Austin, Texas, from the Democratic Republic of the Congo.Journalis