What Does 'Welcome' Look Like?: Understanding Private Refugee Sponsorship in the United States

Abstract

The U.S. is the most recent of several refugee-receiving countries to develop a private refugee sponsorship program–the Welcome Corps program–to bolster refugee admissions. Private sponsorship constitutes an alternative model of refugee resettlement to the traditional government-assisted sponsorship, wherein groups of private citizens are responsible for raising funds for resettlement and delivering core resettlement services to refugees. This research aims to provide the first in-depth investigation of the Welcome Corps program through the eyes of sponsors. Through semi-structured interviews with 15 sponsors, I examine how sponsors encounter, navigate, and contest the stated bounds of their roles. I find that while sponsors are fairly successful at fulfilling their prescribed sponsorship tasks, sponsors struggle to navigate the disagreement and conflict inherent in the sponsor-sponsee relationship. I conclude with recommendations for improvements in the Welcome Corps program and U.S. refugee resettlement more generally, as well as future research directions.