Promoting Equity in Resettlement: A Proposal for the Global Compact on Refugees

Resettlement is sometimes referred to as a golden lottery ticket. Not only is it available to relatively few refugees, historically its use has been far from equitable. Depending on the population and location, refugees have had radically disparate chances of accessing resettlement. Prior to the 1990s, resettlement countries named the populations that they would accept and the U.S., as the largest receiving country, set up its own hubs to process these populations of concern. Most resettlement took place near these hubs. In 1995, the U.S. radically redefined its eligibility criteria and shifted primary responsibility for the identification and referral process to UNHCR, designating any case of any nationality referred by UNHCR as a Priority 1 referral.

The new U.S. policy was a positive step towards expanding access to resettlement for populations that had not previously benefited. However, the expansion of capacity to conduct resettlement activities in more locations proceeded slowly. As UNHCR was expected to generate an everincreasing number of resettlement referrals to fill the quotas of existing and emerging resettlement countries (and to make up for the decline of the large Indochinese and Soviet caseloads), an inevitable focus was often on potential high-volume locations with fewer logistical complications.