Refugee Sponsorship and Family Reunification

Abstract This article examines the choice made by resettled refugees and their sponsors to use the Private Sponsorship of Refugees Program (PSRP) in Canada to reunite families and the benefits and challenges of doing so. The timing of our study is deliberate. Global efforts are underway to encourage other states to adopt private or community sponsorship schemes, and this spread renders examination of the benefits and burdens of this form of refugee resettlement urgent. Using data we have collected via interviews of resettled refugees and sponsors in Canada, we show that family separation has a marked impact on the ability of refugees to integrate into their new home. This conclusion highlights the possibility that there are host-state imperatives that can be better served by facilitating family reunification. Furthermore, we suggest that the successful deployment of the PSRP as a tool of family reunification depends too much on the preferences and perspectives of sponsors, who may not agree that reunification is valuable, or who may not have the capacity to facilitate such reunifications. They also may struggle with the thought that they are being forced to choose among which refugees are most in need of highly scarce resettlement spots. Together, these results generate additional support for the view, which we endorse, that states should be focused on doing more to protect family unity, especially for refugee families, outside of a private sponsorship scheme.