(WITHDRAWN) Institutional Innovation amidst the Demise of the Refugee Resettlement Sector

The impact of targeted Trump Administration policies calls into question the institution of refugee resettlement's survival. The administration has reduced the numbers of admitted refugees, cut back on funds to support this vulnerable population, and actively undermined the nation’s identity as a leader in the global effort to resolve the refugee crisis. And yet, there remain networks of locally embedded organizations engaged in the work of supporting refugees on a path to integration. This case study explores how resistance to the US government’s anti-refugee policy manifests in one local context, explaining the power and limits of this resistance in terms of a larger project of (re)engagement with social justice.

This paper draws on data from an ongoing longitudinal qualitative study initiated in 2017. Data were collected through observation of state-level coalition meetings, interviews with key informants from state offices, local resettlement organizations, and local stakeholders. This case study explores institutional adaptions in one Midwestern post-industrial city selected for inclusion based on the relatively robust scope of its resettlement program and its stated goal of engaging in innovation and resistance in the face of anti-refugee policy. Data were analyzed using content analysis and theories of resource dependence, organizational adaptation and innovation.  

Analysis shows that in the face of a policy onslaught intended to destabilize and diminish the refugee resettlement architecture in the US, resettlement practitioners and policy makers in this community are more networked and better resourced, not less. As a way of resisting pressures resulting from the federal government’s abdication of responsibility to resettled refugees, the coalition widened its scope of who is considered a stakeholder, thus bringing in new local actors and broadening the investment in resettlement. The coalition identified this activity as innovation, a word that became meaningful to the work of the group as they saw themselves as separate from who they were before. This revitalized and broader community was able to serve refugees in a more holistic way as the consortium communicated more within the network, sharing resources and best practices. The implications of this case study are complex. On one hand the more cohesive and social justice-oriented identity of the expanded coalition was associated with a more beneficial set of service delivery practices for resettled refugees. On the other hand, the success of the coalition adaptation risks reifying the notion that refugee resettlement can succeed in the US without federal investment. This paper highlights the risk that the set of behaviors this coalition has engaged in are neither sustainable in the long term, nor replicable in all other resettlement locations. Further, this paper identifies the role that federal retrenchment plays in creating isolated policy communities that have limited capacity to connect with each other or to a larger project of policy reform. Analysis of the behaviors of this institution and the risks to the long term work of resettlement offers important insights for policy practitioners in domains where the federal government is engaging in retrenchment and the private sector is left to fill the void.