Comments on: Session 7: Challenges to finding “solutions” http://symposia.crsprogramquality.org/2009/10/session-7/ Fri, 09 Apr 2010 16:37:42 +0000 hourly 1 http://wordpress.org/?v=3.0.1 By: John Bingham, ICMC http://symposia.crsprogramquality.org/2009/10/session-7/comment-page-1/#comment-52 John Bingham, ICMC Wed, 21 Oct 2009 15:27:14 +0000 http://symposia.crsprogramquality.org/?p=428#comment-52 1. Here only to suggest that the opportunities for effective protection might be greatly expanded, including in situations of protracted refugee situations and stateless populations, by inflecting more of the "present tense" of strategies for survival into the hunt for solutions, that is, re-evaluating the value and place of solutions that are more objectively temporary than durable, among them temporary residence, working and mobility status. 2. Of course, Catholic actors at every level know all too well how risky any discussion, let alone construction, of such temporary statuses or solutions can be. We also know that our doors are knocked down by migrants offered--or asking for--temporary legal statuses. 3. It is important for us to consider whether one of the obstacles to solutions for refugees and stateless is that an almost exclusive emphasis is put on finding solutions that are durable, i.e., permanent. Does that spook the governments into unnecessary resistance not only to the solution but to rights and other options in the meantime? 4. In this context, please also see the reference in the input for Session 2, to invoking labor migration streams as an opportunity for additional solutions, temporary if not permanent. 5. How do we as Catholic actors consider these possibilities, in light of our experience, and most of all in the context of the present-tense choices and strategies for survival that refugees and other migrants fashio every day? Are surveys of practice and other experiential research needed? 1. Here only to suggest that the opportunities for effective protection might be greatly expanded, including in situations of protracted refugee situations and stateless populations, by inflecting more of the “present tense” of strategies for survival into the hunt for solutions, that is, re-evaluating the value and place of solutions that are more objectively temporary than durable, among them temporary residence, working and mobility status.

2. Of course, Catholic actors at every level know all too well how risky any discussion, let alone construction, of such temporary statuses or solutions can be. We also know that our doors are knocked down by migrants offered–or asking for–temporary legal statuses.

3. It is important for us to consider whether one of the obstacles to solutions for refugees and stateless is that an almost exclusive emphasis is put on finding solutions that are durable, i.e., permanent. Does that spook the governments into unnecessary resistance not only to the solution but to rights and other options in the meantime?

4. In this context, please also see the reference in the input for Session 2, to invoking labor migration streams as an opportunity for additional solutions, temporary if not permanent.

5. How do we as Catholic actors consider these possibilities, in light of our experience, and most of all in the context of the present-tense choices and strategies for survival that refugees and other migrants fashio every day? Are surveys of practice and other experiential research needed?

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