Changing the temporary mindset of refugees: Saunders

A reminder that while much can be done to foster integration, this also depends on immigrant attitudes and mindset:

There is a scholarly concept known as “myth of return:” the belief widely held among many new immigrants, and most refugees, that they will just stay a while and then move back. I know immigrants who have held this myth for decades. But their success depends on seeing their new location as home, and that home seeing them as fellow citizens.

Ending that “temporary” mindset is the refugee’s job, but there are a number of things that host countries need to do to make it happen. In a research paper examining the obstacles to refugee integration, three Canadian scholars found a number of factors were key.

Employment, housing and schools make a big difference: The sooner they can get a job suited to their skills (and refugees tend to be middle-class), secure tenure in an affordable living space and a school for their children, the sooner they become “here.” Cultural integration tends to follow naturally from economic and educational integration.

Equally important is the ability to be around refugees and immigrants from the same place. “One of the few resources available to most refugees is social capital in the form of social support networks,” two Canadian scholars wrote in a paper on refugee integration. “These many formal and informal social networks are extremely valuable, providing much-needed support and assistance when refugees are faced with financial, employment, personal, or health problems.”

Which means refugees should be allowed to relocate to join clusters of other refugees. A study by Citizenship and Immigration Canada found that 80 per cent of refugees who settled in Ontario, Alberta or British Columbia ended up staying there, whereas half the refugees settled in the Atlantic provinces or Saskatchewan ended up moving, presumably to the big cities.

The success of earlier, larger waves of even more foreign refugees shows that their integration tends to succeed. We just need to help them change their minds.

Source: Changing the temporary mindset of refugees – The Globe and Mail