Organizational policy resistance amidst the demise of the US refugee resettlement sector

This case study examines how resistance to the Trump Administration’s anti-immigration policy manifested within the refugee resettlement system between 2017 and 2020, explaining the power and limits of this resistance in terms of a larger project of (re)engagement with social justice. Through participant observation at national coalition advocacy meetings and interviews with refugee resettlement policy professionals and local resettlement organizational managers this study endeavors to bring multiple perspectives to the fore in order to inform an analysis of the political and organizational conditions that facilitated efforts to survive and, in some cases, resist the onslaught from the Trump Administration.