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July 30, 2021

Have You Read?

The Foreign-Born Hmong in the United States

Japan’s Labor Migration Reforms: Breaking with the Past?

Afghanistan: Displacement Challenges in a Country on the Move

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Socioeconomic Integration of Venezuelan Migrants and Refugees: The Cases of Brazil, Chile, Colombia, Ecuador, and Peru
By Diego Chaves-González, Jordi Amaral and María Jesús Mora

Integración socioeconómica de los migrantes y refugiados venezolanos: Los casos de Brasil, Chile, Colombia, Ecuador y Perú
By Diego Chaves-González, Jordi Amaral and María Jesús Mora

Deepening Labor Migration Governance at a Time of Immobility: Lessons from Ghana and Senegal
By Camille Le Coz and Kate Hooper

Future Scenarios for Global Mobility in the Shadow of Pandemic
By Meghan Benton

Media Corner

What Educators Need to Know about Immigration Law: Supporting Immigrant, Undocumented, and Refugee Students, by Greg Cunningham, is designed for U.S. teachers with students who are immigrants or who have unauthorized immigrant family members.

Oral histories of displacement amid civil conflict make up Throwing Stones at the Moon: Narratives from Colombians Displaced by Violence, edited by Sibylla Brodzinsky and Max Schoening.

In Separated: Family and Community in the Aftermath of an Immigration Raid, William D. Lopez describes how U.S. immigration raids affect Latino communities.

Maiden Voyages: Magnificent Ocean Liners and the Women Who Traveled and Worked Aboard Them, by Siân Evans, offers a portrait of early 20th century transatlantic travel and the women who facilitated it.

In Refugee High: Coming of Age in America, journalist Elly Fishman documents a year in a Chicago school with a significant number of refugee students.

Journalist Mirin Fader profiles one of the most famous immigrant athletes in Giannis: The Improbable Rise of an NBA MVP.

Feature
Canada’s Private Sponsorship Model Represents a Complementary Pathway for Refugee Resettlement
Canada is one of the world’s top countries for resettling refugees, relying on individual Canadians and nonprofit groups—not the government—for much of this resettlement. This article examines Canada’s unique system of private sponsorship, which has become a model for other countries as they seek to increase capacity for refugee resettlement at a time of record global need.

U.S. Policy Beat
U.S. Government Rush to Evacuate Afghan Allies and Allocate Sufficient Special Visas Comes at Eleventh Hour
The U.S. government is racing to speed up the evacuation and immigration of Afghan translators and others who provided assistance during the 20-year war in Afghanistan. The eleventh-hour moves are a response to long delays and backlogs that have plagued the Special Immigrant Visa (SIV) program since it was unveiled more than a decade ago. This article provides an overview of the SIV program and the rush to evacuate Afghan allies.

Editor's Note

There are many unusual things about this year’s Olympic Games in Tokyo: the lack of crowds, the fact that it is occurring a year later than scheduled. Another is the presence of a team not from any country at all.

I refer to the Refugee Olympic Team, comprised of former Eritreans, South Sudanese, Syrians, and others who did not allow displacement to halt their quest to compete among the world’s greatest athletes.

The team nearly had a medalist last weekend, when Kimia Alizadeh finished fourth in taekwondo. Alizadeh previously won the bronze at the 2016 games, representing Iran, but since relocated to Germany to escape what she decried as institutional sexism in her native country.

This year’s Olympics is the second to feature a team of refugees. The 2016 games in Rio de Janeiro featured 10 athletes originally from four countries. This year there are 29, including six from the 2016 team, from 11 origin countries and participating in 12 sports. Six more refugees will compete at the Paralympic Games starting August 24.

UN High Commissioner for Refugees Filippo Grandi has called the team representatives of the 82 million displaced people worldwide, and team Chef de Mission Tegla Loroupe has said they speak the “universal language” of sports.

In general, sports can be powerful tools for immigrants’ inclusion and integration. Since 1989, Germany has given financial and other support to sports clubs in hopes of attracting refugees and other migrants and help them build bonds with broader German society. Across Europe, there are at least 68 similar projects aiming to promote migrants’ social inclusion through athletics, according to a Council of Europe registry.

Athletic success can affect how host societies treat immigrants and their children. Giannis Antetokounmpo was born stateless to two Nigerian migrants living in irregular status in Greece, but his ascension into a basketball superstar and NBA champion have transformed him into a national and international icon.

Still, the presence of a refugee team suggests its athletes cannot compete for their new homes’ national teams, often because of restrictions in the Olympic Charter. Some athletes, include Alizadeh, are in the process of becoming naturalized citizens to compete under their new countries’ flags. Former members of the team have also leveled institutional complaints about the team’s management, including not being paid for events.

But whatever the fate of individual athletes, the Refugee Olympic Team is not going away. This week, the International Olympic Committee confirmed the team will return for the 2024 games in Paris.

Best regards,
Julian Hattem
Editor, Migration Information Source
[email protected]

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The Migration Information Source is a project of the Migration Policy Institute, a nonpartisan, nonprofit think tank in Washington, DC dedicated to analysis of the movement of people worldwide.