The engagement of local authorities in refugee sponsorship: Comparing Canada, the United Kingdom, Spain and the Netherlands

Over the last decade, local authorities have been widely acknowledged as important actors in the design and implementation of integration policies for forced migrants. Their growing relevance to refugee settlement has been repeatedly highlighted in political/policy discussions and migration scholarship alike. At the same time, the role of local authorities in the admission of refugees – a policy area traditionally reserved for the national level of government – remains politically contested and understudied. To address this gap, we focus on the engagement of local authorities in refugee sponsorship, which lies at the nexus of refugee admission and integration. First, we challenge the misconception that Canadian local authorities have little to do with refugee sponsorship, and show that the initial development and success of the Canadian Private Sponsorship of Refugees Program was largely influenced by municipal activism in the end of the 1970s. Second, we discuss how local authorities have been promoting, designing, implementing, but also hindering the implementation of refugee sponsorship programmes in three European countries: the United Kingdom, Spain and the Netherlands. Based on the empirical evidence from the different country contexts, we argue that local authorities engage in refugee sponsorship as catalysers, gatekeepers, pioneers and foot-draggers, and suggest questions for future research.