Integrating Refugees, Unlocking Potential

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Well, it's been a while. But better late than never, I suppose. Here is a piece that I wrote for a class assignment. Some parts are tailored to the assignment prompt, but it's still relevant gievn today's refugee resettlement environment. 

Integrating Refugees, Unlocking Potential

September 21, 2018

A few weeks ago in Milwaukee, I found myself in the middle of an invite-only dance party. On the guest list: around 15 recently resettled Syrian women… and me. We ate, danced and laughed until we couldn’t any longer. Feeling a great sense of joy and community in this moment, I equally celebrated and lamented—personally grateful to be part of this group yet disheartened that most Americans do not see refugees in this light.  

With over 500,000 refugees admitted into the United States in the past ten years, there is great potential for personal, social and economic benefit from the refugee community. But as long as the national conversation around refugees is framed around violence and chaos instead of around dismantling stereotypes and providing durable solutions, we will not reap the rewards of successful refugee resettlement. We must take action to reverse this negative trend, reframing the refugee narrative and nudging companies to the engage refugees in the workforce.

Traditional economics tells us that humans are rational actors who will take account of relevant information and act accordingly. A rational actor, knowing that the chance of being killed in a violent attack caused by a refugee is 1 in 3.64 billion or that in the long term, refugees pay more in taxes than they receive in government support, would likely support refugees into their communities. Yet even with this information available in the public sphere, Americans do not act rationally; instead support for refugees is waning at the national level.    

We can understand this phenomenon though framing, a concept which tells us that the way a choice is presented will impact a person’s decision. The concept also explains that, unsurprisingly, when the undesirable aspects of a decision are exaggerated, people choose against it. In this case, the facts around refugee resettlement are irrelevant so long as refugees are framed in our society as a drain on public funds and a threat to national security. If believe that supporting refugee resettlement will only bring negative effects, certainly you will steer clear. If we are to create a welcoming environment for refugees in the United States, we must begin by positively reframing the narrative—highlighting refugees as the intelligent and capable people that they are, and re-humanizing them in the eyes of the average American.

While changing the narrative is important in laying the groundwork for successful refugee resettlement, we must take further action to encourage refugee workforce integration. A second behavioral economics concept, and a German initiative taking advantage of it, may lend a solution.

Wir Zusammen (We Together), a collective of German companies committed to refugee workforce integration, uses its platform to share best practices around refugee integration and, though positive social pressure, “inspire other companies to work together… to integrate refugees.” Knowing that humans do not always make decisions independently, and rather are heavily influenced by group behavior, Wir Zusammen has leveraged its influence to grow from a core group of core 36 initiators (including high profile companies like Adidas and Lufthansa) to over 200 participants in just one year. Thousands of refugees have participated in their training and internship programs, and are on their way to becoming employees at these companies.

It is likely that there are already companies providing similar vocational training and support to refugees within the United States. We must learn from Germany’s example and highlight such companies so that more firms can recognize the economic benefits that refugees offer and feel emboldened to join their peers in the refugee resettlement movement.

Welcoming refugees as our friends and neighbors will take work at the local and national level, but the benefits that this group brings are too great to pass up. By reframing the refugee narrative and putting positive social pressure on American companies, we can begin to unlock the social and economic potential that refugees bring to their new communities and to our nation as a whole.