Irish Refugee Council’s Post

The emotional political debate about bringing in refugees and immigrants overlooks key economic facts that I talk about in this op ed, including these points: 1) A renowned Ukrainian mathematician called me when Russia invaded Ukraine and told me why America needs Ukrainians. Soon after the US started a sponsorship program for Ukrainians that has brought in more than 175K, part of a broader effort to bring in refugees and people fleeing violence. 2) Bosnian, Somali, and other refugees have revitalized depressed American towns and cities like Lewiston, Maine, and St. Louis, Missouri. 3) The increase in refugee and immigrant arrivals over the past few years will add 7 trillion to the economy over a decade according to the nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office. I also highlight a new refugee labor mobility project with the Canadian government that the US wants to imitate and Talent Beyond Boundaries' refugee talent catalogue. Welcome.US, Community Sponsorship Hub, U.S. Department of State, U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS), RefugePoint, Office of Refugee Resettlement, WBUR, Cloe Axelson, Kathleen Burge https://lnkd.in/eMWeUTR3

At Talent Beyond Boundaries, we're delighted to be helping more and more qualified refugees relocate to Canada to fill jobs that haven't been filled domestically. According to Statistics Canada | Statistique Canada, there are over 700,000 job vacancies in Canada right now, and there are forcibly displaced people who have the skills that we need. This story is part of a growing body of case studies demonstrating how displaced workers are helping Canada and other countries to fill labour gaps and revitalize communities. #EMPP #meaningfulemployment

📚 The #AIDA Country Report on #Ireland is OUT   ➡ In 2023, 13,276 international protection applications were lodged in Ireland. This was similar to the figure in 2022 (13,651) which was the highest ever.    ➡The International Protection Office (IPO) issued a total of 8,442 decisions (almost twice as many as in 2022) and 38% of them were positive (compared to 80% in 2022).   ➡As of April 2024, 104,780 TP certificates had been issued in Ireland since March 2022 (compared to 82,196 as of May 2023).   ➡The accelerated procedure, which was introduced at the end of 2022 for applicants from designated safe countries of origin, continued to operate throughout 2023.    👉Numerous applicants reported that they did not have the opportunity to seek legal advice prior to undergoing their interview either due to the short period of time between their application and interview, or because they were not informed about their right to seek free legal advice from the Legal Aid Board when they submitted their application.    👉Due to the ongoing accommodation crisis, several applicants were interviewed while they were homeless. Although this was denounced as inappropriate by NGOs given the complexity of the asylum procedure, the IPO refused to offer homeless applicants the opportunity to postpone their interviews.   ➡Accommodation capacity remained severely constrained throughout 2023 and demand exceeded the International Protection Accommodation Services’ (IPAS) capacity several times during the year.   👉As a result, many applicants were denied accommodation upon arrival. From 4 December onwards, single male applicants were automatically denied accommodation except in cases of identified significant vulnerabilities. Families with children and single women continued to be offered accommodation.    👉Throughout the year, many applicants were forced into homelessness, despite inclement weather conditions and growing anti-immigrant sentiment. In April 2023, the High Court ruled that the State’s failure to provide accommodation, food and basic hygiene facilities to newly arrived applicants was unlawful and breached their right to dignity.   ➡Beneficiaries of international protection (BIPs) continued to experience severe delays in the processing of family reunification applications.   👉2,924 family members were awaiting a decision at the end of 2023. The Department of Justice stated that the average processing time was 12 months. However, the Irish Refugee Council noted that it was longer in practice, often reaching a minimum of 18 months and, in some cases, up to 28 months.   Read the full report here: 🔗https://t.co/rWbQPbnEjw

Register for "From Hostility to Dignity". This event will challenge current developments under the UK’s #immigration #policy and the environment for #migrants and #refugees. Taking place on 16 April from 6-8pm in the Oxford Town Hall. This event is organised by the Think Human Festival and the Migration and Refugee network at Oxford Brookes University. Reflections and debates will be heard from a range of voices from the #Oxford area including politicians, members of the public, NGO practitioners, academics and other experts. Two panel discussions will explore firstly, the work of local Oxford partners who are experts as NGO or charity workers and service providers to discuss the real-life issues they deal with in their work. Second, solution-focused work on and around migration, #asylum and the UK’s hostile environment from researchers from Oxford Brookes University Migration and Refugees Network and the University of Oxford. Register now: https://bit.ly/3SMo0XR Find out about the Think Human Festival and other events: https://bit.ly/3OT02sZ Join the Migration and Refugee Network: https://bit.ly/3IC1Y66 #ThinkHumanFestival #ImmigrationPolicy

In this August 2021 Building Migrant Resilience in Cities webinar researchers presented a project that documents how access to information influenced collective resilience, settlement, and social inclusion among Yazidi refugees and Turkish-speaking refugee claimants in York Region. The project is very relevant to current and ongoing sector conversations about providing information, especially the reminders of tailoring information, in-language info, and building rapport/trust with communities in an ever-increasing ecosystem of mis- and disinformation. What do you need to know? Information access is essential for newcomers to achieve successful resettlement and social inclusion. Among Yazidi refugees and Turkish-speaking refugee claimants in York Region, trust was a central factor in determining information seeking strategies. Trust in information sources was shaped by newcomers' social networks and formal agencies' capacity to meet newcomers' needs, as well as pre-migration social and political factors. Increasing groups' capacity to provide mutual support was suggested as a promising way to ensure access to relevant and useful information. How can you use this research? Three main recommendations emerged for improving newcomers’ access to accurate and useful information. 1. Since newcomers’ information access strategies are complex and shaped by pre- and post-migration factors, strategies for sharing information must be tailored for each community. Agencies need time and resources to learn about the political, social and cultural history of each newcomer group. 2. Providing services in newcomers' preferred language is essential and plays a central role in trust-building. 3. Building community resilience by supporting each group’s own strategies to enhance community-led information initiatives may be effective in ensuring access to accurate, relevant, and useful information. https://lnkd.in/eFF37Kyg

PUBLICATION: Highlighting Hospitality: The Role of Citizen Hosting in the Reception of Migrants. A Case Study in Lyon and the Rhone Region (France) All around Europe, citizens have been hosting home migrants and refugees in need of a safe place and to increase social bonds between the local population and newcomers. If citizen hosting has been under the spotlight with the reception of Ukrainians in 2022, these initiatives are usually not visible and implemented by local networks of volunteers with very little support from the governments. This study carried out by Nadine Camp is aiming at collecting data on homestay accommodation in the Lyon area in 2022 to show a more detailed and true picture of this hospitality practice. 1,254 peoples were hosted (43% of which were Ukrainians) in 618 accommodation places with the support of 1,630 volunteers. The study highlights that citizen hosting contributes significantly in the reception and welcoming of migrants and refugees but it is largely ignored by most stakeholders. This study was carried out in cooperation with a network of local NGOs in Lyon in the framework of the observatory of citizen accommodation in the Rhone Region, a project coordinated by Synergies Migrations. The study is now available in English here: https://lnkd.in/eybN6-4q Refugees Welcome International International Catholic Migration Commission (ICMC) SINGA J'accueille JRS France Jesuit Refugee Service (JRS) Europe HIAS Europe The Global Refugee Sponsorship Initiative (GRSI) Porticus EPIM (European Philanthropic Initiative for Migration)HIAS Matteo Bassoli

World Refugee Day was yesterday and will continue to be tomorrow. Why? > There are 43.4 million refugees worldwide > 40% of the world’s refugees are children > 1.1 million refugees returned home in 2023 (the majority of refugees want to return home once it is safe to do so) What has been and continues to be the most instrumentalized topic in world politics, by populist politicians, is the issue that speaks about all of us and the footprint we are leaving on the world. As it is also an intersectional issue - we can't talk about refugees without talking about climate, gender equality, employment or demography - its challenges will endure and evolve exponentially. Even if that's not enough, this topic is still commonly included in the debate on migration, but rarely delves into its motivations, essence and root causes. And only from here, we can think about the future. So here are some seed ideas: 🌱 Being a refugee should be seen much more as a temporary status than an identity (in Portuguese verbo Estar vs. Ser). This would help us to humanize a person in a given situation without transposing into their identity what is expected to be contextual, even if potentially deeply traumatic and with a long-lasting effect. 🌱 When there is no community participation, there is no inclusion in practice. And even more, the possibility of segregation and ghettoization is necessarily greater - us and them. 🌱 Each one of us can become, at any time, a person seeking asylum or refugee status. Moving from macro to individual actions, here are some few suggestions: 📚 If you don't know, you can learn about it: Hein de Haas (book How Migration Really Works and episode “Migrações não é assim tão simples” from Fundação Francisco Manuel dos Santos), Miniserie La Ley del Mar (2023, available on RTVE), Where Olive Trees Weep (2024, SCIENCE AND NONDUALITY), book The Refugees (2017, Viet Thanh Nguyen) 🫴 Give something you have or know – become a Buddy through SPEAK - Share your world, and teach your language of expression to other people to whom the local language will be fundamental to the process of inclusion 🏘️ Join a Community Sponsorship group and directly support a person or family to have a full presence and participation in your community. See more Portuguese Refugee Council, AIMA I.P. Agência para a Integração, Migrações e Asilo or equivalent in your country. Sources: UNHCR, the UN Refugee Agency Photo: Child Migrants' Memorial (2008, designed by architects Rune Bo Jakobsen and David Drago) to commemorate the 310 Maltese children, mostly boys, who travelled to Australia in search of a better life between 1950 and 1965, photo taken by me. #worldrefugeeday #communitysponsorship

It's the 45th anniversary of the federal Administration for Children and Families (ACF) Office of Refugee Resettlement's (ORR) Matching Grant (MG) program! Happy to currently be coordinating this program under U.S. Committee for Refugees and Immigrants (USCRI) with the Immigrant and Refugee Community Organization here in Oregon. "The program is an alternative to traditional cash assistance programs. MG participants receive services such as case management, employment services, and housing and cash assistance support. The participating national refugee resettlement agencies must provide a match (in cash and/or in-kind services) of one dollar for every two dollars of federal direct assistance funding. The resettlement agencies work with communities to raise these matching funds and to solicit volunteer time in support of the refugees served at the local level, fostering collaboration within the community. Today, the MG program is available in 43 states and supported by 230 local service providers operating under the ten national resettlement agencies. During the last ten years, the MG program served over 250,000 participants. In 2023, the program enrolled over 38,000 individuals and 78% of participants were deemed self-sufficient through employment by the time they exited the program at the eight-month (240-day) mark. In fiscal year 2024, ORR has enrolled 15,863 participants as of February 29. At the heart of the MG program is resilience and potential. By providing a framework for support and empowerment, participants in the program can build sustainable livelihoods and thrive in their communities. The Matching Grant program is an example of what can be achieved when compassion, collaboration and innovation come together and a great example of the benefits of public/private partnerships!" Damien Ntawumpora Gorod Daful,MBA, MA

Helping refugees settle in Thị Thu Thủy Trần, Rodney Dormer and Carolyn Fowler, in an article published in PMM today, explain the refugee resettlement services provided in New Zealand. Refugees who arrive in New Zealand through the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) Quota programme have been receiving support in their first year since 2013 which is focused on five goals: health, housing, education, self-sufficiency and participation. which has been in place since 2013. While government agencies provide some essential services to quota refugees by themselves, where possible and where it is thought more effective, they contract with other service providers, for example the New Zealand Red Cross, to deliver social services to quota refugees. Following interviews with government officials, NGOs and volunteers, the authors make recommendations to promote cross-working, which apply beyond New Zealand. These include: include rethinking legislation, establishing explicit rules and processes and encouraging joint ventures. Importantly, on the last point, the authors explain: "Co-ordination across government agencies in New Zealand is currently voluntary and has not worked effectively…In an attempt to improve collaborative work and horizontal accountability, in 2018, the New Zealand government approved the establishment of a joint venture of ten government agencies to work on reducing and eliminating domestic violence. The establishment of a joint venture can be considered a ground-breaking collaboration in that it provides a single point of leadership and accountability for a whole-of-government response. It will help solve the problems of who is responsible for what and help identify priorities for action across government agencies". You can find the article on Public Money & Management's website: "Constraints on achieving strong horizontal accountability in a public sector context—A case study of refugee resettlement in New Zealand".