ABSTRACT
Since the Displaced Persons Act of 1948, the United States has become one of the primary destinations for resettlement of refugees worldwide. According to the 2006 edition of The State of the World’s Refugees by the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR), at least 51 million people in the world – more than the entire population of Canada – have been forced to run for their lives, and are either temporarily or permanently exiled from their homes (UNHCR 2006). Of this, an estimated 16 million are refugees living in camps or similar conditions. The number of refugees worldwide has recently risen for the first time in five years, largely because of the exodus of more than 7.4 million people mainly from the Middle East. These important statistics point to the seriousness and scope of the conditions of refugees and internally displaced people globally. Global movement in population has become a prominent feature of contemporary society. This new phenomenon – large-scale movement of people who are fleeing their native countries – has come to be referred to as “the global refugee crisis.” According to Buijs (1993: 1), the seriousness of the crisis is further illustrated by the fact that 58 years after the signing of the Geneva Convention relating to the Status of Refugees (Refugee Convention) the phenomenon of refugee movements persists, and what was once thought to be a short-term challenge is now a persistent reality. According to the European Council on Refugees and Exiles (ECRE), not only are refugees unable to return to their country of origin voluntarily, but also, in many of these cases, they languish in refugee camps in inhuman conditions, with limited or no opportunities for self-reliance or local integration (ECRE 2008). As a result, a significant number of refugees in third countries for resettlement suffer from severe
psychosocial and physical health concerns, little or no formal education, and, for children, greater developmental challenges. In this chapter, we explore how the Refugee Resettlement Program in one US state, Utah, approaches the challenges of refugee integration. The chapter focuses on how to strategically situate refugee programs in order to benefit more refugees in line with the Geneva Convention of 1951. Further, the study looks to the future, asking questions about how states can best address the identified problems and nature of refugee resettlement, while also exploring implications for how states provide integration support to refugees with special needs. In short, while a fairly large body of empirical research and policy documents addresses refugee integration at a high level of aggregation (e.g., the nation), studies on refugee integration at the state and local level are scarce. Geo-JaJa and Mangum (2007), cited extensively here, may be the only study that comes close to reporting on the problems of resettlement programs in Utah specifically. In providing constructive input to a number of refugee policy issues and in focusing on positively influencing the integration debate, this study considers two integration issues by examining the patterns of refugee integration on the one hand and the provided refugee services on the other. This chapter is intended to serve as a first step in the development of a “best practice” approach to ensuring full integration of refugees with human rights under a centralized, culturally sensitive resettlement program.
