HOW COMMUNITY SPONSORSHIP CAN MAKE A DIFFERENCE FOR AFGHAN REFUGEES
Eliza Bateman
The situation in Afghanistan is now one of the largest displacement crises in history. The United Nations refugee agency, UNHCR, estimates that 500,000 people in 2021 alone will flee the country, in addition to the 2.2 million people who are now already refugees in Pakistan or Iran, and the 3.5 million people who are internally displaced (and at great risk) in Afghanistan. Ensuring that all Afghan refugees have permanent protection is a huge challenge, and one that should involve states offering a home to many refugees through resettlement.
Resettlement involves the relocation of refugees from one asylum country to another state that agrees to offer them permanent residence and the social and economic rights that attach to that status. UNHCR positively assesses refugees for resettlement when there is no other durable solution available, or when they face great risk in their country of asylum. Resettlement is a scarce resource: in 2019, only 4.5% refugees assessed by UNHCR to need resettlement were resettled (63,696 out of an estimated 1.4 million people). Resettlement is also a discretionary and political act: states may choose to resettle a certain number of refugees, but there is no international legal obligation requiring them to do so. It is often politically fraught: public opinion for or against refugee protection can impact states’ decisions to increase or decrease their resettlement quota.
Community sponsorship initiatives (programs where groups of citizens support the welcome and settlement of refugees in their local communities) can be designed to support refugees resettled by a state or can be designed to support refugees who might have family, professional or community ties in a third country, like Afghan nationals who helped US and Australian forces. Programmes can also be designed to offer support to both these refugee groups. A growing number of countries are already using community sponsorship of refugees as part of their humanitarian response to the situation in Afghanistan. In this piece, I discuss the potential of sponsorship to efficiently mobilise reception and settlement support for refugees, and its ability to unite diverse people in support of refugee protection, and in support of resettlement.
Resettlement and sponsorship of Afghans: the state of play
Australia has initially pledged to resettle 3,000 Afghan nationals through humanitarian visas, which will be taken from the total quota for the refugee and humanitarian scheme with 13,750 places each year. The Australian government has also stated that more resettlement places might be allocated to Afghans in 2021-2022, but has not indicated what this increase might be. The Australian government has been urged by many to increase the number of Afghan refugees.
In Canada, the Trudeau government recently committed to resettling 40,000 Afghans from high risk groups, an increase from its original pledge of 20,000. Underlining the importance of the Private Sponsorship of Refugees (PSR) program to Canada’s Afghanistan response, the Government of Canada also announced that the PSR Program will be a major contributor to its Afghan resettlement program, as it was in its Syrian resettlement program in 2015.
The United Kingdom (UK) announced that it intends to resettle 5,000 Afghan nationals in 2021, and up to 20,000 in the longer term. An integral part of the UK resettlement plan is supporting Afghans through its community sponsorship scheme through the creation of the Afghan Citizens’ Resettlement Scheme in September 2021.
It is difficult to predict the total number of Afghans who will be resettled in the United States, but early numbers are staggering. Biden administration officials has said that 65,000 Afghans will have arrived in the US by November, with up to 30,000 more over the fiscal year. In mid September, there were already 20,000 more evacuees at US bases in the Middle East, and an additional 23,000 people waiting in Europe for permission to enter the US. The US has also just announced the introduction of a new form of community sponsorship, which I discuss below.
Refugee sponsorship around the world
Australia introduced its community sponsorship program in 2017: the Community Support Program (CSP). Australian citizens or businesses nominate or are matched with people who meet refugee and humanitarian visa criteria. Nominating citizens must pay visa fees and provide full support for the newcomer when they arrive. Priority is given to people who are judged likely to integrate quickly, who have a job offer, and who are between 18 and 50 years old. Additional priority is given to people willing to live in regional Australia. Critiques of the CSP have focused on the high application costs and the fact that the program takes places from Australia’s resettlement quota. The Australian government began a review of the CSP in 2019, and it is ongoing.
In August 2021, the Community Refugee Sponsorship Initiative (CRSI) created a Group Mentorship Program, that connects resettled refugee newcomers with a local group of volunteers, who provide a range of settlement supports. In September, CRSI announced that its Mentorship Program would match groups with evacuees arriving from Afghanistan.
These two forms of community welcome—while very different—share two important elements with other community sponsorship programs around the world:
Community sponsorship programs involve local constituencies in welcoming refugees. In Canada, the UK, Ireland and New Zealand (and other countries), groups of local citizens work together to welcome and support refugee newcomers.
Sponsor groups provide settlement support to refugee newcomers across a wide range of areas like housing, building community ties, education, language services, and friendship and connection.
In Canada, the PSR Program has repeatedly demonstrated its capacity to respond swiftly and effectively to settle large numbers of people in need of protection. In 1979, Canadians sponsored 29,269 Vietnamese, Laotian and Cambodian refugees to Canada, almost half the number of refugees who arrived in Canada between 1979 and 1982. In 2015-2017, through Operation Syrian Refugees, Canada welcomed 69,000 Syrian refugees, and 33,723 of these were privately sponsored.
In Operation Syrian Refugees, community sponsorship shared the impact of a large number of people arriving in Canada over a short period of time. The fact that sponsor groups were spread across Canada, as well as the fact that sponsors tapped into their strong local networks meant that they were able to provide immediate reception support and sustained integration support for refugees. Ultimately, through private sponsorship, 33,000 Syrian refugees settled in over 400 locations across Canada in 2015-2017: in rural areas, small towns, regional centres, and cities. Only 36 of these locations have professional settlement programs.
The United States has also turned to different forms of community welcome, including sponsorship, to support the reception of thousands of Afghan nationals arriving in the next year. Specialised NGOs report that the job of welcoming and settling Afghan arrivals has overwhelmed a resettlement sector left chronically understaffed and underfunded by the Trump administration. Refugee advocates have long argued that introducing a new sponsorship stream is essential to increasing settlement capacity, to responding to community calls for action, and to supporting settlement agencies.
In 2021, refugee advocates have been stunned by the huge, often bipartisan, cross-country, volunteer efforts to support Afghan newcomers in the US. In a recent national poll, 68 per cent said they supported Afghan refugees settling in the US. In September 2021 Welcome.US was launched: a national connection point for welcoming Afghan families: endorsed by Presidents Clinton and Obama.
On 4 February 2021, President Biden signed an Executive Order proposing a private sponsorship pilot, and the State Department has advised that this pilot will start in 2022. On 25 October 2021, the State Department announced the launch of the Sponsor Circle Program for Afghans. Through this program, community groups will directly support the settlement of Afghans relocated to the United States under Operation Allies Welcome. This program complements the existing co-sponsorship model in the United States, where regional resettlement agencies partner with community groups to support resettled refugees.
Community sponsorship’s potential
Community sponsorship offers people a meaningful way of supporting refugee newcomers over time: something that communities are clearly looking for. We know there is community support for Afghan refugees in Australia: a fashion alliance pledging to offer resettled Afghans employment, Football Australia working with the federal government to offer resettled Afghans membership in local football clubs, and a national alliance of churches offering housing and settlement support.
It is compelling that more than half of 65,000 Afghans who arrived in the United States in September and October either directly helped U.S. forces, or are related to someone who did. Commentators note that many Americans understand that Afghans are at risk because of their support and ties to American military forces, and that they have a moral obligation to respond. This obligation presents not just in general terms but as an obligation to help certain members of the Afghan community and their families—if not people they know, then people they could know. Stories become personal from afar.
By forming a sponsorship group, Americans, Canadians, or Australians bring the global concerns of refugee protection home and make the situation of refugees local and urgent to them. There is nothing global and inaccessible about helping people get a bus pass, a driver’s license, or a lift to school.
In other coalition countries like Canada and Australia where much of the media narrative has also been framed around compelling calls to help Afghans who put themselves in danger—sponsorship can also connect people who otherwise might not get involved in refugee protection with sponsors and newcomers. We know that sponsorship groups get their local networks involved in their work. In Canada, 2 million people were involved in sponsoring refugees in 2015-2018, however an additional 7 million people directly knew a sponsor.
Conclusion
Of course, community sponsorship is only one of many protection pathways needed to help the great number of people seeking to flee, or fleeing, Afghanistan. There are also thoughtful criticisms of certain sponsorship models (that they risk privatise refugee protection or that they risk eroding resettlement space) that deserve comment and response.
However, here I have focused on the potential and demonstrated success of sponsorship in resettling and supporting large numbers of refugees, in mobilising diverse groups, and in growing a constituency of people who support refugees. Refugee policies are never perfect, but in the current environment, which feels more urgent every day, perfect should not be the enemy of the good.
Eliza Bateman is the Senior Research Analyst at the University of Ottawa Refugee Hub, leading and supporting scholarship, policy analysis and research projects on refugee protection. Eliza has a PhD in law from McGill University, where she specialised in human rights law.