By John Ketchamand Daniel Di Martino   

Since the summer of 2022, more than 70,000 asylum seekers have arrived in New York City, stretching public resources to their limit. The massive influx has been particularly challenging given the city’s “right to shelter,” the result of a 1979 lawsuit, Callahan v. Carey, and corresponding consent decree, which required the city to provide immediate shelter to those who request it, regardless of the number of applicants or the availability of resources. In order to comply with this requirement, the city has housed some 40,000 migrants in shelters—which has led to an approximately 70% spike in the shelter population in a single year. NYC is currently supporting more than 170 emergency shelters and 10 additional large-scale humanitarian relief centers.

Shelters and relief centers simply cannot house all the newly arrived migrants, which has forced the city to procure approximately 4,500 hotel rooms in unionized facilities,[1] often through expensive contracts that provide bonanzas to owners and the city’s hotel-worker unions. Most notably, on May 13, Mayor Eric Adams announced that the historic 1,025-room Roosevelt Hotel, located in the heart of Midtown East, would become New York City’s central migrant intake center,[2] at a reported cost of $225 million.[3] In addition to hosting hundreds of families and individuals on-site, the location will process all arriving asylum seekers and provide them with a range of city services, including government-issued ID cards, public-school and health-insurance enrollment, mental-health counseling, and more.

New York: Manhattan Institute, 2023. 19p.

By Alexander Betts

Such threats as environmental change, food insecurity, and generalized violence force massive numbers of people to flee states that are unable or unwilling to ensure their basic rights, as do conditions in failed and fragile states that make possible human rights deprivations. Because these reasons do not meet the legal understanding of persecution, the victims of these circumstances are not usually recognized as "refugees," preventing current institutions from ensuring their protection. In this book, Alexander Betts develops the concept of "survival migration" to highlight the crisis in which these people find themselves.

Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Pres, 2013. 255p.

Edited by Evyn Lê Espiritu Gandhi and Vinh Nguyen

This Handbook presents a transnational and interdisciplinary study of refugee narratives, broadly defined. Interrogating who can be considered a refugee and what constitutes a narrative, the thirty-eight chapters included in this collection encompass a range of forcibly displaced subjects, a mix of geographical and historical contexts, and a variety of storytelling modalities. Analyzing novels, poetry, memoirs, comics, films, photography, music, social media, data, graffiti, letters, reports, eco-design, video games, archival remnants, and ethnography, the individual chapters counter dominant representations of refugees as voiceless victims. Addressing key characteristics and thematics of refugee narratives, this Handbook examines how refugee cultural productions are shaped by and in turn shape socio-political landscapes. It will be of interest to researchers, teachers, students, and practitioners committed to engaging refugee narratives in the contemporary moment.

London; New York: Routledge, 2023. 528p. 

Edited by Matthew Frank and Jessica Reinisch  

 Refugees in Europe, 1919-1959 offers a new history of Europe’s mid-20th century as seen through its recurrent refugee crises. By bringing together in one volume recent research on a range of different contexts of groups of refugees and refugee policy, it sheds light on the common assumptions that underpinned the history of refugees throughout the period under review. The essays foreground the period between the end of the First World War, which inaugurated a series of new international structures to deal with displaced populations, and the late 1950s, when Europe's home-grown refugee problems had supposedly been ‘solved’ and attention shifted from the identification of an exclusively European refugee problem to a global one. Borrowing from E. H. Carr’s The Twenty Years’ Crisis, first published in 1939, the editors of this volume test the idea that the two post-war eras could be represented as a single crisis of a European-dominated international order of nation states in the face of successive refugee crises which were both the direct consequence of that system and a challenge to it. Each of the chapters reflects on the utility and limitations of this notion of a ‘forty years’ crisis’ for understanding the development of specific national and international responses to refugees in the mid-20th century. Contributors to the volume also provide alternative readings of the history of an international refugee regime, in which the non-European and colonial world are assigned a central role in the narrative.

London; New York : Bloomsburgy Academic, 2017. 269p.

By Antonella Bandiera, Lelys Dinarte, Sandra Rozo, Carlos Schmidt-Padilla, Micaela Sviatschi, Hernan. Winkler    

  Can repatriation inflows impact firm behavior in origin countries? This paper examines this question in the context of repatriation inflows from the United States and Mexico to El Salvador. The paper combines a rich longitudinal data set covering all formal firms in El Salvador with individual-level data on all registered repatriations from 2010 to 2017. The empirical strategy combines variation in the municipality of birth of individuals repatriated over 1995–2002—before a significant change in deportation policies—with annual variation in aggregate inflows of repatriations to El Salvador. The findings show that repatriations have large negative effects on the average wages of formal workers. This is mainly driven by formal firms in sectors that face more intense competition from the informal sector, which deportees are more likely to join. Repatriation inflows also reduce total employment among formal firms in those sectors. Given that most deportees spend less than a month abroad, these findings suggest that the experience of being detained and deported can have strong negative effects not only on the deportees, but also on their receiving communities.  

  Policy Research Working Paper 9521. Washington, DC: The World Bank, 2021. 39p.

By Marry-Anne Karlsen

Over the past decades, European states have increasingly limited irregular migrants’ access to welfare services as a tool for migration control. Still, irregular migrants tend to have access to certain basic services, although frequently of a subordinate, arbitrary, and unstable kind. Drawing on in-depth ethnographic fieldwork conducted in Norway, this book sheds light on ambiguities in the state’s response to irregular migration that simultaneously cut through law, policy, and practice. Carefully examining the complex interplay between the geopolitical management of territory and the biopolitical management of populations, the book argues that irregularised migrants should be understood as precariously included in the welfare state rather than simply excluded. The notion of precarious inclusion highlights the insecure and unpredictable nature of the inclusive practises, underscoring how limited access to welfare does not necessarily contradict restrictive migration policies. Taking the situated encounters between irregularised migrants and service providers as its starting point for exploring broader questions of state sovereignty, biopolitics, and borders, Migration Control and Access to Welfare offers insightful analyses of the role of life, territory, and temporality in contemporary politics. As such, it will appeal to scholars of migration and border studies, gender research, social anthropology, geography, and sociology.

New York: London: Routledge, 2021. 176p.

By Teresa M. Cappiali

This book focuses on the political participation and grassroots mobilization of immigrants and racialized communities in the European context. Based on extensive data collected in Italy, it explores the role that alliances among pro-immigrant groups play in shaping political participation, asking why and how immigrant activists mobilize in hostile environments, why and how they create alliances with some white allies rather than others, and what might explain variations in forms of political participation and grassroots mobilization at the local level. Using social movement, critical race, and post-colonial theories, the author examines the ways in which both institutional and non-institutional actors, including immigrant activists, become involved and compete in the local arena over immigration and integration issues, and assesses the mechanisms by which both conventional and non-conventional forms of participation are made possible, or obstructed. By placing immigrant activists at the center of the analysis, the book offers a valuable and novel insider perspective on political activism and the claims-making of marginalized groups. It also demonstrates how pro-immigrant groups can play a role in racializing immigrant activists. A study of the effects on participation in social mobilization of coalitions, conflicts, and racialization processes among pro-immigrant groups and immigrant activists, this volume will appeal to scholars of sociology, political science, and political sociology with interests in migration, ethnic and racial relations, social movements, and local governance.

New York; London: Routledge, 2022. 323p.

By Michela Semprebon

This book deals with social protection programmes targeted to people trafficked for the scope of sexual exploitation. It provides empirical evidence on the N.A.Ve programme, in the north-eastern Italian Veneto Region, and its evolution. It elaborates on the programme by narrating the subjective experiences of practitioners and of a specific group of beneficiaries: young Nigerian women - some in transition towards the majority age. The book builds on qualitative research, including a long institutional ethnographic research and semi-structured interviews carried out in the period 2019-2021, before and during the Covid-19 pandemic. It takes an intersectional, social work and humanitarian governance perspective to examine the multiple dimensions of vulnerability (age, gender, geographical origin, type of exploitation) characterising trafficked and sexually exploited Nigerian women. It draws attention to the precariousness of protection trajectories, but also on the agency of these women, by building on the autonomy of migration approach, while shedding light on the temporal tensions between biographical and institutional times. Calling for greater space for women’s voices and for their involvement in the co-development of protection programmes, this book will appeal to scholars of sociology, anthropology, social work and politics, as well as to practitioners and policymakers interested in migration and trafficking..

New York; London: Routledge, 2023. 202p.

By The European Parliament

On 19 December 2022, the European Commission put forward a proposal for the targeted revision of Directive 2011/36/EU, which is the main EU instrument to combat trafficking in human beings and protect its victims. Despite progress achieved in fighting this crime, the Commission reports that, on average, 7 000 people per year are victims of human trafficking in the EU and that this figure is most likely only the tip of the iceberg. Moreover, forms of exploitation have evolved over time and have adapted to the new environment. For instance, criminal networks are now taking advantage of the possibilities offered by new technologies to recruit victims. Most recently, the Russian invasion of Ukraine has generated a massive displacement of women and children and created new opportunities for criminal organisations. While a large majority of victims of trafficking for sexual exploitation are women and girls, men are more victims of trafficking for labour exploitation, the share of which is increasing, or are forced to commit criminal activities. Against this background, the Commission is proposing a set of amendments to strengthen the current rules, further harmonise provisions across Member States in order to reduce demand, and collect robust data and statistics.

Brussels: European Union, 2023. 9p.

 By Martina Prpic  

In December 2022, the European Commission presented a proposal to review Directive 2011/36/EU to strengthen the rules on combating trafficking in human beings and to better protect victims. Despite some progress achieved in recent years, it is estimated that over 7 000 people become victims of human trafficking in the EU on an annual basis, although the figure could be much higher because many victims remain undetected. Human trafficking is not only a serious and borderless crime, but also a lucrative business, driven by demand for sexual (and other) services. Criminals exploit vulnerable people (increasingly children), making high profits and taking relatively low risks. Vulnerability can result from a whole range of factors, including socio-economic ones, and migrants are a particularly vulnerable group. Gender also plays an important part, as women and men are not trafficked in the same way or for the same purpose. Women and girls represent a disproportionately high number of victims, both globally and at EU level, especially in terms of sexual exploitation. This form of exploitation is still dominant in the EU, even though other forms are on the rise, such as exploitation for forced labour and for criminal activities. The COVID-19 pandemic and the war in Ukraine have brought new challenges for victims, as well as amplifying the vulnerabilities of those most at risk. Traffickers – like legal businesses – have increasingly moved to digital modi operandi. In its efforts to eradicate human trafficking, the EU has not only created a legal framework, comprising an anti-trafficking directive and instruments to protect victims' rights and prevent labour exploitation; it has also put in place an operational cooperation network involving decentralised EU agencies, including Europol, Eurojust, CEPOL and Frontex. Moreover, trafficking in human beings is a priority in the EU policy cycle for organised and serious international crime. The European Parliament plays a major role, not only in designing policies but also in evaluating their implementation. 

EPRS | European Parliamentary ResearchService , 2023. 12p.

By Nicole Vidal & Bryony Nisbet

  This study builds an understanding of the quantity and quality of refugees’ social networks, and their role in influencing public perceptions and engagement with the police. It applies the Social Connections Mapping Tool (SCMT) methodology, combined with in-depth interviews with refugees, asylum-seekers, police personnel, and associated services to identify refugee and asylum-seeker experiences, trust and confidence with Police Scotland and associated services. Findings: • Visibility, trust & confidence: Some participants had limited knowledge of Police Scotland or how to contact them. Confidence in Police Scotland is good despite negative experiences in their countries of origin. Most agreed increased police visibility is important. • Resources & Engagement: Officers recognised the importance of engaging with refugees and asylum-seekers but highlighted the challenge of operational demands and resourcing. • Language: Limited English language makes engaging with the police difficult, and ineffective interpretation and translation impacts on trust and confidence in the service. Police personnel agreed that language barriers can increase call and response times. • Gender: Efforts are being made to improve the gender imbalance in the police workforce. • Racism and hate crime: There was a general concern surrounding racism both at the hands of the community and the police, exacerbated by anecdotal accounts from others. Recommendations: • Engage with refugees and asylum-seekers to gain familiarity of their social networks. • Increase community support and empower communities to develop solutions to problems. • Utilise police officers’ cultural insights to assist with understanding community issues. • Equip all officers with community policing information and resources (e.g. cultural awareness training, working with interpreters, agreeing methods to support inclusion). • Enlist support of refugee-related organisations, local community organisations and/or faithbased organisations; these can serve as a bridge between the police and communities. • Work with the wider community to encourage knowledge sharing and mutual understand  

Edinburgh: Queen Margaret University, 2023. 53p.

 Edited by Lawrence Aje and Catherine Armstrong  

While the plantation accounts for 90% of slave ownership and experience in the Americas, its centrality to the common conceptions of slavery has arguably led to an oversimplified understanding of its multifarious forms and complex dynamics in the region. Published open access, The Many Faces of Slavery explores non-traditional forms of slavery that existed outside the plantation system to illustrate the pluralities of slave ownership and experiences in the Americas, from the 17th to the 19th century. Through a wide range of innovative and multi-disciplined approaches, the book's chapters explore the existence of urban slavery, slave self-hiring, quasi-free or nominal slaves, domestic slave concubines, slave vendors, slave soldiers and sailors, slave preachers, slave overseers, and many other types of “societies with slaves.” Moreover, it documents unconventional forms of slave ownership like slave-holding by poor whites, women, free blacks, Native Americans, Jewish Americans, corporations and the state. The Many Faces of Slavery broadens our traditional conception of slavery by complicating our understanding of slave experience and ownership in slavery-practising societies throughout Atlantic history. 

London; New York: Bloomsbury Academic,  2020.  257p.

By Alexandre Skander Galand  

Galand critically spells out a comprehensive conception of the nature and effects of Security Council referrals that responds to the various limits to the International Criminal Court’s exercise of jurisdiction over situations that concern nationals and territories of non-party State.

Leiden; Boston: Brill, 2019. 279p.

Edited by Nikki Marczak and Kirril Shields  

Genocide Perspectives VI grapples with two core themes: the personal toll of genocide, and processes that facilitate the crime. From political choices governments and leaders make, through to denialism and impunity, the crime of genocide recurs again and again, across the globe. At what cost to individuals and communities? What might the legacy of this criminality be? This collection of essays examines the personal sacrifice genocide takes from those who live through the trauma, and the generations that follow. Contributors speak to the way visual art and literature attempt to represent genocide, hoping to make sense of problematic histories while also offering a means of reflection after years of “slow violence” or silenced memories. Some authors generously allow us into their own histories, or contemplate how they may have experienced genocide had they been born in another time or place. What facets contribute to the processes that lead to, or enable the crime of genocide? This collection explores those processes through a variety of case studies and lenses. How do nurses, whose role is inherently linked to care and compassion, become mass killers? How do restrictions on religious freedom play a role in advancing genocidal policies, and why do perpetrators of genocide often target religious leaders? Why is it so important for Australia and other nations with histories of colonial genocide to acknowledge their past? Among the essays published in this volume, we have the privilege and the sorrow of publishing the very last essay Professor Colin Tatz wrote before his passing in 2019. His contribution reveals, yet again, the enormous influence of both his research and his original ideas on genocide. He reflects on continuing legacies for Indigenous Australian communities, with whom he worked for many decades, and adds nuance to contemporary understanding of the Armenian Genocide and the Holocaust, two other cases to which he was deeply committed.

Sydney;  NSW: University of Technology Sydney, 2020. 217p.

Edited by Ilke Adam Tundé Adefioye Serena D'Agostino Nick Schuermans Florian Trauner

"Migration, Equality and Racism trigger ever more salient societal debates. More than 80 VUB academics and co-authors joined forces for this book. Philosophers, lawyers, psychologists, health scientists, sociologists, geographers, criminologists, communication and political scientists … look at migration, equality and racism from different disciplinary angles. Together they aim to contribute to an exercise of humanism as a praxis of criticism or a ‘technique of trouble-making’, in the words of Edward Said. Through 44 thought-provoking and informed opinion pieces, they question widespread beliefs on migration, equality and racism and propose solutions that might disturb. Let this book be a source of inspiration for those who want to spark an informed debate on the ever more salient issues of migration, equality and racism, for those who want to learn more on how and why humanism has often remained an empty box for migrants and racialized groups. Or for those who are in search of inspiration for a just future for all. Migration, Equality and Racism is the work of Vrije Universiteit Brussel (VUB) think tank POINcaré and was created under the direction of Ilke Adam, Tundé Adefioye, Serena D’Agostino, Nick Schuermans and Florian Trauner."

Brussels: ASP editions - Academic and Scientific Publishers, 2021. 260p.

Edited by El ˙zbieta M. Go´zdziak · Izabella Main

This open access book brings into dialogue emerging and seasoned migration and religion scholars with spiritual leaders and representatives of faith-based organizations assisting refugees. Violent conflicts, social unrest, and other humanitarian crises around the world have led to growing numbers of people seeking refuge both in the North and in the South. Migrating and seeking refuge have always been part and parcel of spiritual development. However, the current 'refugee crisis' in Europe and elsewhere in the world has brought to the fore fervent discussions regarding the role of religion in defining difference, linking the ‘refugee crisis’ with Islam, and fear of the ‘Other.’ Many religious institutions, spiritual leaders, and politicians invoke religious values and call for strict border controls to resolve the ‘refugee crisis.’ However, equally many humanitarian organizations and refugee advocates use religious values to inform their call to action to welcome refugees and migrants, provide them with assistance, and facilitate integration processes. This book includes three distinct but inter-related parts focusing, respectively, on politics, values, and discourses mobilized by religious beliefs; lived experiences of religion, with a particular emphasis on identity and belonging among various refugee groups; and faith and faith actors and their responses to forced migration.

Cham: Palgrave Macmillan, 2023. 200p.

By Domenic Vitiello 

In The Sanctuary City, Domenic Vitiello argues that sanctuary means much more than the limited protections offered by city governments or churches sheltering immigrants from deportation. It is a wider set of protections and humanitarian support for vulnerable newcomers. Sanctuary cities are the places where immigrants and their allies create safe spaces to rebuild lives and communities, often through the work of social movements and community organizations or civil society. Philadelphia has been an important center of sanctuary and reflects the growing diversity of American cities in recent decades. One result of this diversity is that sanctuary means different things for different immigrant, refugee, and receiving communities. Vitiello explores the migration, settlement, and local and transnational civil society of Central Americans, Southeast Asians, Liberians, Arabs, Mexicans, and their allies in the region across the late twentieth and early twenty-first centuries. Together, their experiences illuminate the diversity of immigrants and refugees in the United States and what is at stake for different people, and for all of us, in our immigration debates.

Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 2022. 311p.

By  Rosita Fibbi • Arnfnn H. Midtbøen and Patrick Simon

This open access short reader provides a state of the art overview of the discrimination research field, with particular focus on discrimination against immigrants and their descendants. It covers the ways in which discrimination is defined and conceptualized, how it is measured, how it may be theorized and explained, and how it might be combated by legal and policy means. The book also presents empirical results from studies of discrimination across the world to show the magnitude of the problem and the difficulties of comparison across national borders. The concluding chapter engages in a critical discussion of the relationship between discrimination and integration as well as pointing out promising directions for future studies. As such this short reader is a valuable read to undergraduate students, as well as graduate students. IMISCOE Short Reader

Cham: Springer Nature, 2021. 105p.

Edited by Mirjam van Reisen, Munyaradzi Mawere, Klara Smits, Morgane Wirtz

Eritrean refugees are being trafficked and enslaved in Libya, where they are tortured to force relatives to pay a ransom for their release. Labelled with a digital code, they are moved along in the possession of the traffickers through a series of ‘black holes’, in which their access to digital technologies and connectivity is highly controlled. They are tortured, abused, extorted and subjected to sexual violence. Many die along the way. If they make it to the Mediterranean Sea, they risk being intercepted and returned to Libya or dying at sea. Over the period of this study (2017–21), it is conservatively estimated that at least 200,000 men, women and children have fallen victim to human trafficking for ransom in Libya, and the cumulative value of this trade for that period is estimated at over 1 billion USD. This detailed ethnographic study identifies the routes, modus operandi, organisation, and key actors involved in the human trafficking for ransom of refugees and migrants, who are desperately in need of protection. The book is part of the GAIC Research Network and African studies series published by Langaa RPCIG and makes an important contribution to the literature on human trafficking, migration studies, African studies, modern slavery, social protection and governance.

Cameroon: Langaa RPCIG, 2023. 821p.

By The U.S. Civil Rights Commission

The U.S. Commission on Civil Rights last addressed civil rights and constitutional concerns in connection with the immigration detention of families and children, including conditions of detention centers in its 2015 report, With Liberty and Justice for All: The State of Civil Rights at Immigration Detention Facilities(“2015 Report”).  In 2018, public reports documented worsening conditions at the southern border. Changes in federal policy further resulted in substantially increased law enforcement activity at the southern border and the separation of thousands of migrant children from their parents. Recent developments have resulted in serious civil rights implications, including the protection of the physical and mental well-being of both adult and child immigration detainees and their due process rights. In light of these concerns the Commission formed a bipartisan subcommittee and reopened its 2015 Report to update its investigation of the immigration detention of families and children.  The subcommittee ) sought information from the Departments of Homeland Security and Health and Human Services, ) held a public comment session where it took in testimony from experts, impacted individuals, witnesses to the impacts of family separation, and other interested members of the public, and solicited written comments from the public….

Washington, DC: USCCR, 2019. 208p.