From Resettlement to Removal: Anti-Black Racism in U.S. Refugee Admissions and Enforcement

• In Event: Racialization and Immigration Enforcement

Abstract

This paper examines how recent immigration enforcement initiatives targeting refugees are best understood as extensions of anti-Black racism embedded in U.S. immigration and refugee policy. Although framed as race-neutral efforts, these policies singled out Black refugees who had already been admitted meeting the requirements outlined in the U.S. Refugee Admissions Program (USRAP), and after an extensive vetting process.
By drawing on data from a longitudinal ethnography study about the Liberian refugee community in Staten Island, NY as well as participant observation as a country conditions expert in asylum and deportation proceedings, I argue that Black refugees are discriminated against before they enter the United States and after they do so. Black refugees, have faced tremendous challenges in obtaining refuge in the U.S. The USRAP has consistently allocated a low resettlement quota to the African continent compared to other regions, limited the avenues and programs through which African refugees can apply for and receive legal refugee status, all while maintaining a higher threshold that Black refugees must surpass to prove the degree of their persecution compared. For the few fortunate ones who are either granted refugee status or asylum, their struggles continue as they build new lives U.S. Black refugees and asylees face persistent individual and systemic racism in various aspects of life.
Black refugees who entered the United States legally remain vulnerable to removal. Caught in racially targeted dragnets and policing practices, they are funneled through the criminal system into immigration detention and deportation proceedings. Legal refugee status thus offers no durable protection in a system shaped by anti-Black racism. I conclude that this his pattern is not new as the United States has used different policies and strategies to remove, exclude, or push out Black people, showing a long-standing tendency to treat their presence as unwanted or temporary.

Author

• Bernadette M Ludwig, Western Connecticut State University