The University of Connecticut (UConn) is one of America’s top 20 public universities, according to U.S. News & World Report. It is home to more than 31,000 students, 1,300 faculty, 230,000 proud alumni, and a handsome husky named Jonathan.

The University has fourteen schools and colleges: Agriculture and Natural Resources, Business, Dental Medicine, Education, Engineering, Fine Arts, Law, Liberal Arts and Sciences, Medicine, Nursing, Pharmacy, and Social Work. Students can choose from eight undergraduate bachelor's degrees with 102 possible majors, as well as seventeen graduate/doctoral degrees and five professional degree programs (MD, JD, etc.).

UConn's main campus in Storrs is admitting the highest-achieving freshmen in University history. Student diversity continues to increase, as does the number of honors students, valedictorians and salutatorians who consistently make UConn their top choice. It's a great time to be a Husky!

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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.

U.S. Resettlement of Refugees

Asylum Seekers

Women's Rights

Children's Rights

Migrant Children

Social Mobilization

Refugees in the U.S.

Beyond Borders: The Human Rights of Noncitizens (Cambridge University Press, 2021)

"Doing Something to Fight Injustice," Strangers to Neighbors (McGill-Queens's University Press, 2020)

Refugees and Asylum Seekers: Interdisciplinary and Comparative Perspectives (ABC-Clio Press, 2019) 

Human Rights-Based Approaches to Community Practice in the United States (Spring, 2015)

Advancing Human Rights in Social Work Education (Council on Social Work Education Press, 2014)

Human Rights in the United States: Beyond Exceptionalism (Cambridge University Press, 2011)

Refugee resettlement in CT at risk as executive orders upend IRIS

A new approach to social resilience through landscape architecture

Famed Philanthropist, UConn Alum Donate $4 Million For UConn Human Rights

Beyond Borders (Cambridge University Press, 2021)

Strangers to Neighbours (McGill-Queen's University Press, 2020)

thousands-of-afghan-refugees-have-resettled-in-america-our-expert-explains-the-resettlement-process

Director, Gladstein Family Human Rights Institute, and Professor, Social Work & Human Rights

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.



Thousands of Afghan refugees have resettled in America - Our expert explains the resettlement process

will-bidens-plan-to-resettle-afghans-transform-the-us-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.



Kathryn Libal is Associate Professor of Social Work and Associate Director of the Human Rights Institute at the University of Connecticut. She earned her doctorate in anthropology at the University of Washington. She specializes in human rights, social welfare and the state and has published on women’s and children’s rights movements in Turkey and on international non-governmental organizations’ advocacy on behalf of Iraqi refugees. 
She gave a talk on “Bringing Economic and Social Rights ‘Home’: A View from an Interdisciplinary Human Rights Classroom.” Her talk was sponsored by the Duke Human Rights Center@FHI, the Pauli Murray Project and Humanities Writ Large.

Bringing Economic and Social Rights ‘Home’

This event underlined the critical imperative of human rights in the work of the United Nations, and highlighted what universities and colleges worldwide are doing to promote and implement the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, via their teaching, research and community engagement activities; through the commitment and involvement of their faculty, staff and students;  while addressing ongoing crises and pressing challenges, and connecting the spirit of the Declaration with the Sustainable Development Goals.

Making the Universal Declaration of Human Rights a Reality: The Role of Higher Education

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