Disability and the Divergence of Economic Immigration and Resettlement Pathways for Refugees, 1951-2011
Despite all the attention in recent years to labour mobility for refugees and the key role of complementary pathways in UNHCR’s Roadmap 2030 strategy, there has been limited discussion about who was excluded historically when economic immigration was an important solution to displacement. While recent scholarship has raised concerns related to gendered exclusion, protection, and potential negative implications for resettlement, disability is almost absent from the conversation. My larger research project, which explores the period from 1951 to 2011, shows that UNHCR has historically contributed to developing resettlement as a more accessible and less restrictive pathway to complement economic immigration for refugees, since this avenue excluded refugees with disabilities and others who were not perceived as ideal workers.
While labour mobility is often presented as an innovative solution, economic immigration for refugees is not new. Historian Laura Robson’s work documents the long history of resettling refugees then exploiting their labour. Much of the “resettlement” of refugees following the Second World War took place through economic immigration programs, especially in the United States, Canada, and Australia. As a result, UNHCR developed distinctive approaches for refugees with disabilities, broadly defined, who were excluded from economic immigration.
For example, in the 1970s, UNHCR developed a special resettlement program for refugees with disabilities while also encouraging economic immigration for those who qualified. In 1973, UNHCR initiated the ‘Ten or More Plan,’ suggesting that resettlement countries accept ten or more refugees with disabilities and their families each year. By 1974, Belgium, Denmark, New Zealand, Sweden, Switzerland and the United Kingdom had joined the plan. Around the same time, UNHCR emphasized the complementarity of resettlement and economic immigration pathways. A 1974 memorandum from the UNHCR Archives reads: “It is to be assumed that the non-handicapped cases could emigrate through normal immigration channels […] The physically, mentally and socially handicapped refugees […] require resettlement through special schemes.”[1] The categories of “physically, mentally and socially handicapped” historically encompassed a wide range of people, including refugees living with physical disabilities or mental illness, large families, unmarried mothers and their children, and those with a criminal record. UNHCR advocated for the availability of economic immigration pathways and special resettlement programs so that different profiles of refugees could access resettlement.
In the decades that followed, UNHCR repeatedly advocated for resettlement countries not to treat refugees as normal immigrants, especially as resettlement countries became more intent on controlling immigration. For example, the 1985 Report on the resettlement of refugees reads:
In order for resettlement to provide a humanitarian solution to refugee problems, UNHCR feels that additional provision should be made to facilitate the admission of refugees who lack the necessary qualifications for admission under current criteria. UNHCR also continues to stress its desire that Governments distinguish clearly between refugees and immigrants.
UNHCR advocated for humanitarian selection criteria and for a distinction between refugees and immigrants in policy and practice.
UNHCR also encouraged individual countries to apply more humanitarian selection criteria for refugees. In 1998, UNHCR submitted comments to the Government of Canada as the country prepared to revise its immigration legislation, writing that “UNHCR would endorse the […] basic message that protection and immigration are separate issues that should be governed by different considerations.” Canada in 2001 revised its legislation with separate sections on refugee protection and immigration “in recognition of the different objectives of the immigration and refugee programs.” This separation between refugees and immigrants was not inevitable but rather actively constructed, in part by UNHCR.
This history highlights the potential of economic immigration pathways to provide solutions, but also the risks of exclusion. Hundreds of thousands of refugees have historically been accepted through economic immigration pathways, providing a solution for many more people than programs motivated primarily by humanitarian goals. If resettlement and complementary pathways remain complementary, then they could target different profiles of refugees as resettlement and economic immigration did in the past. However, resettling refugees through economic immigration programs historically excluded refugees with disabilities and that risk remains today. Countries such as Canada and Australia still apply health-related requirements to immigrants, with special exceptions for resettled refugees. It took decades to achieve a separation between immigrants and resettled refugees in policy and practice. In the current global context of shrinking pathways and growing restrictions on refugee mobility, resettlement programs with humanitarian selection criteria remain essential to ensure that refugees with disabilities and other refugees who do not fit the profile of an economic immigrant are not excluded from pathways to third countries.
[1] “Resettlement schemes for refugees” Memorandum from Miss H. Brissimi to Mr. G. Jaeger, 21 January 1974, folio #505, Resettlement Immigration - General [Volume 2], 1973-1975, Box 851 ARC-2/A47, Sub-series 52, Assistance: Resettlement, Series 2, Classified subject files, 1971-1984, Fonds 11, Records of the Central Registry, UNHCR Archives.
