Resettlement
Resettlement from his or her country of first asylum to another country which has agreed to accept a ‘quota’ of refugees has become the most coveted achievement of nearly every person who has ever sought asylum in the Global South.
There are 24 States that offer ‘resettlement’ places; the largest being the US which offers some 70,000 per year, a quota which is often not filled, the others offering much smaller number, for example, Japan 20. Although the published estimates of refugees residing in the Global South range from 8 to 35 million, only around 100,000 are resettled each year – much less than .01% of the world’s refugee population.
This section of the
www.srlan.org website provides information on each of these states as available from their websites and from UNHCR Resettlement Handbook. We welcome contributions from practitioners and refugees about your experiences of resettlement policies around the world.
States that offer resettlement are also among those who are also making it next to impossible for a refugee to reach their shores to seek asylum. While being able to limit arrivals though visas and other restrictions on one hand, they have couched their resettlement quotas as ‘burden sharing’.
States have different methods of selecting individuals and families for resettlement; only a few have designated non-governmental organizations to make the first selection - most require a recommendation from UNHCR, and, according to the UNHCR Resettlement Handbook, each refugee must have been declared a mandate refugee. However, once a person has been referred by UNHCR to a State for resettlement and according to what criteria, that State usually insists on confirming the individual meets the definition of a refugee again through the refugee status determination adjudication. States are not required to recognize UNHCR’s mandate status since UNHCR has not itself ‘ratified’ the 1951 Refugee Convention. The process of resettlement may itself require giving one’s testimony as to why one has a well-founded fear of persecution in the country of origin several times before one has been examined by the resettling State.
Determining eligibility for resettlement is a procedure that is far from straightforward. The UNHCR Resettlement Handbook provides Chapter 4, 62 pages on criteria. The first section is devoted to legal and physical protection and, in short, makes persons who cannot be protected in their host country a high priority. Such persons may risk detention or refoulement by their host state or attack by persons from their country of origin. There are States prepared to ensure such persons safety by moving them out of their host state within days. But to achieve such results requires a UNHCR representative who is immediately attentive.
Following this category of persons who require immediate action to save their lives, come ‘survivors of violence and torture’, ‘medical needs’, ‘women-at-risk’, ‘children and adolescents’, ‘family reunification’, and ‘older refugees’. UNHCR has also produced guidance on resettling disabled refugees. Finally, there is the group of people qualified for resettlement because they are ‘refugees without local integration prospects’.
Does any refugee have local integration prospects in States where they do not enjoy their rights to work, health services, to education, or if they are detained in camps, even their right to the freedom of movement? Given that few live in States that honour their rights either as a human being or a refugee, we have to ask ourselves as far as eligibiliResettlement from his or her country of first asylum to another country which has agreed to accept a ‘quota’ of refugees has become the most coveted achievement of nearly every person who has ever sought asyluThere are 24 States that offer ‘resettlement’ places; the largest being the US which offers some 70,000 per year, a quota which is often not filled, the others offering much smaller number, for example, Japan 20. Although the published estimates of refugees residing in the Global South range from 8 to 35 million, only around 100,000 are resettled each year – much less than .01% of the world’s refugee populaThis section of the
www.srlan.org website provides information on each of these states as available from their websites and from UNHCR Resettlement Handbook. We welcome contributions from practitioners and refugees about your experiences of resettlement policies around the world.
Resettlement from his or her country of first asylum to another country which has agreed to accept a ‘quota’ of refugees has become the most coveted achievement of nearly every person who has ever sought asylum in the Global South.
There are 24 States that offer ‘resettlement’ places; the largest being the US which offers some 70,000 per year, a quota which is often not filled, the others offering much smaller number, for example, Japan 20. Although the published estimates of refugees residing in the Global South range from 8 to 35 million, only around 100,000 are resettled each year – much less than .01% of the world’s refugee population.
This section of the www.srlan.org website provides information on each of these states as available from their websites and from UNHCR Resettlement Handbook. We welcome contributions from practitioners and refugees about your experiences of resettlement policies around the world.
States that offer resettlement are also among those who are also making it next to impossible for a refugee to reach their shores to seek asylum. While being able to limit arrivals though visas and other restrictions on one hand, they have couched their resettlement quotas as ‘burden sharing’.
States have different methods of selecting individuals and families for resettlement; only a few have designated non-governmental organizations to make the first selection - most require a recommendation from UNHCR, and, according to the UNHCR Resettlement Handbook, each refugee must have been declared a mandate refugee. However, once a person has been referred by UNHCR to a State for resettlement and according to what criteria, that State usually insists on confirming the individual meets the definition of a refugee again through the refugee status determination adjudication. States are not required to recognize UNHCR’s mandate status since UNHCR has not itself ‘ratified’ the 1951 Refugee Convention. The process of resettlement may itself require giving one’s testimony as to why one has a well-founded fear of persecution in the country of origin several times before one has been examined by the resettling State.
Determining eligibility for resettlement is a procedure that is far from straightforward. The UNHCR Resettlement Handbook provides Chapter 4, 62 pages on criteria. The first section is devoted to legal and physical protection and, in short, makes persons who cannot be protected in their host country a high priority. Such persons may risk detention or refoulement by their host state or attack by persons from their country of origin. There are States prepared to ensure such persons safety by moving them out of their host state within days. But to achieve such results requires a UNHCR representative who is immediately attentive.
Following this category of persons who require immediate action to save their lives, come ‘survivors of violence and torture’, ‘medical needs’, ‘women-at-risk’, ‘children and adolescents’, ‘family reunification’, and ‘older refugees’. UNHCR has also produced guidance on resettling disabled refugees. Finally, there is the group of people qualified for resettlement because they are ‘refugees without local integration prospects’.
Does any refugee have local integration prospects in States where they do not enjoy their rights to work, health services, to education, or if they are detained in camps, even their right to the freedom of movement? Given that few live in States that honour their rights either as a human being or a refugee, we have to ask ourselves as far as eligibility for resettlement, ‘Why not the whole world of refugees?’
