Abstract
The U.S. refugee population not only has grown dramatically, but the countries from which the refugees are fleeing have also diversified over the last decade. Focusing on five recent refugee groups—Bhutanese, Burmese, Iraqis, Somalis, and Cubans, we examine how premigration characteristics and postmigration integration policies shape early socioeconomic integration in the United States. Our analyses point to three findings. First, early socioeconomic outcomes show only modest differences across refugee groups, despite significant variation in premigration selectivity in human capital. Second, the two possible pathways toward integration are schooling and employment. Third, postmigration integration policies matter. Our findings highlight the role of integration policies, programs, and practices in successful refugee integration, underscoring U.S. refugee policy as a key component of immigration policy.
- refugees
- immigration policy
- premigration characteristics
- postmigration integration
- socioeconomic indicators
- © 2020 Russell Sage Foundation. Tran, Van C., and Francisco Lara-García. 2020. “A New Beginning: Early Refugee Integration in the United States.” RSF: The Russell Sage Foundation Journal of the Social Sciences 6(3): 117–49. DOI: 10.7758/RSF.2020.6.3.06. We are grateful to Catalina Amuedo-Dorantes, Katharine Donato, Sheldon Danziger, Heba Gowayed, Philip Kasinitz, Jennifer Lee, Suzanne Nichols, Andreas Wimmer, and participants at the Legal Landscape of U.S. Immigration in the Twenty-First Century conference at the Russell Sage Foundation for helpful feedback on an early draft. Maria Abascal, Flavien Ganter, Tiffany Huang, and Greer Mellon provided critical advice on technical aspects of the analyses. We also thank Moti Benti for his research assistance. Three anonymous reviewers’ feedback strengthened our manuscript. All remaining errors are our own. Direct correspondence to: Van C. Tran at vtran{at}gc.cuny.edu, PhD Program in Sociology, The Graduate Center, CUNY, 365 Fifth Avenue, 6112.04, New York, NY 10016, United States.
Open Access Policy: RSF: The Russell Sage Foundation Journal of the Social Sciences is an open access journal. This article is published under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs 3.0 Unported License.