Third-country resettlement
Third-country resettlement, or refugee resettlement, is, according to the UNHCR, one of three durable solutions for refugees who fled their home country. Resettled refugees have the right to reside long-term or permanently in the country of resettlement and may also have the right to become citizens of that country.
Resettled refugees may also be referred to as quota or contingent refugees, as countries only take a certain number of refugees each year. In 2016 there were 65.6 million forcibly displaced people worldwide and around 190,000 of them were resettled into a third country. Canada leads the world in refugee resettlement; it resettled more than 47,600 individuals in 2022. The United States led the world in refugee resettlement for decades till 2018.
History of resettlement
- The International Refugee Organization resettled over 1 million refugees between 1947 and 1951. They were scattered throughout Europe after World War II.. 80% of them were resettled outside Europe. An example for those resettled within Europe are the 150,000 Polish soldiers and their families who were resettled in the UK by 1949; most feared retribution from the Soviet authorities.
- Due to the Soviet invasion of Hungary in 1956, 200,000 Hungarians fled to Yugoslavia and Austria. Nearly all 180,000 Hungarians who fled to Austria were resettled to 37 third countries within three years. The Soviet invasion of Czechoslovakia in 1968 had the same effect; many Czechoslovakians fled their country and were subsequently resettled.
- Most of its Asian minority were expelled from Uganda in 1972 and some 40,000 Ugandan Asians were resettled in third countries.
- Following a coup d’état in Chile in 1973, 5,000 refugees from neighbouring countries were resettled.
- 650,000 Vietnamese refugees were resettled in the United States during and after the Vietnam War.
- Between April 1992 and June 1997, following the first Gulf War, approximately 21,800 Iraqis were accepted for resettlement from Saudi Arabia.
- In the context of the breakup of Yugoslavia, between 1992 and July 1993 over 11,000 inmates from places of detention in Bosnia and Herzegovina had left for third countries. By June 1997, UNHCR had been directly involved in resettling some 47,000 refugees from former Yugoslavia.
- More than 100,000 refugees from Myanmar have been resettled from the refugee camps in Thailand since 2004 and as many people have been resettled from Malaysia during this same period.
- 600,000 Yemenis have been resettled from their homeland in Yemen to third countries since 2014 following a conflict against Houthi rebels.
Stages of the resettlement journey
Pre-departure
Selection according to vulnerability
Precondition for resettlement is to be registered as a refugee with the UNHCR or the host State and to have undergone the Refugee Status Determination process based on the 1951 Refugee Convention refugee definition. Among those refugees the UNHCR or other organisations make referrals for resettlement if they identify a high level of risk and vulnerability whilst being in the first country of asylum. Refugees cannot apply for resettlement themselves. Selection procedures can vary between UNHCR offices but the below criteria are generally used:- Physical safety and legal rights are at risk in country of asylum
- Past experience of violence and torture
- Significant medical needs that cannot be provided for in country of asylum
- Sex/gender based risks in country of asylum
- Children and adolescents are at risk in country of asylum
- Resettlement is the only way of reuniting a family
- Resettlement is the only way for building a durable future
It is also possible for multiple refugees to be submitted for resettlement if they share specific circumstances, such as similar reasons for their flight and no prospects of return. Examples for group resettlement were the Lost Boys of Sudan from Kenya, Liberians from Guinea and Sierra Leone, Burundians from Tanzania and Eritreans from Ethiopia and Saudi Arabia.
Biases in the selection process
Receiving countries tend to use their own criteria for selecting refugees for resettlement. Many governments prioritise women and complete families and deprioritise single males. This happens in order to minimise potential security risks.Even the UNHCR resettlement officers who submit refugees' dossiers to potential receiving countries may themselves bias the selection. For example, it was revealed that UNHCR staff in Nairobi extorted money from refugees for resettlement places. Apart from that, large families are more likely to be considered for resettlement than singles, because resettlement officers have to work through fewer case files per submitted person when referring large families. Also single men, who are likely to receive a more thorough and time-consuming security screening from resettlement states, are less likely to be submitted.
To be referred for resettlement may involve a tedious game with refugee chairmen, agency personnel or security guards. Chairmen can help making up stories or can ignore real security issues. The refugees themselves may manipulate the selection process. They may not mention that they have recently married in order not to delay their departure or they make themselves younger or older in order to, putatively, increase their chances for resettlement. They may even exaggerate their level of vulnerability as has been noticed in Kakuma: men staged violent attacks on themselves or their dwellings and women pretended rapes; they may be hiding their military or rebel past, or change their ethnicity, in order to belong to a certain persecuted group.
Countries select
After refugees are referred for resettlement and agree to be resettled they are suggested to suitable countries that run resettlement programmes. Each participating government can select from the referrals and refugees themselves cannot choose their country of resettlement. Even though receiving countries should not select refugees according to their own criteria, it may be that societal and political desires influence which groups of refugees are received. Countries make their decisions based on either just a dossier or following an interview with the refugee.After the selection process is completed there are additional government interviews and security checks. The interview process may be hard for children and young adults. According to the Lost Boys of Sudan study, 74% of the 304 surveyed Sudanese refugees in the local refugee foster care programs affiliated with the US Unaccompanied Refugee Minors Program reported that they found immigration interviews and processing emotionally difficult.
When the security checks are passed, health assessments and a cultural orientation training follow. The latter should emphasise on the potential challenges for refugees in the receiving country. The cultural orientation trainings do not always happen and they differ in duration and depth. The Gateway Resettlement Programme for example, used to provide two weeks of cultural orientation when it was launched in 2004; however this has shrunk to three hours in 2016. In addition to helping refugees begin to prepare for life in a new country, cultural orientation can also contribute to the uncertainty and stress associated with resettlement.
Departure
Refugees are assisted to travel into the receiving country, usually by airplane. From being selected for resettlement to actually arriving in the US, it usually takes between 18–24 months. Refugees who are resettled in the US have to pay back a loan for their flight tickets which is provided by the International Organization for Migration.In certain circumstances, where refugees have to be evacuated immediately from life-threatening situations in the first country of asylum, they can be brought to Emergency Transit Centres. These provide a temporary safe haven before receiving countries are ready to take them. The Timișoara Emergency Transit Centre in Romania, that opened in 2008, was Europe's first evacuation centre. The Humenné Emergency Transit Centre in Slovakia was opened in 2009. However, these ETCs together can only accommodate up to 300 people.
IOM staff escorts the refugees to the receiving country and can provide a medical escort, if needed. As most refugees have no experience of air travel, the escort assists them with the preparation for the travel and with the journey itself, guiding and monitoring them throughout the journey and until they are handed over to the post-arrival service of the receiving country.
Post-arrival
Refugees are met at the airport and get immediate integration and orientation support in most countries. Upon arrival in the country refugees have the right to reside in the country and do not need to apply for asylum. Refugees who are resettled to the US have to pay rent after six months. Once a refugee is resettled in a third country the main focus is to help them become self-sufficient.Refugees and asylum seekers face multiple difficulties sustaining their lives in destination countries. In particular, finding and maintaining meaningful employment that provides sustainable amount of pay is very difficult for refugees in receiving countries, because they face multiple barriers related to refugee employment. One way suggested to deal with such refugee employment issues is through cross-sector collaboration, where businesses, governmental organizations, educational institutions and support organizations are engaged to share resources and knowledge to tackle the resettlement concern.