The Impact of USRAP Suspension on Family Reunification

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Author Anonymous*, Refugee Resettlement specialist

Over the course of its 45 year history, the United States Refugee Admissions Program (USRAP) has earned and enjoyed broadly bipartisan support as a vital, national private-public partnership. It has long been recognized as integral to US humanitarian commitments but also as a crucial tool of US diplomatic, security, and economic interests, as well.

Established under President Jimmy Carter as part of the Refugee Act of 1980, the USRAP is the formal mechanism by which refugees and special immigrant visa holders from around the world are referred and admitted to the United States for third country resettlement. Though the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) reports that less than one percent of the world’s refugees (of which there are currently over 43 million) end up resettled to third countries, the USRAP has historically admitted around two thirds of those, making it a world leader in resettlement. Or at least, it was.

Copyright: Vladislav Nikonov for Unsplash

On day one of his inauguration, US President Donald Trump signed an executive order entitled Realigning the United States Refugee Admissions Program, enacting an indefinite suspension of the program. The reason? It was not, according to the order, considered to be aligned with national interests. The fallout was swift: 10,000 refugees with scheduled flights found their bookings cancelled, and an estimated 22,000 approved and pending travel became stranded, including Afghan military allies and US family members. The US’ ten national resettlement agencies faced immediate stop-work orders and suspension of funding.  After years spent rehabilitating critical USRAP programming from the injuries of the previous Trump administration, resettlement staff and volunteers watched as a global infrastructure ground to a screeching halt.

Six months on, countless families in the United States and abroad continue to find themselves living in limbo, unsure when or if they will ever be reunited with their loved ones: parents with children, brothers with sisters, spouses with spouses. And as the US administration continues to proclaim its supposed concern for promoting family growth and family life in the United States, it has become clear that these families do not seem to count.

Family Reunification: A Cornerstone of Refugee Resettlement

The universal human right to family unity is well established under international legal human rights, refugee, and resettlement frameworks, and assigns to individual States the primary responsibility of taking measures to avoid family separation, maintain family unity, and provide access to family reunification pathways for refugees and other beneficiaries of international protection. In 2024, the UNHCR, in partnership with a large coalition global partners, produced the “Operational Guidelines on Facilitating Family Reunification for Persons in Need of International Protection”, reaffirming and building upon these global operating principles.

At the national level, family reunification has long been considered a cornerstone of immigration and resettlement policy in the United States. The passage of the Refugee Act of 1980, which amended the earlier Immigration and Nationality Act and Migration and Refugee Assistance Act, laid the groundwork for the establishment of formal reunification specific access categories and pathways through the USRAP.

This included the establishment of the Visas 93 program, a petition-based follow-to-join pathway for immediate relatives of refugees admitted to and residing in the United States, and set the stage for the Priority 3 program, an access category designated for the specific purpose of reunifying spouses; unmarried, under 21 year old children; and parents of US based refugees and asylees. In 1989, the Lautenberg Amendment facilitated a reunification program under the USRAP for legal residents to apply for at-risk relatives in the former Soviet Union and later on, in Iran. No matter the exact program, USRAP family reunification applications submitted to the federal government undergo extensive and lengthy processing, including stringent vetting and documentation reviews, in-depth security checks by several federal agencies, expert interview rounds, and medical examinations.

Throughout the years, these reunification programs (to name a few) have represented important components of the US resettlement system and the government’s responsibility, as in all States, to provide pathways for family reunion procedures. After the previous Trump administration,  significant efforts were made under the Biden government to resuscitate the USRAP and improve access and processing efficiencies built into the system. Family reunification programming proved an important piece of these efforts. For example, an Obama era program called Central American Minors (CAM) was restarted, which facilitated the reunification of separated children in El Salvador, Guatemala, and Honduras with parents and guardians legally residing in the United States, and its eligibility categories and processing mechanisms were expanded in important ways. The Priority 3 reunification program expanded eligibility after years of nationality restrictions and was undergoing review to reduce inefficiencies in documentation vetting, improve delays related to required DNA processing, etc. Too, brand new pathways were launched by the State Department: The office for the Coordinator for Afghan Relocation Efforts (CARE) was formed, which worked to relocate and reunite Afghan allies and their children, as was the Welcome Corps, a new model and access category within the USRAP allowing private sponsorship by US based petitioners for refugees, including family members.

Fractured Families: The Impact of USRAP Suspension

Despite the progress made under the Biden administration, the current abrupt suspension of the USRAP (and with it, the family reunification programs that fall under its umbrella) has had and will continue to have lasting, devastating effects on family members around the world and across the United States, including legal permanent residents, citizens by birth, and long-time naturalized citizens.

News media, NGOs, and resettlement agencies are rife with examples of how the program suspension has fractured US families and exacerbated the traumas of family separation: A February letter by Refugee Council USA to Congress shares the experience of a woman who, after 15 years of being resettled in Ohio, received notice that her mother’s flight had been cancelled. While her siblings had arrived earlier on separate flights, her mother was left behind. The letter also recounts the plight of four separated Afghan children, the youngest just seven, set to reunite after three years with their parents in Massachusetts. Their bookings were also abruptly cancelled. Similarly, Church World Service (a national resettlement agency) shares the story of Wajid, their Director of Finance Business Partners, who had prepared to welcome his parents and whose sister had moved from California to help him with care arrangements. His parents had already given up their apartment and sold their furniture when they found their flight bookings suddenly cancelled. Across the country and indeed, the globe, there are countless more stories of families like these.

This month, the situation for US residents and their loved ones has grown even more grim. On June 4th, a presidential Proclamation banning travel to the US from twelve countries of the Global South was released, adding another layer of anguish to American families separated from relatives overseas. The ban contains some exceptions for Afghan SIV holders and certain minority members from Iran, but outlines none for relatives of refugees and asylees in the United States. This further signifies the administration’s rejection of family unity and reunion principles as integral to resettlement programming and to basic family life for so many around the world.

Since its inception, over three million people have been resettled through the USRAP. Today, they are the legal residents and naturalized citizens who make up the fabric of communities across the United States. They, like all people, have the right to pursue family unity. This World Refugee Day, let us remind each other of the centrality of family in global refugee frameworks and the critical role that domestic resettlement systems play in facilitating – or hindering — family reunion. And for those of us here in the United States, let us always remember that when the Administration touts the sanctity of family and family life, these Americanfamilies must count, too.

Given the current political climate, the author has asked to remain anonymous.

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Posted in Migration Comments

Community as a Superpower – Research in action.

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Ali Ali, Michael Collyer, Priya Deshingkar, Anne-Meike Fechter, Melissa Gatter, Linda Morrice, Ceri Oeppen, Judith Townend and Tahir Zaman, SCMR, University of Sussex

Refugee Week has been celebrated in the UK since 1998 around World Refugee Day,  June 20th.  This year’s theme is ‘Community as a Superpower’ – an immediately attractive title, cleverly capturing many of the ideals that Refugee Week aims to implement. It is also a neat summary of work that researchers at SCMR are involved in at the moment. Themes of mutual aid, collective action and economies of care run through our ongoing research in the UK and beyond. There is often a disconnect between research in different parts of the world, so here we bring together our collective thinking about ‘community as a superpower’.

Refugee week display, 2025

Across the social sciences ‘community’ is a classic example of a contested concept, meaning agreement of an exact definition is never likely to be achieved. Definitions are important, particularly since words with positive associations, like ‘community’ can easily be used to make regressive policies appear acceptable to a public audience. There is a long history of this linguistic evasiveness in policies towards refugees. Debates around ‘community cohesion’ in the UK in the early 2000s demonstrated how apparently laudable government objectives played down very real social inequalities and pushed responsibilities for ‘integration’ onto disempowered migrant-origin communities. The emphasis on ‘cohesion’ was eventually abandoned, but is now resurfacing.

These debates address vital concerns, certainly for academics, yet they make little sense to Refugee Week itself. ‘Community as a superpower’ projects a purely positive understanding of ‘community’ so that’s how we will interpret it here in relation to our research. People everywhere rely on other people to make their lives safer, easier, cheaper or more fun, and refugees are no different. This straightforward insight has been formalised as social capital. For refugees, the sudden disruption of social capital and the difficulties of reconstituting it differentiates them from non-migrants, and even from other migrants with less disruptive mobility. In some senses, social capital, and therefore ‘community’, may be mobile but in other ways the act of becoming a refugee disrupts that community and forces refugees to find new forms of social capital.

One recent research project conducted by members of the  SCMR, Protracted Displacement Economies, focused on refugees in situations of long-term displacement in The Democratic Republic of Congo, Ethiopia, Lebanon, Myanmar and Pakistan. We were particularly interested in the ways in which the development of group connections began to define forms of community. This relational understanding of community helps us understand a particular interpretation of the meaning of community. Community is not a thing that exists before the interactions that create it. It makes no sense to think of community as separate from exchanges and connections within a group of people. It is the very act of exchange that forms a community.

 Whilst community doesn’t exist without those exchanges and connections, most refugees are living in neighbouring countries where they are often familiar with and share existing cultural practices of community.  Our research with Afghan refugees in north-west Pakistan is a good example of this, particularly in relation to gham khadi: the collective events surrounding an occasion of sorrow or joy, such as a funeral, or wedding.  All the residents of a locality (refugees and not) attend gham khadi and support each other emotionally, materially (with money and food), and physically (through the provision of labour). These occasions blur the boundary, even if temporarily, between ‘host’ and ‘refugee’ and create a neighbourly bond of solidarity and care.

In some of the places we researched, such as a settlement in southeastern Myanmar, boundaries between ‘residents’ and ‘people recently displaced’ are not clearly drawn either. Due to decades of violent conflict, intensified by a military coup in 2021, those who had lived in the settlement for years were happy to extend support to newly arrived ones. As some long-term residents mentioned to our researchers, ‘we don’t think of ourselves as displaced people any more’, and from a modest income, such as from a small business, some were able to offer food, building materials or employment to ‘new’ internally displaced people’.

Our research among Somali refugees in Ethiopia also shows that boundaries between hosts and refugees are extremely hazy and complicated, because of shared cultures and histories of displacement. Somalis have a very long history in Ethiopia and are one of the largest ethnic groups. The 1977-78 Ethiopia-Somalia war resulted in the exodus of nearly a million Somalis from Ethiopia to Somalia. Many were forced to return after the civil war broke out in Somalia in 1991. Another large influx followed after 2008 because of drought and conflict and there has been a steady migration ever since. While the government attempts to differentiate between hosts (which includes returnees) and refugees, these identities do not make sense on the ground where Somalis function as a community, supporting each other through the exchange of food, care and credit.

In the US, where asylum seekers and migrants are under increasing threat of deportation under a far-right government, community has become the source of collective resistance. In our research in Chicago and New York City, the two largest sanctuary cities in the US, we find community organising wherever it is needed – in churches, on the streets, and outside immigration courthouses. Using social media to communicate and coordinate, citizens, established migrants, and asylum seekers support and protect each other where local and national government has failed to do so. Some community organisers tell us they are simply upholding the values of their faith, others identify with traditions of mutual aid and racial justice work, and many have backgrounds in union organising. In this context, community finds its power in making itself visible. Where federal immigration agents track asylum seekers, community organisers track the agents, confronting and sometimes deterring them from detaining and deporting asylum seekers on a daily basis. Community does not always succeed, most recently failing to prevent the ‘surprise’ public arrests of asylum seekers by federal agents in Los Angeles and Chicago, but organising continues, with hundreds taking to the streets to challenge the immigration system just as publicly.

Asylum seekers ‘shop’ for fresh groceries at a community food pantry designed to offer the experience of a market in Little Village, a Latino neighbourhood in Chicago. Photo by Melissa Gatter.

A recent research trip to Syria provoked further questions around community in processes of mass displacement: the communities that refugees left, those that have been destroyed, and the community that is transformed as a conflict ends. Areas that opposed Assad-rule were punished with sieges, starvation and bombardment. The desolate landscapes of Jobar and Qaboun neighbourhoods in Damascus or al-Yarmouk camp, are witness to the ghosts of community-capacity. In the case of Syria, what does return – and the language of community cohesion – mean when the elements that comprised those once thriving communities no longer exist or have been scattered? The echoes of mass displacement continue to sound as Syrians from across the country are relocating to the capital, Damascus, seeking out new opportunities. 

The once small town of Azaz, in the far north of Syria close to the Turkish border, is now thought to have 300,000 residents. Its proximity to Turkey meant that it was not bombed by the Syrian Airforce, and thus a relatively secure area with economic opportunities that led to a rise in real estate prices. Economic ties to Turkey were evident during our visit – the currency used was the Turkish lira.  A Turkish post office building, where salaries could be collected by employees of Turkish NGOs, stood alongside new mosques mimicking Ottoman architecture, a Turkish language institute, and many new residential buildings. Since the toppling of Assad, we heard that many people are returning to their former homes elsewhere and that housing costs in Azaz have fallen significantly. A new university, established with support from the Turkish humanitarian organisation IHH, is also seeking to relocate to Damascus. What will happen to communities in Azaz, and Damascus, and elsewhere in post-Assad Syria remains to be seen.    

It is sobering to consider communities that refugees have been forced to leave, but also an illustration of the fragility of community. Where community is not continually remade it is threatened. The University of Sussex is a University of Sanctuary  – not a status to be complacent about but a continual effort to engage in this work of community: maintaining scholarships for asylum seekers, providing ESOL lessons for refugees and trying to ensure the University is a welcoming place for everyone. Experiences such as our recent visit to post-war Syria remind us what is at stake and why this is so important. People who have seen their communities destroyed deserve to be made welcome. Our research around the world enables us to bear witness to the power of an inclusive community. The process of welcoming itself can be the beginning of a new community.  This is what we celebrate during Refugee Week. If you are in Brighton and Hove this week, please join us.

Events to celebrate Refugee Week 2025 in Brighton and Hove are listed here: https://brighton-and-hove.cityofsanctuary.org/refugee-week-2024-2

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Posted in Migration Comments, Migration Research

Starmer’s ‘Island of strangers’ takes a page from Trump’s migration policy book. Spain shows a different path is possible

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Caterina Mazzilli, ODI Global and Gonzalo Fanjul, Fundacion por Causa and ODI Europe

With the presentation of his White Paper on 12th May 2025, UK Home Secretary Keir Starmer has been the latest to join the anti-immigration epidemic sweeping across OECD countries. The wide range of measures presented by his government includes a tightening of the language standards required of foreign workers who want to settle in the United Kingdom. It also doubles to 10 the number of years required to obtain permanent residence and raises to a level equivalent to a university degree the minimum qualification required to access all those jobs that are not part of a slim ‘essential occupation list’. Expressions such as ‘island of strangers’ have reminded some of us of the infamous language of British nativist politician Enoch Powell and the most radical measures of recent Conservative governments; but the form and substance of this proposal seem to be inspired more by Donald Trump. The US President also views immigration as a threat to the national economy and has made its control a priority for all federal agencies.

The Labour Party would do well to seek economic guidance outside of national populism. Mass deportations are almost always immoral and often illegal, but for the US they are also proving to be a shot in the foot from a financial point of view. Fear of raids by Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) has kept many migrant workers at home, and negative effects are already visible in sectors such as agriculture, construction, and hospitality. As Nobel Prize economist Joseph Stiglitz has pointed out, whether Trump voters like it or not, American prosperity grounds on the labour of those who come from abroad. When they are expelled or are too afraid to go out, they do not work or consume, and the economy weakens. Some estimates predict a reduction in US GDP of between 1.2% and 7.4% by 2028, recalling the effects of similar interventions in the past.To be fair, this is not an easy dilemma. Even without Donald Trump’s violent theatrical ways, many other leaders are faced with the need to make decisions that protect their economies from the effects of ageing and undersupplied labour markets, while promising to tighten border control, increase deportations of migrants without documents and move asylum seekers where they cannot be seen.

How can we get out of this tough spot? Spain may offer some answers. In recent years, this country has cultivated a narrative of welcoming migrants residing in Spain—including those who are undocumented—on which government officials and citizens seem to agree. Comparative research, such as that conducted by ODI Global in 2021, shows that Spanish society maintains more tolerant attitudes toward immigration than our neighbouring countries, and that these attitudes are supported by political discourse. The difference with other cases is that Spain has led by example by relaxing its legislation to improve the social and labour integration of foreign workers. And it has done so comprehensively. Three rounds of legal reforms carried out in the last four years have allowed the government to massively expand work and residence permits for migrants without documents through ordinary regularisation; facilitate family reunification; simplify visa procedures for workers and employers; reactivate existing tools such as the job-seeking visa; and renew the catalogue of occupations for which employers are authorised to hire non-EU workers. At the same time, labour migration programmes – mostly circular or temporary – have been accelerated, including a development perspective that seeks to optimise the impact of such schemes on countries of origin.

A man standing on a ladder next to a building
A man who was working on a wall in Navalperal de Pinares, Spain. Matteo del Piano for Unsplash

Spain’s performance is by no means perfect. Some of the changes have not yet been implemented or have had undesirable consequences. The popular legislative initiative for the extraordinary regularisation of migrants, supported by more than 600,000 voters, remains is still to be approved by Parliament. What is more alarming is that social organisations and journalistic investigations have been denouncing human rights abuses on the southern border for years, where Spanish policies are as harsh and ineffective as those of its EU neighbours.

Despite this, the set of reforms on migrant labour mobility has contributed to Spain being the best performing economy in the world  in 2024. When everyone else is going in the opposite direction, comparatively liberal policies can show the way to stronger national economies and more welcoming societies. The Minister of Inclusion, Social Security and Migration, Elma Saiz, put this potential into numbers: immigration would increase Spain’s wealth by €17 million (1.3% of GDP). In 2024 alone, the national economy grew by 3.2%, driven by tourism (+7%), agriculture (+7%) and manufacturing (+3.9%), crucial sectors where EU countries have identified urgent labour needs and where immigrants are well represented.

By facilitating regularisation, the government also seeks to protect foreign workers in sectors with informal employment and exposed to organised crime from exploitation. The certain prospect of a demographic winter is a compelling reason for Spain’s reformist stance. The deteriorating demographic context of the EU, the Spanish national population has grown at a rate of 4.2% in the last six years. According to the Labour  Force Survey, 468,000 people were included in Social Security as new workers in 2024; of these, only 59,000 were Spanish (native or naturalised). The contributions of new workers are essential to sustaining the country’s welfare, especially considering that, over the next 15 years, seven million contributors will have retired. The ageing population is driving up costs in pensions, healthcare, and dependency, while jeopardising productivity and consumption. In a country that needs between 250,000 and 300,000 new workers per year to sustain its welfare state, the possibility of regularising a million immigrants in three years is pure common sense.

To be clear, neither is migration a silver bullet, nor will Spain be able to overcome the difficulties posed by this historic transition. Access to housing, the sustainability of public services, and harmonious coexistence in neighbourhoods will continue to be major challenges for the state. The economic cycle will change, and migration policy will require adjustments. But for now, a large part of Spanish society and its leaders have decided to address this issue on the basis of political realism and common rights and responsibilities, rather than turning it into a confrontation defined by passport. Reducing collective hysteria and acknowledging the contribution of migrants is the most effective way to escape the political and narrative trap that the far right has so effectively set. The British government is already trapped, but Spain still has the opportunity to offer an alternative to one of the great challenges of our time: ‘shared prosperity’ instead of ‘island of strangers’.

This post was originally published: Frente a las ‘islas de forasteros’, la prosperidad compartida | Opinión | EL PAÍS

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Posted in Migration Comments

The current Colombian administration’s response towards Venezuelan migration: A clash between a liberal rhetoric, foreign policy and domestic politics

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Manuel Alejandro Núñez Ochoa. Migration Studies MA alumnus (University of Sussex) and former Associate Resettlement and Complementary Pathways Officer. 

The Colombian response to Venezuelan forced migration has undergone significant changes since the administration of Gustavo Petro took office in 2022. As the first left-wing president of Colombia, his views on immigration resemble the early 2000s discourses of leftist governments in the region, questioning the restrictive immigration policies of migrant recipient countries, especially those of the United States since the first Donald Trump administration. Petro does so by presenting his approach as bringing a human, ethical and moral response towards migration.  

Petro’s liberal migration discourse, based on the promotion of migrants’ rights, the non-criminalisation of migrants, anti-racism, and freedom of movement, supports his domestic electoral goals by connecting with his supporters. At the same time, it enables Petro to position himself as a credible left-wing leader in the region. However, there is a gap between his liberal rhetoric and the weak and restrictive response of his administration towards the Venezuelan forced migration in Colombia. 


 
The liberal discourse on migration of Gustavo Petro 
 
As Freire and Castillo have noted, a president’s agenda largely determines the migration policy in most South American countries. Since taking office, Gustavo Petro has been very vocal regarding the protection of Colombian migrants in Europe and the US; he has promoted a welcoming response to Palestinians since the war in Gaza intensified; and he has been critical of the US administration’s repressive measures against migrants.  

Colombian flag. Flavia Carpio for Unsplash

For instance, in a talk at the IV Foro Abierto de Ciencias de América Latina y el Caribe (CILAC) in December 2024, President Petro condemned King Charles III and the UK labour government for imposing visa restrictions on Colombians following a rise in asylum requests from Colombians, accusing them of reverting to a mindset reminiscent of enslavers and considering Colombians as “inferior”. Responding to the imposition of visa restrictions to Colombian citizens arriving to the UK, Petro threatened to implement visas for British citizens arriving in Colombia. In the same context, Petro also advocated for free global mobility, trying to engage with his constituents. 

Furthermore, the Colombian government has stated that it will host Palestinian refugee children injured in the conflict in Gaza to receive medical care in Colombia. This mirrors the initiatives taken by Venezuela, Brazil, Argentina and Uruguay in 2015 to accept Syrian refugees. Since January 2025, after the US president Donald Trump ordered the deportations of undocumented migrants in the US, the Colombian president has demanded that migrants have to be treated with dignity and respect. He has advocated for the human rights of Latin American migrants and for the non-criminalisation of migrants in the US. In addition, the Colombian president has called for Central American and South American countries to demand the respect of human rights and the non-criminalisation of deported migrants from the US. Furthermore, he criticised the detention of migrants by the US administration in El Salvador, arguing migrants are not criminals, nor slaves, and that Latin America must respect their dignity. Moreover, in an X post published in February 2025, the Colombian president praised how the 190 undocumented Venezuelans who were deported from the US were not handcuffed on the flight and treated with dignity. 

Gustavo Petro has also criticised the criminalisation of Venezuelan migrants by the US government. The Colombian president expressed criticism towards the United States government for its allegations regarding Venezuelans being affiliated with a criminal gang.  Conversely, Petro condemned the Salvadorian president Nayib Bukele accusing him of criminalising Venezuelan children and demanding the release of Colombians detained in El Salvador.  

The current Colombian administration’s response towards the Venezuelan migration 

President Petro’s use of liberal rhetoric on migration aims, first, to achieve popular support for his political reforms. Second, it seeks to position his government internationally. The relationship with the United States significantly shapes migration policy outcomes that align with the presidential ideology. Consequently, Petro’s administration can leverage its foreign policy strategy, particularly in its stance against the new U.S. president, Donald Trump, by employing liberal rhetoric toward migration. 

However, his domestic political agenda is driven by the promotion of a peace deal with the Colombian Ejercito de Liberacion Nacional (ELN) guerrilla, which requires the support from the Venezuelan government. At the same time, his foreign policy  rejects the USA’ economic sanctions against Venezuela. Unlike his predecessors, Petro’s administration has taken a restrictive approach towards Venezuelan forced migration. This aims to facilitate achieving peace with the ELN guerrilla and to establish himself as a left-wing leader in the region. As a result, his response to Venezuelan migration is relatively timid, sometimes even aligning with Nicolás Maduro’s administration in Venezuela by downplaying the reality of forced migration from Venezuela. 

Since coming to office, Gustavo Petro has not extended the complementary protection for Venezuelans, known as the Temporary Protection Permit (PPT). Instead, he has implemented an ad hoc measure by creating a special two years, non-renewable visa (Visa V) to regularise Venezuelan migrants who entered the country undocumented before December 4th, 2024. There are multiple obstacles to obtain a Visa V, however. The first relates to cost, as the visa application incurs a fee of around £26,45. Given that the average monthly income of a Venezuelan migrant in Colombia is approximately £65.60, migrants are effectively requested to allocate nearly 40% of their monthly income to cover the visa application fee. In border regions, where migrants encounter higher unemployment rates and greater job informality compared to larger cities like Bogotá, affording the visa fee becomes nearly impossible. Secondly, many visa applications have been rejected due to additional documents required by the Ministry for Foreign Affairs of Colombia during the applications – e.g. education documents apostille and a passport, the cost of which is prohibitive for many applicants (a Venezuelan passport application costs on average £126, plus a £90 fee charged at the consulate). At the same time, the Ministry for Foreign Affairs of Colombia   requests documents that are declined for issuance by the Colombian Migratory authority, the Special Administrative Unit of Colombian Migration. Finally, the Ministry for Foreign Affairs of Colombia has the discretionary power to deny the visa application if it considers the applicant to be a potential threat to the country.  

For those Venezuelans who entered Colombia after December 4th, 2024, there are no regularisation options and Venezuelan nationals travelling to Colombia by air must comply with strict entry requirements established by the Colombian Migratory Authority.  Moreover, the other complementary protection measure issued by the Colombian government for Venezuelan migrants who are parents or legal guardians of Venezuelan children, of children who have obtained a Temporary Protection Permit before December 31, 2023, lacks the regulation of the law to be implemented. Furthermore, the Petro government has not managed to address the significant backlog of asylum requests and has still a low rate of refugee recognition. According to the Ministry for Foreign Affairs of Colombia, between 2017 and 2023, Colombia received more than 55,000 asylum applications, but only 1,475 requests were approved. Of the total requests approved, 1,357 applications were from Venezuelans.  

In contrast to the welcoming discourse promoted by the Gustavo Petro administration towards Palestinians, the current Colombian administration has refused to receive Venezuelan migrants and asylum seekers who can be deported from the US. Moreover, the president claimed that he would run a program promoting the voluntary return of Venezuelans, which is in opposition to recommendations by the UNHCR and human rights organisations that highlight the risks of returning Venezuelans to their country of origins. Additionally, the Colombian Migratory Authority has arbitrarily denied more than 400 Temporary Protection Permits (Permiso por Proteccion Temporal, PPT) to Venezuelan residents without providing an opportunity for appeal. After the denial, Venezuelans are at risk of being deported and are not allowed to remain in the country for more than 30 days. In some cases, the Colombian Migratory Authority argues that having an administrative fine, e.g. a traffic fine, is a legitimate reason for denying a PPT.  

To further curb Venezuelan immigration in Colombia, the Petro administration has increased migration control operations – that Venezuelan refugee-led organisations have described as “raids” –  from 37,000 in 2021 to 218,000 in 2022, driven by public stigmatisation of Venezuelan migrants as criminals. These operations in Bogotá were conducted by the Colombian Migratory Authority, the National Police, and the Mayor’s Office, targeting Venezuelan migrants to verify their documents and criminal records and to enforce criminal law. However, according to testimonies from refugee-led organisations and from a Bogota Mayor’s office official, these operations did not follow due process. Many migrants who were detained and subjected to these checks were unable to access their human rights protections. Although these operations were overseen by the Ombudsman’s Office of Colombia and civic rights organisations to protect migrants’ rights, those organisations were not present in the actual operations. Furthermore, underage Venezuelan migrants were also detained during these operations. The Colombian Institute of Family Welfare (ICBF), the country’s child protection institution, was not informed or involved in the migration controls, despite legal requirements for their participation.  

Conclusions 

The president of Colombia Gustavo Petro has instrumentalised the political discourse of non-criminalisation of migrants to promote his domestic and foreign policy goals. He is aligning himself with his electorate using an anti-American, pro-migration and pro-Colombian rhetoric. At the same time, his pro-migration rhetoric enables him to develop his foreign policy agenda, opposing the US and establishing a left-leaning regional agenda in line with his political objectives. However, the Petro administration has increasingly adopted restrictive and in some case repressive measures towards Venezuelan migrants in the country, allowing the president to gain support and popularity domestically and pursuing his domestic policy agenda. Therefore, a gap between the political rhetoric and the practical responses towards Venezuelans has emerged as the goals and ideology of the Colombian president in his domestic and foreign policy goals drive the response to Venezuelan migrants in Colombia.  

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Posted in Migration Comments

From Mahidol to Sussex: A Doctoral Fellow’s Global Research Experience

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Ken Calang, Mahidol University and Doctoral Visiting Fellow, SCMR

Ken Calang, a PhD candidate in Multicultural Studies at Mahidol University, recently completed a Doctoral Visiting Fellowship at the University of Sussex. From February 3 to March 28, 2025, he was hosted under the ‘Doctoral Researcher Supervised Visit Under Partnership MoU’ scheme at the School of Global Studies, where he deepened his engagement with critical migration studies. The fellowship was also funded by Mahidol University through the Scholarship for Postgraduate Student Mobility Program 2025.

Throughout his fellowship, Mr. Calang actively collaborated with scholars at the Sussex Centre for Migration Research (SCMR), benefiting from a vibrant academic exchange. Under the guidance of his host adviser, Dr Sarah Scuzzarello, he participated in regular seminars and contributed with insightful perspectives to ongoing discussions. His time at Sussex was dedicated to advancing the three empirical chapters of his dissertation, which now stand as well-developed drafts. Reflecting on his experience, Mr. Calang described the fellowship as a vital experience in his academic journey.

This opportunity has been incredibly enriching, both as a PhD student and as a researcher immersed in the complexities of migration studies. Engaging with leading scholars, refining my theoretical approach, and working within such a dynamic academic environment have significantly strengthened my dissertation on migration. Beyond academia, this experience has broadened my global outlook, emphasizing the value of global collaboration.

His dissertation, which examines the intersectionality in the lives of Filipino migrant workers in Bangkok, took significant strides forward during his time at Sussex. With a strong focus on the development of key chapters, he leveraged the fellowship to refine his research arguments.

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As he continues his doctoral journey, Mr. Calang’s experience at Sussex stands as a testament to the power of academic mobility in shaping research and fostering cross-cultural intellectual exchange. “My time at Sussex was more than a research visit—it was a period of intellectual growth, self-discovery, and meaningful academic engagement,” he shared.

This post was originally posted on the Phd Program in Multicultural Studies, Mahidol University’s Facebook page

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Posted in Academic Life

Queering migration and asylum judgments

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Nuno Ferreira, Professor of Law at the University of Sussex; Maria Federica Moscati, Reader in Law and Society at the University of Sussex; and Senthorun Raj, Reader in Human Rights Law at Manchester Metropolitan University

What if we queered judgments affecting queer migrants and refugees? Using a queer lens to analyse law and policy is a social justice crucial endeavour, and widely recognised by scholars and practitioners alike as an important intellectual and policy exercise. The Queer Judgments Project (QJP) is contributing to this movement by re-imagining, re-writing, and re-inventing, from queer and other complementing perspectives, judgments that have considered sexual orientation, gender identity and expression, or sex characteristics (SOGIESC) issues. QJP evolved from disparate conversations we have had about how legal judgments related to SOGIESC could have been written in more appropriate terms in light of the legal framework at the time. We wanted to cultivate a project that brought together friends, colleagues, and activists who were interested in improving and challenging the law and its application to make life better for lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, intersex, queer and other (LGBTIQ+) people and communities. 

We are building on a tradition of initiatives that have re-written legal decisions for a fairer future. This tradition has started with the Feminist Judgments projects, which now have taken place in the UK, Ireland, Australia, the USA (here, here, here and here) and Brazil (English translation here). These initiatives then expanded to other fields, and now include the Children’s Rights judgments project, the Earth Law judgments project, the Re-writing Judgments of the ECHR book, the book project Intersectional Rewrites: European Court of Human Rights Judgments Reimagined and other critical judgments projects listed here. From a queer perspective, we also found inspiration in Alex Sharpe’s important article “Queering Judgment”.

The Queer Judgments book

The QJP edited collection has been published by Counterpress in January 2025, is downloadable on a ‘pay as you feel’ basis, and is the first output of the project. With an international reach and multi-disciplinary scope, this edited collection invites you to a queer dance through 26 judgments and commentaries. The book covers various legal fields: from crime and sodomy cases to privacy and discrimination cases, from family and parenthood cases to health and reproduction cases, and ending on asylum and migration cases.

Part 5 of the book is precisely on asylum and migration cases and contains three contributions. The first one is authored by Alex Powell and it relates to the 2010 UK Supreme Court’s decision in HJ(Iran) & HT(Cameroon) v Secretary of State for the Home Department. The case concerned two gay men seeking asylum in the UK, and the main point revolved around whether authorities could legitimately expect asylum claimants seeking protection on grounds of their sexual orientation to return to their countries of origin and conceal their sexual orientation to avoid the risk of persecution. Although this judgment has been considered a significant victory for such claimants for reducing the scope of such discretion reasoning, Powell argues for a queer counter-judgment that completely precludes any expectation of discretion and puts forward an alternative that is less homonormative, homonationalist, and restrictive of sexual diversity.

This contribution is followed by that of Carmelo Danisi and Nuno Ferreira, who explore the 2013 CJEU judgment in X, Y and Z v. Minister voor Immigratie en Asiel. The case related to three gay men—from Sierra Leone, Uganda and Senegal—who saw their asylum claims refused by the Dutch authorities. The authors offer a re-written judgment that is informed by a queer reading of the legislation and fundamental rights in question, as well as a human rights-based approach to refugee law, thus not only precluding any expectation of discretion, but also adopting a less restrictive approach to determine that claimants belong to a particular social group, and considering that criminalisation of same-sex sexual acts should be presumed to be persecution.

Finally, Alina Tryfonidou reimagined the 2018 CJEU judgment in the Coman case. In this case, the Court considered the situation of a same-sex male couple who had made use of EU free movement of persons, and wished to see their marriage recognised in Romania—the home country of one of the members of the couple. Although the Court produced a decision that was positive for the applicants by recognising that their right to free movement under EU law required the recognition of their marriage in Romania, Tryfonidou proposes a re-written judgment that adds to the original by also considering a fundamental rights line of argumentation and queering the terminology and overall approach of the Court.

The QJP legacy

Contributions in this QJP book combine queer approaches with feminist, trans, critical race, decolonial, heritage, reproductive, decarceration, disability and ecological approaches. Our hope is that the contributions on asylum and migration discussed above, along all others in this book, will inspire others to consider queer angles to their own work, and nurture combinations of theoretical frameworks that join efforts in broader social justice issues and movements.

We also hope that this volume will work as a stepping stone for other volumes and initiatives, perhaps focused on specific jurisdictions, regions, themes, identities, characteristics, and so on. Undoubtedly, there are many more judgments related to asylum and migration that warrant re-writing, from queer and other perspectives.

We are now working on a range of other outputs that fulfil the aims of the project, including a special journal issue and a range of creative outputs. If you’d like to get involved with the project in any capacity, feel free to get in touch – join our queer dance!

If you have any question about the project, please feel free to reach out to the authors.

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Posted in Migration Research

Lessons from Cartagena: what can the world learn about migration governance?

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Esteban Octavio Scuzarello, is a doctoral researcher at the European University Institute, Italy. His work focuses on forced displacement in South America.

The 1970s and 1980s are remembered as turbulent years in Latin America, marked by coup d’états, political persecution, genocides, cyclical economic crises, climate disasters—the list goes on. Today, the word permacrisis is commonly used to describe global affairs. One could easily argue that Latin America was in a state of permacrisis during the 1970s and 1980s, even if the term was not around at the time. 

Photo: Katie Moum for Unsplash

One of the many consequences of this permacrisis was the displacement of millions of people, particularly in Central America, where political, economic, and even climate-related instability was especially severe. According to UNHCR, “2 million people were forced to abandon their homes and became refugees or internally displaced persons” in Central America in the early 1980s—over 2% of the region’s total population.  

Latin American states quickly realized that many of these displaced individuals did not fulfill the criteria to be considered refugees under the Geneva Convention, which defines a refugee as someone fleeing persecution on the grounds of “race, religion, nationality, membership of a particular social group, or political opinion” (Art. 1.a), nor did they fit the criteria to be considered a political asylee (a different legal figure in the Inter-American system). As a result, 2 million people were effectively excluded from the possibility of receiving international protection. 

Yet, as the Chinese proverb goes, “a crisis is an opportunity riding a dangerous wind.” Sometimes, windows of opportunity arise (whether by chance or through deliberate human action) and challenges lead to change. Faced with this unprecedented mass displacement, many of the countries from the region convened in 1984 at what became known as the Cartagena Conference to discuss possible solutions. After intense debate, the participating states agreed on a new, broader definition of a refugee, including: “Persons who have fled their country because their lives, safety, or freedom have been threatened by generalized violence, foreign aggression, internal conflicts, massive violations of human rights, or other circumstances that have seriously disturbed public order.” 

By expanding the definition of a refugee, the Cartagena Convention established a legal framework that more accurately reflected the realities of displaced Latin Americans. It recognized that individuals might flee not only due to a well-founded fear of persecution (such as for their political beliefs) but also because of broader systemic issues, such as widespread social upheaval. The Convention quickly became a paramount document on refugee protection (Jubilut et al., 2019), leading all South American countries to incorporate its definition into their national legislation.

Cartagena+40

Why is it worth discussing the Cartagena experience 40 years later? Simply put, because its institutional legacy remains very much alive, continuing to shape migration policies in the region (and, hopefully, around the world). I argue that this is true for at least three key reasons. 

First, because its immediate impact goes far beyond the Member States of the Cartagena Conference. Today, the Cartagena definition of refugees is the most common and widespread legal definition of refugees in Latin America. Not only did countries that actively participated in the Conference adopt this definition, but it also had a cascading effect across other countries, and it is now present in almost all refugee laws of Latin American states (Acosta, 2018). This might sound trivial, but in fact, it has significant implications: to the extent that the refugee definition remains broad, more people in need of international protection will be able to exercise their right to be protected. More importantly, this was not achieved in a period of economic stability (actually, quite the contrary) yet Latin American countries managed to advance a more encompassing and generous definition, expanding solidarity. 

Second, Cartagena was, and still is, important because it set a place for discussing refugee issues. In a region where regional organizations are famous for being created when politically needed and then slowly fading into irrelevance, Cartagena still informs present debates because it successfully established a forum for discussions about refugees. As a result, every ten years, Latin American states gather to further discuss different migratory issues in negotiations famously called Cartagena+10 (1994), Cartagena+20 (2004), Cartagena+30 (2014), and Cartagena+40 (2024). 

Not all of these meetings were equally successful or as relevant as the first Cartagena meeting in 1984, but all of them helped cement a practice of open discussion, dialogue, policy coordination, and solidarity. After every negotiation, participating states agreed on a declaration and action plan that would provide guidance for the following ten years, signaling existing challenges, opportunities, and areas for improvement. For instance, during the most recent negotiations, which took place last year and were led by Chile with technical support from UNHCR, Latin American states agreed on a comprehensive action plan that meaningfully addressed four core elements: the need for having an intersectional approach; fostering discussions on how climate change and natural disasters impact (and increase) human mobility; highlighting the necessity of having refugee systems in which civil society, academia, private corporations, and international development banks play a role in coping with and mitigating the effects of human mobility; and, lastly, establishing a permanent mechanism to monitor the progress of both the Action Plan and the Global Refugee Compact. 

It is true that some of us were expecting more ambitious goals. For instance, I believe that the region should have made further progress in expanding the refugee definition to explicitly include climate refugees under the concept of “circumstances which have seriously disturbed public order.” However, even if progress is not happening at the desired speed, the region is moving in the right direction. The recent the resolution on human mobility and climate change of the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights, along with the ruling by the Constitutional Court of Colombia recognizing that people can be forcibly displaced by environmental catastrophes, are encouraging. 

Finally, the Cartagena experience matters because it shifted the focus of refugee governance from a securitized and restrictive regional perspective to a framework based on solidarity, burden-sharing, and cooperation. This is significant because it demonstrates to the world that refugee-related issues are not inherently a threat or a source of danger. Seeking asylum is a fundamental right, and, if managed carefully, it can also present opportunities for the host society. 

When Latin America drafted the Cartagena Definition, it was primarily a region of origin for migrants and asylum seekers. Now, 40 years later, it has become not only a place of origin but also of transit and destination. The region’s refugee profile has changed dramatically in these four decades, to the extent that it now accounts for one in every three new asylum applications worldwide. Despite this transformation, Latin America has continued to build a discourse on human mobility that is, comparatively speaking, more promising and human rights-oriented than in other regions. This progress has not come without setbacks (one can easily recall the how the arrival of Venezuelan migrants to Chile were accompanied by increasing acts of xenophobia or how restricted has the Dominican Republic government become against Haitian people). However, Latin America has still managed to construct institutional mechanisms that prioritize the human rights aspects of migration. Given the times we are living in, this is no small achievement. 

The Latin American experience, shaped by economic crises, large-scale shifts, and persistent instability, has much to teach the rest of the world: when crises arise, so do opportunities. More often than we realize, it is a matter of political will. 

Sources: 

Acosta, D. (2018). The National versus the Foreigner in South America. Cambridge University Press. 

AFP. (2024). Colombian Court Recognizes Environmental Refugees. Accessible at: https://www.france24.com/en/live-news/20240423-colombian-court-recognizes-environmental-refugees  

Amnesty International. (2024). Dominican Republic: Authorities Must End de facto Racist Migration Policies. Accessible at: https://www.amnesty.org/en/latest/news/2024/04/dominican-republic-must-stop-racist-immigration-policies/  

Colloquium on the international Protection of Refugees in Central America, Mexico and Panama. Cartagena Declaration on Refugees. (1984). Accessible at: https://www.unhcr.org/media/cartagena-declaration-refugees-adopted-colloquium-international-protection-refugees-central  

Jubilut, L., Espinoza, M. V., & Mezzanotti, G. (2019). The Cartagena declaration at 35 and refugee protection in Latin America. E-International Relations. 

Lederman, A. (2023). Venezuelan Refugees Face Growing Hostility in Chile. New Lines magazine. Accessible at: https://newlinesmag.com/reportage/venezuelan-refugees-face-hostility-in-chile/  

UN General Assembly (1951). Convention Relating to the Status of Refugees. Treaty Series, Vol. 189, p. 137. Accessible at: https://www.refworld.org/legal/agreements/unga/1951/en/39821  

UNHCR (2004). Keeping The spirit of Cartagena Alive, 20 Years Later. Accessible at: https://www.unhcr.org/news/keeping-spirit-cartagena-alive-20-years-later#:~:text=The%20Declaration’s%2020th%20anniversary%20will,of%20Cartagena%20still%20lives%20on.  

UNHCR. (2024a). Refugee Data Finder. Asylum Seekers in Latin America and the Caribbean. Accessible at: https://www.unhcr.org/external/component/header 

UNHCR (2024b): La Declaración y Plan de Acción de Chile Consolidan el Liderazgo de America Latina y el Caribe en la Protección de Personas Refugiadas, Desplazadas y Apátridas. Accessible at: https://www.acnur.org/noticias/comunicados-de-prensa/cartagena-40-la-declaracion-y-plan-de-accion-de-chile-consolidan-el  

IACHR. (2024). Resolución sobre Movilidad Humana Inducida por el Cambio Climático. Accessible at: https://www.oas.org/es/cidh/decisiones/pdf/2024/Resolucion_cambio_climatico.pdf  

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The views and opinions expressed here are solely those of the individual authors and do not represent the Sussex Centre for Migration Research (SCMR).