Temporary Protection in the Shadow of the Refugee Convention: A View from the United States

Abstract

For more than 70 years, the 1951 Refugee Convention has provided a framework for assessing claims to international protection for those fleeing persecution, with the goal of seeking ‘permanent solutions’. Once found eligible, a grant of refugee protection generally opens a pathway to durable status in the country of refuge. Yet, in recent years, states – as well as those seeking protection – are turning less often to the legal framework set out by the Refugee Convention to respond to migration challenges and more to temporary forms of relief set forth in national laws and policies. This paper examines how the durable protections of the Refugee Convention have become less accessible to people seeking safety in the United States. It then argues that, in the shadow of declining access to the protection afforded by refugee and asylum law, temporary forms of protection – while long a part of US immigration law – were on the rise under the Biden administration. In particular it examines 4 country-specific humanitarian parole programmes, each of limited duration, that were created and operated by the US government between August 2021 and January 2025 for people from Afghanistan, Ukraine, Venezuela, Cuba, Haiti and Nicaragua. Before a change in political leadership led to their abrupt termination, over half a million people were granted temporary protection under these programmes, far outpacing grants of relief under the Refugee Convention and higher than the number of admissions through past humanitarian parole programmes operating over a similar time period. Grounded in an examination of these programmes, the paper proposes a framework for understanding the opportunities afforded and limitations posed by temporary protection programmes for those seeking safety, both in the United States and beyond.

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