Using the Multiple Streams Analysis Framework to Understand the Impact of Refugee Policy on Refugee Children: A Cross-National Perspective

Abstract

Children represent a large proportion of the world’s refugees. The United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) reported that as of 2020, there were about 27.1 million refugees worldwide, and roughly half of all refugees were under the age of 18 at any given time. The challenges that refugee children face prior to resettlement include interrupted education, repeated moves, exposure to violence, family separation, lengthy stays in camps, and poverty or deprivation. As a result of the experiences gained from an unexpected relocation, being the child of an adult refugee may be traumatic. But it is more damaging when laws enacted in the new host countries fail to take refugee children into account, which in turn could result in socioeconomic harm or gain for these children. In this policy analysis, the researcher intends to look at the socioeconomic outcomes of refugee children while trying to navigate their new home country. In essence, this analysis will use the multiple streams analysis framework to understand how refugee policies in the United States and Nigeria are enacted and their socioeconomic impact on refugee children.

1. Introduction

Oftentimes, adult refugees are not the only ones affected by refugee policy changes; their children are greatly impacted, too. Children make up a disproportionately large portion of refugees worldwide. In 2020, there were about 27.1 million refugees worldwide, and roughly half of all refugees are under the age of 18 at any given time (American Immigration Council 2022). Syria (6.8 million refugees) was the country with the highest number of adult refugees under the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR)’s mandate in 2019, followed by Venezuela (4.6 million), Afghanistan (2.7 million), South Sudan (2.4 million), Myanmar (1.1 million), and Somalia (905,100) (American Immigration Council 2022; Anderson 2020; UNICEF 2022a). Hooper et al. (2016) reported that from 2009 to 2013, there were about 941,000 young children ages 10 and under with refugee parents in the United States, while in Nigeria, there were about 52,518 refugees but no data showing the number of refugee children (Oti-Onyema 2020).

A global report shows that prior to resettlement, refugee children may experience a variety of challenges, including interrupted education, repeated moves, exposure to violence, family separation, lengthy stays in camps, and poverty/deprivation (Anderson 2020). This report aligns with the experiences of refugee children in Nigeria who exhibit greater levels of socioemotional well-being issues, such as anxiety, depression, and posttraumatic stress disorder, than children born in the host country (Oti-Onyema 2020). Hooper et al. (2016) report that in the United States, children of refugees in some of the longest-settled groups, such as those from Bosnia, Vietnam, Russia, and Iran, were much less likely to be poor or low-income or live in poverty (Hooper et al. 2016). Thus, in reporting the variation in the experiences of refugee children, it is important to take a deeper dive into addressing issues that affect refugee children since they are one of the most at-risk populations in a society that demands protection in all facets of life.

Thus, being the offspring of an adult refugee could be traumatic due to the experiences accrued from unexpected relocation. But it is more damaging when laws enacted in the new host countries fail to take refugee children into account, which in turn could result in socioeconomic harm or gain to these children. More specifically, both the United States and Nigeria designed refugee policies under pressure from international and domestic forces following World War II. While the United States emphasized Cold War alliances and global image, Nigeria responded to regional instability within Africa. In both contexts, children’s welfare was largely absent from the policy agenda. The focus on adult migration and political legitimacy overshadowed child-specific provisions, revealing a consistent pattern where refugee children were legally visible but politically invisible.

In this policy analysis, the researcher intends to look at the socioeconomic outcomes of refugee children while trying to navigate their new home country. In essence, this analysis will use the multiple streams analysis framework to understand how refugee policies in the United States and Nigeria are enacted, and their socioeconomic impact on refugee children. It is important to understand how policies are enacted to ensure appropriate future policy reform. From a cross-national perspective, this analysis examines the Western and African lens of the experiences of refugee children while closing the existing gap in the literature that underrepresents their concerns in policy development and enactment using the multiple streams analysis framework (MSA).

2. Who Is a Refugee?

The 1951 Refugee Convention and its 1967 Protocol, organized by UNHCR, helped to provide a clear definition of a refugee and what conditions count for a person in becoming a refugee (UNHCR 2011). The Refugee Convention and Protocol also protect the rights of refugees by providing refugee obligations to the 148 countries that are parties to these instructions. These countries, therefore, include both the United States and Nigeria among many others. According to the convention, the UNHCR (2011) defines a refugee as a person who is outside their country of nationality or habitual residence and who has a well-founded fear of persecution due to their race, religion, nationality, membership in a particular social group, or political opinion. They are also unable or unwilling to take advantage of that country’s protection or to return there due to fear of persecution. A refugee could also be defined as a person who moves from one place to another, either voluntarily or under threat of force (UNHCR 2011). In addition, the Organization of African Unity (OAU) 1969 Convention defines the term “refugee” as applying to every person who, owing to external aggression, occupation, foreign domination, or events seriously distributing public order in either part or the whole of his country of origin or nationality, is compelled to leave his place of habitual residence to seek refuge in another place outside his country or nationality (OAU 1969).

3. Brief Historical Background of Refugee Policies in the United States and Nigeria

3.1. United States Refugee Policy

Since the inception of the refugee crisis, American presidents and congressional leaders of both parties have supported aid for the world’s refugees (Richard 2019). Yet, the refugee policy has been one of the contradictory strains running through American foreign policy since World War II (Brill 1983). To reflect an understanding of national self-interest in the face of radical and gradual change around the world and willingness to extend special generosity to certain groups of desperate uprooted peoples, the United States government passed its first refugee law in 1798, “An Act for the relief of the Refugees from the British Provinces of Canada and Nova Scotia” which allowed Canadian and Nova Scotian refugees who supported the American Revolution to apply for land grants in the Northwest Territory (Brill 1983; Taparata 2019). Such a law promotes favoritism to certain groups of people and nationals. Subsequently, presidents used parole power to admit refugees to the United States (Sainsbury 2012). A major catalyst of change to the admission of refugees in the United States began in 1980 when President Carter signed the Refugee Act into law to eliminate the ad hoc nature of refugee policy and the problems associated with the power of parole (Sainsbury 2012). Thus, this law represents several years of work and study by congress, the executive, and voluntary agencies in drafting a comprehensive approach to admitting refugees from abroad and resettling them in cities of the United States. The Refugee Act modernized the definition of a refugee in United States law, established a system of shared responsibility between congress and the administration in admitting refugees, and provided a framework for federal economic and educational assistance in refugee resettlement to localities (Brill 1983; Kerwin 2015).

The United States, as one of the member states of the United Nations, adopted the 1951 Convention’s definition of a refugee. The 1951 Convention consolidates previous international instruments relating to refugees and provides the most comprehensive codification of the rights of refugees at the international level (UNHCR 2010). According to US law and in line with the 1951 Convention and 1961 Protocol, refugees are migrants seeking entry from a third country who can demonstrate that they have been persecuted, or have reason to fear persecution, based on one of five “protected grounds”—race, religion, nationality, political opinion, or membership in a particular social group—or people who are unwilling to return to their home country because of a well-founded fear of persecution (Klobucista et al. 2022; American Immigration Council 2022).

Over the years, the Refugee Act of 1980 has undergone several modifications due to incidents of events that may occur within the country. After 9/11, there was a great reduction in refugee arrivals since the act’s creation in 1980 (Mathema and Carratala 2020). This appears to be the longest shutdown and most precipitous reduction in refugee arrivals. In 2004, we began to see a slow increase in refugee arrivals since 9/11. However, during Trump’s administration, there was a downward shift in refugees’ admission into the US, after the administration adjusted the fiscal year refugee admissions ceiling from 110,000 to 50,000 and proposed to further cut the refugee arrival ceiling to 15,000 using executive orders (Mathema and Carratala 2020). On the contrary, this action counterfeits one of the main reasons the Refugee Act of 1980 was enacted, which was to eliminate or minimize the bureaucracy in the policy or the problems associated with the power of parole.

Recent conversations around the refugee act have been that the system needs to be redesigned from the ground up, given the long-standing issues with the executive branch having all the power to affect how refugees are admitted into society—a situation which also affects their resettlement process in the country (Mathema and Carratala 2020). To ensure this process works, there should be a strong consultation process that involves agencies at all levels, from international organizations to local organizations, which engages all stakeholders in the rebuilding process (Mathema and Carratala 2020).

3.2. Nigeria Refugee Policy

The major causes of the refugee crisis in Africa relate to both internal and external factors. Ethnic conflict, such as the Islamic movement Boko-Haram in the northeastern part of Nigeria, is one triggering factor precipitating the refugee situation on the continent (Carciotto and Orsi 2017). Nigeria is in West Africa on the shores of the Gulf of Guinea, with Benin to the west, Niger to the north, Chad to the north-east, and Cameroon to the east and south-east, and it has been an important source country of refugees and asylum-seekers over the years (Anyogu and Ozioko 2019; UNHCR 1997). To provide a structure to the refugee policy in the country, Nigeria has ratified or acceded to major international human rights instruments such as the 1951 Geneva Convention, its 1967 Protocol, and the 1969 Organization of African Unity (OAU) refugee conventions to frame its policy.

The main legal framework protective of refugees in Nigeria is the National Commission for Refugees Act 1989, which was established by Decree 52 during the military era but is now identified as an act under Cap. N21 of the Laws of the Federation of Nigeria 2004, due to a change in political power from the military regime to a democratic elect (Anyogu and Ozioko 2019; Federal Ministry of Humanitarian Affairs, Disaster Management and Social Development 2022). The act does not directly define the term refugee but reveals that anyone who satisfies the definition in the 1951 Geneva Convention, its 1967 Protocol, and the 1969 OAU refugee conventions is a Nigerian refugee (Anyogu and Ozioko 2019). Thus, the 1969 OAU Refugee Conventions seek to address the constantly increasing number of refugees in Africa and are desirous of finding ways and means of alleviating their misery and suffering, as well as providing them with a better life and future (Orsi 2008; UNHCR 2006).

Thus, Nigerian law adopts the definition of a refugee as a person who is forced to flee across borders on account of persecution. It accommodates both the individual and the group influx (Anyogu and Ozioko 2019). Four requirements must be met for someone to qualify as a refugee: they must be outside their country of origin; they must be unable or unwilling to return there to receive protection; they must have a legitimate fear of persecution; and this persecution must be motivated by their nationality, race, religion, political opinion, or membership in a social group. (Anyogu and Ozioko 2019).

The National Commission for Refugees Act of 1989 governs the entry, treatment, and rights of refugees while in Nigeria. It prohibits the expulsion of any person who is a refugee within the meaning of this decree unless that refugee is a threat to the security of Nigeria or is convicted of a serious crime (National Commission for Refugees Decree 1989). The decree further establishes the functions of the National Commission for Refugees and calls for the appointment of a Federal Commissioner for Refugees and sets out their duties. An eligibility committee and an appeals board are also established, and the procedures for seeking refugee status are spelled out. Family members of a refugee are allowed to enter Nigeria and remain in the country if the refugee is allowed to remain. The final part of the decree lists the rights and duties of refugees (National Commission for Refugees Decree 1989).

Over the years, Nigeria has hosted refugees from Liberia, Sierra Leone, and the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC). Voluntary repatriation and integration have been the main solutions for refugees in Nigeria (Mberu and Pongou 2010). In 2007, the UNHCR repatriated about 13,000 refugees to Liberia and Sierra Leone following the end of civil war in those countries (Mberu and Pongou 2010). However, Carciotto and Orsi (2017) report more emphasis being placed on the fact that Nigeria remains a refugee-sending country rather than a refugee-hosting or integration country. Their report shows that in 2015 alone, 68,200 Nigerians were compelled to flee abroad (Carciotto and Orsi 2017). This reason could align with why, in 2008, the UNHCR helped to close the Oru refugee camp, which had hosted refugees for upwards of 18 years (Mberu and Pongou 2010). While the camp was in operation, refugees were entitled to protection, privileges, and rights under the UNHCR mandate; these rights include education for refugee children and work permission for adults (Mberu and Pongou 2010).

The National Commission for Refugees Decree of 1989, which was replaced by Cap. N21 of the Laws of the Federation of Nigeria 2004, is now known as the National Commission for Refugees, Migrants, and IDPs (NCFRMI), reflecting the change from a military to a democratic form of government (Federal Ministry of Humanitarian Affairs, Disaster Management and Social Development 2022). Recent discussions about the agency’s role have focused on its shortcomings in managing issues that arise with internally displaced persons (IDPs) rather than refugees, since the country appears to have more IDPs than refugees because of terrorist attacks and kidnappings in some regions of the country.

4. Importance of a Cross-National Comparison

A cross-national comparison is important because it allows for a deeper understanding of how different countries design and implement policies and how these policies impact the socioeconomic well-being of refugee children. By comparing contexts like the United States and Nigeria, researchers can identify both universal challenges, such as access to education, protection, and stability, and context-specific issues shaped by political, social, and cultural factors. This comparison helps to highlight gaps in policy, uncover best practices that can be adapted across nations, and ensure that children’s needs are not overlooked during policy development. It also strengthens the evidence base for international policy reforms, offering a broader and more inclusive perspective that challenges assumptions rooted in one cultural or political context. Ultimately, cross-national comparison provides a framework to design social policies that are more effective, equitable, and responsive to the realities of children across diverse societies.

5. Multiple Streams Analysis Framework (MSF)

Kingdon (1984) created the MSF in his seminal book titled “Agendas, Alternatives, and Public Policies.” This theory explains how issues reach the political agenda and how policies are implemented. The theory focuses on how ideas fit policy challenges, and Kingdon (1984) detailed how topics acquire agenda status and the basis on which policy alternatives are produced (Alshoubaki and Harris 2021). Cohen et al. (1972) postulated that a decision is an outcome of four major streams: the problem, solution, participants, and choice opportunities streams. On the premises of these outcomes, Kingdon (1984) uses the same metaphor to illustrate how policymaking is formed by the problem, policy-proposal, and politics streams, which converge at a particular moment in ways that create a window of opportunity for policy change to occur (Ackrill and Kay 2011; Alshoubaki and Harris 2021). In essence, the politics stream expresses elements creating a favorable atmosphere in which to influence the agenda, the problem stream expresses issues capturing policymakers’ attention, and the policy stream expresses suggested remedies and proposals to address the issue (Ackrill and Kay 2011; Alshoubaki and Harris 2021; Cairney and Joans 2016). For policymakers to influence policy outcomes in a way that serves their best interests, policy entrepreneurs and policy advocates are crucial to shaping the agenda and the policymaking process (Alshoubaki and Harris 2021).

Since refugee policy is agenda-driven and time-sensitive, the US Refugee Act of 1980 and Nigeria’s 1989 National Commission for Refugees Act did not emerge from a linear, evidence-only process. They arose when problems, politics, and policy ideas briefly aligned exactly with the dynamic MSA is designed to explain (problem stream—policy stream—politics stream—short “policy windows”). This study frames both countries’ laws as products of shifting crises, ideas, and political incentives. It captures cross-national similarity and difference. MSA lets us compare how the same problem (refugee flows and child socioeconomic impact), coupled with different politics (Cold War/foreign-policy priorities in the US and OAU convention in Nigeria), produced distinct policy paths. It centers children even when the system did not. The core claim is that children’s socioeconomic needs were sidelined as adults’ issues dominated agenda setting and design. MSA helps to show where that happened: problem stream—indicators and focusing events highlighted “refugees,” not child-specific harms; policy stream—solution menus emphasized admission ceilings, parole powers, and resettlement logistics rather than child-focused provisions; politics stream—electoral incentives, foreign-policy optics, and bureaucratic feasibility crowded out child socioeconomical well-being. Thus, moving forward in this paper, the MSF will be used to break down the development and enactment of the Refugee Act of 1980 in the United States and the National Commission for Refugees Act of Nigeria 1989 concurrently.

6. Comparative Multiple Streams Analysis of the United States and Nigeria Refugee Policy

6.1. Problem Stream

United States. Congress established qualitative standards for immigration in the early 1900s. Certain types of refugees, including anarchists, illiterates, and vagrants, were restricted from entrance or prohibited altogether by the statutes. The Emergency Quota Act of 19 May 1921, which was a per-country measure, eventually added to these high standards. This act and subsequent legislation’s quotas gave preference to communist-country refugees whose suffering was politically helpful to American interests (Kurzban 1982).

In the 1930s, the United States turned away thousands of Jews fleeing Nazi persecution, in large part because of the powerful restrictions then dominating immigration laws. Congress and US consular officers consistently resisted Jewish efforts to emigrate and impeded any significant emergency realization or limitation on quotas. In addition, a 1939 refugee bill that would have rescued twenty thousand German children was defeated because the children would exceed the German quota (Balilaj 2020; Gee 2001).

After World War II, the United States of America not only helped to create the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) but also welcomed hundreds of thousands of refugees into the country. This early reaction to refugee flows was motivated more by humanitarian and foreign policy issues than by US immigration policy, which frequently gave priority to economic concerns and addressed internal demands (McBride 1999). The United States’ refugee policy developed through a set of legislation that welcomed those fleeing “communist oppression” but offered minimal assistance to those fleeing other regions of the world, particularly countries considered US allies (Zolberg 1995). Many Haitian and Cuban refugees were driven to come to the United States because of political and economic problems in their countries, which led thousands to make the dangerous sea journey to the US coast without visas or permission. The executive branch responded to these new arrivals with bias. Different presidents handled these refugees in various ways depending on US interests in those countries (Balilaj 2020).

Under the Displaced Persons Act of 1948, about 205,000 (later up to 415,000) refugees were granted, although the number was deducted from other immigration benefits. Another 214,000 refugees were allowed under the Refugee Relief Act of 1953, and several hundred thousand more were admitted under the Refugee Escapee Act of 1957 (which ended the practice of charging the number of refugees against immigration allotments after the 1956 Hungarian Uprising) (Zolberg 1995). By the end of World War II, refugee admission laws clearly reflected political pressure rather than humanitarian concerns (Kurzban 1982).

Nigeria. Nigeria is known for massive, forced migration of refugees due to persecutory and non-persecutory reasons (Chhnagani and Chhnagani 2011). Since independence, Nigeria has witnessed minor and major influxes of refugees and asylum seekers from neighboring countries. Up to the 1970s, Nigeria had received a few numbers of refugees, but in early 1980s it received for the first time massive numbers of Chadian refugees because of civil war in that country (Chhnagani and Chhnagani 2011). Alongside this, the continent in general was beginning to worry about the constantly increasing number of refugees in Africa and desirous of finding ways and means to alleviate their misery and suffering, as well as providing them with better lives and future (UNHCR 2006). The National Commission for Refugees Decree of 1989 was enacted only to respond to managing the affairs of refugees in response to the 1951 Geneva Convention, its 1967 Protocol (Chhnagani and Chhnagani 2011), and the 1969 OAU Convention. According to Anyogu and Ozioko (2019), African countries, including Nigeria, seem to generate the highest number of refugees because of incessant hostilities and conflicts emanating such as gross violations of human rights, civil wars, natural disasters, and religious and ethnic crises, among many others. Hence, the NCFR was only a response to the influx problem of refugees raised by international bodies such as the 1951 Convention, its 1961 Protocol, and the 1969 OAU convention, which appears to be a reciprocal action.

6.2. Policy Stream

United States. The goal of congress was to implement a new refugee policy that would have flexible ceilings and be chosen by both the executive and legislative branches to curb the large migrant waves that the executive branch had been allowing (Balilaj 2020). To control the number of refugees admitted to the country, congress passed the Refugee Act of 1980. The Refugee Act of 1980 sought to limit the number of refugees entering the country through three different means, which Kennedy (1981) summed up as follows: establishing a cap of 50,000 for the first three years following the Refugee Act, creating a procedure for determining the refugee admission ceilings for the years following the first three, and by taking parole authority away from the Attorney General (Balilaj 2020).

Nigeria. There was no existing refugee policy in place prior to the enactment of the National Commission for Refugees Decree No. 1 of 1989. At least, no record has been found to that effect. As a result, the decree was enacted solely to address the issues raised by international bodies regarding the influx of refugees, both globally and within Africa, following World War II.

6.3. Political Stream

United States. President Dwight D. Eisenhower signed the Refugee Relief Act of 1953 into law on this day in 1953. This legislation replaced the previous law, the Displaced Persons Act of 1948, which expired in 1952. Eisenhower’s proposal to let in more immigrants from southern Europe who had been denied entry due to the Immigration and Nationality Act of 1952’s prevailing quotas, also referred to as the McCarran–Walter Act, was addressed by legislation first known as the Emergency Migration Act. The bill was then renamed by Senator Pat McCarran (D-Nev.) (Glass 2018). At McCarran’s urging, amendments were added that required applicants to undergo an in-depth security screening, including a verifiable history of their activities for the prior two years. With the backing of the majority of Democrats and an equally divided Republican cohort, the bill passed the house by a vote of 221 to 185. McCarran was noted as opposing the bill, which the senate approved on a voice vote (Glass 2018).

Thus, the Refugee Act of 1980 did not spring from the heads of Senator Edward Kennedy and Congresswoman Elizabeth Holtzman. Rather, it was the culmination of various attempts before and during the 1970s to complete the tasks begun with the passage of the 1965 Amendments to the Immigration and Naturalization Act of 1952 (INA) (Anker and Posner 1981). However, Kennedy introduced a bill that contained the main features of the 1980 Refugee Act with the endorsement of President Carter (Sainsbury 2012), who created a systematic process for admitting refugees and formally adopted the United Nations’ definition of a refugee, moving away from the ad hoc, ideology-based approach of the Cold War era. In this bill, more refugees were to be admitted, the parole system was to be abolished, and resettlement assistance was to be increased. The law received a resoundingly positive vote in the senate, but it faced strong opposition in the house of representatives and was only narrowly passed. Ethnic minority members of congress supported the 1980 Refugee Act to a greater extent than white members. Since the act attempted to abolish the preferential treatment accorded to refugees escaping communism and extended equal rights to all political refugees, both African Americans and Hispanics voted in favor of advancing equal rights (Sainsbury 2012).

Nigeria. The National Commission for Refugees Act was signed in 1989 by General Ibrahim Babangida, Military President and Commander-in-Chief of the Armed Forces, Federal Republic of Nigeria. The bill came into effect at the 1969 OAU Convention, which was then opened for signature and accession by all member states of the convention who may rectify the decision of the convention according to their respective constitutional processes. Hence, Nigeria, among many other heads of African states and governments, signed this convention (National Commission for Refugees Decree 1989).

6.4. Policy Window and Policy Entrepreneurs

• United States

Policy window. The stage for reform was set when Jimmy Carter, a Democrat and ardent supporter of human rights, was elected president in 1977, and Senator Edward Kennedy (Democrat of Massachusetts) was named chair of the Judiciary Committee in 1979 and its subcommittee on immigration. These events laid the stage for reform. Kennedy replaced a conservative southern Democrat and supported free immigration policy. Elizabeth Holtzman, a liberal, served as the chair of the house subcommittee on immigration (Democrat, New York). Only during the 96th Congress was there a window of opportunity made possible by this political alignment (Sainsbury 2012).

Policy entrepreneurs. The senate met at 9: 30 a.m., on the expiration of the recess, and was called to order by Hon. Robert C. Byrd, a senator from the state of West Virginia (Senate 1979). Members of congress, representatives from the executive branch, such as the Attorney General and the Coordinator of Refugee Affairs, representatives from the Departments of State and Health and Human Services, governors from state and local governments, directors of various departments that deal with refugees, and nonprofit organizations that assist refugees were among the witnesses who testified at the hearings in 1979. Not every person who attended the proceedings testified. A few actors whose participation in the hearings was acknowledged were there to support other players and respond to inquiries about their expertise, should it be needed. However, no settled refugees were invited to share their testimonies regarding their lives in the country (Balilaj 2020).

Table 1. Actors Testifying in the Hearings of 1979.

Actors	Senate Hearing 1979	House of Representatives Hearing 1979
Members of Congress	5 (3R, 2D)	10 (5R, 5D)
Representatives of the Executive Branch	5	10
Representatives of State and Local Governments	9	17
Representatives of Voluntary Agencies	13	32
Others (Academics, Journalists, Counsel, Researchers)	4	6
Refugee	0	0
Total number	35	75

Source: Balilaj (2020).

below provides a visual representation of the number of actors that participated and attended the proceedings of the hearing of the Refugee Act in 1979.

• Nigeria

Policy window. As a head of state who wanted the restructuring of the Nigerian nation, General Ibrahim Babangida encouraged the signing of the National Commission for Refugees Decree of 1989 while pushing for the implementation of a well-detailed solution to the electoral process of the country. He was seen as the first head of state to approach this process effectively (Diamond et al. 1997). This step inaugurated a platform for Nigeria to welcome refugees from other African countries and beyond.

Policy entrepreneurs. The National Commission for Refugees Decree of 1989 was signed by then-military-head-of-state, General Ibrahim Babangida, President Commander-in-Chief of the Armed Forces, Federal Republic of Nigeria. The bill was witnessed by many other heads of African states and governments of countries such as Algeria, Botswana, Burundi, and many more. The administrative secretary-general of the OAU also had the responsibility to inform members of signatures, ratifications, and accession in accordance with the article among many other responsibilities in ensuring that members comply with the stipulations of the act (National Commission for Refugees Decree 1989).

7. Socioeconomic Impact of the Refugee Act on Refugee Children

7.1. United States

The Refugee Act of 1980 marked a shift in how refugee admissions were managed in the United States, aligning policy with international humanitarian standards. However, in practice, the socioeconomic experiences of refugee children show that the law’s implementation has been influenced more by political priorities than by sustained social investment. In the United States, refugee children make up a significant portion of resettled populations.

Thus, according to the UNHCR, there were about 26 million refugees worldwide from 2018 to 2020, with half being children and Syria being the largest source country (American Immigration Council 2022; Anderson 2020; Oti-Onyema 2020; Schneiderheinze and Lucke 2020; Vaghri et al. 2019). These children are often faced with many adversities prior to settlement, such as interrupted education, frequent transitioning, exposure to violence, separation from family, extended days in refugee camps, and poverty/deprivation (Dawson-Hahn et al. 2016). Any refugee inflow in the United States creates an immediate demand for schooling, and this often represents a major challenge for the national education system (Anderson 2020; Schneiderheinze and Lucke 2020). Yet, establishing universal schooling for refugee children is crucial for both the short-term and long-term effects of the refugee influx. Without schooling opportunities, refugee children may engage in informal activities to contribute to the family income. Given their low reservation wages and large numbers, they may have a strong impact on some residents’ labor market opportunities (Anderson 2020; Schneiderheinze and Lucke 2020). At worst, they might also engage in economies outside the regulated market (Schneiderheinze and Lucke 2020).

Many immigration policies undermine the rights of refugee children; however, refugee and asylum-seeking children must be treated first and foremost as children (Vaghri et al. 2019). Providing durable solutions to help rehabilitate and reintegrate these children is necessary to improve the chances of them living a better lifestyle and contributing to society in the long run. Improving the well-being of refugee children will take concerted efforts from governments, international organizations, non-governmental organizations, and local communities (Anderson 2020).

However, longitudinal studies such as those by Hooper et al. (2016) show that children of refugees from countries like Bosnia and Vietnam tend to achieve higher socioeconomic stability than their parents, suggesting that US integration systems offer eventual mobility despite initial disparities. Nevertheless, the act did not explicitly center children’s developmental or psychosocial needs. By excluding targeted children’s provisions, it left their welfare dependent on general refugee services designed for adults. This gap highlights a recurring theme in US refugee governance in which children’s interests are legally visible but politically peripheral—a pattern consistent with the politics stream of the multiple streams analysis framework.

7.2. Nigeria

Nigeria’s 1989 National Commission for Refugees Act (Decree No. 52) established a formal structure for managing refugees and aligned with the 1951 UN Convention, the 1967 Protocol, and the 1969 Organization of African Unity (OAU) Convention. However, the act, like its US counterpart, omitted specific socioeconomic protections for children. The spate of insurgencies and conflicts in Nigeria and around the sub-region led to the increased presence of refugees in the country. On the contrary, Carciotto and Orsi (2017) reported that at the end of 2015, the number of persons of concern for the UNHCR in Nigeria amounted to 2,700,000 including 1395 refugees which indicates that the number of refugees in Nigeria is very small. This small representation of refugees in the country may be because of the crisis in Nigeria, which is majorly affected by states around the borders. Thus, Nigeria remains a refugee-sending country rather than a refugee-hosting country. That is, rather than being a land where refugees could settle, more people, particularly the youth, leave Nigeria to seek refuge in another country. In 2015 alone, 68,200 Nigerians were compelled to flee abroad (Carciotto and Orsi 2017).

There is no accurate data to estimate the number of refugee children affected in Nigeria, but drawing from the statistics of the UNCHR and the prior literature, 20 million refugees worldwide are under the care of the UNCHR and half are children below 18 years; only 50% of the children are enrolled in primary education, 25% in secondary education, and 1% have access to tertiary education, and these figures include those in Nigeria (Obashoro-John and Oni 2017). One of the highest priorities of refugee children is education. Nigeria is struggling to provide basic education for her citizens; hence, the emergence of refugees and their need for education puts a double burden on the nation’s education system (Carciotto and Orsi 2017; Obashoro-John and Oni 2017).

To improve the socioeconomic circumstances of children, the subsequent actions could aid refugee children and their families: adequate training for teachers to meet the challenges of teaching in refugee communities, finding teachers in the community who could lead educational and leisure activities, assisting self-organized informal educational groups, and obtaining support from foreign organizations that can also help to develop the ability required to produce specialist teachers (Obashoro-John and Oni 2017). Other economic factors that could support refugee children in the long run, including increasing their access to healthcare, improving housing conditions, and providing basic needs and security in the refugee camps, have led to marked improvement in the quality of life and mental health of refugees (Akinyemi et al. 2014).

7.3. Cross-National Analysis

Across both countries, refugee legislation emerged from policy windows shaped by political opportunity rather than child-focused intent. The multiple streams analysis (MSA) framework helps to explain this outcome: In the problem stream, refugee flows were recognized primarily as geopolitical or security crises, not as child welfare emergencies. In the policy stream, solutions emphasized national stability and adult resettlement logistics rather than child integration strategies. In the politics stream, short-term administrative feasibility and foreign policy optics dominated, sidelining humanitarian dimensions of children’s socioeconomical needs. Consequently, while the Refugee Act of 1980 and the National Commission for Refugees Act of 1989 provided institutional structures for refugee admission, they did not establish the socioeconomic safeguards required to ensure refugee children’s educational, psychological, and developmental well-being. Both nations demonstrate that without child-centered provisions, refugee legislation—no matter how comprehensive—risks reproducing structural inequities.

8. Analyzing the Refugee Situation in the United States and Nigeria

The emergence of the Refugee Act both in the United States and Nigeria clearly shows that nations began to have a structural refugee policy framework after World War II. This is because the 1648 Treaty of Westphalia, which emerged after the aristocrats of the French Revolution and after World War I, was insufficient to tackle refugee concerns around the world. Hence, the UNHCR needed to create a permanent framework to enable nations to reflect changes that could affect the global refugee problem at that time and to accommodate international politics, thereby highlighting notions of ideology, economics, and power balances within and among nations (Barnett 2002). This framework provided nations with the groundwork on how to define a refugee. Although it is unclear as to why the United States and Nigeria chose to enact their policies around the same period, analysis shows a massive inflow of refugees in the 1980s which called for international concern.

The National Commission Act of 1989 of Nigeria, when defining a refugee, seems to provide more robust, unbiased, and explicit clarity to who is considered a refugee in a state compared to the definition provided under the Refugee Act of 1980 in the United States. The United States used the term “third country” in its definition of a refugee, but the recent full-scale invasion of Ukraine makes it unprecedented to think that a person from Ukraine who could be a refugee in the United States does not fall within the threshold of the United States definition except if a power of parole is used to accommodate such people within the humanitarian system of the United States.

The MSF provided insight on how the Refugee Act was enacted in both the United States and Nigeria, thereby providing clarity on how the voices of children were completely silenced or unheard during policy development and formulation and showing how the impact of this policy on children was ignored by policymakers. The use of this policy framework to dissect the refugee policy process was a very useful tool for observing how actors may focus on one aspect of society while ignoring another. When addressing the refugee issue, adults are mostly the focus, with little consideration for their children. Starting from the problem stream, we observed that while addressing refugee issues in both the United States and Nigeria, the situation of refugee children was not taken into account. Also, refugee children were not seen as having been impacted by the challenges that likely led them to come to these countries with their parents; therefore, an appropriate remedy was not developed to cushion the socioeconomic impact on these children. In the United States, the policy stream considered individuals, including children, as part of the ceiling when implementing a new policy for refugees; in Nigeria, this information was not available. Thus, based on the MSF framework, children were observed to have been impacted by the crises that made them flee their countries alongside their parents; however, adequate provision seems not to have been made around the socioeconomic impact of the refugee process on their well-being. When looking at the political stream, especially in the United States, at some point, refugee resettlement assistance was increased in order to expand where refugees could live upon coming to the country. However, refugee integration is beyond settlement, especially among children who are faced with the psychological effects of leaving what they are familiar with to begin a new environmental attachment process. However, from review articles in Nigeria, there is no clear process for how refugees received resettlement after they got into the country.

From a critical lens, it is evidence that the 1951 Convention and its 1961 Protocol, while addressing the global refugee problem, seem not to address the experiences, rights, and well-being of refugee children. Although child rights existed, however, the 1989 Convention on the Rights of the Child, organized under the umbrella of the United Nations, is widely acclaimed as a landmark achievement for human rights, recognizing the roles of children as social, economic, political, civil, and cultural actors. The convention guarantees and sets minimum standards for protecting the rights of children in all capacities. It addresses how the government should be more intentional about looking into matters that concern children. The fourth item on the agenda of the convention looked at the theme “making rights real.” It states that governments must do all they can to make sure that every child in their countries can enjoy all the rights in this convention (UNICEF 2022b). Thus, the United States is one of three other countries that have not rectified the 1989 Rights of the Child Convention. This means that the United States is not bound to apply the provisions of the convention. The intentions are not clearly stated, but it is assumed that the United States already has existing laws that comply with most elements of the convention (Human Rights Watch 2014). However, US laws and practices violate the convention in important ways. For instance, the US still allows the courts to sentence people who have committed crimes before the age of 18 to life in prison with no possibility of parole (Human Rights Watch 2014). In addition, exemptions in US child labor laws allow children as young as 12 to be forced to work in agriculture for long periods of time and in hazardous conditions, in violation of the convention’s prohibitions on economic exploitation of children (Human Rights Watch 2014). Although the agreement of the convention has been rectified by Nigeria, there is still a huge gap compared to the United States on how issues relating to child rights are being addressed in the country. Children in Nigeria are expose to child labor even before the age of 12, domestic slavery, child marriage, and many more adversities.

Unlike the United States Refugee Act of 1980, the National Commission for Refugees Act of 1989 in Nigeria did not spell out the welfare rights of refugees in Nigeria, nor did it provide further clarity on their settlement plans or programs made available for refugees once they entered the country. Invariably, the act seems not to have considered how refugee children would survive in their host country, nor did it make provisions to cushion the impact created through transition into a new environment.

Furthermore, Nigeria seems to report a high risk of refugee children experiencing a low socioeconomic outcome in the long run compared to the United States, since some studies in the United States reported that refugee children who recently moved to the United States are less likely to be poor than host children. However, one common challenge to this effect in both countries is inadequate access to education. This is because it represents a major challenge for the national education system, and since Nigeria still struggles to a large extent with providing an adequate educational system for host children, it poses a greater challenge to the nation than the United States which seems to be ahead in providing a good educational system for host children.

Overall, Nigeria and the United States have developed structures to legally protect refugee children on different levels. Nigeria has ratified the key human rights treaties, which include the Universal Declaration of Human Rights (UDHR) and the Convention on the Rights of the Child (CRC). The following domestic laws are applicable in this regard in Nigeria: the National Commission for Refugees Act and the Child Rights Act. These instruments provide an extensive protection regime that becomes operative whenever an individual is within Nigeria, yet many refugee children are still in dire need of protection due to the abuse, neglect, violence, exploitation, and hunger they face every day. While in the United States, resettlement plans for refugee families have been put in place to protect refugee children, more still needs to be done to ensure stability and achieve greater socioeconomic outcomes.

9. Limitations

This study faced several key limitations that restricted the scope and generalizability of its findings. First, there is limited access to research studies that document the legislative process and implementation of the National Commission for Refugees Act of 1989 in Nigeria. The absence of first-hand testimonies from actors involved in the policy’s formulation constrained the ability to fully trace the convergence of the problem, policy, and politics streams in the Nigerian case. Second, there is a lack of empirical studies and longitudinal data specifically examining the socioeconomic impact of refugee policies on children in both countries. Existing data often aggregate refugees as a single population, masking differentiated effects by age, gender, or generation. Third, the study could not access direct narratives or lived experiences of refugee children’s voices that are critical to understanding the psychosocial and developmental implications of displacement and resettlement. Fourth, given that both the United States and Nigeria operate within distinct sociopolitical and administrative systems, comparing them under the same theoretical framework required careful interpretation to avoid overgeneralization. Finally, the study did not measure intergenerational effects, that is, how refugee policy impacts might extend across generations of resettled children and their families due to the unavailability of longitudinal or demographic tracking data.

10. Recommendations and Conclusions

Overall, this analysis used the multiple streams analysis framework to unlock how refugee policies in both the United States and Nigeria have been enacted. An examination of how these policies may have created a socioeconomic impact on refugee children was presented. This was important to ensure that future policy takes into consideration the socioeconomic impact of policies on children through the following recommendations. Future refugee policy development in both the United States and Nigeria should systematically include refugee children’s perspectives, thereby co-creating policy through inclusion of refugee children’s voices. Creating child-focused consultation forums or integrating UNICEF and child advocacy agencies in policy design could ensure that children’s distinct needs are recognized during agenda setting and implementation.

There is a need to amend existing refugee acts to incorporate child welfare and protection clauses, aligning with the Convention on the Rights of the Child (1989), through developing a workable child-centered refugee framework. This would require the United States to reconsider ratifying the convention and Nigeria to strengthen its enforcement mechanisms. Both countries should prioritize refugee children’s access to quality education and psychosocial support, such as education and mental health interventions.

Using the multiple streams analysis framework (MSA), this study illuminated how refugee policies in the United States and Nigeria have been shaped by the convergence of problem recognition, policy proposals, and political dynamics. In both cases, policies emerged during brief windows of opportunity where political and international pressures aligned but without explicit attention to the needs and rights of refugee children. The analysis demonstrates that refugee children were often invisible in the policymaking process: they were included statistically as dependents but excluded substantively from policy design and protection frameworks. Consequently, their socioeconomic outcomes, education, mental health, and long-term integration remain precarious. This research contributes to the growing understanding that policy design and timing are as critical as intent. Unless children are recognized as distinct policy actors, refugee laws will continue to reproduce systemic inequities that limit their developmental potential. Moving forward, the study advocates for the deliberate inclusion of child-centered perspectives in refugee policymaking, both as a moral imperative and as a strategy for building resilient, equitable societies.