The Everyday Violence of Uncertainty: Refugee Perceptions of Resettlement Risk Post-2016 Election

Background and purpose

The United States’ refugee resettlement program has long received bipartisan support. However, after the 2016 presidential election, refugee resettlement became a highly contentious and politicized policy area. In political discourse, refugees have been conflated with terrorists and their countries referred to as “shitholes,” 29 states considered banning refugees, and more than a dozen cities passed local ordinances banning refugees, and Executive Order 13769 (the “travel/Muslim ban”) attempted to limit resettlement. For FY 2018 the refugee resettlement ceiling was lowered from 100,000 to 45,000, although it is unlikely that more than 20,000 refugees will be resettled. These tensions, coupled with lowered financial support for refugee programming, increased I.C.E. detention and deportations of immigrants and refugees (including naturalized citizens), US withdraw from the UN Migrant and Refugee Compact, and increased refoulement of refugees in violation of international law, has created an environment of fear.

Methods

This paper is based on ethnographic field work conducted at two resettlement sites. Data include 30 in-depth semi-structured interviews with current refugees and 30 in depth, semi structured interviews with former refugees (permanent residents and naturalized citizens) and six months of participant observation at two refugee resettlement voluntary agency offices. Interviews were transcribed and thematically coded with Nvivo software using grounded theory and an inductive schema.

Findings

Findings from this research suggest that many refugees’ experience of the post-2016 political environment is shaped by their experiences of political persecution in their country of origin.  In interviews, refugees cite current events as “familiar,” emphasizing that the dehumanizing rhetoric towards one population is a familiar political maneuver that many witnessed in their countries of origin. Many cited this form of political rhetoric and their fear based on their previous experiences with persecution and torture as their reason for disengaging political institutions and minimizing social service access in the US. Disengagement became a strategy to shield oneself from future conflict and stay off the government’s “radar,” should persecution or expulsion become widespread. Many refugees described feeling unsafe and creating a plan for escape.  Refugees pointed to asylum seekers who have been fleeing to the US for Canada as a sign that others feel this way.

Conclusion and Implications

As US refugee policies remain unclear due to judicial challenges, ambiguous language, and failure to fully implement federal programming, refugees are experiencing these inconsistencies as signs of potential persecution. This perceived risk is informed by previous experiences of political persecution as well as the current experiences of other immigrant groups. The result is that refugees are changing their engagement with American institutions, particularly with social service institutions, potentially widening already disparate economic, health, and educational outcomes and consequentially shaping generational mobility and integration.