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Governmental Work

Senators Ask for Iraqi Refugees’ Right to Work

On September 18, 2008, U.S. Senators Bob Casey (D-Pa.) and Ben Cardin (D-Md.) introduced, and USCRI endorsed, the ‘‘Support for Vulnerable and Displaced Iraqis Act of 2008,” calling for the Administration to “develop a comprehensive regional strategy” that will “address the serious challenges facing refugees from Iraq, including—(A) the lack of legal status recognized by host governments and the inability of refugees to work legally.”

Senators Write to World Bank on “Regulatory Quality” and Refugee Rights

Senators Edward M. Kennedy (D-Mass) and Patrick J. Leahy (D-Vt), chairs of the subcommittees on refugees and  foreign aid appropriations, respectively, wrote a letter April 22, 2008 to the World Bank Institute which measures countries’ “Regulatory Quality” for the Millennium Challenge Corporation and other development agencies to determine whether they merit development aid.  Excerpts:

The annual World Refugee Survey, published by the U.S. Committee for Refugees and Immigrants, is the most authoritative report on the challenges that refugees face worldwide, and its statistics measure the world’s refugee population on a country-by-country basis.  The publication, which has been in existence for nearly 50 years, has been cited in hundreds of books and scholarly treatises by leading experts in refugee law and policy.

The World Bank Institute has had a constructive role by developing objective measures of Regulatory Quality to assess the degree to which a country’s rules and regulations restrict or promote productive commercial activity, which is of vital interest to refugees.  Two-thirds of the world’s refugees are, in effect, “warehoused” for ten years or more—confined to camps and/or denied their rights to work, practice professions, operate businesses, own property, move about freely, and choose their place of residence.  Millions of refugees are consigned to enforced idleness and dependence, when they could become productive agents of economic growth and development.

The sources used by the World Bank Institute to compile its measurement of Regulatory Quality do not include an assessment of the treatment of refugees in host countries.  We urge you to do so by including sources that objectively assess refugees’ enjoyment of economic rights in your measurements, including the World Refugee Survey. 

Self-Sufficiency in Countries of First Asylum in PRM’s Mandate 

According to Deputy Assistant Secretary of State Kelly Ryan’s December 5, 2007 testimony before the Senate’s Special Committee on Aging, (emphasis added):

  • PRM’s mandate is to provide protection, assistance, and sustainable solutions for refugees.  Though leadership in humanitarian assistance policy and the provision of humanitarian assistance, the Bureau:
  • Works to ensure effective, timely and equitable responses from the U.S. and the international community to provide protection and life sustaining relief for refugees and conflict victims;
  • Works to obtain and maintain first asylum and humane treatment for refugees worldwide;
  • Provides emergency assistance for unexpected, urgent refugee and migration needs;
  • Supports refugee self-sufficiency in countries of first asylum until voluntary repatriation becomes a viable option;
  • Supports voluntary refugee repatriation and reintegration in safety and dignity; and
  • Provides U.S. resettlement to refugees of special humanitarian concern to the United States, in cooperation with the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS).

Refugee Protection Groups Weigh in on “Foreign Assistance Reform”

Big changes are in store for U.S. foreign aid as the State Department pursues structural changes to reflect unified and “strategic” goals.  What could this mean for refugees?  All of the nearly two dozen members of Refugee Council USA endorsed an October 16, 2006 letter to Ambassador Randall Tobias, the State Department’s new director of foreign assistance.  Some of their key points include:

  • integrate refugee protection and/or rights-friendly aid into all foreign aid functions, not just humanitarian “care and maintenance,” otherwise there will be no end to warehousing;
  • make protection a key component of humanitarian action, including refugee rights and the restoration of normal livelihoods;
  • ensure that promotion of economic growth includes refugees’ rights to engage in livelihoods;
  • include international refugee law in the promotion of just governance;
  • development programs often exclude refugees, make sure “investing in people” includes them; and
  • durable solutions for refugees are indicators for peace and security and help reinforce it; gross violations of refugee rights are also a threat to peace.

Sauerbrey: U.S. Pressing for More Freedom for Refugees in Thailand

The United States' chief refugee official, Ellen Sauerbrey, in the opening session of UNHCR's Executive Committee, October 2, 2006, said:

We are pleased by our ability to work with the Thai government, to encourage the Thai government to allow refugees to have more opportunity to access outside of the camp, to access work employment and to have more freedom.

Refugees Back in U.S. Development Legislation

Well, sort of.  House International Relations Committee leaders stripped the express inclusion of refugees from the Millennium Challenge Reauthorization Act (HR 4014) as introduced last October (see archives) before the Committee “mark up.”  But at least we got this much in the July 13, 2006 Report that will accompany the bill to the House floor:

Refugee Treatment.  The Committee would also encourage the MCC to take into consideration a candidate country's respect for the rights of refugees when determining eligibility for funding.  The use of additional data sources could help inform this consideration.

But the overall legislation is in serious trouble and will not likely pass the Senate.  The more fruitful course of action will be to seek an “amendment” to the Senate’s foreign aid spending bill in September with all the language we want.  To make that happen, send letters to Sens. McConnell and Leahy, the chair and ranking member of the relevant subcommittee.  See our Relief-to-Development/Warehousing-to-Freedom page for the whole story.

U.S. Congress again Hears from USCRI about Warehousing

 Lavinia Limon
USCRI President and CEO Lavinia Limón testifying before the House International Relations Committee on May 12.  Photo credit: USCRI/J.Scott
USCRI President and CEO Lavinia Limón testified May 12, 2006 before the U.S. House of Representatives’ International Relations Committee.  Excerpts:

We can make sure that refugees are not destitute and dependent on meager assistance for years to come.  We can begin today by asking governments to consider policy alternatives, such as local hosting arrangements for residual caseloads, linking each refugee with a sponsor or community organization.

As an interim step, governments could develop regional refugee empowerment zones where refugees would be free to live, move and work.  We can invest money in local employers, schools and clinics rather than building isolated educational and medical structures in the camps which separate refugees from the larger society.

Or, in another ten years I can testify before you that millions of refugees continue to live in crowded conditions where they’re not allowed to cultivate their own food or earn income from their labor.  I could report ten years from now that refugees still live off of inadequate food rations; that blue tarps and white tents are still permanent homes for refugees; that we’re still trucking in water and digging wells for refugees in inhospitable living conditions.

Then, would we still consider ourselves leaders in refugee protection?  Will we have made the most of the trillion dollars in appropriated funds spent between now and then?

ASEAN Parliamentarians Visit Camp

 Burmese refugee children
Myanmarese refugee children greeted ASEAN parliamentarians on their visit to the Thai-Myanmar border. Photo credit: ASEAN Interparliamentary Myanmar Caucus

In February 2006, parliamentarians with the Association of Southeast Asian Nations visited an unnamed camp housing more than 20,000 refugees on the Thai-Myanmar Border.  As Cambodian legislator and member of ASEAN’s Inter-Parliamentary Myanmar Caucus, Son Chhay, reported for IPS:

War and military oppression have a devastating effect on people's lives, leaving victims anxious, depressed, and desolate. They develop a feeling of hopelessness about their inability to change their situation and redirect their future. This is particularly true when refugees have lived in camps their whole lives. …

They said that needed our voice to speak on their behalf because their own voices had been violently silenced and oppressed living in a camp. They wanted us to tell the world that they want their freedom and justice.

Papua New Guinea Registers Refugee Births

With the help of UNHCR, UNICEF, the Catholic Diocese of Daru-Kiunga and the government of Papua New Guinea (PNG), more than 1,700 refugee children, many whose parents fled from the Papua province of Indonesia, have now received their birth certificates in a country where only three percent of the general population have their births registered. According to UNHCR, registration is

a crucial first step in attaining rights – from enrolling in school to later opening a bank account, finding a job or obtaining credit. A birth certificate to prove a child's correct age is also an important tool for preventing child labour, under-age military service or conscription, and forced marriage for girls.

As Sister Maureen Sexton of the Kiunga Diocese put it, "As PNG requires more forms of identification, for example, to open bank accounts, enrol in higher education institutions and to get a job, these children will now be able to comply."

UNHCR’s representative Johann Siffointe said the exercise "demonstrates further the PNG Government's commitment to meeting its international obligations and in particular the Refugee Convention and the Convention on the Rights of the Child."

Warehousing Amendment Approved by House-Senate Conference

House and Senate conferees on the Foreign Operations spending bill which funds the refugee program included the following language (which Sen. Lieberman had added to the Senate version earlier) as reported on pp. H9503-04 of the November 2, 2005 Congressional Record:

[F]unds appropriated under this heading should be made available to develop effective responses to protracted refugee situations, including the development of programs to assist long-term refugee populations within and outside traditional camp settings that support refugees living or working in local communities … and encouraging dialogue among refugee hosting communities, [UNHCR], and international and nongovernmental refugee assistance organizations to promote the rights to which refugees are entitled under the [1951] Convention

(The Conference Report passed the House the next day.  Senate passage and the President’s signature into law are virtually certain.)

State Department Refugee Bureau Nominee Answers Warehousing Question

Ellen Sauerbrey, the Administration’s choice to head the State Department’s Bureau of Population, Refugees, and Migration, appeared before the Senate Foreign Relations Committee October 25, 2005. Minority leader Sen. Joseph Biden (D-Del.) submitted the following question in writing and got the following response:

Question (Refugees #3):

Of the more than 11 million refugees in the world today, nearly 7 million have been, in effect, “warehoused” -- confined to camps or segregated settlements or otherwise deprived of their rights to work or freedom of movement -- in situations lasting 10 years or more. According to UNHCR, the average length of refugee situations has risen from nine years in 1993 to over 17 years in 2003. Most of our overseas assistance to such refugees is for “care and maintenance” programs in these situations. If confirmed, how will you help resolve the plight of refugees who live in protracted situations?

Answer:

The U.S. government is a world leader in creating solutions for refugees, whether by supporting peace, democracy, reconstruction and other conditions necessary for the return of long-standing refugee populations to places such as Afghanistan, Burundi, Iraq, Liberia, Sudan, and Bhutan or by resettling them to the United States. Responding to protracted refugee situations is an important component of our government’s efforts to protect refugees’ rights while they await a durable solution. However, I believe we can do more to better integrate refugees in host communities, promote refugees’ rights, and increase their self-reliance.

If confirmed, I will continue efforts to encourage refugee-hosting countries to provide, to the fullest extent possible and consistent with their international obligations, rights and services for refugees on par with that of their nationals. I will also work with UNHCR, host governments, and partner organizations to implement initiatives that promote self-sufficiency and local integration for refugees, including opportunities for employment, increased freedom of movement, and access to education. I understand that PRM takes into account the length of time refugees have been in camps or are without secure status when determining which refugee populations are in need of third country resettlement. If confirmed, I can assure you that I will continue the Bureau’s commitment to protecting refugees in protracted situations. I will also look forward to continued discussions on this important issue with members of Congress, NGOs and other stakeholders.

Refugees To Be Included in the Millennium Challenge Account?

The U.S. Millennium Challenge account is a new development assistance program that requires recipients to show prior demonstrated commitments to democratic governance, economic freedom, and investment in people but with no specific reference to refugees and some language expressly excluding them

On October 7, 2005, U.S. Congressmen Henry Hyde and Tom Lantos, chair and ranking member, respectively, of the House International Relations Committee (HIRC) introduced the Millennium Challenge Reauthorization Act of 2005 (H.R. 4014) which

  • expressly adds “refugees” as persons to whose human and civil rights eligible countries must have a demonstrated commitment,
  • replaces “citizens” with “individuals” among those that eligible countries must commit to economic policies encouraging to participate in trade and markets,
  • includes “a description of the existing constraints to sustainable development in the country, including the productive capacity of the poor” among the things Millennium Challenge Compacts should include, and
  • allows the Millennium Challenge Corporation to make contracts or grants that “include supporting the meaningful participation of a broad spectrum of independent civil society representatives” in the development and implementation of Compact Proposals and their amendments.

This could give host country civil society some important new tools to press for programs facilitating refugees’ rights to freedom of movement and livelihoods, i.e., by identifying warehousing as a constraint to development and productive capacity and by crafting integrated development projects to end it.

U.S. Congressional Refugee Caucus Members Call for More Money for Refugees and Anti-Warehousing Pilot Projects

Congressman Chris Smith (R-N.J.) and 22 other members of the Refugee Caucus in the U.S. House of Representatives wrote a letter October 4, 2005 to the Chair and Ranking Member of the appropriations subcommittee dealing with overseas refugee assistance.  They asked for $900 million (the level passed by the Senate) for refugees in the current fiscal year and for

new programs to assist long-term “warehoused” refugee populations to obtain work and improve educational opportunities.  … [These refugees] have been confined to camps and segregated settlements for excessive periods of time … without access to basic rights such as the right to work, freedom of movement and basic education as called for by the 1951 UN Refugee Convention.

  • more... 
  • On July 18, U.S. Senators Lieberman (D-Conn.), Brownback (R-Kan.) and Kennedy (D-Mass.) introduced and the Senate passed Amendment 1248 to the Foreign Operations funding bill for 2006 (see press release and gave a floor speech supporting it.
  • U.S. Senate Resolution encouraging the protection of the rights of refugees, S.Res 177, introduced on World Refugee Day, June 20 (Congressional Record version with introductory letter from Senator Edward Kennedy).
  • Click here to write and send a letter to get it passed!
  • Write to you Congressional representatives to encourage their support!

Resettlement Study Addresses Warehousing

In his July 28, 2004, The United States Refugee Admissions Program: Reforms for a New Era of Refugee Resettlement, commissioned by the U.S. State Department’s Bureau of Population, Refugees, and Migration, Prof. David A. Martin writes,

Recommendation I-1: The US Refugee Program should be explicitly based on a broad perspective about the use of resettlement.  [U.S. officials] should make it abundantly clear that the USRP is not limited to rescue from grave life-threatening dangers, but will work actively to rescue displaced individuals and groups who face a wider range of harms, including the wastage of human potential that can result from protracted stay in a refugee camp.  [p. xiv and 29]

[T]he United States should actively consider resettlement, for example, for populations that have spent many years of stay in a refugee camp, particularly if the conditions are severe and provide little productive activity for the refugees, limited educational opportunities for their children, or other features that betoken a lingering and profound waste of human potential.  [cite to World Refugee Survey 2004: Warehousing Issue]  …  Such initiatives … should be designed to augment, not to overcome, the possibilities for improved camp life and even local integration.  …

In particular, when camp life is little better than human warehousing, and where it has persisted in this mode for several years, resettlement must enter the picture as a potential durable solution.  In interviews for this project, proponents of this view often recalled their own experiences visiting bleak refugee camps years after the initial flight and coming face-to-face with the profound wastage of human lives represented by such an enforced existence, particularly for the children forced to grow up under such conditions.  They argued that this approach is simply a different species of rescue saving people from a prolonged strangling of their life chances and not just from fast-working dangers.  Bill Frelick describes the need in these terms:

Millions of refugees worldwide have been relegated to a limbo existence, warehoused in camps or settlements with no prospects for voluntary repatriation or local integration.  Children born and raised within the confines of camps often never see normal life outside the fences.  These populations often become dependent and despondent, with predictably negative social consequences.  [cite to World Refugee Survey 2002.] [pp. 20-21]

Once the focus is expanded beyond immediate rescue, a great many refugee situations come into view as good candidates for possible resettlement, with real humanitarian gains to be realized by offering thousands of men, women and children, who lack any reasonable prospect of voluntary repatriation, the chance to escape from human warehousing.  When such a valuable humanitarian resource, determined by the President and supported by Congress, is available, refugees should not be left either in immediately dangerous situations or in multi-year idleness and privation in a refugee camp.  [p. 37]