A gripping portrait of refugees who forged a new life in the Rust Belt, the deep roots they’ve formed in their community, and their role in shaping its culture and prosperity. "This is an American tale that everyone should read. . . . The storytelling is so intimate and the characters feel so deeply real that you will know them like neighbors."—Jake Halpern, author of Welcome to the New World War, persecution, natural disasters, and climate change continue to drive millions around the world from their homes. In this “tender, intimate, and important book—a carefully reported rebuttal to the xenophobic narratives that define so much of modern American politics” (Sarah Stillman, staff writer, The New Yorker), journalist Susan Hartman follows 3 refugees over 8 years and tells the story of how they built new lives in the old manufacturing town of Utica, New York. Sadia, a Somali Bantu teenager, rebels against her mother; Ali, an Iraqi interpreter, creates a home with an American woman but is haunted by war; and Mersiha, a Bosnian baker, gambles everything to open a café. Along the way, Hartman “illuminates the humanity of these outsiders while demonstrating the crucial role immigrants play in the economy—and the soul—of the nation" (Los Angeles Times). The 3 newcomers are part of an extraordinary migration over the past 4 decades; thousands fleeing war and persecution have transformed Utica, opening small businesses, fixing up abandoned houses, and adding a spark of vitality to forlorn city streets. Utica is not alone. Other Rust Belt cities—including Buffalo, Dayton, and Detroit—have also welcomed refugees, hoping to jump-start their economies and attract a younger population. City of Refugees is a complex and poignant story of a small city but also of America—a country whose promise of safe harbor and opportunity is knotty and incomplete, but undeniably alive.

This open access book explores the conceptual challenges posed by the presence of migrants with irregular immigration status in Europe and the evolving policy responses at European, national and municipal level. It addresses the conceptual and policy issues raised, post-entry, by this particular section of the migrant population. Drawing on evidence from different parts of Europe, the book takes the reader through philosophical and ethical dilemmas, legal and sociological analysis to questions of public policy and governance before addressing the concrete ways in which those questions are posed in current policy agendas from the international to the local level. As such this book is a valuable read to researchers, practitioners and policy makers as well as to students working on irregular migration in Europe in a comparative and/or country based perspective.

The arrival in 2015 and 2016 of over one million asylum seekers and refugees in Germany had major social consequences and gave rise to extensive debate about the nature of cultural diversity and collective life. This volume examines the responses and implications of what was widely seen as the most major and contested social change since reunification. It combines in-depth studies based on anthropological fieldwork with analyses of the longer trajectories of migration and social change, and its original analyses have significance not only for Germany but also for the understanding of diversity and difference in a wider sense.

Designed for both ordained and lay ministers at the diocesan and parish levels, this document challenges us to prepare to receive newcomers with a genuine spirit of welcome.

In Migrants and City-Making Ayşe Çağlar and Nina Glick Schiller trace the participation of migrants in the unequal networks of power that connect their lives to regional, national, and global institutions. Grounding their work in comparative ethnographies of three cities struggling to regain their former standing—Mardin, Turkey; Manchester, New Hampshire; and Halle/Saale, Germany—Çağlar and Glick Schiller challenge common assumptions that migrants exist on society’s periphery, threaten social cohesion, and require integration. Instead Çağlar and Glick Schiller explore their multifaceted role as city-makers, including their relationships to municipal officials, urban developers, political leaders, business owners, community organizers, and social justice movements. In each city Çağlar and Glick Schiller met with migrants from around the world; attended cultural events, meetings, and religious services; and patronized migrant-owned businesses, allowing them to gain insights into the ways in which migrants build social relationships with non-migrants and participate in urban restoration and development. In exploring the changing historical contingencies within which migrants live and work, Çağlar and Glick Schiller highlight how city-making invariably involves engaging with the far-reaching forces that dispossess people of their land, jobs, resources, neighborhoods, and hope.

A Finalist for the 2019 Kirkus Prize in Nonfiction "Nayeri combines her own experience with those of refugees she meets as an adult, telling their stories with tenderness and reverence.” —The New York Times Book Review "Nayeri weaves her empowering personal story with those of the ‘feared swarms’ . . . Her family’s escape from Isfahan to Oklahoma, which involved waiting in Dubai and Italy, is wildly fascinating . . . Using energetic prose, Nayeri is an excellent conduit for these heart–rending stories, eschewing judgment and employing care in threading the stories in with her own . . . This is a memoir laced with stimulus and plenty of heart at a time when the latter has grown elusive.” —Star–Tribune (Minneapolis) Aged eight, Dina Nayeri fled Iran along with her mother and brother and lived in the crumbling shell of an Italian hotel–turned–refugee camp. Eventually she was granted asylum in America. She settled in Oklahoma, then made her way to Princeton University. In this book, Nayeri weaves together her own vivid story with the stories of other refugees and asylum seekers in recent years, bringing us inside their daily lives and taking us through the different stages of their journeys, from escape to asylum to resettlement. In these pages, a couple fall in love over the phone, and women gather to prepare the noodles that remind them of home. A closeted queer man tries to make his case truthfully as he seeks asylum, and a translator attempts to help new arrivals present their stories to officials. Nayeri confronts notions like “the swarm,” and, on the other hand, “good” immigrants. She calls attention to the harmful way in which Western governments privilege certain dangers over others. With surprising and provocative questions, The Ungrateful Refugee challenges us to rethink how we talk about the refugee crisis. “A writer who confronts issues that are key to the refugee experience.” —Viet Thanh Nguyen, Pulitzer Prize–winning author of The Sympathizer and The Refugees