The political space on immigration in the United States in the run-up to the midterm elections in November was largely dominated by the anti-immigrant side-by-side games between the Republican presidential candidates. On September 14, 2022, two planes filled with approximately 50 migrants and asylum seekers from Venezuela landed in Martha’s Vineyard, Massachusetts. The planes were sent by Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis, who first transported asylum seekers from Texas to Florida before Martha’s Vineyard, under the pretense that they would arrive in Boston. The flights were perhaps the most extreme example of recent efforts by Republican governors to move migrants, refugees and asylum seekers to Democratic-controlled northern areas.
Much anger has focused on the cunning of politicians who use human beings as part of political gimmicks. However, the administration of US President Joe Biden is also not meeting the needs of Venezuelans coming to the southern border. Years of political repression, violence and economic insecurity in Venezuela have created the second largest external displacement crisis in the world with 6.8 million displaced — second only to Ukraine. However, the government has allocated only 15,000 places for the coming fiscal year to resettle refugees from across Latin America and the Caribbean.
Refugee resettlement involves moving refugees from countries where they have already sought asylum to a third country, usually from a developing country to a more developed country with greater economic capacity. It is one part of a multi-pillared global approach to protect more than 100 million people displaced within and outside their own countries. Still, in fiscal year 2021, the United States resettled just 11,411 refugees — the lowest number since the program began in 1980. The administration announced on Oct. 3 that only 25,465 refugees were resettled during fiscal year 2022, far below the target of 125 000 by the management last May.
The Biden administration explained the shortfall by pointing to the damage done by former US President Donald Trump’s administration to the resettlement system, including drastic funding cuts and staff cuts. While the administration has made significant progress in rebuilding resettlement, advocates and elected officials from across the political spectrum have argued that the resettlement system is critically underfunded. The government has acknowledged that meeting the target of 125,000 resettled refugees this year will again be an uphill battle.
As I and others have written elsewhere, the price of dwindling resettlement has been the rights of refugees and asylum seekers and the breakdown of the global refugee protection system established after World War II. But prioritizing refugee resettlement is important not only for humanitarian reasons. Instead, refugee resettlement should also be seen as a key component of the administration’s broader approach to migration management.
Expanding refugee resettlement would first confirm a very real increase in individuals arriving at the southern border who have been forced from their homes by violence and political persecution and whose safe pathways without resettlement are limited. Second, increasing refugee resettlement is a necessary part of preventing anti-democratic regimes from using migrants and refugees as blackmail to extract political and economic concessions. The EU’s experience after the 2015 “migration crisis” offers a cautionary tale for the United States. Ultimately, resettlement is an important part of signaling credibility to allies receiving refugees and migrants that the U.S. government is committed to sharing the responsibility of hosting, especially as it relates to foreign aid.
First, increased resettlement is needed to provide safe and orderly pathways for individuals fleeing violence and persecution who qualify for asylum and refugee status. Venezuelans represent the fastest-growing population arriving at US borders along with Cubans and Nicaraguans — all countries with authoritarian governments with which the United States does not have diplomatic relations. In March 2021, the US government granted Temporary Protected Status (TPS) to Venezuelans who were physically present in the United States as of March 8, 2021 — excluding those who arrived after or were deported to Mexico under the Trump-era Stay in Mexico plan ( according to which asylum seekers had to wait in Mexico for hearings before an immigration court in the US). With ongoing political repression in Venezuela and deteriorating economic and political conditions in the neighboring countries that hosted the majority of displaced Venezuelans during COVID-19, more and more Venezuelans have made the difficult decision to flee north to Mexico and the US. Increasing refugee resettlement would ensure that more people have safe routes that allow them to avoid this dangerous journey.
Second, the continued failure of the United States to expand migration routes makes it vulnerable to blackmail by authoritarian and anti-democratic leaders, as evidenced by the actions of Belarus and Turkey toward Europe. In 2016, following a dramatic increase in arrivals fueled by the civil war in Syria and political and economic instability in North Africa and Afghanistan, the EU struck a deal with Turkey to prevent further migration from the country. Among other measures, the EU agreed to resettle one Syrian refugee for every Syrian sent back to Turkey to discourage smuggling. In practice, however, only around 28,000 Syrians have been resettled under the program by March 2021. Instead, a combination of dramatically increased border controls — with deadly consequences — and economic and military aid to countries such as Turkey and Libya has been the primary backbone of the EU’s migration policy. in the last six years.
These policies came at a high cost. Countries bordering the EU increasingly use the threat of further migration of migrants, refugees and asylum seekers as political and economic leverage and cover for increasingly anti-democratic actions. Since the 2016 deal, Turkey has repeatedly threatened to allow refugees and migrants to reach the EU’s borders in order to extract aid. In an effort to pressure the EU to lift sanctions, in 2021 Belarusian President Alexander Lukashenko liberalized visa policies and made it easier for migrants and refugees to try to cross Poland’s border with the EU. While the EU has only increased sanctions as a result, it has turned a blind eye to human rights abuses by the Polish government, which civil rights groups have described as increasingly authoritarian. As other analysts have written, the arming of migrants to increasingly anti-immigrant Western states poses a serious security concern that US policymakers should be well aware of.
Finally, a key component of the US migration strategy under the Biden administration has been foreign aid to sending countries and neighboring countries to improve economic conditions and facilitate the integration of migrants and refugees at the local level. On September 22, the United States announced an additional $376 million in aid to Venezuelans and regional host communities, bringing total assistance to the Venezuelan crisis response since 2017 to nearly $2.7 billion. In Central America, the administration’s proposed U.S. aid to address the root causes of migration totals $4 billion from fiscal years 2021 to 2024. Yet there is little evidence that foreign aid alone prevents migration, especially when many individuals migrate due to fear and persecution, and not exclusively for economic reasons. Instead, as the administration itself acknowledged in its 2021 migration management strategy, aid is just one part of a broader approach toward refugee-hosting allies that includes expanding legal protection pathways such as refugee resettlement.
Failure to deliver on resettlement promises jeopardizes the administration’s entire approach to migration. Resettlement is an important part of signaling to allies who have generously accepted refugees that the United States is willing to share the responsibility of taking them in, especially since most refugees are in developing countries with already faltering economies. It is also important to ensure that the rights of refugees and migrants are protected in countries of first destination.
Refugee resettlement is not a substitute for protecting the legal right to seek asylum at the border and within the United States, nor for developing non-refugee migration pathways for immigrants who are much needed as a U.S. workforce. The rights of migrants, refugees and asylum seekers and the norms of international law established over decades have rapidly deteriorated in recent years. The lessons of the Holocaust – where thousands of Jewish refugees were characterized as a security threat by the US government and rejected – seem to have faded into history. However, the United States has an opportunity to rebuild this key protection regime and to strengthen its migration strategy with increasing refugee resettlement. An August Pew Research Center survey found that 72% of Americans support the United States accepting refugees from countries where people are trying to escape violence and war. Extensive research has further shown that refugees greatly benefit the US economy and society. As the administration and the world grapple with historic levels of displacement, increasing refugee resettlement is both a necessary and smart policy choice.
