Researchers at the University of Warwick have produced a study that determined that in German towns where Facebook use was higher than average there were a higher number of attacks on refugees.

“That held true in virtually any sort of community — big city or small town; affluent or struggling; liberal haven or far-right stronghold — suggesting that the link applies universally,” wrote Amanda Taub and Max Fisher in a recent New York Times article.

“This paper investigates the link between social media and hate crime using Facebook data,” write the report’s authors, Karsten Muller and Carlo Schwarz, in the report’s abstract.

They note that the recently emerged right-wing party AfD has developed a major social media presence. “We show that right-wing anti-refugee sentiment on Facebook predicts violent crimes against refugees in municipalities with higher social media usage,” write Muller and Schwarz.

Taub and Fisher note in their New York Times article that in the town of Altena, Germany, residents have “seen Facebook rumors portraying refugees as a threat. They’ve encountered racist vitriol on local pages, a jarring contrast with Altena’s public spaces, where people wave warmly to refugee families.”

The report is available for download here.

A new study finds that contrary to recent remarks by Australia’s Citizenship and Multiculturalism Minister Alan Tudge, refugees and new immigrants are having a relatively easy time integrating.

The study was funded by the Australian Research Council and the findings are the first to result from a three-year study of settlement outcomes of recently arrived refugees in New South Wales, Victoria and Queensland.

The study found that refugees and new immigrants are integrating particularly well in regional areas, reports the Guardian.

Tudge recently said that migrants who live together “largely communicate in their mother tongue [and] are slower integrating,” but “the research found that refugees were welcomed by their new communities, found it ‘easy’ to get along, and felt a strong sense of belonging to their new homes,” the Guardian reported.

Additional information about the study’s findings is available here.

Australia’s policy on refugees has come under fire

Australia’s policy of placing refugees and asylum-seekers on Pacific Islands in harsh conditions has come under increasing fire in recent years.

Protests against the policy occurred last month in Australia.

“Thousands protested in cities across Australia on Saturday to mark five years of a policy under which asylum-seekers and migrants have been turned away and detained on remote Pacific islands,” the New York Times reported.

“Messages were read aloud from those still languishing in deteriorating conditions on the islands, years after being detained,” the Times reported.

“The policy that was introduced in 2013, to expel people – the ‘Fortress Australia’ policy that they [the government] put in place – that has to go,” rally organiser Ian Rintoul from the Refugee Action Coalition said at the protest in Sydney, reports Al Jazeera in a July 21 post on its website.

A recent Time magazine article details how there has been an increase in law school student interest in immigration law against the backdrop of President Trump’s draconian immigration policies.

“According to the American Bar Association Journal, student interest in immigration law has increased at many schools in recent years, and the American Immigration Lawyers Association says its student membership has doubled in the past 18 months,” writes Time’s Arpita Aneja.

A July 20 post on Big Think by Reuben Jackson details how blockchain technology can help refugees.

“In the field of migration, asylum, and refugees, there are already several projects that have shown many areas where blockchain could help alleviate the suffering and struggles of those who are many times left in the wake of political fights,” writes Jackson. “From tracking funding and aid to offering refugees financial services and even improving the processing of asylum requests, blockchain could revolutionize the way the world welcomes refugees.”

Blockchain can help authorities “track and keep records of asylum seekers from the moment they arrive at the border until their legal process is completed, something that is not quite possible or effective currently,” Jackson notes in his post.

Refugee camp runs on blockchain

In April, the MIT Technology Review detailed how a refugee camp in Jordan utilizes blockchain technology.

The program, called Building Blocks, helps the World Food Program “distribute cash-for-food aid to over 100,000 Syrian refugees in Jordan. By the end of this year, the program will cover all 500,000 refugees in the country. If the project succeeds, it could eventually speed the adoption of blockchain technologies at sister UN agencies and beyond,” the article noted.

Eskinder Negash, president and CEO of the U.S. Committee for Refugees and Immigrants, on June 8 wrote to federal lawmakers urging them to “see the faces and names of your constituents, your staffers and volunteers and think hard about how each of them came to be here.”

In his letter, Negash said that “Today we see new policies and rhetoric that challenge our understanding of the basic values of our country.”

He notes that he is a recipient of an American by Choice Award from the U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services in 2009 and a former refugee from Africa resettled in Georgia.

“From the moment I arrived over three decades ago, I have dedicated my life to the welcome and protection of others who found themselves in similar situations, as a refugee or an immigrant. Like many immigrants and refugees, I have worked hard, raised a family, volunteer in my community and have had many blessings. But still, the idea of being a refugee, stateless, displaced and separated from family and loved ones is a consistent scar to remind all of us that our journey and suffering is real,” Negash told lawmakers.

“Despite the daily headlines that promote fear of immigrants, I know the history of the United States is also a history of refugees and immigrants. I urge you, as a member of Congress to see the faces and names of your constituents, your staffers and volunteers and think hard about how each of them came to be here. The family that loves them and the challenges they have overcome through the years. Today’s immigrants and refugees want nothing more. A chance for peace and freedom,” the letter said.

For additional information on the U.S. Committee for Refugees and Immigrants, click here.

The New York Times reports in a recent article how Trump Administration policies have placed the survival of some refugee agencies in the U.S. in jeopardy as the arrival of new refugees dries up.

The Trump administration “has cut the staff that conducts clearance interviews overseas, intensified the screening process for refugees, and for those people it characterizes as high-risk, doubled the number who need to be screened,” write Liz Robbins and Miriam Jordan. “As a result, if the trickle of refugees admitted continues at its current pace, just 20,000 are projected to enter the United States by the end of this year, the lowest figure since the resettlement program was created with passage of the Refugee Act in 1980.”

The State Department “said it expects to fund a smaller number of agencies next year, corresponding to the fewer refugees to be resettled, and the survival of even some of the most-established organizations” is in doubt, the Times reported.

A Greek court has ruled that new asylum seekers arriving in the country cannot be restricted to a group of islands where refugees have been placed in squalid conditions over the past few years.

Amnesty International’s migration researcher Irem Ar said, “Forcing asylum-seekers to stay on the Greek islands, often in squalid, overcrowded conditions, is deeply unfair. With the highest court in Greece now having ruled that the government had no grounds for this inhumane containment, the authorities must now allow all newly arriving asylum-seekers into mainland Greece.” Ar added, “However, this will not address the intense overcrowding on the islands. People already there should also be swiftly transferred to mainland Greece and out of such unacceptable living conditions.”

The Wall Street Journal said that the decision “could alleviate dire conditions on the islands, but might derail a pact between the European Union and Turkey to keep a lid on arrivals.”

A White House aide close to senior policy adviser Stephen Miller “who has advocated strict limits on immigration into the U.S. has been selected for a top State Department post overseeing refugee admissions, according to current and former officials,” reports Nahal Toosi in Politico.

Andrew Veprek was appointed to be the deputy assistant secretary of the State Department’s Bureau of Population, Refugees and Migration (PRM), a department official confirmed to The Hill, the Capitol Hill newspaper reported.

Current and former officials also describe Veprek’s appointment “as a blow to an already-embattled refugee bureau,” wrote Politico’s Toosi.

“My experience is that he strongly believes that fewer refugees should admitted into the United States and that international migration is something to be stopped, not managed,” former U.S. official told Politico, adding that Veprek’s views about refugees and migrants were impassioned to the point of seeming “vindictive.”

The U.S. Supreme Court recently “curbed the ability of immigrants held in long-term detention during deportation proceedings to argue for their release in a ruling in sync with President Donald Trump’s get-tough approach toward immigration,” Reuters reported.

In the 5-3 decision, the court’s majority “found that federal law says immigrants who face deportation ‘shall be detained’ while their cases are being considered,” the Los Angeles Times reported. “The court’s conservatives rejected the view of federal judges in California who said detained immigrants have a right to a bail hearing after six months in jail,” the LA Times reported.

The high court’s decision is available here.

The Washington Post profiles the town of Rutland, Vermont, “the resettlement hub that never was.”

Rutland was originally scheduled to host a group of 100 Syrian and Iraqi refugees, but then the Trump refugee ban came along, curtailing the amount of refugees that ultimately relocated to the town.

Ultimately, 14 refugees resettled in Rutland.

The story also details the tensions that have arisen tied to the resettlement of refugees in Rutland.

“Hosting refugees in Rutland had been a contentious idea from the start, tearing open the political tensions of this close-knit city at a time of bitter national debate over race, religion and immigration,” writes Washington Post reporter Abigail Hauslohner.