Date of Award

Winter 2-1-2023

Degree Name

Bachelor of Arts (BA)

Advisor(s)

Sarah P. Lockhart

Second Advisor

Christopher Toulouse, Ph.D.

Abstract

This research aims to demonstrate how 9/11 in the United States impacted the international securitization of borders movement and served as a push factor for an influx of displaced people from the regions affected by the War on Terror and its expansion. Through the case studies of Canada and Germany, this paper addresses how the two developed countries handled the growing demand for resettlement programs to accommodate and integrate displaced people, such as refugees and asylum seekers after 9/11, into their social and economic spheres through resettlement programs. This paper analyzes the successes and shortcomings of these two refugee resettlement regimes in accommodating the resettled refugees in their country. This research reveals that the current approach taken by more developed nations, specifically by Germany and Canada, are praiseworthy due to their open and swift resolutions of taking on migrants from the regions of the world that often pose a threat to many western nations due to preconceived notions and stereotypes. The two countries, effectively understand their responsibility as members of the international community and hence adequately address the needs for growing changes in their immigration policies despite the domestic political upheaval any immigration legislation might cause in the future. The shortcomings of the two case studies I review are imbedded in the alarming deficiency in the refugee resettlement regimes that serve as a model for the rest of the world on handling and resettlement of millions of forced migrants that are displaced due to the indirect but clear causational relationship of 9/11 wars, especially War on Terror. Under these regimes, it is clear that main points of deficiencies arise from inadequate accommodations of resettled migrants in not just socio-political integration but also in economic integration, which restrains their ability towards upward social mobility in the states that they have emigrated into. As a way forward, and a potential solution to the shortcomings that I have found through my research, I recommend that an international organization such as the UN be actively involved in providing a blueprint on refugee resettlement programs that member states adopt or have in place both on a domestic and international level. Through integrating bodies like the UN, there could be room for creation of recommendations, best practices, model legislations, training, research, and guidelines on how to better accommodate refugees into host states and promote sustainable development and upward mobility for those getting resettled as well as the host states themselves. These recommendations must be taken into consideration when thinking about potential solutions to the problems the international community has in hand.

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