forced migration essay

Types of migration

Forced migration or displacement

Definitions, data sources, further reading.

In studying forced or involuntary migration — sometimes referred to as forced or involuntary displacement — a distinction is often made between conflict-induced and disaster-induced  displacement. Displacement induced by conflict is typically referred to as caused by humans, whereas natural causes typically underlay displacement caused by disasters. The definitions of these concepts are useful, but the lines between them may be blurred in practice because conflicts may arise due to disputes over natural resources and human activity may trigger natural disasters such as landslides.

Countries faced with forced displacement — induced by humans or nature — collect data on displaced populations. Such data are typically collected through a combination of population censuses, household surveys, border counts, administrative records, and beneficiary registers.

At the international level, data on forced migration are collected and/or compiled by various intergovernmental organizations (IGOs), such as the Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) and the International Organization for Migration (IOM), as well as non-governmental organizations (NGOs), such as the Internal Displacement Monitoring Centre (IDMC).   

Key terms that are used in the context of forced migration or forced/involuntary displacement include:

According to IOM, forced migration is “a migratory movement which, although the drivers can be diverse, involves force, compulsion, or coercion.” 1  The definition includes a note which clarifies that, “While not an international legal concept, this term has been used to describe the movements of refugees, displaced persons (including those displaced by disasters or development projects), and, in some instances, victims of trafficking. At the international level the use of this term is debated because of the widespread recognition that a continuum of agency exists rather than a voluntary/forced dichotomy and that it might undermine the existing legal international protection regime.” ( IOM Glossary on Migration, 2019 ).

According to the 1951 United Nations Convention relating to the Status of Refugees and its 1967 Protocol refugees are persons who flee their country due to "well-founded fear" of persecution due to reasons of race, religion, nationality, membership of a particular social group or political opinion, and who are outside of their country of nationality or permanent residence and due to this fear are unable or unwilling to return to it. UNHCR includes “individuals recognized under the 1951 Convention relating to the Status of Refugees, its 1967 Protocol, the 1969 Organization of African Unity (OAU) Convention Governing the Specific Aspects of Refugee Problems in Africa, those recognized in accordance with the UNHCR Statute, individuals granted complementary forms of protection, and those enjoying temporary protection. The refugee population also includes people in refugee-like situations." ( UNHCR, 2017 ).

Persons in a refugee-like situation includes “groups of persons who are outside their country or territory of origin and who face protection risks similar to those of refugees, but for whom refugee status has, for practical or other reasons, not been ascertained.” ( UNHCR, 2013 ).

According to UNHCR, asylum-seekers are “individuals who have sought international protection and whose claims for refugee status have not yet been determined” ( 2017 , 56).

Internally displaced persons (IDPs) are defined as “persons or groups of persons who have been forced or obliged to flee or to leave their homes or places of habitual residence, in particular as a result of or in order to avoid the effects of armed conflict, situations of generalized violence, violations of human rights or natural or human-made disasters, and who have not crossed an internationally recognized State border.” ( Guiding Principles on Internal Displacement, E/CN.4/1998/53/Add.2. ).

UNHCR introduced the category “ other people in need of international protection ” to reporting in mid-2022, to encompass “people who are outside their country or territory of origin, typically because they have been forcibly displaced across international borders, who have not been reported under other categories (asylum-seekers, refugees, people in refugee-like situations) but who likely need international protection, including protection against forced return, as well as access to basic services on a temporary or longer-term basis”. This category now includes the previously designated category of “Venezuelans displaced abroad” and those not reported in other categories. Retroactive changes have been made in UNHCR’s statistics since 2018 ( 2023, p4 ). 

Mixed movement (also called mixed migration or mixed flow) is “a movement in which a number of people are travelling together, generally in an irregular manner, using the same routes and means of transport, but for different reasons. People travelling as part of mixed movements have varying needs and profiles and may include asylum seekers, refugees, trafficked persons, unaccompanied/separated children, and migrants in an irregular situation.” ( IOM Glossary on Migration, 2019 ).

Disaster-induced migration is the displacement of people as a result of “a serious disruption of the functioning of a community or a society involving widespread human, material, economic or environmental losses or impacts, which exceeds the ability of the affected community or society to cope using its own resources.” ( UN Office for Disaster Risk Reduction, 2009 ).

Resettlement , according to IOM, is the “transfer of refugees from the country in which they have sought protection to another State that has agreed to admit them — as refugees — with permanent residence status.” ( IOM Glossary on Migration, 2019 ). Resettlement programmes are carried out by both IOM and UNHCR.

Key trends  

Forced displacement due to persecution, conflict, violence, human rights violations or events seriously disturbing public order

According to UNHCR, the number of forcibly displaced people both within countries and across borders as a result of persecution, conflict, generalized violence, human rights violations or events seriously disturbing public order was more than double the number a decade ago;  there were 51.2 million forcibly displaced people as of the end of 2013 ( UNHCR, 2014 ), and the figure was 108.4 million by the end of 2022 ( UNHCR, 2023 ). This represents the highest number available on record and a 21 per cent increase from 2021, the biggest increase ever recorded between years according to UNHCR’s forced displacement statistics ( ibid. ). Almost 90 per cent of forcibly displaced persons in the world are in low- and middle-income countries ( ibid. ).

Refugees (35.3 million) and asylum-seekers (5.4 million) made up nearly 38 per cent of the 108.4 million people forcibly displaced due to persecution, war, conflict, generalized violence, human rights violations or events seriously disturbing public order ( UNHCR, 2023 ). 62.5 million internally displaced people and 5.2 million other people in need of international protection accounted for the remaining 58 per cent and nearly 5 per cent respectively ( ibid. ). These figures show it is important to keep in mind that forcibly displaced persons are not only comprised of refugees and asylum seekers who seek protection in other countries, but also - and indeed mainly - of individuals who have been displaced within the borders of their own countries. 

The drastic increase of total forced displacement —  both within countries and across borders —  as of the end of 2022  compared to the end of 2013 was mainly due to several crises —  some already existed, some are new, and some resurfaced after years ( UNHCR, 2023 ). The Russian Federation’s invasion of Ukraine caused 5.7 million people to leave Ukraine, triggering the fastest (and one of the largest) displacement crises since the Second World War, while other nationalities (predominantly Afghans and Venezuelans) were also forced to leave their countries ( ibid. ). 

Refugee resettlement

In 2022, UNHCR submitted 116,500 refugee applications for resettlement to states and according to government statistics, 114,300 people were resettled ( UNHCR, 2023 ). This is double the 57,500 resettled in 2021 and a return to pre-COVID-19 pandemic levels ( ibid. ). However, this number is only 7 per cent of the estimated 1.5 million people globally who needed resettlement in 2022 ( ibid. ). 90 per cent of the cases submitted by UNHCR in 2022 were for survivors of torture and/ or violence, people with legal and physical protection needs, and particularly vulnerable women and girls. 52 per cent of the total resettlement submissions were for children ( ibid. ).

In 2020, the COVID-19 pandemic posed considerable challenges to return migration because of lockdowns, travel restrictions, limited consular services, and other containment measures, and had a decelerating effect on return activities. In 2021, many countries lifted travel restrictions and different types of migration, including return migration, resumed but not to pre-pandemic levels. The number of beneficiaries of IOM’s Assisted Voluntary Return and Reintegration (AVRR) in 2021 increased by 17 per cent (from 37,043 in 2020 to 43,428 in 2021) ( IOM, 2022 ). The number of beneficiaries of voluntary humanitarian return increased by 57 per cent, from 4,038 in 2020 to 6,367 in 2021. The top 5 host/transit countries for AVRR in 2021 were Niger (10,573), Germany (6,785), Libya (4,332), Greece (2,736), and Morocco (2,372) ( ibid. ). 

Forced displacement within countries due to conflict and disasters

By the end of 2023, 75.9 million people were living in internal displacement as a result of conflict and violence as well as disasters (the  stock  of internal displacements) ( IDMC, 2024 ). Of this total, 68.3 million people in 66 countries and territories were internally displaced by conflict and violence (a 9% increase from 2022, and a 49% increase in five years), and at least 7.7 million people in 82 countries and territories were internally displaced by disasters (an 11% decrease from 2022, but still the third highest figure within the last decade) ( ibid . ). It is important to note that displacement by conflict and displacement by disaster cannot always be reliably distinguished because many people can be displaced for one reason, and then get displaced for a second or even third time by a different reason.

In 2023, there were 46.9 million new internal displacements, across 151 countries and territories ( ibid. ). Disasters triggered 56 per cent (26.4 million) of the new internal displacements recorded; the rest, about 20.5 million, were prompted by conflict and violence ( ibid. ).

In 2023, there were 28 per cent fewer internal conflict displacements in 2023 than in 2022, mostly due to a reduction in movements within Ukraine ( ibid. ). Nevertheless, global internal displacement due to conflict was 70 per cent higher in 2023 than the past decade's annual average ( ibid. ). Approximately half of all internal conflict displacements in 2023 were reported in Sudan and the Democratic Republic of the Congo, with 6 million and 3.7 million respectively ( ibid. ). Other countries which experienced large numbers of internal displacement due to conflict were the Occupied Palestinian Territory (3.4 million), Ethiopia (794,000), Ukraine (714,000) and Burkina Faso (707,000) ( ibid. ).

Disaster displacement in 2023 was the third highest figure in the last decade, even though there were one third fewer displacements due to weather-related hazards, partly resulting from La Niña’s end and El Niño’s onset. 77 per cent of the 26.4 million new disaster displacements in 2023 were the result of weather-related hazards such as storms, floods and droughts ( ibid .). Almost a quarter of all internal displacements were due to earthquakes, especially those in Türkiye, Syria, the Philippines, Afghanistan and Morocco ( ibid. ).

In 2023, earthquakes and volcanic activity caused the same number of displacements as the total of the previous seven years ( ibid. ). Some of these earthquakes struck areas where displaced persons from conflict were already living e.g. in Syria and Afghanistan ( ibid. ). 

The five countries with the highest number of new internal displacements in 2023 due to disasters were China (4.7 million), , Türkiye (4.1 million), Philippines (2.6 million), Somalia (2 million) and Bangladesh (1.8 million) ( ibid. ).

IOM DTM PROGRESS report found that IDPs tend to be more vulnerable than their host communities ( IOM, 2023 ). Their children are less likely to be in school, and they are more likely to face obstacles in accessing health services, IDP households are less likely than their host communities to have adequate shelter or a stable income. Furthermore, the longer that IDPs are displaced, the less likely they are to return to their community of origin ( ibid. ).

UNHCR collects and provides data on the following types of forcibly displaced persons: refugees (including those in a refugee-like situations), IDPs, asylum seekers, returned refugees, returned IDPs, individuals under UNHCR’s statelessness mandate, and other groups or persons of concern to UNHCR. UNHCR’s Statistics Database provides data disaggregated by persons of concern, year, country of asylum, origin, gender, age, legal status and resettlement. In addition, UNHCR annually produces six main publications with relevant statistics : Global Trends: Forced Displacement , Statistical Yearbooks , Mid-Year Trends , Global Appeal , and Global Report . UNHCR also began a statistics technical series of papers that “make available in a timely fashion research, developments and studies on a variety of topics relevant to the statistical work of UNHCR”.

As the global reference point for data on IDPs, the Internal Displacement Monitoring Centre (IDMC) compiles and disseminates data relating to IDPs through its online Global Internal Displacement Database (GIDD). In addition, IDMC produces an annual Global Report on Internal Displacement (GRID), covering internal displacement worldwide due to conflict, violence and disasters. 

The United Nations Children’s Fund (UNICEF) presents data from UN DESA and UNHCR relating to migration, including forced migration specific to children. Data are disaggregated by country of asylum. 

IOM collects forced migration data through the Displacement Tracking Matrix (DTM). DTM is a system used to track and monitor displacement and population mobility due to natural disasters and conflict, and is active in over 100 countries. Data are regularly captured, processed and disseminated to provide a better understanding of the movements and evolving needs of displaced populations and migrants, whether on site or en route. Data on conflict- and disaster-induced displacement are presented in the DTM Data Portal . In addition to this, IOM collects data on the number of migrants it assisted and resettled to States offering temporary protection or permanent resettlement. An overview of these data can be found in the annual report on IOM Resettlement  or in the IOM Snapshot .

The United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (UNOCHA) manages the Humanitarian Data Exchange (HDX), an open platform for sharing data from a range of partners, which provides nearly 21,000 datasets over 250 locations. 

Europe Eurostat provides statistics on various international migration topics , including outcomes of forced migration to Europe. Through its database , Eurostat provides data on the number of refugees, asylum applications, decisions on asylum applications and resettlement, and Dublin statistics within Europe. 

Middle East The United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine refugees in the Near East (UNRWA) provides assistance and protection for Palestinian refugees in Gaza, Jordan, Lebanon, Syria, the West Bank and the Gaza Strip. The UNRWA in Figures publication releases statistics on the number of Palestinian refugees and refugee camps. Today, over 5 million Palestine refugees have registered with UNRWA.

Americas The Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) and the Organization of American States (OAS) together operate the Continuous Reporting System on International Migration in the Americas (SICREMI), which produces biannual reports of collected data from various sources in the Americas Region. The publication provides a short chapter on asylum seeking in the Americas, including data by country of asylum from 2001 to 2015.

The Coordination Platform for Refugees and Migrants from Venezuela (R4V) , established on 12 April 2018, is led and coordinated by UNHCR and IOM. It is aimed at addressing the protection, assistance and integration needs of Venezuelan refugees and migrants in Latin American and Caribbean countries. The website provides cumulative data on pending asylum claims lodged by Venezuelans, recognized refugees from Venezuela and residence permits granted to Venezuelans.

The Worldwide Refugee Admissions Processing System (WRAPS), a system operated by the U.S. Department of State’s Bureau of Population, Refugees and Migration, provides statistics on refugee arrivals and admissions in the United States, by region, state and nationality. In addition, the Office of Immigration Statistics (OIS) produces Annual Flow Reports and Data Tables on refugee and asylum statistics, disaggregated by country of origin, age, sex and marital status.

The Government of Canada’s Immigration, Refugees and Citizenship Canada (IRCC) Department has an Open Government Portal through which information on immigration and citizenship programmes can be found. Specifically, the portal provides monthly statistics on asylum claims, Syrian refugees and resettled refugees.  

Australia The Australian Government provides statistics on their humanitarian programme , which include quarterly asylum statistics and yearly asylum trends as well as yearly outcomes for their Offshore Humanitarian programme (refugee visas) and monthly irregular maritime arrivals reports.

Data strengths & limitations

Given the high public interest on forced displacement, complete and reliable data are essential. Existing data provide an indication of refugee and IDP figures globally, but they are based on estimates and varying data collection methods. Data discrepancies can occur due to disaggregation by country of origin or country of asylum only. Often data are lacking information on sex and age. 

As one of the largest sources for data on forced displacement, UNHCR provides a unified approach to registering refugees, asylum seekers and IDPs through its Handbook for Registration . The Handbook, which provides guidance and operational standards for registration, among other topics, is useful for UNHCR staff and governmental and non-governmental partners who independently operate camps. 

Many forced (and/or mixed) migration movements are monitored through population movement tracking systems, which provide rough estimates of such population flows. Organizations such as UNHCR, IOM, and the Danish Refugee Council (DRC) have such tracking systems in place to monitor the movements of mixed migration flows and IDPs. However, such movement tracking systems are subject to caveats including but not limited to: massive population flows that overwhelm capacity; limited access to certain routes and locations due to instability; unwillingness of individuals to provide information when there is no assistance being offered; and political pressures to suppress accurate reporting on IDP movements ( Sarzin, 2017 ).

Data collection of forced or mixed migration movements, where refugees move alongside irregular migrants or via irregular migration routes, can be difficult and scarce because of the clandestine nature of such migration and the various motives for migrating ( GMG, 2017 ). The identification of individuals in need of protection also becomes challenging as many refugees travel together alongside migrants underway for work or other reasons ( ibid .). As more resources are needed in order to collect such data, governments tend to only collect data on forced migration in developed countries ( Sarzin, 2017 ).

In regard to collecting data relating to IDPs and other forcibly displaced persons, the problem of inconsistent definitions and methodologies arises. Inconsistent definitions and methodologies across countries, organizations and movement tracking systems can produce different totals, resulting in data that are not comparable ( World Bank, 2017 ). In order to curb such inconsistencies, the Humanitarian Data Exchange (HDX), founded in 2014 by the UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA), and IDMC have been advocating for data interoperability, which describes the extent to which computer systems and devices can exchange data and interpret that shared data. The former has been advocating for this for the last 20 years. Both agencies are actively committed to advocating for data interoperability through the Grand Bargain . 

• 1 Other organizations may refer to other terms, such as forced displacement.

Explore our new directory of initiatives at the forefront of using data innovation to improve data on migration.

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Article Contents

Introduction, part i: refugees and international mechanisms, part ii: refugees and the macroeconomy, part iii: host labour markets and host communities, part iv: recovery, resilience, and return, postscript: the ukrainian crisis, the path ahead, forced migration: evidence and policy challenges.

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Simon Quinn, Isabel Ruiz, Forced migration: evidence and policy challenges, Oxford Review of Economic Policy , Volume 38, Issue 3, Autumn 2022, Pages 403–413, https://doi.org/10.1093/oxrep/grac025

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This paper presents a summary assessment of this issue of the Oxford Review of Economic Policy , on forced migration. The issue is concerned with four important questions: (i) What are the general mechanisms by which forced migrants should be managed, and what frameworks should be used for supporting them? (ii) How can policy help refugees integrate into host economies; and what are the likely consequences of this integration? (iii) How are host communities likely to respond to the influx of refugees, and how can policy help to smooth this transition? and (iv) What role can policy play to encourage resilience among refugees and internally displaced people—and, one day, potentially support their return? Drawing from a diverse set of experiences and country case studies, the invited authors—who range from academics to policy practitioners—present and discuss current evidence and draw from their expertise to offer insights on these general themes in the economic policy response to forced migration. Among others, some of the recurring ideas for the design of policy include the need of anticipatory, systematic, and long- term approaches to the ‘management’ of forced displacement; the importance of building evidence, quantifying impacts, and understanding the distributional consequences of forced migration; and finally, the importance of bridging a gap in how the evidence is communicated and understood in the broader community.

Forced migrants are those who leave their home, their region, or their country of birth, as a result of persecution, conflict, violence, human rights violations, and other events that seriously disturb public order ( UNHCR, 2021 ). Since the 1970s, there have been at least 15 conflicts that have forced at least one million people or more to leave their country of birth—and many other countless clashes that have displaced large numbers of people within their own national borders (so-called ‘internally displaced people’—IDPs).

The most recent of these tragic conflicts is, of course, rarely far from our screens or from our minds. On 24 February 2022 (this year), Russia invaded Ukraine. This invasion—which followed the 2014 annexation of Crimea, and the subsequent occupation of the Ukrainian oblasts of Donetsk and Luhansk—clearly poses new and profound challenges for global cooperation under the international system. It is already clear that one of the most consequential policy issues concerns the treatment of Ukrainian refugees. Over the opening weeks of the Russian invasion, approximately 130,000 Ukrainians fled their country every day: a total of about four million refugees over the course of the first month alone ( UNHCR, 2022 a ). This situation added to the difficulties already faced by large number of IDPs and other displaced people in Ukraine since 2014. Indeed, by 2016 there were already close to two million IDPs in addition to over thirty thousand people seeking asylum 1 ( UNHCR Statistics, 2022 ). The plight of these people demands compassionate and thoughtful responses from governments around the world—both at the national and local levels, and particularly in Europe.

As early as 1951, the parties to the Convention Relating to the Status of Refugees agreed a single definition in international law for the concept of a refugee, 2 and committed to a set of core obligations concerning the treatment of refugees—including, in particular, that refugees have a basic entitlement to protection and support. 3 By mid-2021, there were close to 25 million refugees globally, as recorded by the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees ( UNHCR, 2022 b ). As Figure 1 shows, the seven decades since 1951 witnessed a substantial increase in the total number of refugees worldwide. Moreover, the nature of the refugee experience has changed substantially, too; this is reflective, in particular, of changes in the nature of conflict, changes in the methods for refugee protection, and important shifts in the global political structure. For instance, the 2015 Syrian and European refugee ‘crises’ were the driving force behind the 2018 Global Compact on Refugees ( Betts, 2018 ), but at the same time also had a profound and divisive impact on public opinion and voting behaviour in many high-income destination countries ( Dustmann et al. , 2019 ; Dinas et al. , 2020 ; Steinmayr, 2021 ). However, it is countries in the Global South—in particular, those bordering major conflicts—that host the majority of refugees. Displacement has become an urban issue and refugee camps are becoming less common ( Vos and Dempster, 2021 ; Crawford, 2021 ). There is an increasing number of protracted displacements; 4 in turn, this keeps millions of refugees in legal limbo for decades. Finally, as shown in Figure 1 , the number of people displaced within their own countries—50.9 million by mid-2021—is much larger than the number of those displaced internationally, and these numbers continue to increase. 5

Number of refugees under UNCHR Mandate (1950–2021). Note : End year stock population totals. The number of refugees include displaced Venezuelans but do not include Palestine refugees under the United Nations Relief and Works Agency (UNRWA) Mandate. As of mid-2021, the number of Palestinian refugees was estimated at 5.7 million. IDPs are those reported in UNHCR Statistics under the UNHCR population of concern ( UNHCR, 2022 b ).

Source:   UNHCR Statistics (2022) .

In this context, policy-makers face a set of related questions. First, what are the general mechanisms by which these refugees should be managed, and what frameworks should be used for supporting them? Second, how can policy help these refugees to integrate into host economies— both at the macro and the micro level—and what are the likely consequences of this integration? Third, how are host communities likely to respond to the influx of refugees, and how can policy help to smooth this transition? Fourth, what role can policy play to encourage resilience among refugees and internally displaced people— and, one day, potentially support their return ?

These are the core questions that are tackled by this issue of the Oxford Review of Economic Policy . Specifically, the issue draws together a set of thinkers with particular expertise on forced migration. We invited the authors in May 2020 and most of the papers were received in final form just prior to the Russian invasion of Ukraine. In this sense, the journal issue speaks to general themes in the economic policy response to forced migration; indeed, together, the papers draw on experiences from a very diverse set of countries. These include Syria, which currently has the largest population of refugees abroad (6.7 million), and Colombia—a country with a long history of conflict that, with 8.3 million, has the largest number of internally displaced people ( UNHCR, 2022 b ). 6 The articles also draw on the experiences of important host destinations, including Jordan, Lebanon, and Turkey—the three main destinations of Syrian refugees, which, as of mid-2021, were together hosting over five million Syrian refugees. Adding the perspective of high-income countries, the issue draws on experiences from Denmark, Sweden, and the United States. The experience in these countries is different in at least three distinctive ways: first, refugee populations in these countries are small relative to the host, both in population terms and in fiscal terms. Second, and as a result, the policy focus has been about integration, dispersion, and assimilation and less on ‘emergency’ management and hosting. The third is that in the case of high-income countries we typically have much richer cross-sectional and time-series data. Therefore, in this case not only are the host-country policy considerations different, but the capacity to inform these through research and evidence is greater. Finally, the issue also draws attention to challenges brought by the return of refugees and the impacts on different aspects of social cohesion, by looking at the Great Lakes refugee crisis and the return of Burundians refugees from Tanzania.

The journal issue is organized in four separate parts—each relating to one of the questions that we posed earlier. Part I discusses mechanisms for managing refugees—‘mechanisms’ both in the general sense of the international institutions and processes that manage the response to refugee crises, and in the specific sense of using insights of modern market design techniques to match refugees effectively with local services. Parts II and III consider integration of refugees into host communities. Part II focuses on refugees and the macroeconomy, with Part III taking the microeconomic impacts through local labour markets and host communities. Part IV then discusses the longer-term path for refugees and internally displaced people: it considers issues of recovery, resilience, and return. The issue concludes with a postscript: a summary discussion of the likely policy implications for supporting refugees from the ongoing crisis in Ukraine.

Part I of the issue considers the particular systems that are used to respond to refugee crises. Some important questions here are, for example, what mechanisms should be used to deliver aid and public services to those that most need it? What can be done by the international community to help and assist host countries receiving refugees? What sort of global financing mechanisms should be in place in order to support the different responses to refugee crises? The first paper in the issue—by Grant Gordon and Ravi Gurumurthy (2022) — provides a framework to think about these questions and it poses a vision of how the humanitarian sector should look for the next 10–20 years. The paper takes stock of the evolution in the responses to forced displacement, identifies notable innovations, and proposes a way forward with an innovation agenda focused on delivering cash transfers and digital aid. It also highlights the importance of ‘compacts’—at the country level and with the support of the international community—that expand entitlements to work, and access to education and public services. An important aspect of this vision and of the future of innovation in the humanitarian sector, as noted by the authors, is that it should be grounded in pre-positioned—anticipatory—financing and policy. In this, the authors draw parallels with the ideas of Daniel Clarke and Stefan Dercon on the importance of a long-term approach to the management of crises. The authors also highlight important ethical issues that need to be considered as innovations in the sector take place.

Justin Hadad and Alexander Teytelboym (2022) then focus more specifically on mechanisms for improving the management of refugee settlement; they do so through the lens of market design. Hadad and Teytelboym start with a fundamental concern: the current refugee resettlement system is inefficient, in the sense that there are too few resettlement places and, when refugees are resettled, they often go to locations where they might not thrive. From this starting point, the paper then highlights several ways in which the market design paradigm can help: better matching between locations and refugees (therefore improving the prospects of success in outcomes for the refugee and the host), and creating incentives to increase the participation of countries in resettlement schemes. Importantly, market design can mitigate some of the worst inefficiencies and unfairness in the current system—improving on the status quo by incorporating refugees’ preferences, communities’ priorities, and economic outcomes. There is substantial scope for market design methods to improve practices at local resettlement agencies and at the international level. However, ultimately it is only political will that can increase resettlement.

Michael Clemens (2022) begins Part II of the issue, with a critical review of the literature on the consequences of refugee arrivals on the national economy. Clemens acknowledges immediately in his paper that economic gain is not the purpose of refugee and asylum policy. Nonetheless, it is crucially important—and, indeed, timely—to quantify the likely magnitude of such economic impacts, particularly given the tone of so much of the political discourse concerning the economic costs and benefits of accepting refugees and asylum-seekers. The paper does exactly that: it measures the consequences to the US economy of the decision to reduce refugee arrivals from 2017 to 2020. The estimates are substantial, and negative: the paper suggests that, on a conservative estimate, a net loss to government revenue of almost US$7,000 per year per ‘missing refugee’, and an overall cost to the economy of about US$31,000 per year per ‘missing refugee’. As Clemens explains, these figures ‘are large in one sense, small in another’; in particular, the costs are minimal relative to the overall size of the US economy.

Trade and foreign direct investment (FDI) together form one very important angle from which refugees might impact a host economy. This is the theme of the paper by Dany Bahar, Christopher Parsons and Pierre-Louis Vézina (2022) who document a ‘diversity dividend’ and a ‘dynamism dividend’ that may allow refugees to be particularly well placed to develop new opportunities for trade and cross-border investment. Among many others, an example is the increased trade between Vietnam and US states hosting Vietnamese refugees, and the development of products such as the Sriracha chilli sauce, a well-known and globally recognized staple condiment. 7 Importantly, another aspect of these cross-border interactions is the role played by refugee diasporas in helping processes of post-conflict reconstruction. As pointed out by the authors, diasporas maintain strong networks with their countries of origin and are well placed to lead and encourage the funding of needed resources to help the development of their country of origin. The authors illustrate with examples of developmental actors and projects that aim at finding ways to channel these efforts to foster peace and development (e.g. The DIASPEACE project). The authors then outline a set of potential policies to encourage refugees in their support for reconstruction and economic development in their origin countries. These include establishing regulations and policies to differentiate between refugees and migrants, providing labour market access to refugees, reducing the costs of remittances, finding mechanisms to leverage the role of diasporas, and—when appropriate—facilitating and incentivizing post-conflict return.

In the first paper in this section, Alexander Betts and Olivier Sterck (2022) note that in low- and middle-income countries there is significant variation in policy responses towards refugees; they ask, ‘why do some states give refugees the right to work, while others do not?’ Betts and Sterck pose competing theories based on interest-based, norms-based, and identity-based accounts; the authors outline potential mechanisms through multi-level bargaining at the global, national, and local levels to explain what might determine compliance with refugee norms. To test these potential explanations, the authors use a qualitative comparative case study together with a rich quantitative dataset, finding that norms-based and multi-level bargaining explanations do indeed explain compliance with refugee norms. In particular, the authors find that the de jure right to work is associated with payoffs at the ‘national’ level (i.e. being a signatory of the 1951 Convention) whereas de facto rights are associated with payoffs at the ‘local’ level (i.e. the degree of decentralization). An important implication of this paper—as highlighted by the authors—is the importance of creating incentives both at the national and local levels in order to promote compliance of refugee norms.

Nordic countries have a wealth of high quality data that allows researchers to look at important aspects of refugee integration and the impacts in hosting communities—and two papers in this issue draw on insights from these data. First, Jacob Nielsen Arendt, Christian Dustmann and Hyejin Ku (2022) review 40 years of evidence on the impacts of different immigration and integration policies on the short- and long-term outcomes of refugees in Denmark. They focus on the Danish evidence to date of five of the most common types of post-arrival policies in high-income countries: dispersal accommodation, employment support, integration and language programmes, welfare benefits, and conditions for permanent residency. A particularly important lesson drawn from the evidence is the need to assess and recognize the potential trade-offs and unintended consequences of changes in policies. For example, while the objective of dispersal policies is to distribute the burden of hosting refugees across all hosting communities, the initial place of settlement can have both immediate and long-term impacts on the labour market performance of refugees. Equally, while employment support policies are desirable, they could crowd out enrolment in language and integration programmes which are important for long-term integration outcomes. Most compelling were their findings regarding welfare. While reductions in benefits do seem to have an initial positive response in employment, there are other consequences of these reductions in disposable income: these include higher criminal activity of refugees and their children.

Sandra Rozo and Maria Jose Urbina (2022) take advantage of the dispersal policy in Sweden to look at the impact of hosting refugees on natives’ attitudes in hosting communities. The authors find that increased shares of refugee inflows translate into lower support for immigration in the hosting communities. These attitudes are further magnified by concurrent changes in economic conditions of the host. Further, a demographic characterization indicates that those holding more negative attitudes are more likely to be young males, with less wealth, and who work in blue-collar occupations. An important implication of this study is that policies aimed at promoting social cohesion towards refugees can usefully be informed by a better understanding of who is most likely to oppose refugees. This paper nicely adds to and complements the recent literature on the impacts of refugee inflows on public opinion and voting behaviour.

While the above two papers focus on high-income countries, many host destinations are low- and middle-income countries, where informality is an important feature of the labour market. Norman Loayza, Gabriel Ulyssea, and Tomoko Utsumi (2022) use a structural spatial model that the authors had previously developed to formally test and analyse the impacts of the mass inflow of Syrian refugees in Turkey. An important finding is that low-skill workers bear the burden of the costs, as the level of informality increases and wages decline for these workers. However, an interesting implication of this model is that since tax revenues and profits per worker also increase, the losses for low-skill workers can potentially be reversed through tax redistribution and could even lead to a net gain in income per capita in most affected regions.

The first paper in this section discusses and reviews over 20 years of research on the dynamics and consequences of forced internal displacement. The analysis is focused on Colombia—the country with the largest number of IDPs globally. As noted by Ana María Ibáñez, Andrés Moya, and Andrea Velázquez (2022), Colombian IDPs are lawfully recognized as victims of the conflict in what is perhaps one of the largest peace-building reparation programmes. The authors identify different mechanisms through which forced displacement can make IDPs vulnerable and trap them into (persistent and chronic) poverty. These include the loss of physical assets, the erosion of human capital, the loss and disruption of social networks, and psychological and behavioural impacts (loss of psychological assets and capacities ). The authors further discuss the evidence on the impact of different policies to assist and support IDPs (IDP registration, anti-poverty programmes, bespoke programmes for IDP, and Reparations and Land Restitution) and identify lessons for other contexts and countries affected by forced displacement.

The paper by Sarah Stillman, Sandra Rozo, Abdulrazzak Tamim, Bailey Palmer, Emma Smith, and Edward Miguel ( Stillman et al. , 2022 , in this issue) focuses on the socio-economic outcomes of Syrian refugees in Jordan. The paper discusses the first round of results of an important ongoing academic effort to track the outcomes of Syrian refugees. The Syrian Refugee Life Study (S-RLS), first launched in 2020, is a representative longitudinal study (2,500 households) of the socio-demographic and other characteristics of the Syrian population in Jordan. The results of the first wave of data are sobering. Syrians—perhaps not surprisingly—are more vulnerable in terms of poverty and other economic outcomes (especially those living outside camps) compared to the Jordanian population, and the impacts of the Covid-19 pandemic has likely magnified the growing gap between refugees and non-refugees.

During the lockdown, Syrian refugees had an average reduction in per adult income of 80 per cent and, after the lockdown, the number of households with positive labour income declined by 12.4 per cent. The prospects of return for the Syrian population are not very optimistic: the large majority of refugees are not hopeful that the war will be resolved any time soon and over half of them are not planning to return in the near future. Similar to what the previous paper highlighted, a common theme for refugees is the state of their mental health and higher likelihood of depression.

Complementing the S-LRS above, the next paper by Caroline Krafft, Bilal Malaeb, and Saja Alzoubi (2022) addresses the question: ‘How do policy approaches affect refugee economic outcomes?’ Focusing on education, work permits, cash assistance, welfare, food aid, and the consequences of encampment in Jordan and Lebanon, the authors discuss and assess the relatively scarce evidence on the impacts of the different policies on the refugee population (and some of the externalities on the hosting populations). While the two countries are not necessarily directly comparable, the authors highlight important commonalities and differences in terms of policy effectiveness. They also raise two important points. First, the importance of recognizing the protracted nature of the Syrian conflict. This will likely require a policy effort geared towards refugee integration and a shift to long-term development goals. A second important point is the need for better data collection—including longitudinal data—and the need for good quality impact evaluations to best inform policy-makers and other stakeholders. The previous study (i.e. the S-LRS) has taken important steps in this regard.

A final question is: what happens when refugees return? There is not much that we currently know about refugee return; from what determines the decision and timing of return to what are the consequences on the communities to which refugees return. The final paper in this section focuses on the latter; it looks at the consequences of refugee return on social cohesion. Building on their previous work 8 on the consequences of post-conflict refugee return to Burundi after the Great Lakes conflict, Isabel Ruiz and Carlos Vargas-Silva (2022) look at indicators of support across households, violence and reconciliation, trust, and participation in community groups and the differences between stayees and returnees Their results indicate the possibility of new migration-related societal divisions in affecting post-return social cohesion. These new migration-related divisions suggest that groups which were previously coherent (e.g. based on common ethnicity) can now be split given their location during the conflict (e.g. stayees versus returnees). As noted by the authors, moving forward, policy efforts should include an understanding the dynamics behind new migration-related divisions.

As noted earlier, most of the papers in this journal issue were received in final form just prior to the Russian invasion of Ukraine. To discuss the policy implications of this ongoing war, Vlad Mykhnenko, Elliot Delahaye, and Nigel Mehdi generously agreed—on short notice—to provide an additional paper for the issue ( Mykhnenko et al., 2022 ). Their paper begins not in late February 2022, but in late February 2014: when Russia occupied Crimea, and then moved to occupy Donetska and Lukanska. As the authors explain, these acts—and the 8 years of violence that have followed—caused massive forced migration, both to other parts of Ukraine and to other countries; it also caused over 13,000 conflict-related casualties. The key contribution of the paper is to draw upon the experiences of internally displaced Ukrainians—which the authors do using a gravity model, to characterize the relationship between individual characteristics and the migration decision—to make policy recommendations for responding to the humanitarian crisis currently unfolding. The authors highlight four key lessons: (i) heterogeneity among displaced Ukrainians is critically important in understanding their migration decisions, (ii) permanent resettlement will likely be necessary, given the protracted nature of the conflict, (iii) large-scale migration is likely to occur over long geographical distances, requiring general humanitarian support from many different state actors, and (iv) local programmes offering support, while valuable, are unlikely to have substantial impacts on migrants’ choice of destination.

The recent conflict in Ukraine has reminded us that conflict can escalate quickly and, with that, large population exodus ensues. This presents challenges not only for countries receiving and hosting these vulnerable populations, but it also challenges and questions the responsibilities of the international community. In this context, academic research on displaced populations has become of great importance for policy-makers and other stakeholders. 9 The papers in this issue speak to many of these challenges and offer important evidence and possible policy solutions. They also speak directly to UNHCR’s ‘durable solutions’ to refugee situations: voluntary repatriation , resettlement , and integration within the host community , and to the stated objectives of the 2018 Global Compact on Refugees. Indeed, many of the papers raise the need of systematic and long-term approaches not only in terms of durable but also sustainable responses and solutions.

It is important, however, to recognize that while all the papers in this journal issue have focused on displacement due to war and conflict, an important challenge ahead relates to climate change and environmental displacement. Indeed, the Global Compact on Refugees has recognized this as an important root cause and one that ‘interacts with the drivers of refugee movements’ ( United Nations, 2018 ).

Finally, many of the responses needed in forced migration settings fully depend on political will and the responses of the electorate. The salience of refugee migration in national politics has been one of the driver forces behind populist political parties and political polarization—both in high-income and middle- or low-income contexts ( Altindag and Kaushal, 2021 ; Rozo and Vargas, 2021 ). This highlights the importance of quantifying the impacts of forced migration—and, equally critical, the importance of bridging a gap in how this evidence is communicated and understood in the broader community.

We thank Alison Gomm for excellent support and editorial work during the production of this issue, and to members of the journal’s Editorial Board and invited referees for very useful comments and discussions.

Asylum-seekers are those seeking protection from persecution and serious human rights violations in another country, but are awaiting a decision from their host country as they have not been legally recognized as refugees.

The 1951 Convention defined refugees only in terms of ‘events occurring before 1 January 1951’—an expression that, for some contracting states, implied both temporal and spatial limitations. These limitations were removed by the 1967 Protocol Relating to the Status of Refugees; see UNHCR (2011) . Further agreements have followed in order to extend the protection to cases beyond those covered by the Convention. These include the 1969 Convention of the Organization of African Unity, the 1984 Cartagena Declaration, and the European Union’s 2004 and 2011 Qualification Directives ( Hatton, 2020 ).

Formally, Article 33(1) of the 1951 Convention provides that ‘No Contracting State shall expel or return (“ refouler ”) a refugee in any manner whatsoever to the frontiers of territories where his life or freedom would be threatened on account of his race, religion, nationality, membership of a particular social group or political opinion’ ( UNHCR, 1994 ). In addition to non-refoulement , the 1951 Convention provides for ‘non-discrimination’ and ‘non-penalization’, as well as providing various rights regarding welfare, housing, education, and employment.

A protracted refugee situation refers to cases in which 25,000 or more refugees from the same nationality have been in exile for at least 5 consecutive years. By the end of 2020, UNCHR had an estimate of 15.7 million refugees living in protracted displacement ( UNHCR, 2021 ).

Internally displaced people (IDPs) are different from refugees in that while refugees are under the protection of the international community, national governments are the ones responsible for IDPs. See the paper by Ibañez et al . (2022) in this issue for a thorough discussion.

Although not discussed in this issue, Colombia also hosts a large number of displaced Venezuelans, with close to two million by the end of 2021 ( R4V, 2022 ).

For the US, there are also well documented examples of the role of refugees in increasing innovations and advances in R&D ( Moser et al. , 2014 ; Tam, 2020 ).

Previous work by the authors can be found in the project’s website: https://www.econforced.com/lamfor .

For broad reviews of the forced displacement literature in economics, see Verme and Schuettler (2021) ; Becker and Ferrara (2019) ; Dustmann et al. (2017) ; Ruiz and Vargas-Silva (2013) .

Altindag , O. , and Kaushal , N . ( 2021 ), ‘Do Refugees Impact Voting Behavior in the Host Country? Evidence from Syrian Refugee Inflows to Turkey’ , Public Choice , 189 , 149 – 78 .

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Bahar , D. , Parsons , C. , and Vézina , P.-L . ( 2022 ), ‘Refugees, Trade, and FDI’ , Oxford Review of Economic Policy , 38 ( 3 ), 487 – 513 .

Becker , S. O. , and Ferrara , A . ( 2019 ), ‘Consequences of Forced Migration: A Survey of Recent Findings’ , Labour Economics , 59 , 1 – 16 .

Betts , A . ( 2018 ), ‘The Global Compact on Refugees: Towards a Theory of Change?’ , International Journal of Refugee Law , 30 ( 4 ), 623 – 26 .

— Sterck , O . ( 2022 ), ‘Why Do States Give Refugees the Right to Work?’ , Oxford Review of Economic Policy, 38 ( 3 ), 514 – 30 .

Clemens , M. A. ( 2022 ), ‘The Economic and Fiscal Effects on the United States from Reduced Numbers of Refugees and Asylum Seekers’ , Oxford Review of Economic Policy , 38 ( 3 ), 449 – 86 .

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Dinas , E. , Matakos , K. , Xefteris , D. , and Hangartner , D . ( 2020 ), ‘Waking Up the Golden Dawn: Does Exposure to the Refugee Crisis Increase Support for Extreme-right Parties?’ , Political Analysis , 27 ( 2 ), 244 – 54 .

Dustmann , C. , Vasiljeva , K. , and Damm , A . ( 2019 ), ‘Refugee Migration and Electoral Outcomes’ , Review of Economic Studies , 86 ( 5 ), 2035 – 91 .

— Fasani , F. , Frattini , T. , Minale , L. , and Schönberg , U . ( 2017 ), ‘On the Economics and Politics of Refugee Migration’ , Economic Policy , 32 ( 91 ), 497 – 550 .

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Hadad , J. , and Teytelboym , A . ( 2022 ), ‘Improving Refugee Resettlement: Insights from Market Design’ , Oxford Review of Economic Policy , 38 ( 3 ), 434 – 48 .

Hatton , T. J . ( 2020 ), ‘Asylum Migration to the Developed World: Persecution, Incentives, and Policy’ , Journal of Economic Perspectives , 34 ( 1 ), 75 – 93 .

Ibáñez , A. M. , Moya , A. , and Velásquez , A . ( 2022 ), ‘Promoting Recovery and Resilience for Internally Displaced Persons: Lessons from Colombia’ , Oxford Review of Economic Policy , 38 ( 3 ), 595 – 624 .

Krafft , C. , Malaeb , B. , and al Zoubi , S . ( 2022 ), ‘How Do Policy Approaches Affect Refugee Economic Outcomes? Insights from Studies of Syrian Refugees in Jordan and Lebanon’ , Oxford Review of Economic Policy , 38 ( 3 ), 654 – 77 .

Loayza , N. , Ulyssea , G. , and Utsumi , T . ( 2022 ), ‘Labour Market and Redistributive Consequences of the Syrian Refugees in Turkey’ , Oxford Review of Economic Policy , 38 ( 3 ), 578 – 94 .

Moser , P. , Voena , A. , and Waldinger , F . ( 2014 ), ‘German Jewish Émigrés and US Invention’ , American Economic Review , 104 ( 10 ), 3222 – 55 .

Mykhnenko , V. , Delahaye , E. , and Mehdi , N . ( 2022 ), ‘Understanding Forced Internal Displacement in Ukraine: Insights and Lessons for Today’s Crises’ , Oxford Review of Economic Policy , 38 ( 3 ), 705 – 22 .

R4V ( 2022 ), ‘The Platform for Interagency Coordination for Refugees and Migrants from Venezuela’ , https://www.r4v.info/en , accessed 1 April 2022 .

Rozo , S. V. , and Urbina , M. J . ( 2022 ), ‘Who Opposes Refugees? Swedish Demographics and Attitudes Towards Forcibly Displaced Populations’ , Oxford Review of Economic Policy , 38 ( 3 ), 557–77.

— Vargas , J . ( 2021 ), ‘Brothers or Invaders? How Crisis-driven Migrants Shape Voting Behavior’ , Journal of Development Economics , 150 , 102636 .

Ruiz , I. , and Vargas-Silva , C . ( 2013 ), ‘The Economics of Forced Migration’ , The Journal of Development Studies , 49 ( 6 ), 772 – 84 .

— — ( 2022 ), ‘Refugee Return and Social Cohesion’ , Oxford Review of Economic Policy , 38 ( 3 ), 678 – 704 .

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Stillman , S. , Rozo , S. V. , Tamim , A. , Palmer , I. B. , Smith , E. , and Miguel , E . ( 2022 ), ‘The Syrian Refugee Life Study: First Glance’ , Oxford Review of Economic Policy , 38 ( 3 ), 625 – 53 .

Tam , S . ( 2020 ), ‘How Immigrants Drive Entrepreneurship and Innovation’ , https://behavioralscientist.org/how-immigrants-drive-entrepreneurship-invention-Innovation/ , accessed 1 April 2022 .

UNHCR ( 1994 ), ‘The Principle of Non-Refoulement as a Norm of Customary International Law. Response to the Questions Posed to UNHCR by the Federal Constitutional Court of the Federal Republic of Germany in Cases 2 BvR 1938/93, 2 BvR 1953/93, 2 BvR 1954/93’ , 31 January, https://www.refworld.org/docid/437b6db64.html , accessed 2 April 2022 .

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Home — Essay Samples — Social Issues — Human Migration — Refugee Crisis: Impact and Dynamics

Refugee Crisis: Impact and Dynamics

• Categories: Human Migration

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Words: 719 |

Published: Nov 15, 2018

Words: 719 | Pages: 2 | 4 min read

Works Cited

• Betts, A., & Collier, P. (2017). Refuge: Transforming a Broken Refugee System. Penguin Books.
• Fiddian-Qasmiyeh, E. (2016). The Oxford Handbook of Refugee and Forced Migration Studies. Oxford University Press.
• Hathaway, J. C. (2015). The Rights of Refugees under International Law. Cambridge University Press.
• Koser, K., & Martin, S. F. (Eds.). (2019). The Migration–Displacement Nexus: Patterns, Processes, and Policies. Edward Elgar Publishing.
• Loescher, G., & Milner, J. (Eds.). (2020). The UNHCR and World Politics: A Perilous Path. Oxford University Press.
• Malkki, L. H. (2015). The Need to Help: The Domestic Arts of International Humanitarianism. Duke University Press.
• Porter, M. (2018). A History of the Modern Refugee. Cambridge University Press.
• Schuster, L. (2016). Humanitarian Borderwork: The Ethics and Politics of Border Control. Routledge.
• Shachar, A. (2017). The Shifting Border: Legal Cartographies of Migration and Mobility. Cambridge University Press.
• Zetter, R. (2019). The Politics of Refugees: Intractable Problems and Impossible Solutions. Oxford University Press.

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Forced Migration: Causes and Global Impact Essay

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The orientation of the society in contemporary times denotes the creation of pressure that necessitates the movement of people from one location to another location to ease the pressure. Migration is, therefore, a trend that is common due to the modern world that is characterized by the push and pull factors that influence the movement of populations across the world.

As Castles (2003) argues, “The most obvious reason why we should study forced migration is that it has grown dramatically in the post-Cold War period” (p. 14). The underdeveloped countries often face a lot of internal challenges, forcing most of their population to migrate internally or externally.

Political and economic instability and social pressures such as extreme poverty, joblessness, and conflict arising from scarce economic resources are some of the reasons for forced migration in search of better economic opportunities.

As a result, forced migration causes underdevelopment of the home countries of the immigrants, as well as serving as a possible catalyst for economic progress both in the host and home countries of the immigrants if they land economic opportunities in their host nations. This paper discusses the causes and effects of migration on the people who are displaced.

Political instability in most countries falls among the complex causes of forced migration in the modern day world. Since the end of the Cold War, there has been a tremendous growth of forced migration (Castles, 2003). Staples (2013) opines that states that are unstable, commonly known as failed states, bring a substantial number of problems to their citizens.

These problems range from insecurity to lack of necessities like food and water. Also, such states exhibit high rates of human rights violations. In other words, these states become inhabitable as these problems keep rising in scale, thereby posing threats to human existence and survival in these states.

An example that can be given here is Somalia, which has had its population migrate to other countries neighboring the Horn of Africa due to political instability. As long as solutions to the political instability in such countries are not realized, people in these countries remain exposed to risks that culminate into forced displacement.

Most countries in the developing world do not have the economic capacity to sustain their citizens. Thus, cases of extreme poverty, joblessness, hunger, malnutrition, and conflict over limited economic resources are very common (Castles, 2003). A combination of these factors results in forced migration in search of economic opportunities.

According to Wise (2013), the best economic opportunities remain in the hands of the capitalists, leaving the majority of the population with either limited or no opportunities to thrive in the economy. A substantial number of development index reports that are released annually denote that most countries in the developing world have huge gaps of inequality.

Kancs (2012) observed that the developing world faces a problem because the supply of labor supersedes the demand for labor due to the nature of the economic structures in place. As such, most people in these countries are forced to seek opportunities in developed countries.

Political instability and other related effects in the home country make the home country unattractive for investment and development as they are bypassed by potential investors, besides being unable to spur investment from the local population. Castles (2003) argues that political instability in the home countries of immigrants is one of the major stumbling blocks for the economic prosperity of these nations.

The population that is internally displaced remains in camps and ends up being unproductive and a liability to the economy of the home country. Although the immigrants may land on economically viable opportunities in the host nations, they hardly go back home.

Thus they do not grow their home countries (2006). In the long run, the economy of the home country of the immigrants deteriorates and makes life harder for those in the country and unfavorable for those in foreign countries to return home. Even the people who migrate do not always get economic opportunities in the host countries.

Migration can result in the economic transformation of both the home and host countries. Lindstrøm (2005) argues that developed countries somewhat appreciate and encourage receiving immigrants, especially when the immigrants come for positive reasons such as investing or working. These individuals become resourceful to the host country by paying taxes and social security funds.

Besides, the immigrants also send remittances and invest back in their home country, thus contributing positively to the home economies (Wise & Covarubias, 2009). Even persons who migrate due to natural catastrophes, economic problems, and human-generated conflicts can now get economic opportunities in their host countries as a result of changes in laws and policies governing immigrants.

For instance, the European Union has been proactive in developing policies and laws to help in safeguarding the rights and interests of the displaced people. This makes the immigrants resourceful to their host countries, as well as their home countries by making remittances to boost the economies back home.

In conclusion, this paper has demonstrated that political hostility and adverse economic and social situations like lack of jobs, abject poverty, and the resultant conflicts as people struggle for limited resources lead to migration.

It is also evident that as much as forced migration may be negative by leading to a state of underdevelopment in the home country of the immigrants as the environment becomes unfavorable for investment, it may also lead to the economic development of both the host and home countries.

However, this depends on whether the immigrants become economically productive in the host countries and whether they send remittances back to their home countries.

In summary, it is necessary for the national and international communities to promote political and economic stability to curb the problem of forced migration and its consequences. Policies and regulations should also be formulated to promote and safeguard the welfare of immigrants to promote their welfare and that of the host and home economies.

Castles, S. (2003). Towards a sociology of forced migration and social transformation. Sociology , 37 (1), 13-34.

Castles, S. (2006). Global perspectives on forced migration. Asian and Pacific migration Journal, 15 (1), 7.

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Forced Migration and Resilience: Introduction

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This introductory chapter provides an overview to the general context of forced migration and its relationship to resilience research and links this context with the objectives of this volume and the different contributions to this volume. By marking basic directions of resilience research in the context of forced displacement, the overall interdisciplinary objective of this volume and selection of papers is located within current processes of resilience research.

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How to Demarcate Resilience? A Reflection on Reviews in Disaster Resilience Research

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Fingerle, M., Wink, R. (2020). Forced Migration and Resilience: Introduction. In: Fingerle, M., Wink, R. (eds) Forced Migration and Resilience. Studien zur Resilienzforschung. Springer, Wiesbaden. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-658-27926-4_1

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Forced Migration Essays

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America Turned Against Migrant Detention Before. We Can Do It Again

P eople detained without trial. Separated from their children. Denied basic constitutional rights. Unaware of when they will be released or even if they will be released. Subjected to beatings and other torture. Americans have long pinned these abuses to far-off regimes and distant times: Nazi Germany, Pinochet’s Chile, the Soviet Union. In reality, however, in the United States, people are being subjected to such violent and unconstitutional treatment on a daily basis. This is the world of immigrant detention.

Since its inception, detention has been an affront to basic ideals of justice and compassion. It is so by design: when the government first introduced federal immigration detention in 1891, it designated detention facilities as spaces where the Constitution did not reign. According to the law that passed that year, migrants stopped at the border are legally considered to be outside the country. When these “entrants” are detained in the U.S. while the government decides their fate, they are to be treated as if they are not here.  This is the case whether the detention centers are near the border or deep within the country. The detention centers exist on the U.S. map, but the “entrants” within them are presumed to be held outside the nation. Since they are “not here,” those detained are not guaranteed basic constitutional protections—even when subjected to the law and force of the state.

The U.S. was founded on the notion that people have “cer­tain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty, and the pur­suit of Happiness.” The Fifth Amendment echoed this assertion, stating that “no person” should “be deprived of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law.” The amendment did not speak in terms of citizens but in terms of persons, and it was unambiguous: people deserved due process before being deprived of liberty. In 1798, Thomas Jefferson ex­plicitly wrote: “Habeas Corpus secures every man here, alien or citizen, against everything which is not law.”

Jefferson was clear on his point that foreigners deserved due process, but perhaps he and the other Founding Fathers should have been more specific about what they meant by the seemingly unequivocal term “here.” After all, slightly over a century later Congress passed the 1891 law by which those stopped at the border were to be considered not “here.” This doctrine, which came to be known as the “entry fiction,” continues to dictate conditions for asylum seekers and migrants stopped at the border to this day.

Read More: The Deadly Digital Frontiers at the Border

Abuse and dehumanization have occurred no matter when, how, or why detention was being used— they are intrinsic to the system. Between the end of the 19 th century and the mid-1950s, de­tention was conceived as a means of enforcing the nation’s exclusionary laws. At the time, the government sought to exclude from entry those migrants it considered undesirable, such as Chinese laborers, and those deemed to be “idiots,” “insane,” or likely to become a public charge. Migrants were detained while officials determined whether these foreign nationals had the right to enter the country or not. The purpose of detention was not to hurt the new arrivals, but the system nonetheless did. Migrants were incarcerated without knowing why or when they would be released. They were held in conditions so terrible that many died by suicide. Guards regularly beat them. Those detained lived in a world where spending time out­side was rare, windows were barred, and quarters were overcrowded. At these sites, children were often separated from their parents and guardians.

In 1954, government officials decided that there were more compassionate and effective ways to deal with the migrants who were coming to America than caging them. The vast majority of new arrivals could be released on conditional “parole,” the term used for pretrial release in immigration cases, while their cases were being reviewed. Detention, officials held, was to be reserved for migrants who were deemed likely to abscond or who posed a threat to national security or public safety. In 1958, the Supreme Court, in Leng May Ma v. Barber , even held that “physical detention of aliens is now the exception, not the rule,” and pointed out that “certainly this policy reflects the humane qualities of an enlightened civilization.”

But this more “enlightened” drive only lasted until 1980, when over 124,000 Cubans arrived in America on the Mariel Boatlift. Soon thereafter the Reagan administration reintroduced detention in full force. It also changed its logic. Previously, immigrants had been detained while the government decided whether they could stay or be deported; now the explicit goal of detention became to deter future migrants from embarking for the U.S. in the first place. Harm became detention’s ready weapon. The emotional and physical abuse, suicides, and other deaths inside detention facilities rose dramatically.

Beyond its incalculable human costs and its erosion of our legal and ethical principles, detention is also financially costly. Throughout America’s history, the federal government has spent vast sums to keep migrants behind bars. In the 2018 fiscal year, the country spent over $3 billion on immigrant detention. That money could have been used for myriad other purposes. That very year, the enacted budget of the Envi­ronmental Protection Agency was $8.8 billion — only three times more than the amount the government used to detain nearly 400 thousand migrants among a nation of over 300 million peo­ple . If those immigrants had been freed into the custody of their families and friends, that money could have been used to further protect the na­tion’s water, reduce pollution, clean up toxic lands, and safeguard human health.

Many Americans believe that detaining foreign arrivals while the government determines if they have a right to enter the coun­try is an indispensable practice. Otherwise, the thinking goes, unautho­rized migrants will abscond and vanish among the American populace. This logic resembles the government’s reasoning for detaining arrivals before 1954. But hard evidence in both our nation’s history and our pres­ent shows that this reasoning is fallacious. In the years between 1954 and 1980, when the government spoke against detention, U.S. officials released most non-Mexican entrants on parole instead of imprisoning them, knowing that the vast majority of released mi­grants would not flee.

Similarly, current data suggests that most migrants released today appear in court when required, which means that there is no need to detain them. Multiple studies have shown that approximately 88% of all non-detained individuals attended their court hearings in the past two decades, including in recent years. That percentage rose to about 98% among those with legal representation or among asylum seekers regardless of whether they had access to legal counsel or not.

Detention is also useless as a means of deterrence. It never stopped foreign nationals from coming to the U.S.. No matter how long migrants were detained or how cruel the system was, they kept coming, because the situations in their home countries were even more dire. For instance, during the years of Chinese exclusion, Chinese mi­grants knew that they would be detained upon arrival. They still boarded the ships heading to America. The same phenomenon occurred over and over again with migrants who came from different parts of the world at different times. In the 1980s, Haitian refugees were aware that the U.S. government would in­carcerate them if the Coast Guard caught them, but migrating was a matter of life and death so they came. Central American asylum seekers have long fled to the U.S. although they are aware that they might be detained in freezing rooms under dehumanizing conditions. Even Trump’s draconian family separation policy, which was intended to curtail migration, failed in its goal: the year after it was introduced, apprehensions along the US‑Mexico border were 88 percent higher than the year before. Migrants had continued to come. The most inhumane form of deterrence yet imagined failed in its intended goal.

Thankfully, America’s history does not only show the costs, violence, and futility inherent in detention, but it also provides us with potential alternatives. In the years between 1954 and 1980, U.S. leaders spoke forcefully against immigrant incarceration. Like In those years, parole continues to offer the most viable alternative to the costly, inhumane, and ineffective system of detention, at least until there is a complete overhaul of the nation’s immigration laws.

Detaining migrants is pointless. The human pain it causes is unnec­essary. The money used is wasted. Immigrant detention has never been effective in its intended goal whether this is exclusion or deterrence. Rather than caging migrants and refugees, the government should simply release them and allow them to reside with friends, family, or community members in the U.S. while it examines their cases.

From IN THE SHADOW OF LIBERTY by Ana Raquel Minian, published by Viking, an imprint of Penguin Publishing Group, a division of Penguin Random House, LLC. Copyright © 2024 by Ana Raquel Minian.

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Guest Essay

First They Came for My Country’s Future. Now They’re Destroying Its Past.

By Dena Ibrahim

Ms. Ibrahim, who grew up in Sudan, wrote from London.

On the evening of April 14, 2023, I was at a concert in Khartoum. The end of Ramadan was near, and the audience listened to the ouds, tambours and kanoons of Bait Al Oud , an orchestra set up to preserve traditional Sudanese instruments. I sang along to songs made popular by the 2019 revolution and then floated home, my spirits high.

The next day I watched fighter jets fire rockets into the neighborhoods where I grew up.

Thousands of people have been killed since fighting erupted just over a year ago between the Sudanese Army and the Rapid Support Forces, a powerful paramilitary group that is the latest iteration of the janjaweed, or devils on horseback, which was central to the ethnic cleansing in Darfur in the 2000s. The R.S.F. helped to crack down on pro-democracy demonstrations in 2019 and, with its general Mohamed Hamdan (widely known as Hemeti), was part of a power-sharing regime that fell apart in April.

Now it is at war with its former partners in government, and the Sudanese people have become collateral damage. A report from Human Rights Watch in May detailed the R.S.F.’s ethnic-cleansing campaign against the Masalit and other non-Arab people in West Darfur. There have been other reports of summary executions, torture and rape. Across the country, more than 11 million people have been displaced. Homes have been occupied and looted. Museums have been targeted and their contents probably sold, destroyed or just taken.

In the 2021 coup, the R.S.F. and the military delayed the revolution’s dream of a democratic, pluralistic Sudan. Now the R.S.F. is intent on destroying any evidence that another Sudan could ever exist or ever did. If the rest of the world continues to look away, it may succeed.

My aunt spent the first few days of the war huddled on her living room floor with her children and grandchildren, trying to avoid errant antiaircraft bullets. Soon R.S.F. soldiers broke in and forced her family, including an 8-month-old, to lie facedown in the dirt with guns to their heads, she told me. The house in Khartoum that she had lived in for over 30 years was torn apart, and her house was covered in human excrement. Her family fled, leaving everything behind.

My great-uncle fled to Egypt when the fighting began. Soon afterward, he heard that the R.S.F. had emptied his house, including the china his wife had collected over 50 years, onto their trucks. Relatives told me that the soldiers had defecated on his children’s beds on the way out. My great-uncle died a refugee a few months later and never saw his house again.

Down the road from my house, my grandparents’ house was taken apart by soldiers who ripped up my grandmother’s photographs and my grandfather’s books and pulled their mattresses out into the streets. The home that witnessed the tragedies and triumphs of seven children, 27 grandchildren and five great-grandchildren was left unrecognizable.

Many homes across the country have been pillaged like this by the R.S.F., with people reporting that sometimes even the doors and windows were stolen. Our homes were where we held weddings and funerals, where families gathered for Friday fatours and Eid. Where our grandparents made space for us before we were even born. Now they are the spoils of war: Someone called my uncle and told him that a large family from Chad intended to move into his home. A militia member called a friend and said he was in my friend’s house and would be spending his honeymoon there.

The militia is undoubtedly motivated by profit; looted items are reportedly sold in markets in Sudan and further afield. But they are also erasing the Sudan that existed before the war and making sure that anybody who dares to come back has nothing to return to.

The National Museum of Sudan, like much of the country, had fallen into disrepair in the 30 years of Omar Hassan al-Bashir’s rule. But before the war a multimillion-dollar renovation, led by UNESCO and the National Corporation for Antiquities and Museums, was underway.

I last visited in early April 2023, a few days before war broke out. The museum held more than 100,000 artifacts, from the steles of ancient warrior queens to 13th-century Christian frescoes. Ancient Nubian and Egyptian temples dedicated to the Egyptian gods Horus and Amon, painstakingly rescued during the construction of the Aswan Dam, dotted its gardens. When I was growing up, the dictatorship of Mr. al-Bashir afforded very few opportunities for national pride, but at the National Museum it was possible to glimpse a better version of our country — more diverse, complex and inclusive. It was a Sudan I also glimpsed in 2019, when so many Sudanese peacefully united to overthrow Mr. al-Bashir.

At a sit-in outside the national military headquarters, I saw protesters from previously divided ethnic, religious and social groups coming together to build the democratic Sudan they so desperately wanted and deserve. We chanted, “We are all Darfur,” to acknowledge the pain the regime had inflicted on that region. Christians provided Ramadan meals to Muslims, and Sufis whirled. After a violent crackdown by the R.S.F., the people came out again.

But the leaders of the national army and the R.S.F., who were supposed to head a transitional government, had no intention of giving up power. A couple of years later, they staged a coup, then they turned on each other.

In May 2023 R.S.F. fighters entered the National Museum. In videos posted online, they gloated as they opened ancient Nubian caskets, disturbing 3,000-year-old corpses. Snipers took up positions on the museum’s roof. The museum was looted. It’s being used now as an R.S.F. cemetery. The Khalifa House Museum , in Omdurman, also recently renovated, was cleared out, too.

R.S.F. members have posted videos of themselves in the ruins of the ancient religious site of Naqa, a World Heritage site . They are said to have ransacked or burned university libraries and archives. In September I heard that the collection of rare instruments at the Bait Al Oud Academy — which I listened to on the eve of the war — had been destroyed.

I fled my home in Sudan one year ago. Millions of people are still there, trapped between an incompetent army and the genocidal militia it created. For them, it has been a year of summary executions, encroaching famine and city after city ravaged by the militia.

The R.S.F. encircled El Fasher in North Darfur a little over a month ago. The city, already threatened by famine, waits on the edge of a likely massacre. And yet the international community still stands by. Attention is rarely paid to Sudan, and much of what I read reduces the conflict to a power struggle between two generals or a migration problem for Europe. Perhaps this is why R.S.F. fighters feel so free to broadcast their crimes on social media.

There was no place for rogue militias in the Sudan we dreamed of at the sit-in in 2019. They stole that future from us, and now they are erasing our past.

Dena Ibrahim, who grew up in Sudan, wrote from London.

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