Resettlement

The Irish media frequently report on stories about resettled refugees coming to Ireland. You might ask what is the difference between refugees who initially entered Ireland to seek asylum and resettled refugees?

Most refugees enter Ireland as asylum seekers without assistance from UNHCR. If their fear of persecution is considered to be well-founded in an individual interview procedure conducted by the Irish asylum authorities, they are granted refugee status. They can not go home or are unwilling to do so because their life or freedom would be threatened.

Resettled refugees, on the other hand, are normally people who were first admitted to a safe country on a temporary basis, or whose specific needs could not be addressed in the country where they had initially sought protection, who are then assisted by UNHCR to move to a country of permanent asylum like Ireland.

Of the 10.5 million refugees of concern to UNHCR around the world, only about 1 percent are referred by UNHCR to one of the less than 20 countries of asylum that operate resettlement programmes. Even though the number of resettlement countries is still not large enough to give an effective response to more than 100,000 annual applications, there has been in recent years an increase in the number of countries taking part in the UNHCR resettlement program.

The United States of America is the world's top resettlement country, while Australia, Canada, the Nordic countries (Denmark, Norway, Sweden) and the Netherlands also provide a sizeable number of places annually. Other countries with smaller resettlement programs include Finland, Iceland, New Zealand, Portugal and the UK, as well as Argentina, Brazil, Chile, Paraguay and Uruguay in Latin America.

Ireland operates an annual resettlement quota of 200 people on referral from UNHCR or identified through selection missions to existing UNHCR refugee operations.

Examples of groups resettled to Ireland include Hungarians, resettled from places like Austria after events in Hungary exploded in 1956; or the Vietnamese refugees who came to Ireland as a resettled group in the late 1970s; Bosnians and later Kosovars on a Humanitarian Evacuation Programme in the 1990s. In recent years, Ireland resettled Myanmar Karen and Rohingyan (resettled from Thailand and Bangladesh, respectively), Iranian Kurds (from Jordan), Sudanese (from Uganda) and Congolese refugees (from Tanzania). These resettled refugees undergo an 8 week orientation programme in Ballyhaunis in Co. Mayo before being settled into communities like Ballina and Kilkenny, for example.

Resettlement is a life-changing experience. It is both challenging and rewarding. A resettlement country provides the refugee with legal and physical protection, including access to civil, political, economic, social and cultural rights similar to those enjoyed by nationals. Governments and non-governmental organizations provide services to facilitate integration, such as cultural orientation, language and vocational training as well as programmes to promote access to education and employment. Providing for their effective reception and integration is beneficial for both the resettled refugee and the receiving country. Ideally, resettled refugees should be allowed to become naturalized citizens.

In 2008, 65,548 refugees departed to 26 resettlement countries, compared to 49,868 refugees the year before. The largest number of refugees resettled with UNHCR assistance departed from Thailand (16,807) followed by Nepal (8,165), Syria (7,153), Jordan (6,704) and Malaysia (5,865). By nationality, the main beneficiaries of UNHCR-facilitated resettlement programmes were refugees from Iraq (33,512), Myanmar (30,388), and Bhutan (23,516).