Listen to "Nazanin Ash on grassroots refugee resettlement" on Spreaker.
America's refugee resettlement system has been battered by politics and bureaucracy. Nazanin Ash leads a new coalition of grassroots resettlement networks called Welcome.US, which is built on a simpler premise: that when asked to help those in need, most people will say "yes."
Before joining Welcome.US, Ash served as vice president of global policy and advocacy at the International Rescue Committee, and held senior positions in the U.S. Department of State, and U.S. Agency for International Development.
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TRANSCRIPT
Michael Igoe
Welcome to “UNGA Decoded.” I'm Michael Igoe, Senior Reporter at Devex. For the next couple of weeks, my colleagues and I are going to bring you inside the biggest global development gathering of the year. Skip the travel, the traffic, and the security lines, and join us for candid conversations with people at the leading edge of global development, global health, and humanitarian assistance. This is “UNGA Decoded.”
Nazanin Ash
Welcoming newcomers, productively and well, is a win-win everywhere, all the time. A boon to our economies, a boon to our societies, a boon to our communities. And what we’ve learned over the last year is communities know that.
Michael Igoe
The U.S. military withdrawal from Afghanistan in 2021 and the Taliban’s subsequent takeover sparked a displacement and refugee crisis that the U.S. government was not prepared or equipped to manage. The U.S. refugee resettlement system had been systematically dismantled during the Trump administration, so any moral obligation Americans might have felt to Afghans fleeing from chaos seemed to run into a wall of broken institutions.
Enter Welcome.US. In the absence of functional government systems, this network of grassroots leaders built a new platform to put individual Americans at the center of welcoming Afghan refugees. When war and another refugee crisis broke out in Ukraine, they went to work again. I talked to Nazanin Ash, a longtime humanitarian policy expert and the CEO of Welcome.US, who told me that what started as a short-term fix is now evolving into a long-term vision for a new model of refugee resettlement — a vision built on the basic human instinct to be a good neighbor.
Here’s our conversation.
Michael Igoe
Nazanin, it’s so good to see you.
Nazanin Ash
It's really great to see you Michael.
Michael Igoe
We're here at the Clinton Global Initiative, the first time that it's back in a few years. And yeah, it's really great to catch up in person. We're sitting in, I should sort of describe where we are, we're in a glass cube, kind of in the middle of this large banquet hall at CGI. And I think it's probably the first time I've seen you in four years, something like that.
Nazanin Ash
I think that's right. And I think we've had a really interesting history at intersecting at these international events, you know, following different crises and different solutions for solving them.
Michael Igoe
You've been following crises for a long time. But now you are the CEO of a relatively new initiative, called Welcome dot U.S., or Welcome dot us, or welcome U.S. I understand this is sort of a contentious question, which one do you call it? What should we call it?
Nazanin Ash
It is, so our official name is welcome.US. And that's where you can find us, at welcome.us. I frequently refer to it as welcome “us”, because it is an initiative about Americans helping people in crisis. So it's as much about us as Americans as it is about the people we are welcoming.
Michael Igoe
Excellent. Okay. So let's get into that. How are Americans helping people in crisis in partnership with your organization?
Nazanin Ash
Well, it's been an extraordinary year. So we were launched in the crucible of the Afghan response, when the U.S. government faced this extraordinary challenge of resettling up to 100,000 Afghan allies on our resettlement system that in the previous year, had welcomed only 11,000 refugees. So we had a decimated resettlement infrastructure, government capacity that was extraordinarily stretched. But this was a crisis that we felt very much that we could meet if we engaged the whole of American society. So we went to some of the largest corporations, we went to some of our iconic civic and service organizations, we went to hundreds of community organizations and everyday Americans, and asked them to help resettle our Afghan allies. And the response was even greater than we could have imagined. And really inspiringly made the point that we as Americans are welcomers. So a year after we've launched, we're 800 partners strong. Our CEO counsel, which is co chaired by Sundar Pichai of Google and Julie Sweet of Accenture hosts close to 40 of our country's largest companies, who together have galvanized over $250 million and resources to support resettlement, but are also bringing their innovations to bear in solving enduring challenges around the capacity, effectiveness, efficiency of how we help newcomers, and how we help them thrive. You know, we have over 170 Welcome fund grantees, 70% of whom are Afghan diaspora veteran or faith-led community groups who are joining together and mobilizing people in their community to help resettle their new neighbors. You know, it's an amazing testament to how Americans wanted to help and building on what we learned in the Afghan response. You know, it was with this amazing coalition of 800 plus partners and everyday Americans, that the US government was ultimately successful in resettling what came to be 80,000 Afghan newcomers, resettled all across the United States. But six months after the fall of Kabul, we faced the second crisis of the Russian invasion of Ukraine. And the US government was faced with its second challenge of admitting,
you know, at least 100,000 Ukrainians, you know, on a system that was already extraordinarily overburdened. But learning the lessons of the Afghan response and Americans willingness to help, we worked with the US government to design a program called Uniting for Ukraine, and that allows Ukrainians to find a lifeline to safety here in the United States, but they have to do it with the support of an American sponsor. So it's an expansive private sponsorship program. And, again, what happened next was really extraordinary, because so far, over 120,000 Americans have signed up to sponsor. And that's more than the whole of the U.S. government admitted in the last five fiscal years combined.
Michael Igoe
That’s incredible.
Nazanin Ash
Exactly. It's incredible. And what that tells us is that if we go to the American people, if we engage the whole of American society, we will find not just the capacity, but the willingness to welcome many more. Our citizens are way ahead of our governments. They're way ahead of policymakers and politicians, in their willingness to welcome.
Michael Igoe
So I want to talk about that piece of it. Does that amount to a good news story in your mind? I mean, you worked in the U.S. government, you were at the State Department. To what extent is this something that you find deeply inspiring, and, you know, an example to carry forward sort of how these processes work, versus, you know, a grassroots effort to make up for something that should be happening at the institutional level? How do you think about that?
Nazanin Ash
Yeah, I think it is, I think it holds the potential for an amazing partnership between government and society, and an example of how we should be solving problems. So as you said, Michael, like, I've seen these crises from every corner, so I worked on the ground in countries directly experiencing crisis. I've worked in the U.S. government, leveraging its tremendous tools to seek to address both the consequences of crisis and its causes. You know, I was privileged to work for the International Rescue Committee, one of the world's largest humanitarian organizations, responding to people in crisis overseas, and also helping to resettle refugees here in the United States. None of these experiences held the whole of the solution. So our government policies constrained by perceived politics, you know, our solutions on the ground, constrained by government resources, government pipes, if that makes sense. Like, if we're only relying on government dollars, if we're only relying on government solutions, it's always going to be limited in at least two ways, right? The perceived politics and the resources of government. But what I find so inspiring about what we've learned over the last year is that if you're pairing with the American people, and the whole of American society has to offer, with, you know, government decision making and government solutions and innovating together so that those solutions are expansive and allow for a broader range of American participation, we're going to find the solution not only to our perceived political constraints, but we'll also find much more expansive solutions for addressing the global challenges that Americans want to help address. We have a global displacement challenge now, that what we know, what we know about is the trendline is that it's growing. 100 million globally displaced. That number has tripled over the last three decades. But over that time, the number of refugees that the US and really other wealthy nations have admitted has stayed roughly the same. The average is roughly the same over the last 30 years, even as the displacement challenge tripled. And again, it's because of the constraints of perceived politics and the constraints of government resources. We can't expect Congress to triple its appropriations for you know, refugee resettlement, you know, to triple their appropriations for humanitarian aid. That's a never ending ask. We have to find more durable solutions. And what we know about the people who are globally displaced is less than 3% get an opportunity to return home, less than 1% get an opportunity to rebuild their lives in new communities and make their contributions. But we also know that welcoming newcomers productively and well, is a win-win, everywhere, all the time. A boon to our economy, a boon to our societies, a boon to our communities. And what we have learned over the last year is communities know that. State and local governments know that. They want to do that, they want to make it happen. And we've been innovating with the federal government to open up their pathways for their participation. And it's in this loop of a true public-private partnership that I think we're going to find much more expansive solutions to a global displacement challenge that all of us, you know — Michael, you and I have been in this conversation for a long time — that we've been struggling with for decades.
Michael Igoe
I'm really interested in your use of the phrase perceived politics. You've said that a couple of times. It almost gives me the impression that through this experience, you feel like the actual politics are different than the politics that we might hear about. How do you explain that mismatch between the reality that you're finding in communities where people are not just welcoming, but also understanding of the benefit to their communities of being welcoming? And then the way that this gets translated at the highest levels of politics in the United States, where it becomes, you know, really one of the most divisive, divisive issues that we have?
Nazanin Ash
Absolutely, absolutely. So I'm going to answer that question in a couple of ways. So one, there are external markers, proof points that you can point to that belie the toxicity of our national politics. So for example, if you look at Pew polling, support for the U.S. providing safety for those fleeing violence or persecution has almost never been higher. In fact, I think I'm right, that's never been higher. And it's actually been driven by an 18 percentage point increase among Republicans. So if we're talking about providing protection to people fleeing violence and persecution, the American people really identify with that as being core to who we are as Americans. It’s embedded in our Constitution, we have the only Constitution that confers human rights and human dignity on the basis of your personhood, not on the basis of your citizenship. So I really, you know, it's been affirmed, that's very core to our American identity. The second thing I would point to is that state and local governments have been passing laws and innovating in ways that help attract newcomers. So even as the toxicity of our national politics has gotten worse, at the state and local levels, you have, you know, Democratic and Republican governors appropriating additional resources so they can attract newcomers to their state. You have them, you know, passing laws that allow for foreign certification, like the skills that newcomers bring with them to be rapidly recognized so that they can quickly join our workforce. And then you have everyday Americans putting their hands up to help. And that's the second way I want to answer this question. When we set up Welcome, we set it up as a place for people to help. We're not asking people to have an opinion about immigration. We're not asking people to have an opinion about the border. We're not asking people their opinions about any of these issues. We're asking, do you want to help vulnerable people, new to our country, find their way in your community? And the answer, in every corner of the country, from every sector of American society, has been yes. We got that answer from Lions Clubs International. We got that answer from Rotary. We got that answer from Samaritan's Purse, we got that answer from our nation's largest corporations. We got that answer from community organizations all across the country, and thousands of individual Americans. If you're asking them to help, Americans help. Being a neighbor is again like cross cultural and core to what we do. You know, what's like, ubiquitous, the welcome mat, you know what I mean? My co-lead at Welcome, Anya McMurray, is from Iowa. And she always talks about how, you know, when somebody new moves to town, you take them a hot dish, that's what we do, we're neighborly.That's what we're asking people to to do. Be a good neighbor. Who says no to that? Nobody has.
Michael Igoe
And you haven't. Well, I'm curious about this. I don't know the particulars of your decision to come into a position of leadership at Welcome. Of course, you were previously at the International Rescue Committee and those are sort of the auspices under which I've spoken to you most frequently and think of you as a real expert on humanitarian policy, multilateralism, all of these really intractable challenges that we've been sort of beating our heads against the wall over for a long, long time. And I'm curious, was it the withdrawal from Afghanistan that sparked something in you? What made you decide to take on this new challenge? And then I wonder if you think that that event, the sort of chaotic withdrawal, the resulting refugee crisis, America's own direct sort of responsibility, whether you think that was a significantly transformative event for the United States in the way that our country approaches and thinks about these issues?
Nazanin Ash
So I made the decision to come to Welcome precisely because of my long history in government, with multilateral organizations, you know, with international NGOs. I feel like I've seen the limits of what those entities can offer in terms of solutions to global challenges. And I feel like what we're finding in a lot of these really hard issues, whether you're talking about climate, or whether you're talking about displacement, the solutions aren't coming from those places. They're kind of locked up with their national politics, and their international negotiations, and all of the factors and equities that get weighed in those spaces. What we've seen instead — and that ‘we’ is expansive — is citizens, the private sector – I use that definition writ large, you know, the private sector, corporations, companies, but also, you know, citizens, private organizations — that's where solutions have been coming from. That's where leadership has been coming from. And I think the gap we need to close is for politicians and policymakers to recognize that. So I’ll give you some examples that are far more expensive, even than the United States. You know, when the U.K. Government, which in the last year admitted less than 10,000, refugees, asylum seekers, any category of vulnerable newcomer; they admitted less than 10,000 last year, they went to their citizens and said, would you be willing to host Ukrainian refugees, and in a week, 250,000 people signed up. And they went back and they were like, well, actually, we're not expecting to host that many Ukrainian refugees. Would you be willing to host other refugees? And the answer was yes. Nobody ever asked us. Nobody ever asked us to be part of this solution. And that experience has been repeated everywhere citizens have been asked. Canada, Germany, Poland. Poland is hosting — they at one point had over 3 million Ukrainian refugees that they were hosting. There's no refugee camps in Poland. They're being hosted by Polish citizens. And I think many would look at that phenomenon and they'd be like, okay, but it's Ukrainians. You know, like, we can relate to them like, they're white. They're dominantly Christian. But I go back to the response to Afghanistan. And I go back to this idea that people were never asked. I'm part of a sponsor circle, a group of Americans who have come together to sponsor refugees, that's hosted Hondurans, Congolese, Afghans, and now, Ukrainians. I believe the American people are willing to do this work. They just haven't been asked. So I'm really excited to be part of an organization that's asking them to help. And I'm so inspired by the way they're responding.
Michael Igoe
So the politics and the policies have been operating at a sort of detached level for a long time. Correct me if I'm wrong; you were involved in the Global Compact process for Refugees and Migration. And I'd be interested to hear from you what this sort of set of realizations that you've had about solutions coming from the grassroots rather than from the top down, or the, you know, high level politics or whatever we want to call it. What does that tell you about how those policy processes should be happening? I mean, if you were going to, you know, provide input to something like the Global Compact on refugees again, would that process look very different now based on, you know, your sort of appreciation for how much communities and people can bring to the table in trying to secure the safety of people fleeing crisis? And that leads me to wonder, you know, what are you doing here this week at UNGA? Are you able to bring this message of grassroots solutions-oriented partnerships, to what some, I think, in the past have probably seen as a pretty insular, you know, closed door process for hammering out all these resolutions.
Nazanin Ash
It's very complex question. A really interesting question.
Michael Igoe
Maybe three or four questions.
Nazanin Ash
No, it's a really interesting one. So the first thing I want to say is those Global Compact processes, I mean, it involves over 150 countries, you're only going to get to lowest common denominator solutions, right? There's just no other way. And that's kind of what I mean by you can't rely on those fora, to solve really thorny challenges that require bold action and risk-taking almost by definition; you're gonna get a lowest common denominator solution. What's the thing that all of us can agree on? They're consensus-driven processes, with over 150 complex stakeholders, right? And their member state-led; they’re led by politicians and policymakers, they're government negotiations. I do feel like if you opened up those processes to voices of affected populations, and and when I say affected populations, I mean, not only people who are directly affected by crisis, but the, you know, the community leaders, the people who are receiving them, the people who are partnering with those people in crisis to find solutions, what I'd say is I think those voices can be far more influential and they should be given far more space in those processes. I'm not sure that in those multi-stakeholder, consensus-driven processes, they will carry the day, but I do see them carrying the day in national aolutions. So we've seen extraordinary innovations emerge from the U.S. government, because of this desire of our citizens to participate. We have seen that in Canada, we're gonna see that in the U.K., we're seeing it in Poland, we're seeing it in Germany. So I'm excited about seeding these solutions nationally, and then having that carry its weight in those member state fora.
Michael Igoe
And possibly changing the politics, right? I mean, I guess that's the…
Nazanin Ash
100%. So, you know, we see welcomers being as transformed by the experience as the people, they are welcoming. We're seeing those stories over and over again. And there's so much evidence to suggest that, you know, when we're in direct participation with each other, that's when change happens. That's where growth happens. So, you know, our intention is to allow Americans to do this work of directly welcoming people in need of refuge. And we already see them, you know, carrying the day on their local politics, on their national politics. You know, we had a family in Wyoming sponsor a Ukrainian family. Wyoming hasn't had a formal refugee resettlement system in years. Again, they’re citizens ahead of their local government. So we see a United States where if citizens are allowed to directly participate in this work we can move from a system of very limited capacity to one of broad capacity everywhere in the United States.
Michael Igoe
Last question, is there anything that you're watching specifically this week out of UNGA, either at U.N. headquarters or in the surrounding ecosystem and circus here?
Nazanin Ash
I am really indexed on the solutions that citizens can bring to bear right now. Part of the message I hope to bring to high level week here, both in the CGI, the Clinton Global Initiative forum and elsewhere is that we should be looking to our communities. We should be looking to our citizens. We should be looking to our private and civic sector to find the willingness to solve some of these most thorny challenges.
Michael Igoe
Well, thanks so much. This is great. It's really nice to see you.
Nazanin Ash
It’s really good to see you.
Michael Igoe
Thanks for listening to “UNGA Decoded.” We'll be bringing you more interviews from the U.N. General Assembly throughout the next week. If you enjoyed today's episode, please do share it with friends, family, and colleagues. And you can also leave us a rating or a review on Apple podcasts. If you've been to UNGA and have some thoughts, or if you just want to share some feedback on this episode, we'd love to hear from you. You can find us on social media @devex and @AlterIgoe.