A Safe Pathway to Resettlement for Migrants and Refugees | Becca Heller | TED

It's an incredible honor to be here.

And I've met so many wonderful people so far this week.

And one of the things that I've been thinking about

is how, at the end of this week,

most of us are going to pack up our bags

and go home.

Going home is a luxury that's not available to everyone.

I think top of mind for a lot of people right now is the situation in Ukraine.

Over four million people forced to flee not just their country,

but their home in six weeks.

And that's just one of the major human migration events happening right now.

They may no longer be making headlines,

but people are still trying to flee Syria,

Afghanistan, Eritrea, and the list goes on.

People are forced to flee their homes for any number of reasons.

War, yes, of course, but also gender-based violence,

politically sanctioned persecution,

and more and more due to climate change,

which estimates say could displace 150 million people in the coming years.

So if human migration is both inevitable and growing,

what are we, as a global community, doing to address it?

Typically,

people attempting to seek safety in a country not their own

are forced to languish in dangerous situations for decades,

attempting to navigate the suffocating bureaucracy

used by different countries to determine who gets to be resettled and where.

The United Nations is involved,

and every country has its own immigration laws and restrictions.

And there are multiple interviews required

and onerous documentation requests.

Not to mention the difficulty of shepherding your entire family

through this process

when you’ve been separated, traumatized

and have few resources at your disposal.

But here's the good news.

It doesn't have to be this way.

Because the same thing that is holding people back

can be used to help move them forward to safe refuge:

the rule of law.

The key is to get legal knowledge into the hands of those who need it most

and give them a chance to use the law

to open pathways to safety for themselves and their families.

Although there's an entire industry built around humanitarian aid

and response to various crises,

that aid typically does not include legal services.

Many people hire a smuggler to take them across a sea or a desert

because they don't even know that they qualify for a legal pathway.

Others may know that they qualify

but may not know how to navigate the interviews and the paperwork.

That's why so many people end up stuck in camps for decades.

They're in legal limbo.

In this scenario,

access to legal information and legal services

is just as crucial as access to food, clothing and shelter.

And that's where we at the International Refugee Assistance Project, or IRAP,

come in.

First, IRAP utilizes technology through a digital platform

to make these laws and processes more accessible.

We give refugees access to timely, accurate

and culturally relevant information about their legal rights and options.

IRAP also provides direct legal services both on the ground and remotely

in partnership with a trained network

of front line refugee-serving organizations, pro-bono attorneys

and other trusted legal advocates.

And finally, as we walk side by side with our clients,

through every step of these processes,

we're able to identify systemic issues that we can use the law to address

and ultimately change for the better.

It's these individual cases that illuminate opportunities

for broader systemic reform.

Let me give you a case example so you can see what I mean.

Aaron and Miriam.

Not their real names.

We had to change them for safety reasons,

and you'll see why in a second.

Aaron and Miriam are brother and sister.

They were separated from their mother when they were all forced to flee

from their home in Eritrea when they were children.

The kids ended up in a refugee camp in Sudan,

and their mother ended up in Germany.

And in today's dysfunctional system of refugee resettlement,

this type of family separation happens all the time.

And typically what would happen

is either that the kids spend decades stuck in the camp

or that their mother would be forced to hire a smuggler

to take them on a dangerous journey across the Mediterranean

just so she could be with them again.

These are both terrible options.

But luckily for Aaron and Miriam,

some of the staff in the camp have been trained by IRAP

to identify cases eligible for family reunification,

which is one type of resettlement pathway.

So we filed the application to Germany.

So far so good.

Until the German government denied the application

because Aaron and Miriam didn't have passports,

which they couldn't get

because the Eritrean government considered them to be traitors for fleeing.

So approaching the embassy to get passports

would have put their lives in even more danger.

IRAP flagged this as a wrongful, systemic barrier,

fought the case in German court on the family's behalf and won.

(Applause)

And I am so happy to tell you

that Aaron and Miriam were reunited with their mother in Germany

in June of 2021.

(Applause)

This is a joyful story of family reunification

that legal advocacy made possible.

But there's something else at play here that I really want you to see.

And it involves one of my favorite words in the English language:

precedent.

Yes, I am a legal nerd.

This is my favorite word, precedent.

By bringing the case in court,

IRAP began to establish a precedent to ease the passport requirement,

not just for Aaron and Miriam,

but for thousands of other refugee children in similar situations.

When legal service providers walk side by side with our clients

through every step of these immigration processes,

we're able to identify the obstacles that are preventing people

from reaching safety.

Do that often enough,

and you start to see patterns in the obstacles.

And when we find a pattern,

we can advocate to change the underlying law

that's creating the obstacle in the first place.

It's the patterns that allow us to open pathways

to resettlement at scale.

This was all put to the test in Afghanistan.

For the past 20 years,

thousands of Afghans have worked in essential and lifesaving jobs

on behalf of the US government.

They've been interpreters,

truck drivers and computer scientists.

And because of their US affiliation,

the Taliban has spent those same 20 years

trying to track them down and kill them.

So all the way back in 2009, Congress,

in response to this very real threat,

created a special visa program for Afghan allies of the United States.

The purpose of the visa was to provide those whose lives were in imminent danger

with quick resettlement to the US.

But at IRAP,

we knew that this program was broken.

We knew this because we were helping more than 1,000 Afghans

try to navigate this visa process,

and we began to see a pattern.

It was taking on average more than four years

for the US government to issue these "urgent" visas.

Which meant that our allies and their families

were at risk of Taliban assassination

because the US couldn't stamp their passports quickly enough.

So in response,

we gathered our knowledge from all of these cases,

filed a class action lawsuit,

and in 2020, we won.

(Applause)

A court ordered the US government to process these backlog applications

in a timely fashion,

treating our clients' cases with the urgency

that the situation warranted.

Now, as you all well know,

the US withdrawal from Afghanistan has created a whole new level of chaos.

But our model has allowed us to continue utilizing technology

to get crucial llegal information into the hands of our allies

who have not yet been able to flee.

We're still in court and in the halls of Congress,

demanding their urgent evacuation and protection.

And we're going to keep looking for obstacles to take down

and using the law to empower refugees,

just like we always have,

because that is the best way to get these folks to long-lasting safety.

(Applause)

The last thing I'll say is this.

When faced with the reality that human movement is in fact inevitable,

countries have two choices.

They can build walls and prisons

and separate children from their parents,

or they can create fair and transparent legal systems

that facilitate safe

and organized migration and resettlement.

Functional rights-based legal systems help everybody.

But unfortunately,

there are those who find it more advantageous to demonize migrants

and politicize refugee crises

than to make serious plans to address global migration in a safe,

orderly and dignified way.

Through this work,

I have met so many people who embody the traits that we praise

in entrepreneurs and thought leaders.

It takes tenacity, creativity and bravery

to get yourself and your family to a new country

to begin your life over again.

In my opinion, countries should be competing for refugees.

But at the very least,

everyone should have a safe place to call home

and a safe way to get there.

I wish all of you a safe journey home.

And thank you.

(Applause and cheers)