Thousands of Afghan refugees have resettled in America - Our expert explains the resettlement process
Operation Allies Welcome -the official name for the American government's ongoing effort to assist vulnerable Afghans following the U.S. withdrawal from Afghanistan -is the most significant U.S. resettlement effort since 1975. As of February 2022, some 65,000 Afghans have evacuated and settled in American communities.
UConn School of Social work professors Kathryn Libal and Scott Harding have extensively studied the refugee resettlement process in America. In a recent essay for The Conversation, they detailed the resettlement process that refugees face -and the challenges that individuals, families, agencies, and volunteers are enduring as the effort strains an already overburdened system.
U.S. agencies brought in Afghans under humanitarian parole, rather than standard refugee procedures, because of the urgency of the evacuation. But the consequences may be profound. Some parolees had to wait weeks or months for the government or social service organizations to file paperwork granting them the right to work. Another challenge for parolees is securing family members’ admission to the U.S., which requires a high level of proof of threat to that particular individual. Many Afghan parolees should eventually qualify for asylum, but applying is a lengthy and complex process that generally requires significant legal assistance. More than 400,000 asylum cases are pending in the U.S. asylum system. Refugee resettlement organizations and voluntary groups that could normally help with filing asylum claims are already stretched thin. Evacuees’ advocates have called for approval of the Afghan Adjustment Act, which would allow Afghans to apply for lawful permanent resident status without waiting for the asylum system to rule on their cases or processing of special immigrant visa applications. Governors, businesses, celebrities, universities, military members, veterans and individuals across the U.S. have stepped in to support recent Afghan evacuees – many in locales with no history of resettling refugees. The responsibilities of resettlement, however, extend beyond helping evacuees in their first few weeks, to helping them secure a stable future. -The Conversation, February 18, 2022 An associate professor of social work and human rights, Kathryn Libal is the director of UConn's Human Rights Institute and is an expert on human rights, refugee resettlement, and social welfare. She is available to speak with media – click on her icon now to arrange an interview.
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Will Biden’s Plan to Resettle Afghans Transform the U.S. Refugee Program?
Among the high-profile anti-immigration policies that characterized the four years of Donald Trump’s presidency was a dramatic contraction in refugee resettlement in the United States. President Biden has expressed support for restoring U.S. leadership, and increased commitment is needed to help support the more than 80 million people worldwide displaced by political violence, persecution, and climate change, says UConn expert Kathryn Libal.
As Libal writes, with co-author and fellow UConn professor Scott Harding, in a recent article for the Georgetown Journal of International Affairs, the rapid evacuation of more than 60,000 Afghans pushed the Biden administration to innovate by expanding community-based refugee resettlement and creating a private sponsorship program.
But more resources are needed to support programs that were severely undermined in previous years and to support community-based programs that help refugees through the resettlement process:
Community sponsorship also encourages local residents to “invest” in welcoming refugees. Under existing community sponsorship efforts, volunteers often have deep ties to their local communities—critical for helping refugees secure housing, and gain access to employment, education, and health care. As these programs expand, efforts to connect refugees to community institutions and stakeholders, which are crucial to help facilitate their social integration, may be enhanced. As Chris George, Executive Director of Integrated Refugee and Immigrant Services in New Haven, Connecticut, has observed, “It’s better for the refugee family to have a community group working with them that knows the schools and knows where to shop and knows where the jobs are.” As more local communities take responsibility for sponsoring refugee families, the potential for a more durable resettlement program may be enhanced. In the face of heightened polarization of refugee and immigration policies, community sponsorship programs can also foster broad-based involvement in refugee resettlement. In turn, greater levels of community engagement can help challenge opposition toward and misinformation about refugees and create greater public support for the idea of refugee resettlement. Yet these efforts are also fraught with significant challenges. Sponsor circle members may have limited capacity or skills to navigate the social welfare system, access health care services, or secure affordable housing for refugees. If group members lack familiarity with the intricacies of US immigration law, helping Afghans designated as “humanitarian parolees” attain asylum status may prove daunting. Without adequate training and ongoing support from resettlement agencies and caseworkers, community volunteers may experience “burn out” from these various responsibilities. Finally, “successful” private and community sponsorship efforts risk providing justification to the arguments of those in support of the privatization of the USRAP and who claim that the government’s role in resettlement should be limited. Opponents of refugee resettlement could argue that community groups are more effective than the existing public–private resettlement model and seek to cut federal funding and involvement in resettlement. Such action could ultimately limit the overall number of refugees the United States admits in the future. December 11 Georgetown Journal of International Affairs. If you are a journalist looking to know more about this topic – then let us help with your coverage and questions.
An associate professor of social work and human rights, Kathryn Libal is the director of UConn's Human Rights Institute and is an expert on human rights, refugee resettlement, and social welfare. She is available to speak with media – click on her icon now to arrange an interview.
Biography
Professor Libal's work has focused on women’s and children’s rights movements, the advocacy of international non-governmental organizations on behalf of refugees in the U.S., American resettlement of refugees, and the localization of human rights norms and practices in the United States. She focuses on social mobilization for the right to adequate food and housing.
Refugee resettlement in CT at risk as executive orders upend IRIS
CT Mirror online
2025-02-16
Advocates in Connecticut say that locally, refugee resettlement has become a proud, robust tradition, one that dates back more than a century and has innovated in recent years, inspiring new efforts at the national level. They also worry about the impact the administration’s actions will have on those efforts.
“Connecticut is one of the most interesting stories of resettlement in the United States,” said Kathryn Libal, the director of the Human Rights Institute at the University of Connecticut.
A new approach to social resilience through landscape architecture
PHYS Org online
2018-05-10
Beyond economic concerns about taking in refugees, some host countries worry about an increase in the crime rate, which she says is unfounded. Consulting with Kathryn Libal, director of the UConn Human Rights Institute, Wu found the opposite was true: Crime rates are in fact lower, and there is a desire by the refugees to integrate and not be isolated in their new communities...
Famed Philanthropist, UConn Alum Donate $4 Million For UConn Human Rights
Hartford Courant online
2016-01-15
"This provides a stability and support to an institution that does things that you would normally see a private institution do," said Kathryn Libal, who directs the institute. "We are able to bring in extremely important and high-level speakers, experts, educators in the field of human rights, not only in the U.S., but globally.
"Often you can see those things at a Harvard or a Columbia, but it's much less common to see that kind of activity happening at that caliber in a public institution," she said...
Tens of thousands of Afghan evacuees made it to the US – here’s how the resettlement process works
The Conversation
Kathryn Libal and Scott Harding
2022-02-18
As of February 2022, some 65,000 Afghans evacuated during the American withdrawal from Afghanistan have settled in U.S. communities. Several hundred more remain on military bases in the U.S., while nearly 2,800 are still waiting on U.S. bases abroad.
The Biden administration, which aims to have all Afghan evacuees off domestic military bases by the end of February 2022, has started the final push to place refugees with host communities.
Will Biden’s Plan to Resettle Afghans Transform the U.S. Refugee Program?
Georgetown Journal of International Affairs
Kathryn Libal and Scott Harding
2021-12-11
President Biden has expressed support for restoring US leadership on resettling refugees after the Trump administration nearly dismantled the refugee admissions program. Managing the large-scale, rapid evacuation of more than 60,000 Afghans has pushed the federal government and private sector to innovate by expanding community-based refugee resettlement and creating a private sponsorship program. This new civic initiative has the potential to dramatically reshape how refugees are resettled in the United States, but will need additional resources and new legislation to flourish.
Human Rights of Forced Migrants During the COVID-19 Pandemic: An Opportunity for Mobilization and Solidarity
Journal of Human Rights and Social Work
Libal, K., Harding, S., Popescu, M., Berthold, S. M., & Felten, G.
2021-03-19
The question of human mobility is inextricably tied to the COVID-19 pandemic that started in late 2019 and whose effects continue to unfold. Human mobility—especially with global advances in transportation and interconnectedness—is an important factor in the spread of the pandemic. Yet, the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on the millions of people forced to migrate for safety and economic reasons has received little attention. In this article, we provide an overview of human rights challenges that forced migrants currently face during this pandemic. While we do not address all dimensions of the impact COVID-19, we highlight several troubling situations that have emerged for refugees and asylum seekers. These include entry restrictions into some countries that had formerly welcomed asylum seekers, overt and covert forms of exclusion of migrants from labor markets due to rising unemployment and economic hardship, and implementing new deportation policies, as well as new exclusionary policies for immigrants who would have been authorized to work in past. Without concerted efforts to amplify solidarity with all forced migrants and ensure their human rights, discriminatory and restrictionist policies enacted in the Global North over the past decade will become entrenched. As a result, fewer refugees and asylum seekers will be accorded protection and continue to face violence and persecution in their home countries.
Community sponsorship key to increasing refugee resettlement in the United States
CT Viewpoints
Kathryn Libal and Scott Harding
2021-03-18
While focused on addressing the coronavirus pandemic and reviving the U.S. economy, President Joe Biden has also sought to restore U.S. leadership on a range of global issues. For example, Biden reversed the so-called “Muslim Ban” on his first day in office, along with several other executive orders related to immigration. The president also promised to admit up to 125,000 refugees into the United States this year and review the entire U.S. Refugee Admissions Program (USRAP). These efforts fulfill a series of campaign promises, and signal that the United States is a welcoming place for immigrants and others fleeing persecution.
To save democracy, recommit to principles of the rule of law and human rights at home
CT Viewpoints
Glenn Mitoma and Kathryn Libal
2021-01-12
The fascist riot at the U.S. Capitol is a fitting denouement of the Trump Presidency. His incitement of thousands of white supremacists, conspiracy theorists, and others caught in the thrall of his cult of personality demonstrated once and for all that there is nothing he won’t do to cling to power – -and nothing some won’t do to keep him there.
Whether by the 25th Amendment, a second impeachment, or the inexorable approach of January 20, Trump’s presidency is ending. But for the United States to recover from this near miss with a Trump dictatorship, we must commit to rebuilding our democracy on a foundation of accountability, truth-telling, and human rights.
The 2019 COVID-19 pandemic has amplified inequalities and human rights challenges; in some states, COVID-19 policies have been introduced that further curtail human rights. Although some limits may be justified in the time of a public health emergency, other rights are vital to secure precisely because of pandemic conditions. Following a discussion of the concept of political solidarity, we examine how COVID-19 has underscored democratic “deficits” and human rights failures within the United States and India. Emergency “stay-at-home” orders and social distancing measures make political dissent challenging, yet this extreme moment has created opportunities for solidarity, initially in restrained ways via the internet or local forms of collective support and protest, and later through mass mobilizations to end racial injustice (in the United States). Our assessment of the challenges and promises of solidarist action in two of the largest democracies offers reasons for guarded optimism.
Human rights education in U.S. social work: Is the mandate reaching the field?
Journal of Human Rights
McPherson, J. & K. Libal.
2019-07-12
Social work education in the United States takes place not only in classrooms but also in the many workplaces where students complete their mandatory internships. This practicum, known as “field education,” is social work’s “signature pedagogy.” Although efforts have been made to integrate human rights education (HRE) into US social work education and the Council on Social Work Education now mandates a human rights competency, little research has examined how and whether the HRE mandate is implemented in field education. This article examines the impact of HRE on social work field education by focusing on one state—Florida. For this study, we surveyed 158 Florida field educators about their human rights knowledge and practices and conducted telephone interviews with the staff members who coordinate student internships at six social work schools. The data paint a complex picture. Although strides to foster students’ ability to apply human rights understanding in field education have been made, sustained institutional support for integrating HRE in field is needed at the university and associational level. True integration of HRE into field education will only be achieved when all educators receive the support they need to become educated on social work as a human rights practice.
Hunger in a “Land of Plenty”: A Renewed Call for Social Work Action
Social Work
2014
Over the past three decades levels of poverty in the United States have remained largely stagnant and various forms of social inequality have increased. Simultaneously, social welfare programs to ensure social protection have contracted through conservative political mobilization to “downsize big government.” When the economic recession hit in 2007, Food Stamps (renamed the Supplemental Nutrition Action Program, or SNAP, in 2009) became one of the most important social benefits available to affected individuals and families.
Human rights in the United States: Beyond exceptionalism
Cambridge University Press
2011
This book brings to light emerging evidence of a shift toward a fuller engagement with international human rights norms and their application to domestic policy dilemmas in the United States. The volume offers a rich history, spanning close to three centuries, of the marginalization of human rights discourse in the United States.
Paradoxes and possibilities: Domestic human rights policy in context
Human rights in the United States: Beyond exceptionalism
2011
The United States of America was founded on the principle of equality through law, even if this ideal has not always been realized. Indeed, the struggle to realize equality and full participation in society and governance is a perennial theme in US history. At various junctures, realizing this ideal has been challenging, especially in the face of war, economic crises, or social unrest.
Reframing violence against women as a human rights violation: Evan Stark’s coercive control Authors
Violence Against Women
2009
Evan Stark claims that partner-perpetrated physical abuse and other forms of violence against women ought to be understood as a human rights violation. The authors engage Stark’s rhetorically powerful political and analytical innovation by outlining one theoretical and one practical challenge to shifting the paradigm that researchers, advocates, and policy makers use to describe, explain, and remedy the harms of coercive control from misdemeanor assault to human rights violation.
