Author: Nada Shalash (Page 2 of 2)

I found the CSIS article on the digitization of refugee crisis response very interesting, as it highlights how internet penetration and access to social media play a role in refugee response. Social media allows Ukrainian refugees to maintain communication with family and friends, and digital access also allows countries hosting refugees to respond to the influx more efficiently through digital platforms. However, these technologies also bring up concerns regarding privacy and protection, as well as concerns over digital exclusion or disparities resulting from the fact that some populations do not have the same ease of access of ability to utilize these technologies. I was not aware that many Ukrainians had a smartphone app (Diia) which functioned as a digital wallet for official documents and carries the same weight as their physical equivalents. A few questions come to mind as I read this piece. First, I wonder whether it is possible to use this same idea of official government documents in other contexts with high digital penetration to facilitate access to government services more broadly. Second, if this approach is applied to other contexts, I wonder how the digital governance environment can account for the fact that not all countries have the same level of rigor for privacy guidelines as the EU’s GDPR (and even with the GDPR, the article highlighted the near impossibility of digital privacy protections). Third, it would be interesting to observe how this landscape evolves as tools such as AI become more advanced and readily available (the article mentioned early cases of countries using AI to screen refugee applications).

Similarly, the HIAS program provides another example of an innovative approach leveraging technology to better integrate refugees into their host community by matching them to a group of volunteers. It also provides a more positive approach to using an algorithm in which the end results accommodates the refugees’ preferences, as opposed to the CSIS article which highlighted some of the potential dangers of AI such as reinforcing bias and discrimination because. Algorithms are trained on pre-existing data, which is often biased, and can further reinforce trends we would not want to see in crisis and humanitarian response. One potential role for journalists in this area is to focus on investigative pieces which dissect/unpack/criticize the algorithms being used for refugee crisis response to highlight the ways in which they are either helping or harming refugee communities.

I was also intrigued by the NYT articles on Ukrainian dancers and choreographers because it shows a different angle not often discussed in the context of migration and forced displacement: how artistic individuals contend with the reality of war and displacement as well as how experiences that are traumatic for the body can affect people differently depending on their experiences. I was struck by Ratmansky’s decision to incorporate a haunting image of the war into his work, and he acknowledged it feeling like forbidden territory. Various forms of artistic expression, including dance, are often seen as forms of joy, but it is also important to acknowledge and tell the stories of artists using their craft to express themes of war and displacement.

The NYT piece on the interconnected issues of migration and homelessness lays out an intriguing observation: many migrants are choosing to sleep on the streets voluntarily because they were assigned to housing locations that were too far from the jobs they have found. I see this phenomenon as a result of two key policy failures: the first is the city’s inability to address its long-standing homelessness problem through greater investments in affordable housing and other social services, and the second is the effective integration of migrants into host communities in a way that is mutually beneficial for the migrants and the host. It would be both in the city’s favor and the migrants’ favor if they are assigned to housing locations which are within a reasonable distance from job opportunities, as this would increase migrants’ access to these opportunities and also increase the benefit to the city from filling in roles which are vital to the city’s economic activities. This article also shows that there is sometimes a gap between public opinion or perception of an issue and its reality, such as New Yorkers’ concerns over declining quality of life which they perceive to be a result of the influx of migrants.

Another challenge mentioned in both the NYT piece and City and State piece is the time limit on migrants’ ability to stay in shelter locations provided by the city: 60 days for families and 30 days for individual adults. This either forces migrants into homelessness following this window or leaves it completely  up to them to figure out how to find housing on their own. However, the migrants are straining the city’s shelter system, so it is important to also understand the nonprofit landscape and how independent organizations may be filling in a gap for needs that the city is not able to provide adequately. It is also interesting to see the pushback from other places such as Canada which Mayor Adams tried to convince to accommodate some of the migrants that are being bused to New York without any coordination from governors of states such as Texas.

The CBS video highlights the racial undertones and interconnectedness of racism and xenophobia in controversies surrounding the influx of migrants. There was significantly less public pushback and dissent against allowing Ukrainian refugees into the U.S., and there were also relatively easier pathways for them to legally work in the U.S. (as opposed to the asylum process described in the NYT article which sometimes takes years). The video mentioned that over 230,000 refugees were allowed into the U.S. in a matter of weeks, which is in stark contrast with the timeframe it took some of the migrants from Latin America and the Caribbean. I find it interesting that the reporters mentioned geopolitics as a reason for lower levels of controversy; refugees from Ukraine are seen as victims of an unjust war perpetrated by an anti-American regime, but this same sympathy is not granted to migrants fleeing from violence and conflict settings in Latin America. However, there is still the challenge of having to renew their status and not having a direct pathway to citizenship.