The Living Project of Long-Term Economic Integration Among Resettled Refugees: Perspectives From Community Leaders and Service Providers

Abstract

Executive Summary

After decades of important work resettling millions of vulnerable people, the United States’ refugee resettlement program has experienced drastic shifts since the start of 2025 as a result of anti-refugee polices by the Trump administration. These changes have also wreaked havoc on the refugee-supporting infrastructure — globally, domestically, and locally in refugee-dense cities like Buffalo, New York — that has been assembled over time with great ingenuity and dedication. However, refugee communities will continue to persist in the United States.

In the research presented here, we examine long-term economic integration experiences in refugee communities in Buffalo, New York. Employment is central to economic integration and security of refugees in the United States. This study examines employment-related challenges that persist well beyond the initial resettlement period and some of the ways these issues are addressed. It draws on interviews with two types of key informants who regularly support refugees: community leaders and service providers. While there are many success stories to celebrate, the data show that difficulties first encountered during resettlement often continue for years for many individuals in the refugee community, despite the relative strength of the local support infrastructure for refugees both during and following resettlement. These challenges relate partly to the construction of the refugee resettlement program in the past, particularly the programmatic rush to self-sufficiency in a 90-day window after arrival. But they also speak to the difficult nature of the project: remaking a life after profound displacement, often accompanied by substantial language barriers and trauma, in the context of US cities and labor markets which often feature unaffordable or unsafe housing, inaccessible transportation, low wages, and employment precarity. We highlight four themes from our data – language barriers, job search strategies, navigating US systems, and efforts to improve job quality – as well as differences across respondents.

The policy recommendations we offer are made with an eye toward a revived and robust refugee resettlement program in the future. However, understanding and addressing the challenges refugee communities continue to face after years in the US is still a living project. Thus, our recommendations also build on a recognition that the long-term economic integration of refugees has always been a project not fully contained or determined by federal programs, and that there is ample room to enhance state and local support in addressing the employment challenges refugees experience in the long term.

We identify three areas for policy improvement to strengthen refugee economic integration. First, we hope that a robust federal refugee resettlement program will return in the future. If that happens, we should take the opportunity to build in improvements to the resettlement period, which could help address long-term employment challenges, including extended and expanded language and job support and more opportunities for retraining and recertifications. Second, expanding support for refugee-led community organizations and adopting more innovative approaches could help address some of the long-term challenges. These reforms could be integrated into future versions of federal programs, but there is also ample opportunity in the current moment for such support from state and local sources. Third, while it may sound counterintuitive, we recommend that state, local, and community programs think about refugees less as “refugees” first and instead work to integrate refugees into existing programming aimed at non-refugee households. Although there are unique aspects to refugee community members, many of the challenges they face are problems also shared by a much larger segment of the US population. We recommend thinking about poverty-alleviation and employment supports more broadly, and then, subsequently thinking about what additional language, cultural tailoring or outreach by trusted partners may be necessary to ensure reaching refugee community members.