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2022 | OriginalPaper | Chapter

12. Community Sponsorship of Refugees

Authors : Jennifer Bond, Gregory A. Maniatis

Published in: Forced Displacement and Migration

Publisher: Springer Fachmedien Wiesbaden

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Abstract

This chapter identifies community sponsorship as a promising approach to refugee protection. It situates the potential of sponsorship within the global system; discusses the specific programs that are emerging in Canada, the United Kingdom and Argentina; and explains the key policy settings that underpin each approach. It also notes growing global momentum around community sponsorship and sets out the history, objectives, and evolving role of the Global Refugee Sponsorship Initiative. The piece concludes that although additional longitudinal and comparative research is necessary, a growing body of evidence supports the potential of community sponsorship to improve integration and strengthen host communities.

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previous chapter Legal Pathways for Low-Skilled Migrant Workers

next chapter Failed Asylum Seekers as Agents of Development? New Approaches to Voluntary Return and Sustainable Reintegration in Germany’s Post-2015 Migration Policy

We owe thanks for research and editorial support to Dr. Eliza Bateman, Ania Kwadrans and Sezgi Karacan. All errors and omissions are of course our own.

Formally the Radcliffe Foundation. See: https://giustrafoundation.org/about/.

The GCR is the international community’s most recent multilateral framework for addressing refugee situations and realizing international responsibility sharing commitments.

It is estimated that between 2009 and 2019, 86% of all UNHCR resettlement submissions were made to the United States (55%), Canada (20%) and Australia (11%) (UNHCR 2020a). Further, the UNHCR reports in its Projected Global Resettlement Needs 2021 report that: “[a]lmost 50 per cent of resettlement cases were submitted to the USA and Canada in 2019 (39,461). The third highest number of submissions were to Germany with 9,640, which represents a 125 per cent increase from the previous years. Also, in the top five countries receiving submissions in 2019 were Australia (7,048) and Sweden (5,408), with increases of 67 per cent and 9 per cent respectively compared to 2018” (UNHCR 2020b, p. 16).

The programme was operationalized in response to the mass exodus of people fleeing Vietnam, Cambodia, and Laos.

Nominated individuals must meet the definition of ‘refugee’ under the Convention Relating to the Status of Refugees or fall within Canada’s Country of Asylum class, which extends protection to individuals (a) outside their country of origin and (b) seriously affected by conflict or denied basic human rights on an ongoing basis.

For example, the World University Service of Canada Student Refugee Program supports the sponsorship of over 130 refugee students per year through active partnerships with over 95 Canadian university campuses. WUSC reports that “crucial to the program’s success is its unique youth-to-youth sponsorship model which empowers young Canadians to play an active role in the sponsorship of refugee students” (WUSC 2020).

For example, the Fairmont Whistler Resort Project, in which a major Canadian hotel chain partnered with local refugee sponsors to provide jobs in hospitality for qualified refugee newcomers sponsored to the community.

For example, Lamp, Lifeboat, Ladder, a public-private project that facilitates the resettlement to Canada of 90 refugee families who are torture survivors (approximately 500 newcomers in total). This is a first-of-its-kind partnership agreement between the Canadian government, global law firm Reed Smith, the Canadian Center for Victims of Torture (CCVT) and other Canadian and international non-governmental organisations (NGOs).

There are currently more than one hundred SAHs across Canada (IRCC 2020b).

Within five years of arrival, approximately 70% of PSRs have fulltime employment, compared to 57% of GARs. Twenty years after arrival, the median income of PSRs is also higher than the median Canadian income, while the median income of GARs is almost as high as the median Canadian income (1993–2013 cohort) (Mehler Paperny 2016). In the twelve months following their arrival, only 25% of PSRs reported social assistance usage, compared with 93% of GARs (IRCC 2016; Kaida et al. 2020).

The study focuses on the integration outcomes of individuals who landed in Canada as PSRs or GARs, aged 20-54 between 1980 and 2009. The study does not take into account difference attached to the various categories of sponsored refugees (such as Blended Visa Office-Referred refugees) “because of small sample sizes or stark differences in characteristics which would make comparison difficult” (Kaida et al. 2020, p. 10). This reflects a general constraint in the Canadian data, which provides limited comparisons between sponsored and un-sponsored UNHCR-referred refugees. For a nuanced discussion on these and other limitations in Canadian comparative data on integration, see Hyndman and Hynie (2016) and Hynie et al. (2019).

From 2020, the new resettlement scheme will consolidate three existing UK programmes: the Vulnerable Persons’ Resettlement Scheme (VPRS), the Vulnerable Children’s Resettlement Scheme (VCRS), and the Gateway Protection Programme into a global scheme (UNHCR 2019b).

Argentina’s history over the last two centuries has been characterized by waves of immigration. Of note, in the period spanning the late 19^th century to early 20^th century (1880-1930), known as the era of mass immigration, Argentina received the second highest number of European immigrants worldwide, falling only behind the United States. In the 20^th century, migration trends to Argentina shifted from predominantly European in origin to continental migration, with people settling in Argentina from nearby and neighboring countries. This trend has continued into the 21^st century, with the majority of immigrants arriving to Argentina coming from bordering countries (Meter 2014; Organization of American States 2015).

Countries of residence are restricted to those mostly affected by the Syrian conflict: Lebanon, Jordan, Turkey, Egypt, Saudi Arabia, United Arab Emirates, Kuwait and Qatar. Note that at the time of writing, proposed legislation would extend the Argentinean program to offer protection for refugees from other parts of the world, including those who have no connection to the Syrian conflict.

Ministers from Canada, the United Kingdom, Ireland, Argentina, Spain, and New Zealand signed the first GRSI Ministerial Statement on 16 July 2018 (IRCC 2018). The statement underlined State support for community-based refugee sponsorship in advance of the 2018 UN General Assembly and the agreement on the Global Compact on Refugees. Statements made by Ministers in support of sponsorship can be found here: https://refugeesponsorship.org/%5Fuploads/5b4ca01e5c883.pdf. Ministers from Argentina, Brazil, Canada, Ireland, New Zealand, and Spain signed the Joint Ministerial Statement to underline support for community-based refugee sponsorship at the first Global Refugee Forum in Geneva, December 2019 (GRSI 2019c).

Aldwinckle, Jack. 2017. Escaping war at home, Syrian couple start over in Argentina. Geneva: United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees. https://www.unhcr.org/news/stories/2017/4/58e4b61a4/escaping-war-home-syrian-couple-start-argentina.html. Accessed 15 September 2020.

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IRCC. 2018. Joint Ministerial Statement - Ministers from Canada, the United Kingdom, Ireland, Argentina, Spain and New Zealand underline their support for community-based refugee sponsorship in advance of the 2018 United Nations General Assembly and agreement on the Global Compact on Refugees. https://refugeesponsorship.org/_uploads/5b4ca01e5c883.pdf. Accessed 12 July 2021.

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Title: Community Sponsorship of Refugees
Authors: Jennifer Bond
Gregory A. Maniatis
Publisher: Springer Fachmedien Wiesbaden
Book: Forced Displacement and Migration
Print ISBN: 978-3-658-32901-3

Electronic ISBN: 978-3-658-32902-0

Copyright Year: 2022
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-658-32902-0_12

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