The Invisibilised Labour of Diasporas as Co-sponsors in Refugee Sponsorship: Lessons From Canada

Abstract

For almost 45 years, civil society groups have volunteered their time, energy, and finances to resettle more than 327,000 refugees through Canada’s Private Sponsorship of Refugees programme. Sponsorships are commonly arranged by local communities, faith-based organisations, or private citizens who have entered into agreements with the federal government. Much of this effort is supported by former refugees who were themselves resettled to Canada. Yet, the existing literature underrepresents the crucial role of sponsors with refugee histories. This research examines the previously invisibilised labour of diasporic sponsors, highlighting the unique and vital role stemming from their dual social locations as former refugees and private sponsors. Through participant testimony from in-depth, semi-structured interviews and triangulated document analysis of policy and programmatic data, this research finds that invisibilisation lies at the administrative level of sponsorship processes. This includes the interactions between Sponsorship Agreement Holders and co-sponsor mechanisms, and how formalised and less formalised processes play out. The co-sponsorship model illuminates the nuances and possibilities for sponsorship sustainability beyond the courte durée, emphasising the vital labour of diasporic sponsors in this dynamic.

1. INTRODUCTION

Canada’s Private Sponsorship of Refugees (PSR) programme is understood as a civil society-led social movement. It is also a public–private partnership between the federal government and private citizens¹ and a humanitarian and charitable act enacted at local and global scales.² The benevolence of the Canadian State, which operates not as a unified or singular entity but as a constellation of governing bodies at municipal, provincial, and federal/national scales, is touted globally for its approach to refugee protection.³ Yet, Canadian immigration policies are criticised for being restrictive and for privatising refuge.⁴ Despite these criticisms, the positive aspects of Canada’s refugee policies are evident in the more than 327,000⁵ refugees who have been resettled through the PSR programme since its inception in 1979. Though mandated by the state, the success of sponsorship is realised only through the grassroots mobilisation efforts of civil society groups and their important innovations in practice.

Until recently, refugee sponsorship in Canada and elsewhere remained largely understudied in academic scholarship. The role of sponsors and responses to the Vietnamese, Cambodian, and Laotian refugee movements that began more than four decades ago,⁶ as well as the more recent resettlement of Syrian refugees,⁷ are well documented. A more recent literature has begun to examine sponsorship or sponsorship-like initiatives globally that have emerged and proliferated in response to the displacement of Syrians and growing interests in supporting refugees during moments of crisis. These have included the use of private sponsorship in Poland,⁸ the United Kingdom,⁹ and France¹⁰ for Ukrainians, as well as for Cubans, Haitians, Nicaraguans, and Venezuelans¹¹ and Afghans and Ukrainians¹² in the United States. The considerable attention given to critical global developments is crucial, and yet, they reflect refugee sponsorship in moments or courte durée. Sponsors who have sustained Canada’s PSR programme in between—and during—large-scale movements and resettlement efforts have comparatively garnered much less attention.

Existing literature within the Canadian context concentrates almost exclusively on select assemblages of sponsoring groups. Central to these analyses are faith-based organisations,¹³ including the essential role played by religious groups in the different forms of refugee sponsorship before 1979.¹⁴ Sponsors who are predominantly white, Canadian-born, semi-retired, women, with post-secondary education and relatively high income, and/or affiliated through faith to sponsorship¹⁵ are likewise overrepresented. Much of the existing scholarship inadvertently focuses on the ‘white saviour’ complex and the paternalistic tendencies often deeply ingrained in sponsorship motivations, while other dynamics of sponsorship beyond these imaginaries are overlooked and underrepresented. While some sponsors with these background characteristics are new to sponsorship,¹⁶ others are seasoned¹⁷ and have exerted great efforts to keep the PSR programme sustained over the longue durée. Yet, they are only part of the sponsorship story and its driving forces.

This research addresses the gap by highlighting the hitherto invisibilised or unheard stories of diasporic sponsors in Canada’s PSR programme. Diasporic sponsors, while not always visible in large-scale sponsorship initiatives driven by moments of crisis, steadily fuel the PSR programme as previous studies have found.¹⁸ The affective dimensions of family separation across distant geographical borders are taxing for resettled former refugees¹⁹ and are cited as the impetus for diaspora’s participation in sponsorship.²⁰ This often is driven by necessity and obligation to sponsor family members and what Yousuf and Hyndman conceptualise as “ethnonational kin” connections to those who remain displaced and at risk.²¹ Extending protection to fellow exiles and family is a crucial aspect of diasporic sponsorship experiences in Canada, and the significant contributions of these sponsors merit greater attention.

2. NAMING AND FAMILY-LINKED SPONSORSHIP: CLARIFYING LEXICON AND NOTING TRENDS

While it may be the case that diasporic sponsors are primarily engaged in kin-based sponsorship, this research set out to affirm whether the “naming”/”family-linked” element of PSR makes it a particularly unique and preferred pathway for sustaining refugee protection in Canada beyond the courte durée. The “naming” principle allows sponsors to support specific refugees in need of protection, granting sponsoring groups some influence over selection criteria.²² However, every individual named for resettlement must first meet Canada’s refugee definition outlined in the Immigration and Refugee Protection Act.²³ The act of naming a refugee who meets the definition does not guarantee resettlement. Naming merely initiates a nomination process in which the government has the final say over who is granted protection spaces. Since sponsors have a say in whom they name, they can prioritise refugees most in need based on their specific circumstances. The selection criteria vary among the sponsoring groups but are often based on shared membership in a specified affinity group (e.g., faith and/or ethnonationality).

A persistent viewpoint is that the PSR programme has evolved into an ad hoc mechanism for “family reunification.”²⁴ The term family reunification is a misnomer in the context of refugee resettlement since all named applicants for sponsorship must meet Canada’s refugee definition first and foremost. This selection process is unlike the family class immigration stream in Canada where any immigrant or citizen with sufficient means can sponsor a dependent, partner, or parents.²⁵ Meeting the refugee definition narrows the pool of possible refugees-to-sponsor dramatically. Refugee status is an admissibility criterion for the PSR programme but not for the family class. On this basis, the misnomer family reunification should be avoided in the resettlement context as it conflates the two programmes and obscures the key humanitarian principle that determines who can get refugee protection in Canada.

Denton first introduced the term “family-linked sponsorship”²⁶ to highlight how local sponsors affect the PSR programme by extending refugee protection to named relatives/friends who are refugees abroad. Research indicates that family-linked sponsorship is a core feature of the naming practice, where former refugees ask their sponsors to support subsequent family members.²⁷ This is known as the “echo effect”²⁸ phenomenon, which acts as a catalyst for naming by creating networks for sponsorship. Family-linked sponsorship is often used synonymously with resettled refugee groups, of which diasporas are part. However, not all named sponsorships involve pre-existing relational connections; some refugees are named despite being known to sponsors or their extended networks.

While family-linked sponsorship is a clearer way to conceptualise the relational elements embedded in naming and selection, it too excludes other important dynamics of sponsorship. For example, Hyndman et al. expand on this understanding by defining sponsorship as a “community practice,”²⁹ not just within a given ethnonational community or familial unit. Sponsorship is seen to involve a collective effort of local sponsors and transnational networks, of which former refugees are included through their commitments and requests. This view emphasises the diversity of actors, motivations, and collaborations that contribute to sponsorship processes, which are enabled through the practice of naming.

Since the PSR programme began, efforts have been made to assess the prevalence of family-linked sponsorship. A 1995 Government of Canada report examined the process of matching refugees to sponsors and determined that 90 per cent of all privately sponsored refugees were named.³⁰ The report emphasises that separated family members in Canada were the primary impetus for initiating named sponsorships, a finding confirmed in a more recent study of sponsorship.³¹ Denton estimates that in the years before the Syrian initiative, as many as 95 per cent of privately sponsored refugees were joining family.³² These refugees were named based on their personal relations with family or close friends in Canada. A more recent 2019 study by Krause explored family-linked sponsorship and yielded the same 95 per cent approximation.³³ These estimates suggest that the naming and relational ties between sponsors/sponsorship networks and refugees awaiting resettlement factors into long-standing practices.

This research explores the previously underrepresented sponsorship role of diasporas, highlighting the unique/vital role that emerges from their dual social locations as former refugees and private sponsors. It explores the structures, patterns, and practices that characterise Canada’s PSR programme, focusing particularly on how they relate to the invisibilised labour and expertise of diasporic sponsors. The PSR administrative framework is set out first to foreground how sponsorship is operationalised in Canada. This includes an analysis of the interplay between Sponsorship Agreement Holders (SAHs) and co-sponsor mechanisms, and the ways in which formalised and less formalised processes play out. These dynamics shed light on the invisibilisation that occurs at the administrative level. Important lessons are extended about the crucial role of diasporas and co-sponsorship, including considerations for sustainability over the longue durée.

3. METHODOLOGICAL FRAMEWORK

The empirical interest of this research lay in diaspora subjects who arrived to Canada as refugees and their role as sponsors for fellow exiles who fled war zones, experienced human rights atrocities, and lived in conditions of extended displacement.³⁴ I employed a criterion-based purposeful sampling technique to draw participants from this target group for specific analytical, methodological, and theoretical purposes.³⁵ Given the high proportion of refugees from Ethiopia and Eritrea resettled in Canada, I solicited participation from sponsors in these diasporic communities. The longstanding commitment of diasporas to mobilising humanitarian protection in Canada—both before and after public and private resettlement were enabled in regulations—³⁶ shows that sponsors from diasporic communities can speak about refugee protection with authority. This present research finds that individual Ethiopian and Eritrean diaspora members, along with their diasporic organisations, have consistently supported fellow exiles out of necessity and obligation. Those who have themselves been sponsored as refugees to Canada may be the most well-equipped and effective sponsors and merit representation in research and practice.

The authoritative voices of diasporic sponsors are complemented by key informant perspectives. This sample group is made up of community leaders, settlement workers, representatives, and government officials, many of whom have refugee histories themselves. I purposefully sampled key informants for their expert knowledge of refugee sponsorship and their experience with diasporic sponsors. It made sense to ask these participants to reflect on perspectives from the vantage point of their hybrid identities and unique positionalities. For example, some participants were interviewed as key informants but also had refugee histories, while others were key informants and sponsors. The questions I posed to these participants focused on the details of their sponsorship experience with resettled refugees from Ethiopian and Eritrean diasporic communities. The inclusion of diverse actors provides deeper insights into key issues and tests the boundaries of emergent findings. Sponsors’ testimonies were largely upheld by key informant perspectives, indicating common themes across sponsorship experiences.

Canada was the obvious site for this research because, up until January 2023,³⁷ the PSR programme was the only category of resettlement in the world “where sponsors, communities, and former refugees themselves [could] name specific persons for sponsorship” on a large scale. Research finds that “naming” is foundational to the sustainability of refugee sponsorship,³⁸ generating ongoing demand for subsequent kin-based sponsorships through the “echo effect”³⁹ phenomenon. Since the exact population and location of diasporic sponsors in Canada are unknown, Alberta, British Columbia, and Ontario were selected because they are known to have some of the densest immigrant populations in Canada.⁴⁰ This research draws insight from in-depth, semi-structured interviews held with sponsors and key informants residing in these provinces.

Data from interviews were triangulated with document analysis of policy and programmatic data. This subset of the sample consisted of two streams of data. One was grey literature that I personally collected, which included material from governmental, quasi-governmental, and non-governmental organisations. These sources comprised informal communiques, government documents, and reports. The other stream of data came from hard-to-reach information I was provided directly by participants, offered voluntarily without any solicitation. This unsolicited material was particularly instructive, providing “on the ground” insights related to key issues and activities in refugee sponsorship. Included in these materials were deliberations on legal mechanisms of select policy settings, SAH allocation figures, data on the demographic makeup of sponsors across Canada, and documents about an initiative to improve equity and inclusion in the practice of sponsorship. Given that these are internal sources, I would not have had access to pertinent information if not for the participants’ incisiveness and generosity. The goal here was to probe policy and programmatic data as an approach to locating power dynamics in broader State processes.

Doing research with diasporas made up of former refugees necessitates an understanding of how their contextual realities intertwine with ethics in practice. Although formal ethics approval is oriented to the question of potential harm, as well as consent and transparency, I considered the question of ethics more broadly as it relates to research practices that are appropriate for vulnerable populations. Refugees displaced from Ethiopia and Eritrea come from fragile political contexts and remain attached to their ancestral homes where conflict and violence persists. The impact this has on their lives in countries of resettlement was central to the ethical considerations in my research. Being mindful of the fragile political contexts in their places of origin and the sponsorship community’s concern about escalating monitoring activities in the PSR programme, I obtained consent orally to ease anxieties and ensure that no paper trail would identify participants.⁴¹ To further ensure that risk to participants was kept low, I maintained strict confidentiality and anonymity. Participants’ real names were not included in the final write-up of the research; instead, I assigned them pseudonyms that reflected the broader characteristics they held.

With all my sustained efforts to identify and recruit participants who fit the research criteria, beginning in May 2021 and through to February 2023, I ultimately interviewed 28 participants. The sample includes an almost equal number of sponsors and key informants, 13 and 15 respectively. A total of 17 participants were from Ethiopian and Eritrean diasporas, four had memberships in separate diasporic communities, and seven were of European descent and non-diasporic. Interviews with participants ranged from about 45 minutes to 90 minutes, but the majority lasted for 75 minutes. I largely conducted the interviews one-to-one and virtually on Zoom. Upon receiving oral consent, all interviews were recorded on an external digital voice recorder and safely stored in accordance with ethical guidelines.

I conducted all 28 interviews in English and transcribed them verbatim. I used NVivo to facilitate data management, organisation, and in-depth analysis. Both “a priori” and “a posteriori” coding techniques informed the development of the coding framework in NVivo. This hybrid approach allowed me to capture preliminary insights while also accommodating observations that evolved during the in-depth data analysis phase. The inductive codes I created significantly shaped the coding framework, sometimes challenging existing concepts, ideas, and meanings in the literature, while at other times complementing them. The coding process was iterative, with new codes consistently integrated into the coding structure. This approach enabled me to build a comprehensive understanding of sponsorship patterns from the data and identify core themes, some of which form the basis of the findings discussed here.

4. PSR ADMINISTRATIVE FRAMEWORK: OPERATIONALISATION OF SPONSORSHIP

Who are sponsors understood to be? Are sponsors only the organisations, groups, and communities that are rendered most visible in existing scholarship, official records, and policy circles? What about co-sponsors who participate through less formalised arrangements—are they not sponsors too? Co-sponsors, the community leaders, family members, kin, and same-language speakers, often do much of the heavy lifting in sponsorship circles without being named or seen. This occurs because sponsorship in Canada is primarily framed around the administrative roles of the most formalised sponsorship structure. Consequently, the labour, knowledge, and practices of co-sponsors—who are the least formalised—become invisible. The configuration of the PSR programme, as discussed below, thus raises important questions about which sponsors are visible and which have been rendered invisible.

Canada’s administrative framework for the PSR programme⁴² permits three centralised sponsorship structures: Sponsorship Agreement Holder (SAH), Groups of Five (G5), and Community Sponsors (CS) as illustrated in Figure 1. These sponsorships are centralised because they fall under the Federal Department of Immigration, Refugees and Citizenship Canada (IRCC) mandate. However, each is governed by distinct procedures and requirements. The PSR programme’s administrative framework permits two decentralised sponsorship structures: Constituent Groups (CGs) and co-sponsors.⁴³ These types of sponsorships are decentralised as they are not directly mandated by IRCC but are overseen by intermediaries acting on behalf of the federal government. Although various configurations of decentralised sponsorship exist, Figure 1 illustrates the most common arrangements in which CGs and co-sponsors partner with SAHs. The observations in this research focuses on the partnership between SAHs and co-sponsors. SAHs characterise the most formalised structure while co-sponsors are the least formalised. This dynamic is crucial for understanding how diasporic sponsors participate in and sustain the PSR programme beyond the courte durée.

4.1 Centralised structures: SAH, G5, CS

A SAH is a Canadian-incorporated organisation that has signed a formal multi-year agreement with the Minister of IRCC to sponsor refugees on an ongoing basis. SAHs can sponsor a specific number⁴⁴ of refugees through their agreements, based on allocations that the federal government assigns to them each year.⁴⁵ Application limits for SAHs are set based on protection spaces available locally, nationally, and globally, as well as the level of expertise and past performance with sponsoring and settling refugees.⁴⁶ When an organisation commits to becoming a SAH, its broader responsibilities include providing financial and settlement support to refugees during the general 12-month sponsorship period.

A G5 comprises five or more Canadian citizens/permanent residents who arrange to collectively sponsor refugees. Since there is no ongoing formal agreement between a G5 and the Minister of IRCC, these groups must apply to sponsor refugees on a case-by-case basis and do so by submitting a Sponsorship Undertaking. The federal government does not impose direct limits on the number of refugees that G5 can sponsor.⁴⁷ Instead, it assesses applications to determine a group’s resources and settlement capacity to undertake sponsorship.⁴⁸ When a G5 application is approved, group members agree to provide financial, emotional, and settlement assistance for the sponsorship period of 1 year.

A CS is either an organisation, association, or corporation that sets out to sponsor refugees⁴⁹ but does not have a formal agreement with the Minister of IRCC like G5. Unlike SAHs, a CS is not required to be incorporated under provincial or federal law but must be recognised as a legal entity. Community groups who want to sponsor must submit a Sponsorship Undertaking form to express their interest in sponsorship. Once a community group is approved to be a CS, like G5, they must apply to sponsor refugees on a case-by-case basis and the government does not impose limits⁵⁰ on the number of applications that a CS can submit each year.⁵¹ However, community-sponsoring groups must demonstrate financial and settlement capacity for the applications they submit. A CS must commit to supporting sponsored refugees generally for a 12-month period.

4.2 Decentralised structures: CG and co-sponsor

The Government of Canada notes that intermediaries such as SAHs and CS have “the option of formalising a partnership with an outside party to share in the delivery of settlement assistance and support.”⁵² SAHs often work in collaboration with a CG or co-sponsor, for whom they are responsible. A CG is part of a SAH umbrella organisation who is authorised in writing to act on its behalf in supporting the sponsorship of refugees.⁵³ Ermias (Sponsor) explains that “CGs work with Sponsorship Agreement Holders very closely because often times they are authorised and somehow linked to [organisations] on a continuous basis.” For example, a CG might be a local branch office of a national SAH organisation or a local congregation of a national church, such as the Anglican, Catholic, or United Churches.

A co-sponsor is more loosely defined and can involve individuals, groups, or organisations who share responsibilities for sponsoring and supporting refugees.⁵⁴ SAHs often join forces with individuals, groups, or organisations through co-sponsorship arrangements, allowing co-sponsors to help facilitate sponsorship in specialised ways. Ermias (Sponsor) clarifies that co-sponsors are distinct because “they are one-time sponsors that [might be] related to the [refugee].” For example, a co-sponsor can be a family member of a refugee who partners with a SAH and agrees to provide settlement supports,⁵⁵ which can include financial, emotional, moral, and/or mentorship supports. Co-sponsors who are family or kin often provide settlement supports far beyond the mandated sponsorship period of 1 year.

4.3 SAH and co-sponsor mechanisms

Sponsorship under the SAH programme has historically supported the greatest number of refugees annually compared to G5 or CS. Much of this effort is delegated through informal partnerships to co-sponsors who are often family members and ethnonational kin. SAHs generally submit hundreds of sponsorships each year. Table 1 shows the number of all privately sponsored refugees, how many were admitted to Canada by SAHs, and what percentage of SAH admissions results in sponsorship overall between 2010 and 2019. While these PSR admissions are categorised under the SAH programme, this category also includes, but does not disaggregate, sponsorship undertaken by co-sponsors.

A SAH may consist of several to dozens of co-sponsorships and they have the authority to decide their partners and thereby determine who gets sponsorship. When SAHs partner with a co-sponsor, they are responsible for establishing the criteria for collaboration, and relationship dynamics, and are legally mandated to oversee the performance and sponsorship activities of their partners.⁵⁶ SAHs thus assume overall responsibility for overseeing the sponsorships that fall under their contracts. SAHs, like CS, effectively are intermediary organisations that take on a range of administrative functions to support sponsorship led by the efforts of co-sponsors on the ground. Yet, IRCC neither records the number of refugees admitted to the PSR programme under co-sponsorships, nor who these partners are, possibly because the SAHs’ contract is with IRCC for reporting purposes. IRCC’s classification of admissions by SAHs, as illustrated in Table 1, results in a fixed and decontextualised portrayal of sponsors. This in turn hides the unique and vital labour of co-sponsors and namely, members of diasporas made up of former refugees.

5. HIDDEN IN PLAIN SIGHT: DIASPORAS AS CO-SPONSORS

Official data are not available at present to identify co-sponsors who partner with SAHs across the country, but research with a range of sponsors shows that many people beyond contracted intermediaries help with translation, housing new arrivals, and helping newcomers to find work.⁵⁷ Beyond the fact that several participants had themselves been co-sponsors (n = 9), concrete public data on the demographics of co-sponsors do not exist. This could be for privacy reasons. However, these sponsors are understood to encompass a wide range of people, but normally “kin” are key actors. As Maria (Key Informant), who has more than 10 years of experience working in various roles within the sponsorship sector, stated:

There is also this mixed demographic where we’ve got the family-linked cases where the lead sponsor is specifically related to the newcomer they’re bringing, and it’s either that they form… so in the SAH world, it’s either that they become a constituent group of the SAH or they sign up as a co-sponsor with the SAH, or it can also be that the constituent group or the co-sponsor is not someone who is related to the refugee. It could be that they’re a church representative, and that’s the name that’s on the undertaking, and that’s the key legal representative of the sponsorship group, but in practice, who actually does the settlement are the ethnocultural community members that are linked to that newcomer.

Maria’s comment underscores key dynamics of the co-sponsorship model, including sponsorship that is led by sponsors who are known to those sponsored and another where sponsorship is facilitated by individuals not directly connected to the refugees they sponsor. Kin-based sponsorship occurs when former refugees ask their sponsors to support the sponsorship of subsequent family members,⁵⁸ or when former refugees themselves become sponsors for this purpose. Maria explains that the actual settlement process is carried out by “ethnocultural community members” even if they are not the “legal representatives” of the group, which is a reference to the role of SAHs as intermediaries. This finding indicates that sponsors with personal or relational links to the refugees they support, such as diasporas, play major roles as co-sponsors whether they are officially named in the paperwork or not.

Because co-sponsors fall under the umbrellas of SAHs and other intermediaries, they do not hold formal agreements with the government. This means sponsorship that is undertaken through this informal arrangement, which includes kin, is invisibilised by and within the administrative processes of the programme—SAHs being the most formal and visible of the three centralised and formalised structures. On the question of invisibility at the administrative level, one seasoned service provider in the sponsorship sector noted:

I know we speak a lot about the SAH organisations, but what’s really big is the co-sponsor. I mean, in fact, in terms of numbers, you have a significant number of co-sponsors who are involved across all SAHs. They are across all SAHs, that’s really significant, which doesn’t show. (Goitom, Key Informant)

Goitom raises concern over the breadth and scope of work that co-sponsors do, “which doesn’t show” while SAH organisations are formalised, and their work amplified in comparison. The less formalised co-sponsorship, which is kin-based, is relatively invisible because it is unrecorded, unseen for the most part, and receives scant attention. In short, co-sponsorship is undocumented in administrative processes though exists, if invisibly, in community practice. Conversely, sponsors with no familial connection to the newcomer remain the most “known” sponsors, presenting primarily as well-educated, upper-middle class, retired women.⁵⁹ I argue that this partiality is part of a larger erasure of “former refugees-turned sponsor,” or diasporic sponsors, from Canada’s national narrative about the PSR programme.

These observations amplify a 2019 study commissioned by the [SAH Association]⁶⁰ to explore the ecosystem of kin-based sponsorship, which included CGs and co-sponsors.⁶¹ This study finds that SAHs do not maintain a systematic record of who they partner with to carry out family-linked sponsorship.⁶² Maria (Key Informant) reflected on this finding during our interview. She emphasised the following about the role of kin and their less formalised involvement as co-sponsors:

They’re essentially the invisible sponsors in Canada because there is a lack of intentional tracking that SAHs have not previously done. And there is this dynamic where they’re often not officially named in any of the official paperwork but do play a key role in the settlement space. And so, the research kind of unpacks those dynamics and basically outlines a preliminary finding that they think this particular demographic are a critical component of this, but really are the invisible sponsors in Canada.

Maria’s notion of ‘invisible sponsors’ underscores the implications of ‘doing the work’ but ‘not being named in the paperwork,’ which is not to be taken lightly. I ask: whose labour is made visible in sponsorship? Who gets credited in the official paperwork and government databases? What does this mean for the narratives that are told about who sponsors are and refugee sponsorship altogether? And what implications does this have in policy circles?

As a case in point, in the passage below Goitom (Key Informant) describes his participation in a global forum about Canada’s protection system, which conflated the Blended Visa-Office Referred (BVOR) programme—whereby refugees are UNHCR-referred and normally never family-linked—with the PSR programme.

There was a presentation done, you know about the global project, the [Global Refugee Sponsorship Initiative] GRSI… I did one presentation for outsiders; the participants were Europeans. It was an event… organised by the European League, so there is now more talk about family-linked cases, but, when we were talking about it even with the global partners, about refugee sponsorship, it was mainly presented in terms of ‘sponsor the stranger.’ But again, because we are also doing more from the perspective of responding to the [United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees] UNHCR referred cases [non-family-linked cases], I was more responding… it was happening mostly because UNHCR was part of that initiative. (Goitom, Key Informant)

Goitom reflects on the broader discussions being framed around the ‘sponsor the stranger’ rather than ‘family-linked’ sponsorship, which can only happen through the naming mechanisms of refugee sponsorship. Stranger-based sponsorship happens when refugees and sponsors are not known to each other as the name would suggest.⁶³ When co-sponsors are underrepresented in global contexts such as the one attended by Goitom, the success of refugee sponsorship is not attributed to the motivation, drive, and achievement of the PSR programme compared to BVOR, which has performed very modestly. The PSR programme is the engine of sponsorship in Canada and yet the fuel is largely under erasure. This work is being done by diasporas as co-sponsors who may not ever get credit or be written down as an official sponsor.

6. MAPPING DIASPORAS AND SPONOSRSHIP OVER THE LONGUE DURÉE

The PSR programme relies on highly motivated private citizens and civil society groups to volunteer and sustain sponsorship in Canada. When interest in refugee sponsorship waxed and waned in the 1980s, it was “former refugees who formed links with SAH constituents”⁶⁴ that resulted in a revival of the PSR programme, further corroborating the claim and participant testimonies that diasporas and co-sponsors are the drivers of the PSR programme. As Denton and Lehr and Dyck have stated, refugee sponsorship has shifted from the altruistic “sponsor the stranger” dynamic to the more relational “sponsor the family” dynamic.⁶⁵ The growth of relational sponsorship is largely attributed to newcomer communities made up of previously resettled refugees. The findings in this research reveal that resettlement priorities are linked to the motivations and meanings that sponsors attach to refugee protection, including lived experiences, political necessity to act, and family separation.

6.1 Lived experience

Diasporic sponsors are deeply concerned about the suffering of people they know or know of who are displaced by violence and remain in precarious spaces of refuge and asylum. These sentiments are amplified by participants’ own lived understanding of what it means to be a refugee in search of protection.

The main push is to pretty much save people from the situation they live in. Of course [that was the] desire when I came here. If not me, who would know what it means to be in their situation? [They don’t] need to explain how terrible their situation is to me, how much they suffer, we just know. I know what it means to be there and if there is a chance, I should be the first person to respond to their call. (Ermias, Sponsor)

Ermias draws upon what he lived through as a refugee to empathise with other refugees who remain at risk. He does not just view the refugees’ suffering as a call to action but uses the PSR programme to address it.

Building on what Ermias said, Ogeessa emphasises that becoming a sponsor was an “obvious” choice for him and other former refugees.

My motivation came from my own experience. Since I was a refugee myself and I got the opportunity to get sponsored to Canada, it’s obvious, like every refugee I believe wants to give back. I want[ed] to help others as I got the opportunity. I want to give the same opportunity to those who suffer and are in need. That’s why I started helping them before I even got to sponsoring refugees myself. So that’s the main motivation. (Ogeessa, Sponsor)

Likewise, Semere’s experience of being a refugee motivated him to get involved and do everything in his capacity to protect as many people as possible.

That’s one of the things that motivate me because if I can sponsor as much as I can, with my financial, family, and every responsibility that I have, I have to do what I have do. At least sponsoring one person at a time could save someone. The main reason is I know what they are experiencing because I have experienced the same, I have passed through the same experience. One of the main reasons is that I don’t want them to suffer. (Semere, Sponsor)

The experiences and being displaced migrants galvanise Ermias, Ogeessa, and Semere as sponsors to mobilise resources and support as part of a grassroots, norm of reciprocity to alleviate the suffering of fellow exiles.

6.2 Political necessity to act

Another distinct but tangential source of motivation stems from participants’ recognition that refugee protection in Canada is inequitable. For example, several participants expressed concern about the lack of priority given to resettling refugees from sub-Saharan Africa who have been waiting years, and sometimes more than a decade in exile, for a so-called durable “solution.” As one key informant, a Canadian born to refugee parents and former sponsor, diplomatically stated:

Refugees that have been in sustained refugee situations and for prolonged periods of time, who are often from countries that have people that look like you and me, I’m not too sure if [refugee sponsorship] is serving all populations and Canadians in a way that really connects to the full potential of the program. If that makes sense? Trying to be diplomatic. (Hawi, Key Informant)

Diasporic sponsors who were interviewed shared the same view as Hawi, noting that refugees displaced by conflicts in Africa are routinely neglected and deprioritised. As Semere (Sponsor) put it:

They were talking about Ukraine, they were talking about Afghanistan, but at the same time our people were kidnapped from Ethiopia and taken back to Eritrea. A friend of mine was taken from Ethiopia, and he was taken back to Eritrea, and no one cares about him. If you write and email, they say “we are not working on non-Ukrainians or non-Afghans.” What about this person being kidnapped? What about the other people who we don’t know where they are right now because there’s no communication. My brother-in-law’s stepbrother is in Tigray right now. They haven’t spoken for seven months or maybe more than that. They couldn’t call him… But also, the other concern that I have is, how do I ask IRCC to prioritize emergencies? Now, and it has been like two years, I think, Afghans and Ukrainians are the emergency ones. What about the Ethiopian situation? In Tigray, refugees there were kidnapped, they were killed, and they were tortured, detained and all these things have happened, and the world knows. What are the criteria to say, “OK, this is an emergency?” That’s one of the questions we asked, but no one answered, I don’t know, for some reason it wasn’t answered. I don’t know if that falls within your research.

Semere along with other participants in separate interviews were dismayed by what they perceived to be a lack of intentional effort by the Canadian state to prioritise the safety of refugees fleeing the 2020–2022 military conflict in the Tigray region of Ethiopia. His testimony points to the issue of large-scale resettlement initiatives organised in response to emergencies, while also highlighting disparities in their focus.

Fayyistuu (Sponsor) takes this analysis further by pinpointing the inequitably of wait times for “East African refugees”:

When you think about it generally, and compare say East African refugees to other people, there is a lot of differences… Look, interestingly enough, I was so lucky to spread out from the sponsorship line that we normally work in and see other groups, people form Asia, people from Afghanistan, people from Ukraine. Even before, the application, I mean, this is something that can be checked online, it will say usually on the IRCC website, it will note the country and how long the process will take. That is something that can be verified. If you take African countries compared to others, you would be surprised… I can definitely see how there is a lot of strain on the African side of doing sponsorship. A lot of limitations, caps, and rules around it.

Fayyistuu was involved with several SAHs as a co-sponsor and volunteer, and she explains that her direct experience working with different refugee groups, coupled with her observations of IRCC processing times, reveals a decisive prejudice against African countries. Her analysis further corroborates Hyndman’s finding that, based on searches conducted on IRCC’s own website, there is an uneven and racialised map of “who gets in.”⁶⁶

My research finds that diasporic sponsors are thus driven by a “political” necessity to act when they observe that government-led solutions limit the possibilities for refugees from more racialised countries. In the words of one participant, “If the government cannot sponsor them, then private sponsorship gives us the opportunity, with all its problems with all its challenges, it still has given us the possibility [to protect African refugees] of which other countries are not offering” (Semere, Sponsor). Similarly, Abdii (Sponsor) stated:

The needs, as you know, many thousands of Oromo people fled their homes and are languishing in neighbouring countries. And if there is any way out from that problem with this private sponsorship, that is what motivated us to start.

Regarding Oromos, Cimma (Sponsor) said: “we need a lot of private Sponsorship Agreement Holder agencies to be established in Canada because we still could not fulfill the need of our refugees.” Reza (Key Informant) echoed these same sentiments while not singling out a specific diasporic community:

When I was mentioning that some of the SAHs started focusing on specific communities because these communities felt that they’re not being taken care of. You see, they’re not getting any attention or there is no preference and there is a high need within their community population.

When needs are not being fulfilled, diasporic sponsors have stepped in to fill an important gap.

Participants’ motivation to sponsor are driven by a political necessity to self-authorise “collective actions,” in the absence of other responses to people in precarious, protracted displacement. Many sub-Saharan African refugees face long wait times and processing delays as participants have observed and reported. By asserting ownership over their own responsibilities to act, former refugees enable themselves as conduits of protection. This expanded understanding acknowledges the unique meanings that former refugees bring to sponsorship, allowing them to empathise with and advocate for the safety and security of neglected/deprioritised refugees. Self-authorisation becomes a collective expression of agency and responsibility within the refugee community; in other words, community-authorised refugee protection of fellow exiles in need.

6.3 Family separation

Family separation was the third motivating factor that galvanised sponsors to take action. Several participants expressed anguish over their own and their community members’ lived experience of family separation as resettled refugees. The negative affects they experienced compelled them to sponsor to mitigate separation and vulnerability.⁶⁷ As Fayyistuu (Sponsor) reflected on her own resettlement experience:

When you come to this country, especially anybody who came by themselves, it is really real how you feel. It can get to a mental, physical, and emotional dilemma. Because of that thing about connecting to the family, it is a theme of sponsorship.

Fayyistuu speaks to the hardship of resettling to Canada on her own and how this provokes “dilemmas” that are at once psychological and physical. Though Morris et al. do not highlight the physical ramifications, when participants in their research were asked about resettlement challenges “the emotional and mental health implications of separation mentioned included deep sadness, helplessness, loneliness, worry, and at times depression.”⁶⁸ Family separation is stressful in itself, but the added pressure and anguish of being seen as not doing anything for one’s family members and making enough money to afford to sponsor them is very invisible and yet embodied “weathering”⁶⁹ of these layers of stress. While the pressure motivates sponsors, both those who are formerly resettled refugees, but also the communities and friendship networks to which they belong, use refugee sponsorship to “make families whole again.”

While family-linked sponsorship is a necessary and compassionate act to support loved ones, it is essential to avoid idealised or romanticised views of these relationships. According to Ogummaa (Sponsor), one of the main challenges with sponsoring family concerns “much higher expectations,” which can create added pressure on sponsors. When sponsors are unable to meet the expectations of their family members, it can lead to strained relationships. Eeggatuu (Sponsor) spoke of a breakdown that happened with relatives she sponsored when their expectations were not met. She said, “hell can be in your house too.” These examples highlight how unmet expectations can create tensions, although disagreements in a family are neither unique to sponsorship nor uncommon.

Naming gives sponsors—even when pushed into personal hardship—the power to community-authorise refugee protection that can affect fellow exiles’ safety and security. It is a concrete mechanism that enables sponsors to address the human suffering and family separation that many of them experienced as sub-Saharan African refugees. By doing so, naming foregrounds the lived experiences and subjectivities of sponsors with intimate displacement experiences. Having been refugees themselves, sponsors feel a sense of duty to facilitate refugee protection for humanitarian reasons. They know at a visceral level what it means to be a refugee, so they are motivated by altruistic and relational understandings of refugee protection.

7. CONCLUSION

While existing literature has concentrated on sponsorship actors and communities mobilised to sponsor by faith/religion,⁷⁰ this research renders visible another essential aspect—sponsorship facilitated by former refugees themselves. Through a nuanced and intersectional analysis of sponsorship configurations within the PSR administrative framework, the findings illustrate the unique and crucial roles played by diasporic sponsors. These sponsors, often newcomers with deep motivations to assist those left behind and unprotected, engage refugee sponsorship in less formalised ways. As co-sponsors, the community leaders, family, kin, and same-language speakers do a lot of the heavy lifting in sponsorship circles without being named or seen.

The labour of diasporas through less formalised co-sponsorship mechanisms, vital to fuelling the PSR programme beyond moments of courte durée, goes unnoticed when narratives focus predominantly on the formalised dynamics of sponsorship. Most prevailing understandings about sponsors emphasise the sponsorship of strangers, that is, individuals with no familial links to the newcomers they support. The less formalised co-sponsorships, which tend to be kin-based, are relatively invisible because they are undertheorised as well as unrecorded in practice. In short, diasporic sponsors become invisibilised in refugee sponsorship due to institutional norms and record-keeping practices that fail to account for their labour and contributions. Their invisibilised status and essential roles in sponsorship are stunning, given the powerful testimonies that they steadily fuel the PSR programme.

Despite exclusionary measures and invisibilised status, diasporas persistently labour and strategise as co-sponsors, and more recently as SAHs, to extend refugee protection to fellow exiles in need of safety and security. The prioritisation of resettlement needs among diasporas transcends paternalistic tendencies and is instead motivated by shared experiences, necessity, and family reunification. Diasporic sponsors exercise the naming principle to extend refugee protection to fellow exiles fleeing violence, persecution, and displacement, as well as specific and broad groups of kin. Their commitment propels Canada’s PSR programme, injecting much-needed momentum and resilience when sponsors, motivated solely by altruism, face “burn out.”

The in-depth interviews generated rich and powerful testimonies, shedding crucial light on a previously overlooked aspect of refugee sponsorship. As is common in qualitative studies, this research is context-bound and reflects the perspectives of sponsors specifically within the Ethiopian and Eritrean diasporas in Canada. Research findings do not aim to capture the entirety of experiences. While sponsors’ testimonies are upheld by key informant perspectives, involving other diasporic communities may well challenge, augment, or corroborate the findings presented. These insights, while rooted in specific contexts, also hold important and concrete implications for understanding refugee sponsorship globally.

Returning to the question of separation, the absence of family reunification options for extended relatives in Canadian immigration legislation affects the selection process for refugee sponsorship. Even at a global scale, “international policies affirm the importance of protecting refugees’ family unity.”⁷¹ Family unity is protected by various internationally recognised rights. Yet it is not guaranteed; most recently arrived refugee families, who are unlikely to have high incomes in Canada, are required to apply for a family-class application available to all Canadian immigrants, and thus have only the sponsorship pathway as an avenue. If Canada were to permit the sponsorship of extended kin through a family migration programme, similar to what is available in the United States, the landscape of refugee sponsorship would shift significantly.

More so than linking families across distant geographical places, Hyndman et al. find that naming is about “community-building in situ.”⁷² They refer to the ways in which newcomers from refugee backgrounds become part of larger communities in Canada that in turn are attuned to the needs and desires of their newest members. These communities consist not only of family members who want to support sponsorship for humanitarian reasons but also those aiming to improve the well-being of their own members. What these motives point to is the bidirectionality of integration,⁷³ underscoring that integration involves how refugees and host societies adapt to each other. Naming thus shapes the integration potential of resettled refugees and the communities that welcome them. This dynamic highlights the importance of fostering inclusive communities globally.

The partnerships that diasporas forge with SAHs as co-sponsors signify that sustainability and scale can flourish when sponsorship groups collaborate to extend refugee protection. This implication calls for state-authorised initiatives that not only accommodate but also encourage diverse sponsorship practices on the ground, which may push at the state’s conceptualisation of sponsorship. Named sponsorship, as this research advances, serves as the pivotal mechanism that enables such diversification. Naming allows the support and protection of refugees across various sponsorship contexts, priorities, and arrangements while also complying with programme requirements. The potential of naming as a tool for sponsors to strategically organise and uphold additionality, offering a complementary durable “solution” to more refugees who would not otherwise be assisted, should not be underestimated.

The work is being done by diasporic sponsors who may not ever get credit or be written down as an official sponsor. Such an oversight and social exclusion raises concerns about their neglect in policy analyses and policy informing spaces. The findings in this research emphasise the need for more inclusive, equitable, and anti-oppression policy-making that incorporates newcomer voices into institutional and administrative processes in fulsome ways.

Interviews cited

Sponsors

Ermias (man), Ontario, resettled under the PSR category, ad hoc sponsorship (G5, co-sponsor), ad hoc support (including BVOR).

Ogeessa (man), British Columbia, resettled under the PSR category, ad hoc sponsorship (G5, co-sponsor), ad hoc support.

Semere (man), Alberta, resettled under the PSR category, Sponsorship Agreement Holder organization.

Fayyistuu (woman), Alberta, resettled under the GAR category, Sponsorship Agreement Holder organization, ad hoc sponsorship (G5, co-sponsor), ad hoc support.

Abdii (man), Alberta, resettled under the GAR category, Sponsorship Agreement Holder organization.

Cimma (man), Alberta, resettled under the GAR category, Sponsorship Agreement Holder organization.

Ogummaa (man), Ontario, resettled under the PSR category, ad hoc sponsorship (G5, co-sponsor), ad hoc support.

Eeggatuu (woman), Ontario, obtained protection as a refugee claimant, ad hoc sponsorship (G5).

Key Informants

Maria (woman), Ontario, Canadian-born, service provider organization.

Goitom (man), Ontario, obtained protection as a refugee claimant, service provider organization, ad hoc sponsorship (G5, co-sponsor), ad hoc support.

Hawi (woman), Ontario, Canadian-born, service provider organization, ad hoc sponsorship (BVOR), ad hoc support.

Reza (man), British Columbia, Sponsorship Agreement Holder organization.

Funding support for this article was provided by the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council.

Footnotes