Indochinese Refugees In Canada: Resettlement Experiences of the Cambodian and Vietnamese Refugees in Toronto

Massive resettlement of Cambodian and Vietnamese refugees in Canada started in the late 1970s, following military and political upheaval in Indochina. The Immigration policy Act of 1976 made it easier for the Indochinese refugees to enter the country. Almost four decades after the first arrivals of Indochinese refugees to Canada under unique circumstances, their settlement experiences are poorly understood. Here, I address this shortcoming through a comparative analysis of settlement experiences of the Cambodian and Vietnamese refugees in Canada, particularly probing their “sense of belonging” to the country. In order to evaluate the sense of belonging of the Indochinese refugees, I conducted interviews with 10 participants from each of the two communities. Findings from the interviews indicated highly significant correlations between language proficiency, ethnic segregation, general life satisfaction and the Sense of belonging index. The Vietnamese refugees had a higher sense of belonging to Canada than their Cambodian counterparts.

Indochinese Refugees In Canada: Resettlement Experiences of the Cambodian and Vietnamese Refugees in Toronto

Massive resettlement of Cambodian and Vietnamese refugees in Canada started in the late 1970s, following military and political upheaval in Indochina. The Immigration policy Act of 1976 made it easier for the Indochinese refugees to enter the country. Almost four decades after the first arrivals of Indochinese refugees to Canada under unique circumstances, their settlement experiences are poorly understood. Here, I address this shortcoming through a comparative analysis of settlement experiences of the Cambodian and Vietnamese refugees in Canada, particularly probing their “sense of belonging” to the country. In order to evaluate the sense of belonging of the Indochinese refugees, I conducted interviews with 10 participants from each of the two communities. Findings from the interviews indicated highly significant correlations between language proficiency, ethnic segregation, general life satisfaction and the Sense of belonging index. The Vietnamese refugees had a higher sense of belonging to Canada than their Cambodian counterparts.

Community Sponsorship in Europe: Taking Stock, Policy Transfer and What the Future Might Hold

This article explores the recent emergence of community sponsorship of refugees in Europe, an approach which shares responsibility between civil society and the state for the admission and/or integration of refugees. Originally a Canadian model developed to support the resettlement of Indochinese refugees, the model has gained momentum in Europe, with a number of states piloting or establishing community sponsorship schemes. This proliferation, while generally seen as positive for international protection of refugees, has led to conceptual confusion and a significant range of approaches under the “umbrella” concept of community sponsorship. As a result, community sponsorship today may be understood both as a form of resettlement and a complementary pathway to protection. While interest and momentum around community sponsorship is high, little work currently exists mapping and analysing how jurisdictions adopt the community sponsorship model. With reference to existing work on policy transfer, this contribution takes stock of community sponsorship models in Europe; analyses how community sponsorship may become a viable policy option in European states as a form of transnational policy transfer; and sets out a number of challenges for the future development of community sponsorship in Europe.

Regional deterrence and ‘non-genuine’ refugees: The punitive legacy of the 1989 Comprehensive Plan of Action

The outsourcing of refugee protection obligations is reshaping state relations in the Asia Pacific and Southeast Asian region and has underscored a progressively punitive approach to ‘irregular’ refugee movement. Such a shift can be partially but importantly traced to the deterrent foundations of Australia's dual-track processing system, introduced as an outcome of the 1989 Comprehensive Plan of Action on Indochinese Refugees (CPA). Although the CPA was a multilateral attempt to improve access to refugee protection through a coordinated regional response, in many respects it undermined the potential for refugee protection. By examining the history and motivations of regional responses, we can trace their impact as an exercise in either affirming or disavowing regional responsibility for refugee protection, while enabling some states to retain and even increase their capacity for control in the region. Given the call by the Global Compact on Refugees for coordinated regionally responsive approaches based on humanitarian principles, the crafting of regional and global plans, their motives and their governing logic, require ongoing and careful attention to ascertain the forms of responsibility or irresponsibility for refugee protection which they might sustain over time.

Forced Migrants, Media, and Securitization: Making Sense of the Changing Representations of Transit Asylum Seekers in Indonesian Print Media

This paper aims to explain how and why the representations of transit forced migrants in Indonesian major print media were vastly different within two time spans: (1) during the arrivals of the Indochinese refugees in 1975-1996 and (2) in the period of the new generations of refugees from Middle Eastern and South Asian countries in 1997-2013. Employing media content analysis of 216 news articles from three major print media in Indonesia, this study found out that the Indochinese refugees were portrayed with positive labels and thus, mainly discussed in connection with the non-security theme. In contrast, the new generations of forced migrants were portrayed with negative labels such as ‘illegal immigrants’ and were framed as security threats. Grounded within Securitization Theory, this paper thus argues that the changing representations were caused by the securitizing move made by specialized agencies in Indonesia.