Executive Summary In times of crisis, local governments transform from service providers into emergency responders. When hundreds of thousands of asylum seekers arrived in New York City from 2022 to 2024, New York City government was compelled to help them integrate into communities. To do this, New York City designed, opened, and operated the largest asylum application help clinic in the country. The New York City Asylum Application Help Center (the Center) was the first in the nation to combine government, private sector, nonprofit, and university support to provide pro se application support at scale. The Center did not provide legal representation. Submitting more than 111,000 immigration applications over its 24-month life, from June 2023 through June 2025, the Center helped a sizable portion of new arrivals apply for immigration relief (City of New York, Office of the Mayor 2023a, 2025). As a result of its scale, the Center helped tens of thousands of asylum seekers move closer to work authorization while seeking some type of immigration benefit. It also gave New York City the operational credibility to advocate for improvements to federal immigration procedures. This paper examines the creation and impact of the Center and makes four recommendations: Advocacy should start with good operations. The Center was able to achieve positive changes to procedural hurdles in the federal immigration system because of its scale and the quality of its applications. High-quality operations at scale cannot only have a large impact but also create leverage to advocate for change. Municipal governments should operationalize best practices learned during emergencies. Short-term emergencies often result in some of the most effective government responses. Successful innovations should be incorporated into local governments’ social service systems once the emergency ceases to exist. Public and private actors can, and should, collaborate in response to major challenges facing cities. The success of the Center was due in large part to collaboration among public and private actors. It represents the work of a city that found ways to leverage the highest and best use of each collaborator to rise together and meet a challenge. Government systems should simplify processes and focus on substance. The US immigration system is fractured. Reform is needed to ensure that immigration benefit applications are adjudicated on their merits, rather than on the ability of the applicant to access and navigate complex federal processes. The section “The challenge facing New York City” of this paper provides context, explaining the challenge facing New York City as hundreds of thousands of asylum seekers arrived. The section “The Asylum Application Help Center and Its Impact” describes how New York City ran the Center and its impact. The final section, “Policy Recommendations”. expands upon the recommendations noted above. More broadly, the Center illustrates how municipal governments can use operational innovation (separate from policy advocacy) to influence implementation of federal immigration law.
Executive Summary In recent years, federal and state immigration policy shifts have extended surveillance, detention, and deportability into workplaces, schools, healthcare institutions, and local communities. This article examines how these enforcement-first conditions shape Florida immigrants’ resettlement experiences, sense of belonging, and conceptions of home. Drawing on 53 interviews with immigrants with varying legal statuses, and employing the right to remain conceptual framework adapted to the resettlement context, we argue that immigrants’ resettlement intentions are best captured through the concept of resettlement ambivalence —a persistent tension between immigrants’ understanding of their right to stay and the fear and uncertainty produced by an enforcement environment that makes staying feel increasingly precarious. We show how enforcement can destabilize long-term resettlement, although most immigrants assert a moral and practical right to stay in the US.Key Findings: Enforcement restructured daily life around risk, limiting mobility and long-term planning, and eroded belonging across all legal statuses, producing resettlement ambivalence. The familiarity of relational ties and security of home complicated resettlement ambivalence. Most participants asserted their understandings of their and their families’ right to stay, rooted in years of residence, family ties, and community contributions. Policy recommendations: Implement pathways to permanent legal status for those with liminal or precarious statuses. Restore sensitive locations protections. Eradicate participation in local 287 (g) agreements. Increase funding for mental health and social services tailored to immigrant communities.
Executive Summary Contemporary humanitarian responses increasingly depend upon refugee leaders and refugee-led organisations to mobilise communities, facilitate implementation, and sustain everyday governance within displacement settings. Yet comparatively little is known about how authority is organised around these intermediary roles or how refugee leaders navigate the institutional arrangements within which they operate. This study examines how refugee leadership operates within Nakivale Refugee Settlement, Uganda, drawing on qualitative data from forty-one participants, including representatives of refugee-led organisations, Refugee Welfare Council leaders, and officials from the Office of the Prime Minister. The findings highlight the centrality of refugee leaders as intermediary actors within settlement governance. They facilitate communication, translate institutional priorities, mobilise communities, and manage local tensions, thereby contributing to the everyday functioning of governance processes. At the same time, their involvement was concentrated primarily within consultation, coordination, and implementation activities, while authority over programme design, resource allocation, and strategic priorities remained institutionally concentrated elsewhere. To account for this dynamic, the study develops the concept of bounded participation, understood as a condition in which responsibilities for communication, consultation, mobilisation, and implementation become institutionally separated from authority over priorities, resources, and strategic decisions. The concept is proposed as one analytical lens for examining humanitarian governance, refugee leadership, and participation by drawing attention to how governance systems may expand opportunities for engagement while maintaining uneven distributions of authority. The findings from Nakivale Refugee Settlement suggest that strengthening refugee participation requires attention not only to opportunities for inclusion but also to the institutional relationships through which influence, accountability, and decision-making authority are organised, with important implications for refugee wellbeing and human security.
Executive Summary After decades of important work resettling millions of vulnerable people, the United States’ refugee resettlement program has experienced drastic shifts since the start of 2025 as a result of anti-refugee polices by the Trump administration. These changes have also wreaked havoc on the refugee-supporting infrastructure — globally, domestically, and locally in refugee-dense cities like Buffalo, New York — that has been assembled over time with great ingenuity and dedication. However, refugee communities will continue to persist in the United States. In the research presented here, we examine long-term economic integration experiences in refugee communities in Buffalo, New York. Employment is central to economic integration and security of refugees in the United States. This study examines employment-related challenges that persist well beyond the initial resettlement period and some of the ways these issues are addressed. It draws on interviews with two types of key informants who regularly support refugees: community leaders and service providers. While there are many success stories to celebrate, the data show that difficulties first encountered during resettlement often continue for years for many individuals in the refugee community, despite the relative strength of the local support infrastructure for refugees both during and following resettlement. These challenges relate partly to the construction of the refugee resettlement program in the past, particularly the programmatic rush to self-sufficiency in a 90-day window after arrival. But they also speak to the difficult nature of the project: remaking a life after profound displacement, often accompanied by substantial language barriers and trauma, in the context of US cities and labor markets which often feature unaffordable or unsafe housing, inaccessible transportation, low wages, and employment precarity. We highlight four themes from our data – language barriers, job search strategies, navigating US systems, and efforts to improve job quality – as well as differences across respondents. The policy recommendations we offer are made with an eye toward a revived and robust refugee resettlement program in the future. However, understanding and addressing the challenges refugee communities continue to face after years in the US is still a living project. Thus, our recommendations also build on a recognition that the long-term economic integration of refugees has always been a project not fully contained or determined by federal programs, and that there is ample room to enhance state and local support in addressing the employment challenges refugees experience in the long term. We identify three areas for policy improvement to strengthen refugee economic integration. First, we hope that a robust federal refugee resettlement program will return in the future. If that happens, we should take the opportunity to build in improvements to the resettlement period, which could help address long-term employment challenges, including extended and expanded language and job support and more opportunities for retraining and recertifications. Second, expanding support for refugee-led community organizations and adopting more innovative approaches could help address some of the long-term challenges. These reforms could be integrated into future versions of federal programs, but there is also ample opportunity in the current moment for such support from state and local sources. Third, while it may sound counterintuitive, we recommend that state, local, and community programs think about refugees less as “refugees” first and instead work to integrate refugees into existing programming aimed at non-refugee households. Although there are unique aspects to refugee community members, many of the challenges they face are problems also shared by a much larger segment of the US population. We recommend thinking about poverty-alleviation and employment supports more broadly, and then, subsequently thinking about what additional language, cultural tailoring or outreach by trusted partners may be necessary to ensure reaching refugee community members.
Executive Summary Irregular migration at the Canada-US border, along with associated dangers, has received increased attention since the implementation of the Canada-US Safe Third Country Agreement . Reports by non-governmental organizations highlight the lethality of irregular migration at this border. Nevertheless, not only do reports fail to provide estimates of migrant fatalities, but there are also no official data sources on deaths produced by authorities in either country. Using this silence as a starting point, we ask: How many migrants perish while crossing the Canada-US border? To what extent, if at all, are US and Canadian officials tracking border-crosser deaths in this region? What can we learn from media reporting on this issue? We addressed these questions by (1) submitting public records requests to federal authorities in Canada and the United States, and (2) conducting an exhaustive search of media coverage on migrant deaths published by Canadian and US newspapers. Records requests resulted in just one migrant fatality recorded by the Royal Canadian Mounted Police. Yet, media reports confirmed 40 migrant fatalities, which most likely constitute an undercount. Given the overall underwhelming attention paid to deaths at the Canada-US border, we conclude by discussing the factors contributing to the lack of visibility of this ongoing human tragedy. Considering our study’s findings, we provide the following policy recommendations: ● The federal governments of the United States and Canada should create a classification system—like the one utilized by the Pima County Office of the Medical Examiner in Tucson, Arizona—that local officials in jurisdictions along the Canada-US border could use to categorize decedents as suspected irregular border-crossers. ● Increased communication, collaboration, and transparency between local authorities involved in the investigation of migrant fatalities at the Canada-US border and federal immigration officials in both countries. For example, authorities should liaise with their counterparts on the other side of the border for any migrant fatality investigation. We suggest the establishment of a working group modeled on the informal Working Group on Accounting for Migrant Deaths along the US-Mexico Border. ● Address jurisdictional challenges in the Canadian context that lead to a vacuum of official accountability in tracking migrant fatalities on Canadian territory and report on migrant fatalities at the border on an annual basis. For example, our research suggests that officials at the national headquarters of the Royal Canadian Mounted Police (RCMP) do not have access to data about fatalities investigated by their local detachments across the country. Migrant deaths at the Canada-US border are likely investigated by a range of agencies, including RCMP and local police forces that may be administered by provincial, municipal, and Indigenous governments. ● The US Missing Persons and Unidentified Remains Act of 2019, which is public law, requires that US Customs and Border Protection (CBP) annually report to the US Congress the number and location of migrant fatalities that occur at the U.S.-Mexico border, and that these estimates be disclosed publicly within 30 days of each reporting period, the latter of which CBP currently does not do. The Missing Persons and Unidentified Remains Act should be amended to include migrant fatalities at the US-Canada Border. Furthermore, CBP should adjust its public reporting of deaths at the US-Mexico border to comply with the law.
Executive Summary The literature on digitalization in asylum management remains divided on its benefits and risks, particularly in developing countries. While many studies emphasize the administrative efficiencies that digital tools provide, few explore their social and ethical implications, especially concerning the exclusion of vulnerable groups and the political and institutional contexts in which these technologies are implemented. This article addresses this gap by examining the impact of technologies implemented by the Mexican Commission for Refugee Assistance (COMAR) with support from the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) on asylum seekers in Mexico. Using a qualitative approach, we analyze tools such as biometric systems, digital archives, and case management platforms. Our findings suggest potential efficiency improvements and reduced waiting times, but also highlight significant risks, including data privacy concerns for vulnerable populations and new barriers for women and those with limited digital literacy. This study offers a critical assessment of digitalization in the context of international protection and emphasizes the need for more inclusive digital policies to safeguard refugee rights. We recommend a set of policy measures aimed at balancing efficiency with equity and protection: To consolidate administrative improvements, authorities should standardize procedures, delegate case-management powers, and institutionalize systematic training and auditing. Yet efficiency alone is insufficient: protecting vulnerable populations requires governing interoperability with safeguards. Purpose-limited data-sharing agreements are essential to prevent privacy breaches and the misuse of personal information. The digital transition must avoid creating new barriers for women and individuals with limited digital literacy. Maintaining legally equivalent offline alternatives, simplifying and translating forms, and expanding accessibility measures are critical to ensuring that technological progress translates into inclusive protection. COMAR and UNHCR, in particular, should play a leading role in promoting user-centered design and outreach to marginalized groups by incorporating digital inclusion as a core, rights-based principle of asylum system digitalization. Legitimacy, accountability, and sustainability should be reinforced through participatory review mechanisms, independent audits, stable funding for maintenance and security, contractual safeguards for data integrity and service continuity, and the alignment of external support with domestic capacity-building goals.
Executive Summary For a decade now, several regions of Burkina Faso have been affected by a security crisis, forcing residents to migrate internally to safer locations, particularly urban centers. However, these internally displaced persons (IDPs) face enormous social and economic difficulties in their daily lives in these host cities. This research focuses on the mechanisms for building resilience among these displaced persons who have settled in the cities of Ouahigouya and Bobo-Dioulasso in Burkina Faso. Its objective is to analyze the strategies implemented to help IDPs recover from the shock or adapt effectively to their new situation. To this end, a mixed-methods approach was used, resulting in the collection of both qualitative and quantitative data. Both institutional and individual strategies have been developed to promote IDPs’ resilience. Interventions by the state and non-governmental organizations (NGOs) have focused on providing temporary housing, food and non-food support, and cash transfers. These actions have helped some displaced persons recover and have even enabled others to rebuild their livelihoods through income-generating activities. In parallel with these institutional initiatives, IDPs are developing strategies that draw on identity references and connections to facilitate their integration, to search for income-generating activities, to cope with stress, and to build resilience. Despite this, IDPs’ resilience is less pronounced. The shortcomings of the support system have led some of them to resort to negative coping strategies such as begging and survival sex. Policy Recommendations: The Burkinabe state must strengthen the social protection system to give IDPs more opportunities to invest in income-generating activities with the cash they receive. The Burkinabe government and its partners should set up a vocational training program to meet the professional retraining needs of immigrants and promote the sustainability of their income-generating activities. The Burkinabe state must coordinate the interventions of institutional actors to increase the effectiveness of actions. NGOs should implement a permanent monitoring system to increase the effective use of the funds received.
Executive Summary This study investigates the dynamic interplay between climate change, migration, and inequality in 46 Sub-Saharan African (SSA) countries from 2009 to 2021, highlighting their combined impact on income and market disparities. Climate change worsens inequality by disproportionately affecting vulnerable populations that are reliant on agriculture, leading to displacement, economic instability, and food insecurity. Migration is often a coping mechanism for climate-induced challenges, which influences inequality through remittances and labor mobility. The study employs panel data analysis, using Driscoll-Kraay standard error estimates and Generalized Method of Moments (GMM) techniques to establish causality. It examines income inequality within countries and market inequality among countries, incorporating control variables such as resource endowment, trade openness, corruption, inflation, and government expenditure. The study finds that climate change significantly increases income inequality within SSA countries, with a 1 percent rise in climate change associated with a 6 percent increase in income inequality, as it disrupts livelihoods, particularly for the poorest communities. International migration, however, reduces intra-country inequality by 1 percent increase in migration flows, largely due to remittances which improve household incomes in lower-income brackets. The interaction of climate change and international migration has a slight additional effect, increasing income inequality by 0.001 units per percentage increase, indicating that climate-induced migration exacerbates disparities. Conversely, this interaction between climatic change and international migration mitigates market inequality among SSA countries, fostering economic integration and resource allocation. Resource endowment, surprisingly, worsens income inequality due to the resource curse, benefiting elites while neglecting broader populations. Corruption and inflation further amplify income disparities. By contrast, increased government expenditure reduces inequality by creating job opportunities and supporting equitable growth. The study stresses the urgent need for integrated policy interventions to address the intertwined challenges of climate change, migration, and inequality in SSA. It recommends climate mitigation policies that prioritize inequality reduction, focusing on vulnerable groups through climate-resilient agriculture, sustainable livelihoods, and social safety nets. Enhancing transparency and cooperation in managing shared resources, such as waterways and forests, is crucial to curb corruption and conflicts. These measures conform with Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) 10 (reduced inequalities), 13 (climate action), and 8 (decent work and economic growth).
Executive Summary This article argues that the long-standing binary between “refugees” and “economic migrants” is doctrinally outdated and normatively indefensible in light of contemporary displacement realities. While the 1951 Refugee Convention recognizes persecution only as targeted political or identity-based harm, millions of people today are compelled to migrate by forms of extreme deprivation produced by discriminatory governance, systemic state neglect, and global economic structures. The article develops the concept of structural persecution to describe situations in which socio-economic harm is attributable to identifiable state actions, omissions, or broader systems of power, and demonstrates how such circumstances can fall within the meaning of persecution under existing Convention grounds. It proposes an interpretive framework that enables refugee law to respond coherently to modern displacement dynamics without altering the Convention definition, while also grounding protection within a broader framework of global justice. Key Findings: The refugee/economic migrant divide is a legal fiction that obscures the political and structural drivers of poverty-induced displacement. Extreme deprivation is often the result of identifiable policies, governance failures, or transnational economic arrangements, not neutral misfortune. Current refugee doctrine privileges individualized, intentional harm, making it poorly equipped to recognize coercion embedded in structural systems, such as state abdication of essential services, discriminatory development policies, or state complicity in environmental degradation. Human rights law already recognizes severe socio-economic deprivation as a violation of core rights, including life, dignity, subsistence, and non-discrimination. The artificial separation between refugee law and human rights law produces an incoherent protection regime. Structural persecution is compatible with the Refugee Convention when understood as persecution arising from systemic deprivation linked to a Convention ground. It can be analyzed through established concepts such as constructive persecution, cumulative harm, and discriminatory impact. Regional frameworks in Africa and Latin America already acknowledge that displacement stems from complex crises involving economic collapse, governance failure, and environmental harm. These instruments offer models for more context-reflective protection in international law. Global inequities and historical patterns of extraction shape contemporary mobility, creating obligations of responsibility-sharing for states whose policies contribute to structural drivers of displacement. Policy Recommendations: Integrate structural persecution into refugee status determination by adopting doctrinal tests that assess serious harm, structural causation, disproportionate impact linked to Convention grounds, and lack of state protection. Issue UNHCR and national-level guidance explicitly recognizing that systemic deprivation, when attributable to identifiable actors or policies, may constitute persecution under the 1951 Convention. Expand complementary protection frameworks to cover individuals fleeing survival-threatening conditions where structural harm does not neatly align with Convention grounds. Develop responsibility-sharing mechanisms, including financial, resettlement, and technical commitments, based on states’ contributions to global economic, environmental, and security structures that generate displacement. Reform global migration governance frameworks, including implementation of the Global Compacts, to better protect individuals in “vulnerable situations” whose displacement arises from structural forces. Strengthen regional protection systems and support Global South innovations, such as those reflected in the Cartagena Declaration and Kampala Convention, to ensure that structural drivers of displacement are recognized as legitimate grounds for protection. Align humanitarian, development, and protection programming with the understanding that displacement is often rooted in systemic inequalities, requiring holistic responses that address both immediate needs and underlying structural conditions.
Executive Summary Early marriage presents significant risks to the well-being of children around the world. Likewise, migrant children experience significant vulnerabilities in the United States as they confront complex legal and administrative proceedings. At a crucial intersection of migration and marriage, scholars, advocates, and lawmakers have recognized ways that US immigration law enables child marriage. Research and public policy has yet to consider, however, a unique population at the juncture of marriage, migration, and childhood: wedded girls in immigration detention. Using administrative data that the Office of Refugee Resettlement provided in response to Freedom of Information Act requests and litigation, this study documents for the first time the reality of minor wives — married girls — in ORR immigration detention and the US government practice of releasing them to adult spouses and informal partners. The decision to release any minor from government custody to an adult sexual partner merits critical attention. This study provides that initial critical attention and sets the stage for further research. Using a UNICEF definition of child marriage, this study considers both formal and informal unions. During the study period from October 1, 2014, to September 30, 2024, ORR released at least 427 minors to an adult sexual partner, 206 to a legal spouse and 221 to an informal partner. Because of data constraints that limit the identification of children in informal marriages, this study’s count likely underestimates the total number of children the US government has released from immigration detention to an adult sexual partner. Further, this study identifies and contextualizes risks for married migrant minors in the US states to which ORR has released the minors by reference to the states’ laws regarding the minimum age for marriage and statutory rape. This article makes the following policy recommendations to reform the US detention system for migrant children: As ORR makes decisions regarding a minor’s release from immigration custody to an adult sexual partner, it should document its consideration of the risks and benefits in a mandatory, rather than discretionary, home study. If ORR decides to release a minor to an adult sexual partner, it should ensure that the release complies with relevant state law regarding marriage, sex, and consent. ORR should develop and “implement robust feedback mechanisms to ensure solicitation, documentation and consideration” of minors’ own views (Heidbrink and Díaz 2024, 20) to demonstrate respect for minors’ autonomy regarding their relationships despite the compounded constraints of childhood, immigration detention, and undocumented legal status. With access to additional qualitative data, further research could provide a greater understanding of ORR’s decision making processes than the quantitative data of this study allow. Further research should assess short, medium, and long-term outcomes for girls released from ORR immigration detention to their adult sexual partners, both to support girls’ well-being and to better inform ORR decision making.
Executive Summary The United States Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) detains hundreds of thousands of noncitizens each year in the world’s largest immigration detention system. A recent proliferation of federal policies and funding has accelerated detention and deportation to unprecedented levels, increasing exposure to immigration enforcement across the US immigrant population. Yet despite this mass expansion, we know very little about how detention experiences may expose immigrants to unique vulnerabilities that worsen their health even after deportation. Using representative, repeated cross-sectional survey data from Central American immigrants deported from the United States between 2017 and 2019 and surveyed in the Survey of Migration in the Southern Border of Mexico (EMIF Sur), this study examines the extent to which one dimension of immigration detention — experiences of abuse and mistreatment while in the custody of US immigration authorities — is associated with self-rated health immediately following deportation. We find that experiencing physical abuse, verbal abuse, and perceived poor treatment by immigration authorities is associated with worse health among recently deported Guatemalan, Honduran, and Salvadoran immigrants. These findings suggest that immigration detention operates as a transnational carceral exposure, with health harms that extend beyond confinement and across national borders, with the potential to shape post-deportation well-being in contexts of return marked by precarity and limited access to health care. Our findings have important policy implications for protecting the health and well-being of current and formerly detained populations. As immigration detention rapidly expands, identifying strategies to mitigate its harms has become increasingly urgent. We offer the following alternatives to mitigate the health harms of detention in the United States, as well as recommendations for receiving countries to identify detention experiences as a significant health risk factor among the deported population: In the United States End the use of detention in civil immigration proceedings. Reform federal immigration law to better align with economic and human realities by expanding lawful migration pathways and reducing the grounds for deportation. Prioritize release from detention, including access to bond hearings for all detained migrants. Formally evaluate alternatives to detention that do not exacerbate harms. Adopt state and local policy reforms aimed to limit exposure to the deportation pipeline. Implement administrative oversight reforms to the detention system. In countries of return Strengthen procedures within government agencies and NGOs in countries of return to systematically document harms experienced during immigration detention. Integrate screening for immigration detention and deportation histories into public health systems to recognize these processes as a durable social determinant of health. Identify deported individuals at elevated health risk and facilitate timely connections to appropriate care and support services at the earliest possible stage of return.
Executive Summary This paper proposes practical options for extending sustainable social protection to refugees and asylum seekers (RAS) in Egypt by leveraging Takaful and Karama (TKP), Egypt’s flagship poverty-targeted cash transfer program. Drawing on a desk review and 16 key-informant interviews, it argues that moving from fragmented humanitarian assistance to predictable, development-oriented support is feasible and necessary, provided reforms protect poor Egyptians, remain fiscally credible, and strengthen social cohesion. Two implementable designs are assessed: (i) phased inclusion of eligible RAS into TKP through district pilots and gradual benefit harmonization under transparent poverty-targeting rules; and (ii) a ring-fenced “TKP for Refugees” (TKP4R) window that uses TKP delivery systems (targeting, payments, management information systems, and grievance mechanisms) but maintains separate financing and accounting to safeguard resources for Egyptian beneficiaries. The paper outlines governance and multi-year financing required to operationalize either option. Key Findings: RAS numbers are rising and concentrated in cities; households face affordability, food insecurity, and documentation barriers. Short residency validity, issuance/renewal delays, and limited administrative recognition of UNHCR documentation impede services, mobility, and KYC compliance. Complex work-permit pathways and limited formal hiring push many RAS into informal work, raising exploitation risk. TKP has a mature delivery infrastructure, yet benefit adequacy has been eroded by inflation, and coverage gaps for poor Egyptians persist. Inclusion is feasible if paired with clear institutional roles under the evolving asylum framework, phased harmonization, accessible grievance redress, monitoring, and credible communications. Policy Recommendations: Government of Egypt: The Ministry of Interior should improve residency-permit reliability (align validity with physical issuance; reduce backlogs via service standards). The Standing Committee for Refugee Affairs (Law No. 164/2024), coordinated by the Cabinet/Prime Minister’s Office and UNHCR, should operationalize executive regulations clarifying refugee status determination roles and standardizing administrative use of UNHCR documentation for defined functions (including KYC/program administration), with safeguards. The Ministry of Social Solidarity, with the Ministry of Finance and the Ministry of Planning and Economic Development, should implement TKP pilots and a published benefit-harmonization schedule and/or establish ring-fenced TKP4R on TKP rails with dashboards and routine reporting. The Ministry of Manpower (with ILO support) should streamline sector-based work permits and pilot apprenticeships/time-bound employer incentives. The Central Bank of Egypt should enable tiered KYC to expand access to mobile money and basic banking. International partners: The World Bank/IFIs, EU, and major donors should establish multi-year, results-based co-financing with the Ministry of Finance/Ministry of Social Solidarity, including independent verification and inflation-responsive adequacy top-ups, and scale concessional “jobs compacts” tied to verified formal employment. UN agencies/NGOs, regional, and private actors: UNHCR/WFP/UNICEF and NGOs should align cash with TKP/TKP4R where feasible, maintain targeted top-ups, and adopt safeguarded referral/data protocols with Egyptian counterparts. Relevant OIC bodies and major Zakat/Awqaf institutions should channel Islamic social finance through auditable, Sharia-compliant arrangements (e.g., TKP4R) with UNHCR’s Refugee Zakat Fund. Employers and regulators, led by the Ministry of Manpower, Ministry of Finance, and Central Bank of Egypt, should pilot compliant hiring pathways and proportionate financial access under tiered KYC.
Executive Summary Since 2021, over 468,000 unaccompanied children have been apprehended by US immigration agencies and transferred into the care of the Office of Refugee Resettlement. According to the most recent data from the Office of Homeland Security Statistics (2025), more than 370,000 unaccompanied children’s cases are still working their way through the complex US immigration legal system. Unaccompanied children have long been identified as a population particularly vulnerable to abuse and exploitation and in need of specialized care. This reality has shaped legal decisions and legislation since the early 2000s, setting forth policies that aim to preserve children’s legal rights and well-being. However, there have been significant shifts in the federal government’s approach to the care, oversight, and management of unaccompanied children since January 2025. This paper examines transformations in the policies and practices governing the treatment of unaccompanied children since this time and the emerging impacts of these shifts. To do this, we analyze observational data collected in web-based immigration hearings for unaccompanied children between April and August 2025, government policies and documents, the legal arguments presented in litigation related to unaccompanied children’s rights and treatment, and media reports. Our analysis is informed by our positionality as staff at a national nonprofit legal advocacy organization that administers programs serving unaccompanied children, providing us unique insight into the everyday impacts shifts in policy and practice have had on the treatment of children and their access to legal resources. Our analysis demonstrates the numerous ways in which the protections afforded unaccompanied children as they move through the immigration system are being eroded, despite claims that these moves are necessary to protect children from trafficking and other harms. Drawing on our findings, we propose the following policy recommendations: Unnecessarily invasive and cumbersome sponsor vetting requirements should be removed and new programs and plans to address the mental, physical, and educational needs of children experiencing prolonged detention should be implemented. Sponsor vetting practices should focus squarely on whether a potential sponsor can safely care for the child and should be completely disassociated from immigration enforcement objectives. Policymakers should advance legislation that guarantees and funds in-person legal services, including representation, from trained, independent providers to all unaccompanied children. The Department of Justice should reinstate juvenile dockets across all immigration courts, ensuring that judges presiding over unaccompanied children’s cases are trained in child-friendly and developmentally appropriate ways of engaging children and provided with clear guidelines for how these principles should be put into practice. There should additionally be consistent oversight of proceedings to ensure that children are treated appropriately and consistently across immigration courts. Policymakers should advocate for the full re-staffing of the Department of Homeland Security Office for Civil Rights and Civil Liberties and Unaccompanied Children Office of the Ombuds. Policymakers should be attentive to efforts to leave offices intact in name while staffing purges limit their ability to effectively protect the rights and well-being of children. US Citizenship and Immigration Services should reinstate policy guidance that automatically confers deferred action to youth with special immigrant juvenile status who are unable to apply for adjustment of status solely due to unavailability of immigrant visas.
The UN Refugee Convention and Protocol, as well as the UN Convention Against Torture, impose upon states a duty to prevent refoulement. Yet, migrant destination states increasingly attempt to triangulate and circumvent this obligation by removing asylum seekers to third countries to which they have no prior connection. Third-country deportation—often with no due process—has been a favorite tactic of the second Trump Administration in particular, in contravention of longstanding legal precedents. This paper explores some of the unique legal and ethical problems which arise in cases of third-country deportation, including disruption of migrants’ reasonable expectations; ignoring the historical responsibilities that arise out of particular bilateral or dyadic migration systems; what Allison Wolf calls “derivatization” of migrants in which cruelty is styled as deterrence; and, most troublingly, the specter of triangular refoulement (a risk which already has in fact been realized in numerous Trump-era third-country deportations). To the extent that a third-country deportation regime theoretically could be constructed without falling afoul of international and domestic law, it is clear no such regime has yet emerged in practice.
Executive Summary This article examines how Uzbek migrant workers in Russia create and sustain forms of protection, care, and support under conditions of legal precarity, labor exploitation, and limited institutional trust. Drawing on longitudinal multisited ethnographic fieldwork conducted between 2014 and 2026 in Moscow and Uzbekistan’s Fergana Valley, it introduces the concept of migrant securities to capture the socially embedded forms of protection migrants collectively produce through kinship ties, mahalla networks, reciprocity, emotional support, and informal care infrastructures. The study situates migrant experiences within Russia’s migration regime, characterized by strong demand for migrant labor alongside restrictive, unpredictable, and increasingly securitized migration governance. Migrants routinely confront police inspections, deportability, unstable legal status, exploitative labor conditions, overcrowded housing, and racialized discrimination. Following Russia’s invasion of Ukraine in 2022, intensified surveillance, migration controls, and anti-migrant sentiment further deepened these vulnerabilities. The findings show that migrants actively organize alternative forms of security that operate alongside—and often compensate for—limited formal protections. Mahalla and community networks function as informal welfare systems that mobilize support during detention, illness, workplace injuries, unemployment, and housing crises. Migrants also seek recognition and legitimacy through everyday interactions with Russian neighbors, employers, and coworkers, using acts of care and assistance to secure trust, social acceptance, and practical protection. Funeral repatriation emerges as a particularly important form of collective action through which migrants ensure dignity, belonging, and social recognition beyond death. Emotional support, reciprocity, and religious belief likewise provide essential resources for coping with fear, loneliness, uncertainty, and exclusion. The article contributes to debates on migration, security, and governance by demonstrating that security is not produced solely by states and formal institutions. Rather, it is often socially generated through relationships of reciprocity, obligation, and care. At the same time, these informal systems are not substitutes for institutional protection; they frequently emerge precisely because migrants lack reliable access to labor rights, legal assistance, healthcare, and social services. The findings suggest that migration policies should complement community-based support systems by strengthening migrants’ access to legal protection, labor rights enforcement, healthcare, and emergency assistance.
Executive Summary This paper shows detailed estimates of the U.S. undocumented population in 2024. These estimates include detailed estimates of persons in “liminal” statuses. They account for a period (since 2020) of large-scale migration, legal and illegal, to the United States that significantly contributed to its undocumented population. The estimates show that 3.0 million of the population that arrived from 2021 to 2024 were known to the federal government because they arrived as asylum applicants or parolees, and 1.7 million arrived by crossing the border without inspection or overstaying their temporary visas. The paper reports that: The U.S. undocumented population totaled 14.6 million in 2024, a large one-year increase of 2.4 million. The proportion of the undocumented population in 2024 to the total foreign-born population (29%) and to the total U.S. population (4%) is consistent with the ratios over the last quarter century. More than one-third of the “undocumented” (5.4 million) in these estimates are, in fact, documented and known to the federal government, including non-citizens with temporary protected and humanitarian statuses, asylum seekers, and others – select survivors of crime, human trafficking, and juveniles in need of humanitarian protection – with pending or approved immigration applications or petitions. The labor force participation rate of the U.S. undocumented population (73%) substantially exceeded that of the U.S. population as a whole (64%). Undocumented workers had significant concentrations in construction (19%); accommodation and food services (13%); and administrative and waste management services (10%). More than two-thirds of the undocumented population in 2024 had lived in the United States for at least five years, and nearly 40 percent for fifteen years or more. The latter group were more established in the country than more recent arrivals, as evidenced by their higher rates of marriage (50%) and other indicia of integration. Mexican nationals continued to represent the highest number (5.1 million) and percentage (35%) of undocumented residents, but the U.S. undocumented population from Central American and South America grew at a much faster rate between 2020 and 2024. The growth in the undocumented population in U.S. states between 2020 and 2024 varied by country of origin. Nearly one-half of the increase in the undocumented population in Florida, for example, were from Venezuela and Haiti. Venezuelans and Hondurans comprised one-half of the growth in the undocumented population in Texas, while Guatemalans and Ecuadorians accounted for much of the increase in New York and New Jersey. Venezuela, Haiti, Ecuador, and Nicaragua – countries plagued by violence, repression, turmoil, and poverty – were among the fastest growing U.S. undocumented populations by country of origin between 2020 and 2024. In 2024, 5.1 million children under the age of eighteen who were US citizens, naturalized citizens, or had some other authorized status had at least one parent who was undocumented. Within this group, 1.9 million children had two parents who were undocumented. The study paints a portrait of a population that includes both well-established, long-term residents, and one that expanded in the aftermath of COVID-19 and in the first years of the Biden administration. The paper proposes a better way (than mass deportation) to resolve the situation of a substantial minority of the U.S. undocumented population. It urges Congress to update the entry date for a program (registry) that has been on the books since 1929 and offers a path to permanent residence to long-term undocumented residents with “good moral character.” Congress has advanced the entry date to qualify for registry several times since 1929. However, at present an undocumented resident would need to have lived continuously in the United States for fifty-four years to qualify. Moving forward the entry date to January 1, 2012, the paper shows, would offer legal status to more than five million undocumented residents, although not all of those who entered before January 1, 2012 would apply or qualify.
Refugee women in Uganda, face systemic challenges that undermine their ability to achieve economic autonomy despite their resilience. Drawing on testimonies from 39 respondents at the Nakivale Refugee Settlement, this study examines how personal agency, institutional support, and community-based systems interact to shape economic empowerment within Uganda’s refugee policies. The narratives were analyzed thematically through the lens of the right to stay, migrate, and return framework, while allowing respondents’ voices to challenge and refine its assumptions. Findings show that while women demonstrate self-determination through entrepreneurial initiatives and collective savings groups, their autonomy is constrained by gendered inequalities, limited access to financial resources, and insufficient institutional support. Women consistently described fear of gender-based violence and economic insecurity as decisive factors shaping mobility decisions, underscoring that migration is perceived less as opportunity than as survival necessity. Existing programs such as microfinance and savings groups provide short-term relief but fail to enable business scaling, leaving women confined to survival strategies. The study critiques the right to stay framework, arguing that autonomy cannot be fully realized without addressing structural constraints and gendered barriers. Policy implications include expanding access to larger loans, integrating business training and financial literacy, and strengthening community-based support systems. Ultimately, the respondents’ experiences compel a feminist refinement of the right to stay: autonomy must be understood as relational, structurally contingent, and gendered, with dignity rather than survival at the heart of the right to remain.
This article analyzes how Uganda’s progressive refugee governance model encounters structural implementation barriers in the West Nile borderlands, where institutional pluralism, spatial marginality, and porous borders reshape the delivery of protection and integration. Drawing on ethnographic fieldwork and stakeholder interviews in Nebbi and Yumbe districts, the study examines how national frameworks are reinterpreted through local governance arrangements marked by overlapping authorities, contested land tenure, and uneven resource distribution. The analysis shows that implementation challenges are not solely technical or financial but are rooted in deeper tensions between statutory and customary systems of authority, as well as the enduring influence of colonial legacies and kinship networks. These factors combine to fragment service delivery, constrain institutional coordination, and shape the lived experience of both refugees and hosts.
Executive Summary This paper documents and analyzes the origins, consequences, and uncertain legacy of the second Trump administration’s humanitarian assistance, refugee, and immigration policies. Its first section introduces the administration’s signature policies, which both build upon and sharply depart from those of recent administrations, Republican and Democratic. Its second section recounts how nativist language and tropes centered Donald Trump’s rise and return to power, and how they inform the administration’s refugee and immigration agenda. Its third section discusses the laws and jurisprudence that laid the groundwork for these policies. It outlines the growth in immigration enforcement spending and authorities over multiple presidencies. In addition, it highlights the first Trump administration’s refugee and immigration policies, and describes the sweeping executive orders (EOs) that inaugurated the second Trump administration. The fourth section examines the legal theories offered in support of the administration’s policies, how they have fared in U.S. courts, and the effects of these policies on targeted populations, U.S. families, businesses, and communities. The fifth section sets forth several themes that unify these policies: A highly selective and instrumental view of the rule of law. Cruelty as a guiding principle and strategy. Hostility to programs and policies intended to benefit the poor and persecuted, regardless of their status. The failure to address neuralgic problems in the U.S. immigration system or to pursue humanitarian, refugee, and legal immigration policies that serve the nation’s values, needs, and interests. The paper urges a return to fundamental American values and commitments. It concludes with detailed recommendations to guide the development of strengthened and integrated U.S. humanitarian, refugee, asylum, and immigration policies.
This article examines the legal and identity implications of forced evacuations in South Lebanon amid the 2023–2025 escalation of the Israel-Hezbollah conflict. Drawing on qualitative fieldwork with 80 displaced families from Aita al-Shaab, Khiam, and Odaisseh, it interrogates how prolonged displacement — absent state-led return, restitution, or recognition — transforms internal displacement into a condition of de facto exile. Using the lens of international refugee, human rights, and humanitarian law, including the Guiding Principles on Internal Displacement and the Pinheiro Principles, the study reveals how Lebanon’s lack of a formal framework for internally displaced persons (IDPs) and its selective reconstruction efforts undermine displaced individuals’ rights and legal belonging. It further explores how displacement intersects with class, political affiliation, and sectarian dynamics, deepening inequalities in access to aid, return, and recognition. The article challenges the assumption that humanitarian assistance can substitute for legal protection, emphasizing that the failure to translate international obligations into domestic enforcement mechanisms leaves IDPs in a state of legal and political limbo. Conceptually, it engages with theories of “displacement in place,” “involuntary immobility,” and “stuckness” to show how legal ambiguity, psychological toll, and administrative erasure reconfigure internal displacement as a state of exclusion and abandonment. Ultimately, the article calls for a rights-based and enforceable approach to internal displacement in Lebanon, arguing that without legal accountability and state action, humanitarianism alone cannot address the structural dimensions of exile.
