Refugees

Millions of people in the Middle East and elsewhere were forced to flee their homes in recent years. What they need most now is dignity.

Latin America presents a promising opportunity to resettle some of the millions of Syrian refugees in camps and urban slums in Europe.

BY ANA DIAMOND Syrians, not too long ago, were a nation known for their rich cultural heritage, commerce, and diversity. Their country was home to one of the world’s ancient civilizations, and even in the 20th century it was frequently featured as an exotic tourist destination. Today, only the remains of many historic cities and […]

The Syrian refugee crisis, corruption, and unraveling political coalitions are among the many problems facing Lebanese President Michel Aoun.

The number of refugees is at its highest-ever level, at more than 20 million worldwide. The Syrian civil war is the biggest source of refugees today, and neighboring countries Jordan, Lebanon, and Turkey bear much of the brunt. Syrian refugees now represent roughly 20% of Lebanon’s population, which has put enormous strains on the small […]

BY TRACEY LAM AND JONATHAN HUI “If you say ‘Asian,’ what pops into your head? They think we’re all supposed to be doctors, you know? Or they think we come from a good, rich family. But we don’t.”[i] These words are from Pass or Fail in Cambodia Town, a documentary about the true stories of […]

BY MOCTAR ABOUBACAR For the past two years I have been working for the World Food Programme (WFP) in Sudan, in charge of analyzing how vulnerable Darfur’s Internally Displaced Persons (IDPs) are to food security and livelihood shocks. WFP and other humanitarian organizations have been supporting IDPs in camps since the height of the Darfurian conflict […]

Dr. Noora Lori is an Assistant Professor of International Relations at Boston University. Her research broadly focuses on the political economy of migration, the development of security institutions and international migration control, and the establishment and growth of national identity systems. She is particularly interested in the study of temporary worker programs and racial hierarchies […]

BY MERISSA KHURMA, PANGYRUS This article is being published in collaboration with Pangyrus. A Jordanian woman in the Northeastern city of Mafraq had been nagging her husband for weeks to take her to the Za’atari refugee camp. Her request was a simple one, Magdoos, baby eggplants stuffed with walnuts and sun-dried red peppers and pickled […]

Living Under ISIS Under existing United States law, asylum-seekers having given material support to designated terrorist organizations cannot apply for asylum in the United States. This is called the material support statute under the Immigration and Nationality Act (INA) and is meant to protect the United States from admitting potentially dangerous refugees. In the Syrian […]

BY KATIE PARRY Over the last month Germany has quietly moved to make family reunification harder for many recently arrived migrants.  New rules will mean that migrants given “subsidiary protection” status, which includes at least one in five Syrians, will not be able to bring their families to join them in Germany for at least […]

In Spring 2016, JMEPP Guest Interviewer Federica du Pasquier of the Center for Middle East Studies at Harvard interviewed Pierre Krahenbuhl, Commissioner General of the United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees in the Near East (UNRWA) during his visit to the Middle East Initiative at Harvard’s Belfer Center. Below is an excerpt from the […]