Policy Lab: Faith Communities, International Migration, and Refugee Protection

(1 Credit Hour) · Undergraduate

This five-week course will examine forced migration from the perspective of the beliefs, teachings, and programmatic commitments of faith communities. The first week will be devoted to identifying the causes of and global trends in forced migration, as well as the categories of forced migrants. It will also explore the “law of migration”; that is, the diverse legal systems that migrants must negotiate on their journeys and that religious actors use to assess migration policies. The second week will explore the teachings of diverse faith communities on forced migration, their understanding of this immense and growing phenomenon, and their programmatic and policy responses. The third week will segue to state-centered approaches to the governance and management of migration, with a focus on the concepts of sovereignty and the rule of law. It will also consider ideologies such as nativism and exclusionary nationalism that are in tension with the beliefs, policy positions, and programs of religious actors. The fourth week will be devoted to guest speakers and student presentations on situations of protracted displacement throughout the world. Persons in protracted displacement have lived in exile for at least five years and have no viable course out of their “long lasting and intractable status of limbo.” The fifth week will be devoted to US refugee protection trends and policies.