The U.S. Legal and Institutional Frameworks of the Resettlement of Syrian Refugees

The resettlement process involves selecting and transferring refugees from a country where they have sought protection to a third country that has agreed to take them in as refugees and grant them permanent residence status. This chapter analyzes the jurisprudence of resettling refugees in the United States. It provides a comprehensive overview of the national legal instruments to manage refugees’ inflow into the United States. Moreover, it reviews the U.S. international instruments and the procedural basis for refugee resettlement. The second section of this chapter discusses the U.S. institutions that participate in refugee resettlement, mainly the U.S. Refugee Admission Program (USRAP). It addresses the resettlement stages: the pre-resettlement stage and the transition and resettlement stage. It elaborates that the U.S. resettlement process is a coordinated interagency process that entails collaborating between the UN Refugee Agency and the related U.S. departments and agencies, the nongovernmental partners, and refugee advocacy organizations. It elucidates the major challenges of the resettlement. The main conclusion is the U.S. resettlement policies require to be rethought to provide more integrated and inclusive aspects. Nongovernmental organizations at the local level play a pivotal role in supporting new arrival refugees.