Refugee Resettlement & Welfare Policy: Examining Neoliberal Discourse & Social Citizenship

Background, Purpose. Social welfare scholars have examined the 1996 welfare reforms as institutionalization of a market-centered, work-centered ethos and materiality in poverty governance. Neoliberal processes and strategies are considered as redefining rights and obligations, and prioritizing economic self-interest and marketability instead, as constitutive of social citizenship. 
The Omnibus Act of 1981, which restricted benefits and allowed states to test out welfare-to-work options, is considered forerunner to welfare reform. One year earlier, enacted was the Refugee Act of 1980, the landmark federal legislation about resettlement, which required refugees to work in exchange for public aid. No known studies have compared welfare and resettlement policy, in terms of a neoliberal perspective, despite indications of commonality: the two policies’ near simultaneous legislative passage; both are federal policies of public assistance, and both had stipulations of workfare. I argue that the Refugee Act is another policy that institutionalized neoliberal strategies, in more developed and consolidated forms than those legislated in the Omnibus Act.

Methods. Critical discourse analysis was conducted to examine policy provisions and debates pertaining to the Refugee Act of 1980. Applying a deductive approach, this study examines in American resettlement policy four neoliberal elements that have previously been operationalized, examined and theorized in welfare policy: devolution of authority, performance systems, privatization, workfare. Primary source materials or the sample include the Refugee Act, public hearings, and five government policy reports, which were coded and analyzed for themes.



Results, Conclusions.Analysis evidences the four neoliberal elements in the Refugee Act, even as contradictions and assumptions emerged as policymakers and stakeholders negotiated claims and demands.


Devolution. ‘Flexibility’ was simultaneously embedded with ‘consistency’ and ‘equity’ in the debates; and in legislation, states were given three options, from which to choose their strategy to resettlement: state-administered, public-private partnership and opt out of resettlement services altogether.


Performance systems.Three themes emerged: inefficient management by public agencies; cost-effective management by private agencies; use of managerialism and performance systems.


Privatization.Three themes emerged about privatization: as uncontested approach; as having a long history; and as extended to communities and individuals.


Workfare. Discourse reflected contradictions about refugees’ employment, but ‘work’ itself as obligation was not problematized. Refugees were portrayed as dependent, low-skilled and unemployed, but also diligent, marketable and willing to take any job. Discourse deemed self-sufficiency important, while cautioning about refugees taking jobs away from American citizens. The Refugee Act and Omnibus Act both incorporated workfare, but unlike the latter which stipulated it as option for states, the Refugee Act mandated it.


Implications. Juxtaposing welfare recipients and refugees, citizens and non-citizens respectively, who have come to share a similar neoliberal mode of governance, gives analytics to reconsider American citizenship and the social rights and obligations that go with it. Findings yield critical theoretical insight for studies of social welfare and refugee resettlement. Future research could examine neoliberal processes in refugee resettlement services on-the-ground to understand practical impact for social work practitioners and resettled refugees.