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Drawing on the conceptual lens of othering, this article links public policy narratives regarding the relocation of Syrian refugees inside the United States to the establishment of a “state of exception.” Using narrative policy analysis, 36 governor statements issued in response to the 2015 terror attacks in Paris, France are catalogued as either “accepting” or “rejecting” of the Obama Administration’s refugee relocation program. This examination suggests the rejecting narratives construct a “sense of siege” in citizens driven by security fears and portrays refugees as villains. The author argues that the fear-based language in these policies, which is used to justify a state of exception, further marginalizes the status of the stateless noncitizen refugees. Utilizando el lente conceptual de la alteridad, este artículo vincula las narrativas de política pública relacionadas con la reubicación de los refugiados sirios dentro de los Estados Unidos al establecimiento de un “estado de excepción.” Utilizando el análisis de narrativa de políticas, se catalogan 36 declaraciones de gobernadores en respuesta a los ataques terroristas de 2015 en París, Francia como “tolerantes” o “intolerantes” del programa de reubicación de refugiados de la administración de Obama. El análisis sugiere que las narrativas de rechazo construyen un “sentido de asedio” en los ciudadanos motivados por miedos de seguridad y retrata a los refugiados como villanos. El autor argumenta que el lenguaje basado en el miedo en estas políticas, que se usa para justificar un estado de excepción, marginaliza aún más el estatus de los refugiados sin estado y sin ciudadanía. 本文从他者（othering）的概念视角，将关于安置美国境内叙利亚难民的公共政策叙述，和”例外状态”（state of exception）的建立联系起来。通过使用叙述性政策分析，本文将36名州长对2015年法国巴黎恐怖 袭击事件的回应分为两类，一类”接受”奥马巴政府难民安置计划，另一类则”拒绝”此计划。此调查暗示，持拒绝态度的叙述将美国公民对安全的担忧建构为一种”被包围感”（sense of siege），同时将难民描绘为罪犯。作者主张，这些政策中基于恐惧的论调（用于证明例外状态的合理性）进一步将无国籍的难民地位边缘化。

This paper examines the added-value that multisystem approaches bring to research and intervention in contexts of war and forced displacement. I highlight what is useful and truly innovative about systems-level work, aware that providing data-related evidence is only part of the story when connecting research to policy and practice. I discuss four types of added-value: these are conceptual, instrumental, capacity-building, and connectivity impacts that, respectively, aim to change current knowledge, improve implementation, build research skills, and strengthen network connectivity. Specifically, systems-based research can help transform the key frames of humanitarian work, fostering the more integrated and distributive models of professional assistance known as resilience and network humanitarianism. I argue that systems-level approaches on resilience and flourishing in war-affected and refugee populations help to articulate new mindsets, methodologies, partnerships, and ways of working relevant for humanitarian research, policy and practice. I focus attention on interdisciplinary, interventionist, prospective, transgenerational, and network-building initiatives. My specific examples cover the family context of mental health and trauma memory in Afghanistan, as well as program evaluation with Syrian refugees in Jordan, connecting stress biology to human experience, and social networks to psychological empowerment. The paper suggests future directions to support more effective and impactful systems-level work in protracted humanitarian crises.

Executive Summary As the global refugee population continues to expand, resettlement opportunities remain scarce, accessible only to a select few. Scholarly literature has increasingly drawn attention to the opaque bureaucratic processes, often referred to as “black boxes,” that govern resettlement selection, revealing that the decision-making practices determining which refugees are chosen for resettlement are still not well understood. This study addresses a critical gap concerning the implementation of selection criteria within UNHCR’s operations in the Global South, with a specific focus on caseworkers in Rwanda. It examines how these criteria are applied in practice, providing new empirical insights into the concept of “promising victimhood” — the contradictory demands placed on refugees to simultaneously demonstrate both vulnerability and integration potential to qualify for asylum or resettlement. The study explores how caseworkers navigate their roles amidst the complex and often conflicting demands imposed on refugees during the selection process. The analysis is grounded in interviews with sixteen caseworkers involved in resettlement selection, employing street-level bureaucracy theory alongside the concepts of refugee deservingness and promising victimhood. As key actors in the selection process, caseworkers exercise bottom-up power as policy implementers, while simultaneously adhering to the top-down directives established by resettlement states. The findings reveal that caseworkers employ a range of discretionary practices to reconcile the demands of resettlement states’ admission criteria with their advocacy for refugees deemed most vulnerable by the UNHCR. This research enhances our understanding of UNHCR’s operations at the street level, shedding light on how the practices of caseworkers influence perceptions of refugee eligibility and ultimately influence who is granted resettlement.

We conducted a survey among Iraqi refugees resettled in the United States to assess their physical and mental health status and healthcare access and utilization following the initial 8-month, post-arrival period. We randomly selected Iraqi refugees: ≥18 years of age; living in the United States for 8–36 months; and residents of Michigan, California, Texas and Idaho. Participants completed a household questionnaire and mental health assessment. We distributed 366 surveys. Seventy-five percent of participants had health insurance at the time of the survey; 43 % reported delaying or not seeking care for a medical problem in the past year. Sixty percent of participants reported one chronic condition; 37 % reported ≥2 conditions. The prevalence of emotional distress, anxiety, and depression was approximately 50 % of participants; 31 % were at risk for post-traumatic stress disorder. Iraqi refugees in this evaluation reported a high prevalence of chronic conditions and mental health symptoms despite relatively high access to healthcare. It is important for resettlement partners to be aware of the distinctive health concerns of this population to best address needs within this community.

Refugee entrepreneurs can make a significant contribution to sustainable growth and development in host countries. However, comprehensive comparative studies of refugee entrepreneurial motivations are scarce, particularly in the absence of a theoretical framework on entrepreneurship motivation that is suitable for such contexts. This is a research topic that is increasingly of interest to scholars and policymakers working with refugee workforce integration, particularly in light of forecasted increases in global forced displacement over the next years. This paper tests and extends newly constructed entrepreneurship motivation measures, comparing person-related factors and the perceptions of environmental-related factors for Syrian refugee entrepreneurs in Sweden and Germany. The results indicate that their motivations differ between the two countries with respect to market conditions, the educational environment, dissatisfaction, and know-how. However, refugee entrepreneurs in both countries have similar levels of entrepreneurial ambition and attitude and are motivated by similar perceptions of social environments and cultural norms. This paper identifies how entrepreneurship motivation differences could be considered by governments to better shape and inform host countries’ programs and policies to improve refugee entrepreneurship and subsequent integration.Plain English SummarySyrian refugees in Germany and Sweden differ in their motivation to pursue entrepreneurship, as evidenced by our comparative study, emphasizing the role of country context in shaping refugees’ perception of environmental factors that influence their entrepreneurial motivation. We find that Germany-based refugee entrepreneurs are more motivated by market structures and educational offerings, have more know-how, and were less prone to negative motivation resulting from experiencing dissatisfaction (e.g. due to discrimination or lack of opportunities) compared with Sweden-based refugee entrepreneurs. The results emphasize the importance of policy reforms and initiatives that provide financial, administrative, and legal assistance to refugee entrepreneurs as they start and establish their businesses, as well as specialized entrepreneurship training and education programs. We call for future research on inter-country evaluations of institutional differences and migrant integration programs as well as trans-border exchange of lessons learned and success stories, particularly in-light of prognosed increases in global forced displacement over the next years.

In response to the recent migrant and refugee crisis, rich countries have redoubled policy efforts to deter future immigration from poor countries by addressing the \"root causes\" of these movements. We review existing evidence on the extent and effectiveness of such efforts. First, development aid disbursements do not generally follow \"root causes\" rhetoric. The sectoral distribution of aid to migrant-origin countries does not significantly differ from its distribution in other countries. Second, the evidence suggests that the capacity of development assistance to deter migration is small at best. Aid can only encourage economic growth, employment, and security to a limited degree. Beyond this, successful development in almost all formerly poor countries has produced an increase in emigration. Third, this evidence implies that donors could achieve greater impact by leveraging development aid not to deter migration but to shape it for mutual benefit.

This conceptual paper analyzes the effects of Donald Trump’s 2025 authoritarian regime on refugees, the US Refugee Admissions Program, and resettlement. The second Trump presidency resumed his first term’s attempt (2017–2021) at seizing power. This time, his regime launched a more sophisticated authoritarian plan to destroy the US. His 2025 term is consolidating power in the president to target all forms of migration to the US, including dismantling the US Refugee Admissions Program (USRAP) through executive overreach, circumventing statutory refugee procedures, violating human and civil rights, and disregarding judicial constraints. On 20 January 2025, he used Executive Order 14163, “Realigning the United States Refugee Admissions Program,” to indefinitely suspend the admission and resettlement of refugees for 90 days. Exceptions are made on a case-by-case basis, with national interest and plans for a white nationalist state driving the decision. Refugees at any phase of the vetting process will be denied entry. Simultaneously, Executive Order 14169, “Reevaluating and Realigning United States Foreign Aid,” was signed on 20 January 2025, to pause the US dissemination of foreign aid for 90 days. Resumption would depend on a review determining foreign assistance alignment with national interests. The implementation of Executive Order 14169 further dismantled the USRAP infrastructure by stripping federal agencies of personnel and budgets that support resettled refugees through a “stop work order” issued by the Department of State’s Bureau of Population, Refugees, and Migration (PRM) on 24 January 2025. Refugee resettlement agencies, non-profits, and faith-based organizations are vital to welcoming and assisting refugees as they adjust to their new lives. These critical organizations are now struggling to provide services to resettled refugees. Additionally, escalated, arbitrary, racially profiled deportations of alleged criminal undocumented immigrants have increased anxiety and fear among resettled refugee communities. Subsequently, the Trump administration’s indefinite suspension of the USRAP, effective from 2025 to 2028 and beyond, will impact refugees, their families, and the resettlement network. Truly, the survival of the USRAP depends on an administration that upholds the Constitution, democratic values, and the significance of US diplomatic global leadership, replacing this regime.

In this piece, we offer a comment on the most recent addition to the Canadian resettlement scheme, the Blended Visa Office-Referred (BVOR) program. The BVOR program was introduced in 2013 as a modified version of private sponsorship and middle ground between sponsorship and government-assisted resettlement. While the program was met with criticism and skepticism that the government was off-loading more resettlement responsibility to private sponsors, the Syrian crisis significantly impacted and changed the Canadian resettlement landscape. This comment outlines the program and surveys the benefits and concerns with such a model. BVOR is examined in relation to both private and government resettlement, in the current moment of Syrian resettlement, and in comparison to the historical use of private sponsorship for Indochinese refugees. Through an examination of the challenges BVOR is intended to address and the division of public and private responsibility, the comment serves to assess the direction of Canada’s future resettlement.

Abstract This session offers a personal story of resilience, adaptation, and professional reintegration through the lived experience of Dr. Diana Melnyk, a Ukrainian physician displaced in Czechia due to the war in Ukraine. With the assistance of target programs facilitated by Czech health authorities and the support of WHO with key partners, Dr. Melnyk's journey reflects the impact that multi-sectoral collaboration can have on an individual's life and their communities at large. The session will illustrate Dr. Melnyk's journey from arriving in Czechia as a refugee who applied for temporary protection, to being able to begin her professional career as a physician in Czechia after graduating from a medical university in Ukraine. This session will follow her experience from the barriers that she initially encountered, including language limitations, licensing requirements, and her journey through integration strategies in place. Her story in Czechia underscores how support programs, and the assistance of international organizations and relevant stakeholders framed within targeted national policies can restore livelihoods among displaced health workers, and contribute to existing needs for health and care professionals across the WHO European Region. Her experience as a displaced Ukrainian health worker contributing to the Czech health system will put a human face to an existing need across European countries, and it will ultimately highlight how other displaced health professionals in the WHO European Region can also continue their professional development and support host communities.

Despite the high health and mental health care needs, resettled refugees often face cultural and linguistic challenges that hinder the access to appropriate and timely interventions and services. Additionally, such concepts as preventive health or mental health treatment are foreign to this population, which creates additional burdens to the refugee community that already have difficulty navigating a complex health care system in the U.S. To address multiple and complex gaps in health and mental health support for the refugee community, requested is an innovative approach that can convey culturally responsive and effective interventions for health promotion, such as peerbased health education. Few studies have been conducted on the effectiveness of peer-led community health interventions with refugee populations in the U.S. resettlement context. However, peer-led interventions have been shown to be effective when working with cultural minorities and interventions in an international context. Adopting a social capital framework, the current study conducted qualitative evaluation on the impact of a pilot peer-led community health workshop (CHW) in the Bhutanese refugee community. A hybrid thematic analysis of focus group discussion data revealed the improvement in health promotion outcomes and health practice, as well as perceived emotional health. The results also showed that the peer-led CHW provided a platform of community building and participation, while increasing a sense of community, sense of belonging and unity. The findings posit that a peer-led intervention model provides culturally responsive and effective tools for building social capital and promoting community health in the refugee community.