the United States prioritizes particular groups to be eligible for refugee status. The current priorities are: Priority 1: Cases that are identified and referred to the program by the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR), a United States Embassy, or a designated non-governmental organization (NGO). Priority 2: Groups of special humanitarian concern identified by the U.S. refugee program. Priority 3: Family reunification cases (spouses, unmarried children under 21, and parents of persons lawfully admitted to the United States as refugees or asylees or permanent residents (green card holders) or United States citizens who previously had refugee or asylum status; PRM, 2018).

Women are particularly at risk after a disaster.

All refugees have experiences of loss and/or exposure to traumatic events, either personally or within their communities. Such experiences might include systematic discrimination and intimidation, civil war, ongoing military conflicts, forceful government expulsion from the country, ethnic cleansing, and even genocide.

Asylum seekers meet all the criteria for refugee status but have already reached the United States. Although the process of arrival is different, the term refugee will be used in this text to refer to refugees and asylees unless otherwise noted.

A refugee is someone who was persecuted or fears persecution (on the basis of race, religion, nationality, membership in a particular social group, or political opinion), has fled to another country, and has not participated in persecuting others.

The United States Government is required to give non-citizen fiancés information about their rights and resources, in an effort to prevent or intervene in cases of intimate partner violence

Undocumented parents sometimes fear interacting with school, health care systems, and police, for fear of revealing their own undocumented status (

five primary purposes of immigration policy (US English Foundation, 2016; Fix & Passel, 1994). Social: Unify citizens and legal residents with their families. Economic: Increase productivity and standard of living. Cultural: Encourage diversity, increasing pluralism and a variety of skills. Moral: Promote and protect human rights, largely through protecting those feeling persecution. Security: Control undocumented immigration and protect national security.

Ambiguous Loss Theory

It states that the combination of stressors (A), the family’s resources (B), and the family’s definition of the event (C) will produce the family’s experience of a crisis (X).

assumes that families interact within multiple environments that mutually influence each other. These environments include the biophysical

Intersectionality may be a unifying theory that illuminates the immigrant experience in a way that increases understanding of the role of the larger society, informs the efforts of each community, and provides a framework for policy.

Intersectionality rests on three premises.

Intersectionality is a feminist sociological theory developed by Kimberlé Crenshaw (1989), which posits that one, cannot truly arrive at an adequate understanding of a marginalized experience by merely adding the categories such as gender plus race, plus class, etc

positive outcomes for children and adolescents.

Family cohesion is how emotionally close and supportive the members of a family are.

Children are a source of inspiration as immigrants work hard to face challenges and adversity

value of working hard to support their families.

individual family.

community context

professionals providing treatment for immigrants and refugees

Parenting style

Family involvement and cohesion are key protective factors for substance abuse among immigrants

Similarly, a study of immigrant adolescents in Massachusetts found they had a lower risk of alcohol, tobacco, and marijuana use than United States-born adolescents

the estimated costs of substance abuse in the United States is $700 billion annually

immigrants often face limited employment and housing options, which means they may be unable to leave neighborhoods with prevalent substance use (as in the example above). Immigrants frequently have stressors associated with scarce employment, the need to send money to family, past traumatic exposure, and separation from family. Some immigrant and refugee groups may be at greater risk for abusing substances as a means of coping with these stressors. However, immigrants also have significant protective factors, such as specific cultural norms and family support.

the following ways of coping with IPV:

Rigid, patriarchal gender roles learned in the country-of-origin are associated with increased tolerance for and experience of IPV

There are four primary types of IPV as defined by the Centers for Disease Control (CDC; Breiding et al., 2015): Physical violence. This is “the intentional use of physical force with the potential for causing death, disability, injury, or harm” (Breiding et al., 2015, p. 11), including a wide range of aggressive acts (i.e., pushing, hitting, biting, and punching). Sexual violence. This includes both forcefully convincing a person into sexual acts against his/her wishes and any abusive sexual contact. Manipulating vulnerable individuals into sexual acts when they may lack the capacity to fully understand the nature of such acts is also termed sexual violence. Stalking. This includes “a pattern of repeated, unwanted, attention and contact that causes fear or concern of one’s safety or the safety of someone else” (e.g., the safety of a family member or close friend) (Breiding et al., 2015, p. 14). Psychological aggression. This includes the “use of verbal and non-verbal communication with the intent to a) harm another person mentally or emotionally; and/or b) exerting control over someone” (Brieiding et al., 2015, p. 14-15).

In mental health treatment for children, it is particularly important to engage the child’s support system. Studies suggest that higher levels of family, community, and school support are related to fewer psychological symptoms among children who have experienced war

Children are not immune to the deleterious effects of the immigrant and refugee experience.

The second type of ambiguous loss occurs when a loved one is physically present but emotionally absent. Dementia, brain injuries, depression, PTSD, and homesickness can all result in individuals being physically present but emotionally or cognitively they have “gone to another place and time”

The grief response that comes with loss can manifest as physical, emotional, and psychological responses including crying, anger, numbness, confusion, anxiety, agitation, fatigue, and guilt. The loss of surroundings, possessions, ideas, and beliefs such as those experienced by immigrants and refugees can trigger a grief response similar to those experienced with the death of someone close

understudied and underrepresented in academic literature

Refugees in particular may have survived traumatic events and violence including war, torture, multiple relocations, and temporary resettlements in refugee camps

Leaving home, by choice or by force, is a disorienting experience. Through migration or via displacement and resettlement, immigrants and refuges are often confronted with a new world, new language, and new social norms. They face culture shock in everyday life events experienced as foreign. Immigrants and refugees experience disruption in their sense of self, often having to give up previous occupations, privilege, and social status. They lose community and established systems of social support.

Immigrants are much more likely than native-born peers to be “unbanked,” or have no bank accounts of any kind. The incidence of being unbanked in immigrant communities is 13% higher than the native born population

Poverty rates of children of immigrants are 50% higher than children of native-born citizens (Van Hook, 2003).

Refugees. An estimated 51.2 million people were displaced since 2013 as a direct result of persecution, war, violence, and human rights atrocities (UNHCR, 2018). In 2017, USCIS received 139,801 affirmative asylum applications and the EOIR received 119,303 defensive asylum applications, but only 26,568 applications were approved (DHS, 2019). The remaining applications were abandoned (1,439), withdrawn (6,400), or simply unaccounted for (11,391). Being that the recent United States population estimate is 318 million people, refugees make up less than 1% of the population. The families seeking asylum from their home countries often have significant traumatic histories and thus can loom larger in the public sphere than other types of immigrants. Most of these families are fleeing extreme injustices in their home country, such as war, political instability, genocide and severe oppression. Because of the uncertainty of their original situation, it remains quite difficult for the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) to determine who is legitimately eligible for asylum. Asylum seekers. A further complication for government agencies lies in trying to determine when and how to return rejected asylum seekers to their home countries (Koser 2007). Within the domain of international migration studies there has been traditionally a differentiation made between refugees (involuntary migration) and labor seekers (voluntary migration). While the former group represents the political outcome of global systems and interactions and the latter group represents the economic outcome, nonetheless, it is quite clear that people migrate for a whole complex series of reasons, including social ones (Koser, 2007). If an asylum-seeker’s claim for asylum is denied, they are placed in deportation proceedings. During this process, an immigration judge (IJ) works with the asylum-seekers’ attorney to determine the removal process. It is important to note that displaced persons are rarely detained and/or immediately placed on the next flight to their country of origin.

he strategic priorities outlined by the UNHCR include: (a) countering discrimination; (b) combating impunity and strengthening accountability; (c) pursing economic, social and cultural rights and combating poverty; (d) protecting human rights in the context of migration; (e) protecting human rights during armed conflict, violence and insecurity; and (f) strengthening international human rights mechanisms and the progressive development of international human rights law. Priorities (a), (c) and (d) make up the elements most germane to the human rights situation in the United States today.

The UDHR encompasses both negative (i.e., the right to not be tortured, imprisoned without cause, or enslaved) as well as positive (i.e., the right to own property, the right to freedom of thought, and the right to marry) rights. It also enumerates, for the first time, the core principles of human rights, which are: universality, interdependence and indivisibility, equality and non-discrimination. The UDHR states further that human rights are not merely an entitlement, they also include rights and obligations.

The UDHR’s preamble states unequivocally “recognition of the inherent dignity and of the equal and inalienable rights of all members of the human family is the foundation of freedom, justice and peace in the world

The foundational definition of human rights, according to the UNHCR, encompasses “…inherent rights to all human beings, whatever the nationality, place of residence, sex, national or ethnic origin, color, religion, language, or any other status.” This definition is critical to understanding how and why the international community endeavors to define and protect these rights. A complete understanding of human rights includes moral values, ethical and philosophical norms such as autonomy, justice, beneficence and non-maleficence. All of these characteristics factor into the creation of a particular paradigm of rights for human beings that has been specifically and gradually shaped into international law since the United Nations was founded in 1945.

the top five countries of origin for resettlement in the United States are the Democratic Republic of Congo, Burma, Ukraine, Eritrea, and Afghanistan.

The United States, amongst other Western countries, regularly sees influxes of immigrant and refugee families from around the world depending on the sociopolitical and historical context of the time. Some of these families are intact, but the vast majority are scattered and separated around the world.

Key Organizations in Refugee Admissions and Integration