In the wake of massive displacement following World War II, the U.S. Congress passed the first U.S. refugee legislation, the Displaced Persons Act of 1948. In the years following 1948, the U.S. accepted refugees for resettlement through a patchwork of ad hoc policies. The cornerstone of the U.S. refugee resettlement program is the Refugee Act of 1980, the first legislation to define “refugee” and create a uniform procedure for admissions. Three agencies in separate federal agencies process participate in the resettlement program: the Bureau of Population, Refugees and Migration in the State Department, the Office of Refugee Resettlement in the Department of Health and Human Services, and U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services in the Department of Homeland Security. Refugee resettlement is further segmented between the federal and local level as local nonprofit agencies provide the direct services associated with resettlement. This report examines the need for reform in the U.S. refugee resettlement program, with a focus on structural concerns. In particular, this report probes the transition from programs providing services overseas to those providing services on the domestic level. This examination is conducted through a literature review developed from recent academic literature. Additionally, the report will incorporate program evaluations, relevant legislation, and regulations from mixed sources, including academic literature, governmental documents and other public records. / text

After relocation to the United States, refugees are often assisted by community volunteers in the process of resettlement, which frequently includes navigating the financial and social aspects of life in the US. However, the medical and health aspects of resettlement, and particularly how volunteers are involved in those aspects, have gone unexplored, leading to tensions within volunteer-led resettlement groups as they attempt to negotiate the limits of volunteer involvement. To investigate how volunteers understand a process of health resettlement, their role(s) within the process, and how they rhetorically position their relationship with resettling clients, this study uses interview data from a local, volunteer-run community resettlement organization to provide a rhetorical examination of health resettlement. An analysis finds that in both contrast and response to a rhetoric of self-sufficiency established by state and federal policy, resettlement volunteers understand health resettlement through a rhetoric of responsibility. This rhetorical framework constitutes volunteers' role as proxy agents in the process of health resettlement. Additionally, volunteers use a gathered ethos approach within this framework, drawing from community networks in order to facilitate persuasion of resettling clients toward desired health outcomes. Ultimately, recommendations are made for community sponsorship and volunteer approaches to health resettlement for refugees in the United States. / Doctor of Philosophy / After relocation to the United States, refugees are often assisted by community volunteers in the process of resettlement, which frequently includes navigating the financial and social aspects of life in the US. However, the medical and health aspects of refugee resettlement, and particularly how volunteers are involved in those aspects, have gone unexplored. This study uses interviews with resettlement volunteers to understand how volunteers perceive their role within the health resettlement process, how they position themselves in relation to resettling refugees, and how they expect refugees to navigate health communication scenarios. It finds that volunteers feel a tension between a rhetoric of self-sufficiency that is established by policy and a rhetoric of responsibility that is established by humanitarian narratives. This tension motivates volunteers to act as communication intermediaries, performing health communication tasks on behalf of refugee clients while also attempting to persuade clients toward particular healthcare decisions. Recommendations are made for community sponsorship and volunteer approaches to health resettlement for refugees in the United States.

By now scholars, practitioners, government officials and others in the global community have witnessed a number of countries and their populations going through extreme destruction and trying to rebuild in the aftermath. Country case studies are invaluable for their in-depth, continuous look at how a nation-state collective and the individuals who make up that collective recover, regroup, develop, but also remain very harmed for a long time. They must live among and beside their former enemies. Studies of the resettlement of refugees in a third country offer a different view: there are varied populations arriving with different socio-cultural and economic histories and experiences, and different definitions of a normalcy to which they aspire. They are in a setting that is much different than what characterized their pre-war experiences, and they do not have to rebuild out of ashes in the place that they were born. Refugees from various countries resettling in a third country have so much in common with each other from the experience of extreme violence and having to resettle in a foreign land that one key informant suggested that we think about a "refugee ethnicity." Though they would not have wished for them, they have gained numerous new identification possibilities not available to those in the country of origin: U.S. citizen, hybrid, diaspora, cosmopolitan global citizen; refugee/former refugee survivors. But the "fit" of these identities vary, because the receiving society may perceive individuals and families along a continuum of belonging vs. "othering." In the post-9-11 era in the U.S., the "belonging" as a citizen and member of the imagined community of the nation that a refugee or former refugee is able to achieve may be precarious. Will refugees resettling turn out to be vectors of socio-political disease, infecting the new host? Or will they be vectors of development and agents of host revitalization as they realize adversity-activated development in a new environment? The U.S. "host environment" has changed considerably since the modern era of resettlement began in the 1970s and then passed through the dramatic incidents of 9-11. The "hosts" have now also undergone an experience of extreme political violence. U.S. institutions are responding to the events and subsequent wars, and have themselves been changed as they adjust practices and policies in response to the trauma experienced by the people they are meant to serve. Much is in play. The times beg for a better understanding of refugees' social experiences of resettlement in a new country, the forms of suffering and marginalization they face, and the healing processes in which they engage. We need a far better understanding of what it takes to assist refugees as they work to re-constitute social networks, recover economically, find opportunity and meaning, pursue goals, and - with receiving communities--express solidarity across social dividing lines. This dissertation calls out this problematic; and analyzes it at the multi-stakeholder site of refugee resettlement.

This review of the literature is third in a series of investigations into educational technology curriculum integration for the Tucson, Arizona office of the International Rescue Committee (IRC). It is a broad investigation into the theory, methods and delivery of supportive instructional materials to refugees via mobile learning. It examines current international program methods that will aid in design of U.S. mLearning programs to support the IRC’s mandated goal of promoting self-sufficiency for resettled refugees.

This thesis focuses on the Governor of Wisconsin’s Hmong Resettlement Taskforce that was charged in 2004 with making policy recommendations for the State about a large resettlement of Hmong refugees. Through participant-observation, interviews, and document analysis, the process of policy formation by the Taskforce is examined. This empirical, ethnographic study depicts this taskforce as a group of cultural agents and its work as a cultural process. Findings in this thesis center on the taskforce report and the constraints on the narrative that limited possible recommendations.

This thesis examines the complexities in the resettlement of Bhutanese refugees. Using anthropological ethnographic field methods, this thesis explores the power dynamics between the employees of a resettlement organization and the refugees and the intricate webs of power within different institutions, such as local NGOs and healthcare institutions. The study argues that humanitarian actions and interventions are often driven by bureaucratic politics and policies that contradict what humanitarianism stands for as apolitical and value-neutral. These contradictions or paradoxes in humanitarianism also are also present in refugee resettlement. Analyzing these paradoxes that characterize resettlement, this thesis illuminates structural discontinuities or gaps that result from differences in expectations between the refugees and the employees of resettlement organization. Drawing on analyses of the paradoxes and complexities in resettlement, the study concludes that bureaucratic management of refugees reinforces social inequalities and hierarchies of power that masks state’s responsibility towards both the refugees and local NGOs making resettlement an unsettling process.

New Zealand is rapidly becoming a strongly multicultural society with nearly one in four of its citizens born overseas (Statistics New Zealand, 2006). Immigrants enter New Zealand under many different classifications, such as skilled migrants, entrepreneurs, investors, and refugees. Finding employment and a means of survival in their new society is an undeniable challenge for most, if not all, of these immigrants and people from refugee backgrounds. Some of them find employment in established Kiwi organisations while others establish their own businesses and become entrepreneurs. A review of the literature revealed that there has been considerable research on entrepreneurial behaviours of immigrants and refugees in general, but little is known about the experiences of entrepreneurs from refugee backgrounds in New Zealand, specifically Afghan entrepreneurs and how their experiences differ from their counterparts who came to New Zealand from other countries. This qualitative research project studies Afghans (N=23) from Christchurch who established their own businesses and the sense they have made of their experiences, both as refugees and as business owners. It also briefly compares the major findings with those of their refugee counterparts from other countries (N=6) to see if there are any major differences between the two groups’ start-up experiences in New Zealand. Participants were selected from those in the Afghan community in Christchurch who are from a refugee background, using a snowballing technique. The comparison group consisted of six refugees from Zimbabwe, Somalia, South Sudan, Ethiopia and Sri Lanka. The findings of this study have been categorised into two parts. The first part discusses the initial experiences of the participants in New Zealand society, how they settled into New Zealand, what strategies they used to integrate into their new society, how they financed their lives in New Zealand, and eventually how they became economically independent. The second part of the findings discusses the motivators behind the participants’ business start-ups, the types of businesses that they established and how these businesses assisted them as a gateway to other business ventures or activities. This section further investigates the challenges the refugees faced during their business start-up stage and the strategies they adopted to address these challenges. The data indicated that, while the Afghan refugees faced many challenges in establishing their own businesses, three were of particular importance to them. These were (1) financial challenges (2) licensing requirements and (3) English language ability for obtaining business licenses. These were different from the comparison group because of the different industries the two groups of business owners chose to start. This research presents a very important finding. When participants’ experiences were examined to see how they account for personal and business success it was clear it is the social fabric of a collectivist and religious way of life and the associated sense of obligation to support each other that are the most significant factors shaping Afghan refugees’ business start-up behaviour. These factors led them to guide and mentor each other towards economic security and a lifestyle that fitted well with their family and religious obligations and self-identity. In addition to showing how Christchurch Afghan refugees’ business start-ups were used as a means to meet their social objectives, this research and the model that emerged from it offer unique insights into three key drivers: economic security, lifestyle–enterprise fit, and self-identity. These factors, together with age and family circumstances, shaped the decisions associated with starting businesses in New Zealand to determine the pathway chosen. The findings of this research are important as New Zealand is opening its doors to more refugees and very little is known about more recent refugee groups like those from Afghanistan. The findings provide a rich and unique contribution to refugee entrepreneurship and enterprise development literature in New Zealand and a model that could be used as a framework for further studies on the subject by those agencies that support refugees and their business start-up ventures as well as government agencies dealing with refugee resettlement and employment.

abstract: Through interviews and observations, this thesis provides an overview of refugee resettlement and explores the way one community is providing English language instruction to recently resettled refugees. It also describes the research process of this thesis so other researchers will be aware of the challenges such research contexts provide. In the southwestern state studied here, one of the refugee resettlement agencies holds the contract to provide English Language instruction to refugees. Other agencies provide supplemental English instruction and tutoring. The U.S. federal statute Immigration and Nationality Act, title 45 of the Code of Federal Regulations part 400--Refugee Resettlement Program, and the local contract between the state and the agency were examined to understand the laws, regulations, and contracted agreement governing the provision of English language instruction for refugees being resettled in the United States. English language faculty and staff, staff at refugee resettlement agencies, and a state official were interviewed to understand their goals and the challenges they face as they address the language needs of refugees. English language instruction classes were observed to note the consistencies as well as some discrepancies between interviews and what could actually be accomplished in the classroom. As the classes are unable to provide intensive language instruction, most students struggle with becoming proficient in English. A list of recommendations is included regarding ways the local community can better address linguistic needs of refugees. Yet as Fass (1985) argues, it is unknown whether changing refugee resettlement efforts will actually produce different results. Though there are problems, the way the linguistic needs are being addressed in this community is sufficient given the numerous other expectations put on the refugees and the refugee resettlement agencies. / Dissertation/Thesis / M.A. English 2010

This thesis answers the question of how public opinion toward refugees and asylum-seekers expressed in opinion polls compares with that expressed through commentary on news articles posted by Cable News Network (CNN) on social media. Using a study of 2,022 Facebook comments regarding the plight of Syrian child Omran Daqneesh during the 2016 United States presidential election campaign, it reveals competing narratives in favor of and against the opening of American borders to individuals escaping conflict in Syria. The analysis of textual data encompasses themes of securitization and cosmopolitanism, the results of which provide clarity and texture to complement existing opinion poll data. While such polls provide snapshots of public opinion, an analysis of social media commentary reveals more clearly what and how people were thinking about Syrian refugees fleeing conflict and entering the United States at a specific point in time. This study leads to a heightened understanding of the nuances contributing to public opinion of refugee policies and assesses social media's capacity to reveal complexities of citizens' thinking. / Master of Arts / As the 2011 Syrian Civil War continues to engulf the Middle Eastern country, waves of civilians displaced by the conflict are forced to flee their homes as refugees and seek asylum in regions such as North America and Europe. In this thesis, I study the attitudes expressed on Facebook, a popular social media website, by members of the public in order to understand their reasons for supporting and opposing the resettlement of Syrian refugees in the United States. I expected that security concerns would be a primary motive for opposing refugee resettlement and anticipated that supporters would promote more open borders and a responsibility to protect Syrians’ human rights. My analysis confirmed that security, primarily against terrorism and acts of violence, is important for those who oppose bringing Syrian refugees into the United States. It also reveals that most of the online commenters were less concerned with terrorism and more concerned with the wellbeing of civilians escaping conflict. My analysis also found a segment of commenters voicing more moderate opinions: posters in this group support refugee resettlement if certain conditions are met or they support only certain types of refugees. I also compare the sentiment expressed in social media commentary to that documented by opinion polling during the same period.

The refugee population within the United States is very dynamic, creating new challenges for county boards of health every day. To assist refugee groups in their transition to life in America, their needs must be thoroughly understood. County officials must also recognize their own limitations and be able to overcome them. Appropriate coordination with community resources relieves boards of health of some of the burden. However, county officials must also ensure that services provided in their domain are exceptional. This project aims to aid in this process for the DeKalb County Board of Health (DCBOH) and incoming refugees. A physician directory was created to improve the coordination between the DCBOH and community resources. In addition, a health manual geared towards informing refugees was updated and prepared for distribution.