Bosnian Refugees in St. Louis: International Law and Integration

Introduction and Purpose of the Study

As the epigraphs from Emma Lazarus and President Donald J. Trump make clear, one of the historic guiding tenets of the United States has been to welcome people in need from other countries — but this view has changed in substantive ways over the years. Today, immigration reform proponents advocate for a wall along the Mexican border and oppose the admission of any more Muslims, irrespective of their plights, while critics counter that the United States has a moral and legal obligation to accept refugees regardless of their countries of origin. As this debate continues to rage, tens of thousands of refugees still manage to make their way to the United States, and many have succeeded in assimilating into their new communities, learning the language and customs of their new homeland, and securing gainful employment.

The purpose of this study was to investigate the pros and cons of the settlement of Muslim Bosnian refugees in an urban community in the United States, together with a legal analysis of the international law that governs refugees, in order to demonstrate how the success of the Bosnian matriculation to St. Louis can be used as a blueprint for the refugee problem currently plaguing Europe. Throughout recorded history there have always been refugees, but the global problem has reached unprecedented levels in recent years. According to the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR), the number of refugees around the world seeking safety from violence and persecution in their home countries exceeded 65 million people by December 2015. The UNHCR also emphasized that this number represented "immense human suffering," an assertion supported by the fact that one out of every 113 people in the world today is a refugee, displaced person, or asylum seeker.

Importance of the Study

Unfortunately, despite increasingly aggressive efforts by the international community, the numbers of refugees around the world are expected to continue to increase well into the foreseeable future, due in large part to ongoing crises in hotspots such as Yemen, Syria, Colombia, Afghanistan, and Somalia. Further exacerbating the human suffering concomitant with these unprecedented numbers is that the overwhelming majority of refugees — about 86% — are hosted in emerging countries that lack the infrastructure or economic means to support them. Lebanon hosts 183 refugees for every 1,000 inhabitants, the highest ratio in the world, while Turkey hosts the highest total number of refugees — 2.5 million people.

Although Turkey currently hosts the highest total number of refugees in the world, the United States has also done its part, accepting refugees from all countries. Since the Refugee Act of 1980 was enacted by the U.S. Congress and created the Federal Refugee Resettlement Program, approximately 3 million refugees who successfully passed national screening and admission standards have been resettled in the United States, despite the suspension of refugee admissions for three months following the terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001. The current national screening and admission process is rigorous, involving an application review, face-to-face interviews with Department of Homeland Security officials, health screenings, and cultural orientations — a process that typically requires up to two years and sometimes even longer.

While the current executive branch of the U.S. government remains ambivalent about future refugee resettlement programs — most especially from Muslim nations such as Syria — it is clear that there are already millions of these refugees in the country and the United States will be compelled by international law and various agreements to which it is signatory to accept yet more refugees in the future. A recent survey by the Pew Research Center found that the United States has historically responded to global unrest by accepting refugees from war-torn countries, but the numbers tend to correspond to the intensity of conflicts and national priorities at the time. From 1990 to 1995, an average of about 112,000 refugees arrived in the U.S. each year, with many coming from the former Soviet Union. Refugee admissions dropped to fewer than 27,000 in 2002 following the terrorist attacks of 2001, but this number has since trended upward.

During the fiscal year ending in September 2016, the United States accepted 84,995 refugees — the highest number accepted in a single year during the Obama administration. An additional 31,143 refugees from conflict-ridden countries were accepted during the period from October 1, 2015, through January 24, 2016, including approximately 1,136 who had been admitted since President Donald Trump assumed office in January 2017. Prior to that time, the United States had been on track to achieve the Obama administration's objective of accepting 110,000 during fiscal year 2017, a number that would have been the highest since 1994.

There have been significant differences in the numbers of refugees accepted by country of origin, as refugee acceptance typically corresponds to the level of violence and national priorities at any given moment. During fiscal year 2016, the United States accepted 16,370 refugees from the Democratic Republic of Congo — the highest of any country that year — followed by 12,587 from Syria, 12,347 from Myanmar, 9,880 from Iraq, and 9,020 from Somalia. Since 2007, Myanmar and Iraq have accounted for the largest cumulative numbers of refugees (159,692 and 135,643, respectively).

There have also been significant differences based on religion. Notwithstanding the fallout from the September 11 attacks and ongoing political controversy about Islamic extremism, the United States accepted almost 39,000 Muslim refugees in fiscal year 2016 — the largest number to date. Muslim refugees accounted for almost half (46%) of all refugees accepted that year, compared to 44% for refugees of a Christian faith. This was the first time since 2006, when a large influx of Somali refugees entered the country, that Muslim refugee admissions exceeded those of Christians. Nevertheless, the cumulative totals from 2002 to 2016 show that more Christian refugees (399,677) were admitted than Muslim refugees (279,339), representing 46% and 32%, respectively.

In sharp contrast to the "melting pot" metaphor that characterized the United States during the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, the American public has become increasingly wary of accepting millions more refugees. The Pew Research Center reports that "the U.S. public has seldom approved of accepting large numbers of refugees. In October 2016, 54% of registered voters said the U.S. does not have a responsibility to accept refugees from Syria, while 41% said it does." Moreover, there was a sharp political division on this issue: an overwhelming majority of Republican Trump supporters (87%) reported that the United States does not have a fundamental obligation to accept more refugees, versus just over one-quarter (27%) of Democrats.

It is reasonable to posit that the American public's acceptance levels for refugees — even from Islamic countries — would be far higher if more people were aware of the significant successes experienced by the Bosnian refugee community in St. Louis. As Bhabha and Mirga emphasize, the U.S. role in Dayton or Kosovo may be well known, but far less known is the resettlement of Bosnian refugees in Missouri. Higher acceptance levels by the American public might also translate into greater numbers of refugees being admitted to the country, including those without critical skills currently targeted by federal immigration policies, underscoring the importance of studies such as this one.

Context of the Study

Today, more than 70,000 Bosnian refugees — many of them Muslim — live in St. Louis, Missouri, a city of approximately 315,000 people, making them the largest minority population in St. Louis, the largest group of Bosnians in the United States, and the largest group living outside of Europe. Although some of these refugees have expressed a desire to return to their homeland, the overwhelming majority wants to remain in the United States, where they are carving out meaningful lives for themselves and their families.

The unlikely odyssey of these Bosnian refugees to St. Louis began on May 2, 1997, when civil wars erupted in the Croat-controlled region of Drvar, located in the then-Muslim-Croat Federation of Bosnia and Herzegovina, and approximately 25 Serb homes were set ablaze. One especially troubling aspect of these Balkanized civil wars was their primary objective of "cleansing" the region ethnically, either through genocidal actions or forced resettlements. As Bobic emphasizes, "The civil wars that broke out in Croatia and Bosnia and Herzegovina were inspired by a romantic ideology of 'pure nation' (the so-called eastern model of nation building), and, therefore, ethnic cleansing was one of the means to meet that end. These circumstances explain why the flood of refugees was one of the direct political and war objectives in the 1990s in the Balkans."

Investigations showed that the attack was the responsibility of Croats attempting to prevent the original Serb inhabitants from returning to their homes. The violent events that followed resulted in the displacement of approximately 2.3 million people, including large numbers of Bosnian Muslims, many of whom were ultimately settled in St. Louis, Missouri. The successful assimilation of these tens of thousands of Bosnian refugees can serve as a model for the international community — including most especially the developing nations currently hosting the majority of the world's refugees and the European Union confronting an enormous influx of refugees today.

Research Questions

The study's guiding research questions were as follows:

1. What are the respective pros and cons of the settlement of Muslim Bosnian refugees in an urban community in the United States?

2. What are the controlling international laws that govern refugees?

3. How can the success of the Bosnian matriculation to St. Louis be used as a blueprint for the refugee problem currently plaguing Europe?

Organization of the Study

In order to develop timely and informed answers to the above-stated research questions, this study used a five-chapter format. This first chapter provided an introduction to the issues of interest, the importance and context of the study, and its guiding research questions. Chapter Two provides a systematic review of the relevant literature concerning these issues, followed by a description of the study's methodology. The penultimate chapter provides an analysis of the data collected and a discussion of the findings, followed by a summary of the research, key findings, and recommendations in the concluding chapter.

Review of the Literature: Bosnian Refugees in St. Louis

While the majority of the world's refugees currently live in resettlement camps of varying quality in rural regions of developing nations, a very small percentage manages to make their way to more promising venues in affluent nations such as the United States. The rigorous path that must be navigated to achieve this outcome should serve as proof of refugees' desperation and overarching willingness to contribute meaningfully to the societies that accept them. Simply succeeding in being accepted into an affluent nation, however, is just the first part of the refugees' odyssey to better lives. The journey taken by the tens of thousands of Bosnian refugees who have made their way to St. Louis, Missouri, is one such poignant story, but the process has been exemplary in a number of ways that make it stand out.

Today, St. Louis is the second-largest city in Missouri, situated in the east-central part of the state along the Mississippi River. Interestingly, St. Louis is an independent municipality not affiliated with any county in the state. The city's industries include automobiles, beer, steelmaking, chemicals, and food processing, as well as significant research and development facilities for space and aircraft technologies. St. Louis is also one of the most racially segregated cities in the United States, and the high-profile 2014 police shooting of Michael Brown — an unarmed Black teenager — attracted nationwide and international criticism. Given this longstanding legacy, identifying why city residents have been so receptive to large numbers of foreign refugees requires closer analysis.

The precise reasons for this successful mass resettlement of Muslim Bosnian refugees to America's heartland are multifaceted and complex. One of the main reasons for selecting St. Louis as their destination of choice was a mix of federal immigration policies and the city's status as a long-time welcoming haven for new European immigrants. According to Pascopella, "When Bosnian war refugees looked for a safe haven in the United States after fleeing their homeland in the 1990s, many of them settled in St. Louis, Missouri. Some of them eventually ended up in nearby Bayless, where they joined refugees and immigrants from other countries."

The southern communities of St. Louis in general, and Bayless in particular, have been the destination of several waves of western European refugees over the years. A number of iconic city landmarks and neighborhoods in St. Louis are named for European newcomers, despite the fact that the city remains one of the most racially segregated in the United States today. To be direct, it appears that the white citizens and civic leaders of St. Louis prefer other white people regardless of their countries of origin — even if they are Muslims — over Black American people even of the same religion. It is reasonable to posit that this is one of the reasons that many Bosnian refugees have been welcomed and readily assimilated into the community. As Oliveri reports, "The St. Louis Metropolitan area, which includes St. Louis City and St. Louis County (which itself contains ninety-one separate municipalities), is one of the most racially segregated places in the United States."

Some indication of the severe levels of segregation in St. Louis can be discerned from the dissimilarity index, a measure of the evenness of the distribution of various demographic groups across a given geographic area, with a score above 60 representing a high or extreme level of segregation. According to Oliveri, "In 2010, St. Louis's black-white index score was 70.6, the ninth highest in the country." The black-white isolation score for St. Louis in 2010 was 62, the eleventh highest in the country.

Nevertheless, it also seems reasonable to posit that the white majority in St. Louis arrived at the determination that they needed people like the Bosnians because these refugees could make meaningful contributions to the municipality in ways that city leaders apparently felt others could not. This assertion is supported by the city's welcoming of the most recent wave of refugees from Bosnia. As Oliveri notes, "Starting in the mid-1990s, after the breakup of the former Yugoslavia and the horrific war that accompanied it, Bosnians began to move to St. Louis in such large numbers that there are now more Bosnians per capita in St. Louis than anywhere else outside Bosnia. Formerly German neighborhoods are now home to Bosnian-owned cafes and restaurants."

The assimilation of tens of thousands of Bosnian refugees into the city's neighborhoods has been facilitated by the growing realization on the part of the mainstream population that their city's future was in danger and they needed the trained and skilled human resources that Bosnians represented. As Gilsinan emphasizes, "Nearly smack in the middle of the country, marked by decades of population decline, and hard-hit by the nationwide slump in manufacturing, the St. Louis metro area is not a natural destination for immigrants." Other indications of the welcoming atmosphere include the fact that while the city ranks among the lowest in the country in terms of foreign-born population, the Bosnian population alone accounts for nearly one-quarter (22.3%) of the city's total population. As Gilsinan points out, "[St. Louis] ranks among the highest metropolitan areas in terms of percentage of refugees, in part because of its Bosnian population, and it has been resettling an increasing proportion of refugees admitted to the U.S. since 2000."

What type of celestial lottery accounts for the small percentage of lucky refugees who avoid resettlement in rural camps in developing nations? It turns out that ending up in a city such as St. Louis is akin to actually winning a lottery, since these outcomes are rare compared to the fate of the tens of millions of other displaced persons seeking refuge around the world today. The answer is a complex mixture of several factors, all of which are directly related to the extent to which refugees are perceived as being able to contribute to their new host communities due to sorely needed skills and educational credentials, as well as ever-changing federal immigration quotas and international law. As Gilsinan explains, "Which refugees end up in the United States, and what accounts for their concentrations in different U.S. cities? Why is St. Louis, Missouri, a kind of North American capital of Bosnia, while Akron, Ohio is booming with Burmese, and the Minneapolis-St. Paul area is home to large numbers of Hmong? The answer is a complicated mix of international politics, federal policy, and local contingency."

The president and CEO of the International Institute — one of several community-based agencies in St. Louis that provides refugee resettlement assistance — noted that the State Department partners with her agency and similarly situated organizations to facilitate local placement of refugees, including those from Bosnia. Some of the main features that make St. Louis attractive include a "welcoming attitude" towards foreigners and an acute manpower shortage. As Gilsinan adds, "What makes certain cities attractive to the State Department as destinations for refugee resettlement are not necessarily features of traditional immigrant gateways, such as New York or San Francisco, where housing is scarce and living costs are high. Instead, placement is based on available housing, entry-level jobs, availability of adjustment services, and 'welcoming attitude of the community.'"

Beyond these attributes, St. Louis possesses other qualities that make it a destination of choice for refugees, including the availability of community-based social services. Local agencies have different capabilities and access to different levels of public and private resources — one might have a program for female-headed Afghan households, while another might have staff members who speak the Hmong language. St. Louis's International Institute is likely the largest resettlement agency in the Midwest.

As a result, St. Louis has gained a reputation for being a welcoming community for refugees, which has further fueled the process. As Gilsinan explains, refugees might learn from relatives or community leaders of lower rents or better employment opportunities in another city and move to join them, a process known as secondary migration. The causes of secondary migration stem from a variety of factors, foremost among which are the search for stable employment and reunion with relatives — virtually universal human needs applicable to everyone. Cities that make the effort to facilitate these needs are clearly at a competitive advantage for attracting refugees who possess sorely needed talents and skills.

Moreover, word quickly gets out to relatives remaining in conflict-ridden countries from refugees who have succeeded in locating a welcoming community. As Gilsinan points out, "The rumor mill works very well in the refugee community. They are not required to stay [where they first resettle] and so they rearrange themselves." For instance, North Carolina's Piedmont Triad is home to a large number of Cambodian and Laotian Buddhists who relocated within the U.S. because of the reputation of a particular Buddhist temple in Greensboro.

It is important to note, though, that while current initiatives in St. Louis aim to attract talented human resources to fill critical jobs, these efforts are not new. St. Louis has welcomed refugees for nearly a century. The International Institute there was founded in 1919 to help waves of European emigrants adjust to life in the United States after World War I. The International Institute's mission is to help immigrants and their families become productive Americans and to champion ethnic diversity as a cultural and economic strength, providing essential community integration services to more than 7,500 immigrants and refugees from 80 countries each year, ranging from low-skilled to highly educated.

The city became an even stronger magnet for refugees following the passage of the 1980 Refugee Act, when the federal government assumed primary responsibility for the resettlement of refugees in response to the enormous wave from Vietnam and surrounding countries following the end of the Vietnam War. St. Louis then experienced yet another wave of refugees during the 1990s following the dissolution of the former Yugoslavia into the separate countries of Bosnia and Herzegovina, Serbia, Croatia, and Macedonia.

Following the breakup of Yugoslavia, large numbers of refugees from Bosnia flocked to St. Louis due to the same factors that drive secondary migration — the search for stable employment and reunion with relatives — in addition to the efforts of community activists and organizations such as the International Institute. Support was also received from local universities, which created scholarship programs for Bosnian refugee students. According to Gilsinan, "That one scholarship inspired similar ones at other St. Louis universities and, perhaps more importantly, had symbolic value as a 'welcoming gesture' that contributed to St. Louis's attraction as a destination for secondary migration."

An especially poignant point concerns the outreaching qualities of these efforts, due in large part to the widespread perception that Muslim Bosnian refugees were the victims of Christian persecution to the point of mass murder. As Gilsinan notes, "The main dynamic in the war [in Bosnia] was people proclaiming themselves to be Christians who were committing genocide against Muslims, so the idea of a Catholic school welcoming Bosnian Muslims was particularly powerful." One Bosnian student who arrived lived in a convent with nuns.

Despite the high-profile publicity that a handful of religiously inspired incidents attracted — particularly during the last presidential campaign — the Muslim Bosnian refugee community in St. Louis has, by and large, fully assimilated into American culture and society. Beyond a few isolated incidents, the most significant negative issue that residents of St. Louis have had to address concerning their Bosnian neighbors relates to the younger generation's driving practices. As Gilsinan adds, "Bosnians have faced relatively few of the problems common to other immigrant groups, despite some complaints about Bosnian youths' driving habits. It makes a difference that Bosnian refugees were European and tended to be well-educated; in short, that they blended in."

Although the Bosnian refugees were primarily responsible for effecting changes in their lifestyles, values, and behaviors to align with prevailing American society, it is also clear that while St. Louis changed them, they in turn changed the city — a mutually reciprocal process. One activist who has helped Bosnian refugees carve out new lives in St. Louis concluded that, "Our identity collectively now incorporates the experiences of these people. So we're a different city because they're here, but they are also different because they're here."

The harsh realities of the demographic composition of St. Louis and the city's longstanding residential segregation suggest that the 70,000-plus Bosnians who found their way to the city enjoyed a warmer welcome simply because they are white — irrespective of their religious views. Indeed, even the Muslim Bosnians who have successfully assimilated into the local community concede this advantage. As one community member observed, "I think it helps that we are white. We look like we fit in until you notice the accent."

It is also reasonable to suggest that the people of St. Louis were welcoming to the Bosnian refugees due in part to the nature of the conflict from which they were fleeing and the culpability of people from the city residents' own religions in perpetuating these genocidal crimes against humanity. This is not to say that the people of St. Louis were simply trying to assuage collective guilt by accepting tens of thousands of Bosnian refugees, but it is to say that the mainstream media played a significant role by raising awareness of these events in Eastern Europe in ways not experienced in the past.

Data Analysis and Discussion: Law, Policy, and Local Contingency

International Law and Politics

The odyssey that found tens of thousands of Bosnian refugees resettled in St. Louis began in March 1992 following the formal proclamation of independence from the former Yugoslavia by Bosnia and Herzegovina. In response, Bosnian Serbs — with the support of neighboring Serbia and Montenegro — launched an armed resistance in an effort to divide the country along ethnic lines. The Bosnian and Croatian factions entered into an agreement in March 1994 that created the Federation of Bosnia and Herzegovina. Subsequently, the remaining warring factions entered into a peace agreement in December 1995 known as the Dayton Peace Accords (finalized in Paris a month later). One of the main provisions of the Dayton Peace Accords was to ensure the integrity of the international boundaries for the newly formed Federation of Bosnia and Herzegovina, while other provisions addressed the new government's foreign, fiscal, and diplomatic policies.

The main perpetrator of the ethnic-fueled genocide that occurred in the Bosnian refugees' homeland, Radovan Karadžić, was charged and sentenced to 40 years in prison by a United Nations tribunal in March 2016. The former leader had been accused of instigating or leading the massacre that claimed the lives of approximately 8,000 Muslim Bosnians at Srebrenica, as well as other war crimes and crimes against humanity. According to the United Nations human rights chief Zeid Ra'ad al-Hussein, "The trial was the most important in the 23-year history of the United Nations International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia, and a defining test for the entire system of international justice."

Estimates of the actual numbers of people displaced by the civil war in Bosnia run as high as 518,000. Many of these Bosnian refugees elected to return to their homeland. Between the December 1995 signing of the Dayton Agreement and the end of 2000, about 369,000 refugees returned to Bosnia, almost half from Germany. The overwhelming majority of returnees (340,000) returned to the Federation, while only about 29,000 returned to Republika Srpska.

In early 1992, when the conflict in Bosnia became even more violent, the numbers of refugees exploded and there were growing concerns over blatant violations of fundamental human rights under international humanitarian law. These events raised the question of whether Bosnian refugees had a basic right to return to their homeland or enjoyed a "right to stay" where they had been initially resettled. According to Rosand, this issue represented one of the major factors in negotiations over which countries would accept the flood of refugees from Bosnia. One of the lead negotiators for the Bosnian people "became increasingly vocal in her demands that the international community guarantee refugees the right to return and the right to stay." The hundreds of thousands of displaced Muslim Serbians that resulted from this genocide were resettled as a direct result of federal policies concerning individuals in need.

Federal Policies

Although the federal government has primary responsibility for establishing and enforcing the majority of the country's immigration policies, the several states also play an important supportive role, and the U.S. executive exercises significant authority concerning immigration policy. The following summarizes U.S. federal government policies and current trends concerning the acceptance of refugees:

The definition of a refugee is any person who is unable or unwilling to avail themselves of the protection of their country of nationality or habitual residence because of persecution or a well-founded fear of persecution on account of race, religion, nationality, membership in a particular social group, or political opinion. Refugees are subject to the same employment, property, sales, and other taxes as any U.S. citizen, but they cannot vote. Refugees are not provided any special treatment when obtaining employment and must apply and compete for jobs the same as any citizen.

Refugees often enter economic sectors currently unable to supply adequate numbers of native workers, but refugees and immigrants also create jobs for U.S. workers because they have a high propensity to start new businesses. Refugees have been a major force in contributing to the urban renewal of several major U.S. cities. The U.S. government does not provide refugees with money when they arrive; however, there are minimal benefits available for emergency situations and the medically needy, and the refugee must apply for these benefits and meet income and resource standards to qualify for any assistance.

There are 24 countries worldwide involved in refugee resettlement. Major resettlement countries include Australia, Canada, China, France, Germany, the United Kingdom, and the United States. Refugees contribute a great deal to their host countries through the sharing of their talents, skills, cultures, and customs. History indicates that some of the most significant contributors to the United States have been refugees and immigrants, who also pay taxes.

There are refugees who have health problems resulting from a lack of medical care in their countries of origin or from problems encountered during their flight from persecution. Most health problems are addressed by healthcare services in first-asylum camps and refugee processing centers before refugees are admitted to the United States. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) closely monitors all admissions and prevents the admission of certain persons with health conditions identified as hazardous to the public.

To date, the United States has signed a number of conventions promulgated by the Council of Europe, such as the Criminal Law Convention on Corruption, and participates as a member or observer in several bodies subordinate to the council. Most significantly, the United States joined the European Commission for Democracy through Law — commonly known as the Venice Commission — in April 2013. As a full member, the U.S. delegate was able to participate in a review of the response to the landmark Sejdić-Finci European Court of Human Rights case, in which the court determined that Bosnia and Herzegovina must remove ethnic limitations on parliamentary and presidential candidacies from its post-civil war constitution.

Local Contingency

While it is reasonable to suggest that the global refugee problem could be significantly alleviated if all cities in the United States with populations comparable to St. Louis were to accept 70,000 refugees, the vast majority of individuals in need continue to be placed in rural resettlement camps, most located in developing countries that can ill afford to house and care for them. As Jacobsen emphasizes, "A key problem in developing countries is that many host countries do not have specific laws pertaining to refugees, nor a clearly articulated refugee policy. When there is such a policy it is often unevenly or irregularly implemented, and some host countries, like Kenya, leave all refugee matters to UNHCR."

In sharp contrast to the welcoming atmosphere evident in cities such as St. Louis, refugees consigned to rural resettlement camps in developing nations are at a dual disadvantage by virtue of their inability to earn a living. As Jacobsen adds, "In most countries, there are regulations on refugees' economic activities, usually restricting them to designated zones, or to areas within a designated distance of the camps. When these zones are in isolated areas, refugees have difficulty establishing livelihoods, particularly because of the resources they need to travel to markets to trade their goods."

In contrast to refugees resettled in rural camps in developing nations, the public and private sector leaders in cities such as St. Louis recognize that attracting refugees is in their own economic best interests. As Jacobsen points out, "Refugees' ability to pursue livelihoods depends on who benefits and who loses from their presence, and on whether the interests of the most powerful actors are being sufficiently served, or at least not subverted. There are multiple actors, or stakeholders, in a host area — including wealthy farmers and businessmen, poor peasants, and local authorities — each with varying interests in refugees and different degrees of power to block or enable refugees' economic activities."

In sum, the 65 million refugees searching for better lives around the world today could be resettled in cities such as St. Louis if the wherewithal and motivation to do so were evident, but far too many communities across the country are responding to calls to keep America safe for Americans. Although the U.S. federal government establishes the numeric annual quotas for the numbers of refugees admitted to the country (currently about 70,000 per fiscal year), the practical work of resettlement is typically handled by local community-based agencies. The variance in the forms of service that these agencies provide, as well as their respective amounts of available resources, largely dictate where refugees are resettled. As Gilsinan explains, it is this local-level variance that accounts for "St. Louis's relative ease attracting refugees compared to its more general difficulty drawing in immigrants."

The alarming population declines experienced by St. Louis have created a corresponding enormous need for the 70,000-plus Bosnians who have settled in the area, which makes their acceptance by the city's white population and their assimilation into American society more readily understandable. As Gilsinan points out, "In a city that otherwise continues to leak population, refugees have a noticeable impact. If the recently settled Bosnian community did not exist in South St. Louis, it would be necessary to invent it. The city needs warm bodies." A recent survey of 41 contractors in St. Louis showed that nearly three-quarters (71%) were "struggling to find enough skilled workers for job sites." In truth, though, the city has plenty of available workers, but apparently of the wrong pigmentation to satisfy white public and private sector leaders. Nearly half of the population (49.2%) is Black, compared to just 43.9% white, with Asians, Hispanics, and other races accounting for relatively small percentages by comparison.

Besides its racial strife, with nearly a quarter of its population comprised of Muslim Bosnian refugees, it is little wonder that there have been numerous reports of religiously inspired hate crimes in the St. Louis area in recent years — especially during and immediately following the most recent presidential election. Nevertheless, as the excerpts presented in Table 1 below make clear, St. Louis remains divided concerning the desirability of having large numbers of refugees in its population, despite the city's glaring need for talented human resources.

Table 1: Summary of Recent Negative Journal and Newspaper Articles Concerning Racial and Religious Relations in St. Louis

Currier (2015) — Religious: The last of four teenagers who police say attacked and killed a Bosnian immigrant with hammers was charged as an adult in the crime. Police said the victim was heading home when several juveniles approached, began damaging his car, and struck him repeatedly with hammers. He died at St. Louis University Hospital.

Reese (2012) — Racial: "Though a major center of social welfare progressivism, St. Louis was also known for its residential segregation. St. Louis's small interracial reform community ... provided a welcoming environment for key organizations from which Black organizers worked to highlight the intersection between democracy, citizenship, and racial equity."

Chastain (2016) — Religious: A local resident directed at refugees from Afghanistan and Iraq: "Damn you, Muslims! You should die! ... We have to clean this country from people like you." In response, some Muslims have been working to reach out to their local communities to create awareness and demonstrate that they are loyal, peace-loving Americans. "We came here because we wanted to provide to our kids a safe country. A country we have faith in. And that's all. That's all we aim for."

Bernthal (2016) — Religious: The Missouri chapter of the Council on American-Islamic Relations believes police should be doing more to investigate allegations of attacks on two Muslim families in a south St. Louis neighborhood. One Arab family of Muslim faith repeatedly faced ethnic and racial slurs from a neighbor, and a fire was set at the house of another Muslim family the day after they purchased their home.

Killeen (2016) — Religious: Members of the St. Louis Chapter of the Council on American-Islamic Relations say there is a rising pattern of harassment and attacks against Muslims. Under Missouri state law there is no standalone "hate crime charge," but sentences can be enhanced if a crime is shown to have been motivated by the victim's religion or race.

Byers (2014) — Religious/Racial: A Bosnian immigrant was charged with making a false police report after claiming three Black teenagers threatened to kill her. Surveillance video showed the account was fabricated. The incident heightened tensions among St. Louis Bosnians, already rocked by the hammer killing of a Bosnian immigrant five days earlier.

Winston & Markoe (2017) — Religious: After vandals damaged headstones in a centuries-old Missouri Jewish cemetery, Muslim activists raised more than $150,000 to fund repairs. On March 3, 2017, the FBI announced the arrest of a man in St. Louis on charges of stalking a woman and making bomb threats to Jewish community centers.

Hoye (2017) — Racial/Religious: Missouri reported 88 hate crimes in 2016, down from 100 in 2015. Jews and Muslims were most likely to be targeted, and more than half of all reports were motivated by race or ethnicity.

Sanchez (2017) — Racial: In 2017, the NAACP issued a travel advisory warning people of color that their civil rights could be violated in the state of Missouri — the first such advisory in the civil rights organization's 108-year history. "Race, gender and color based crimes have a long history in Missouri," the advisory states.

Londberg (2018) — Religious: A Missouri man who threatened to "behead," "light on fire," "bomb," and "slaughter" Muslims at a mosque pleaded guilty to hate crimes. Preston Q. Howard of Wright City, Missouri, faced up to 20 years in prison with a sentencing enhancement because he chose his victims based on their religion.

Zurcher (2016) — Religious: Two decades ago, Muslim refugees fleeing Bosnia arrived in St. Louis and became a crucial part of the city. A Muslim woman waiting for a bus was set upon by five men who shouted anti-Islamic slurs and tried to tear off her hijab. A professor at a local university says she has been involved in conversations where she was shocked to hear casual anti-Islamic views from people who didn't know they were speaking about her own faith. Despite their background as refugees and Muslims — two characteristics that have become hot-button issues in U.S. politics — Bosnian immigrants are "invisible" because they are European, dress in Western clothes, and don't stand out in a crowd.

Despite the relatively isolated incidents that have marred an otherwise peaceful resettlement of 70,000-plus Bosnian refugees in St. Louis, there are corresponding positive efforts underway specifically intended to encourage the community's acceptance of these individuals, as summarized in Table 2 below.

Table 2: Summary of Recent Positive Journal and Newspaper Articles Concerning Racial and Religious Relations in St. Louis

Banks (2015) — Racial: Christ Church Cathedral in St. Louis started a fund-raising campaign to rebuild recently burned African American churches that were victims of arson, with an initial goal of $25,000. Surpassing that, the cathedral multiplied the goal tenfold, raising more than $191,460 as more than 150 Christian, Jewish, Muslim, and other congregations pledged special collections.

"About Us" (2018) — Religious: The International Institute in St. Louis works to build connections between foreign-born and long-time residents and produces the Festival of Nations, the region's most popular multicultural celebration. The annual festival features over 40 ethnic food booths, non-stop dance and music, arts and crafts, and an international bazaar. More than 140,000 visitors gather in Tower Grove Park for two days of free ethnic music, dance, and diverse food.

Moore (2015) — Religious: The city of St. Louis agreed to accept hundreds of Syrian refugees in response to the humanitarian crisis in that country. St. Louis Bosnians Inc., a nonprofit formed in 2011, reached out to Syrians — offering food and furniture and working with local mosques to help make St. Louis feel like home. "We're replaying what was happening to Bosnians early on, as people welcomed us," said Akif Cogo, a leader of the nonprofit.

Lisenby (2017) — Religious: City Council members discussed creating a database of hate crime offenders. The council approved a resolution that would name the city a "welcoming city" to immigrants. Missouri bars municipalities from becoming so-called sanctuary cities, but St. Louis moved forward with its welcoming designation.

Larsen (2014) — Religious: "During the Balkan Wars of the 1990s, a large number of Bosnian refugees sought resettlement in the U.S. After several successful university scholarships were established for Bosnians in the St. Louis area, news about the city's welcoming attitude toward refugees quickly spread through Bosnian familial networks. The initial 7,000 refugees sponsored by the International Institute of St. Louis has now become a flourishing Bosnian community estimated at 70,000 people."

Csapo-Sweet (2009) — Religious: For several years, the weekly Bosnian-language newspaper SabaH (meaning "sunrise" in Bosnian) has struggled to keep publishing, thanks to its founder and a network of writers, advertisers, and readers around the world. It calls itself a version of The New York Times for the Bosnian community. St. Louis has had Bosnian-Americans for more than 100 years, but today has more than in any other U.S. city. A recent issue recalled the 1995 massacre in Srebrenica, where approximately 8,000 Bosnians perished when the United Nations failed to protect them from Serbian forces. About 250,000 Bosnians died during the war.

Pascopella (2008) — Religious: In 2006, Bayless Junior High was one of four Missouri schools selected to participate in Missouri's Sheltered Instruction Observation Protocol (SIOP) initiative. SIOP helps educators teach academic content to English language learners while promoting their English language development. The Bayless School District has expanded the SIOP model to all teachers at the junior high and high school levels through a competitive federal Math and Science Partnership grant.

Moore (2013): Twenty years after St. Louis became the center of one of the largest refugee relocation efforts in the nation's history, Bosnian refugees have remade the Bevo Mill neighborhood into a thriving business district, with restaurants, bars, markets, and a newspaper. Bosnians who now number more than 70,000 in the region have established strong bonds within their community while adapting to U.S. customs, language, and culture. Like immigrant groups before them, St. Louis Bosnians have followed their aspirations to the suburbs, seeking better schools, safer neighborhoods, and houses on expansive lots.

Bower (1994): Sixth-graders at Crestview Middle School in St. Louis began a study of the war in Bosnia and the devastation to cities such as Sarajevo. Teachers invited a guest speaker, Safeta Ovcimas, a nurse who had fled Bosnia with her daughter. Ovcimas told of beatings, rapes, and killings. The students were deeply touched, met after school, read the autobiography of a young Bosnian girl caught in the middle of civil war, wrote President Bill Clinton, collected $600 for Bosnian refugees living in St. Louis, and distributed enough clothing, furniture, and food to fill a 22-foot moving van.

Groth (1999) — Religious: The State Department has designated St. Louis as a site for Bosnian refugees who have no relatives elsewhere in America. The International Institute of St. Louis helps find apartments, registers children in school, helps with household orientation, applies for food stamps and welfare, and helps refugees find jobs.

McCarthy (2017) — Religious: "When Bosnian refugees arrived in St. Louis in the 1990s, their positive effect on neighborhoods was quickly apparent: neglected areas stabilized, new businesses opened and vitality returned to South City blocks." The vast majority of these refugees were Muslim. Today, St. Louis is home to the largest such population outside of Bosnia-Herzegovina, who now worship at one of three mosques they developed. "Rather than detract from the safety and stability of our community, these thousands of new Americans have enhanced and improved the civic life of St. Louis. Muslim Bosnian-Americans are now our valued neighbors and co-workers."

Eby (2013) — Religious: Recipes aren't common in Bosnian culture; cooking skills are passed from mother to daughter in hands-on experiences. For Bosnian refugees in St. Louis, specialty foods remain one of the few tangible connections to their lives before the war. A group of 11 Bosnian women created a Bosnian cookbook, written in Bosnian and in English, with the assistance of students and faculty at a local university. In quiet moments during the cooking sessions, the women spoke of their wartime experiences — fleeing into the woods to give birth, escaping to Germany with seven children, delivering babies in railroad cars.

Jost (2017): Mobilized by social media, an Emergency St. Louis Rally for Immigrants and Refugees combined storytelling and camaraderie to register concerns about the direction the nation has taken on issues involving immigration since Trump took office. Children held signs reading, "I am lucky to live in America. I march for those who are not as lucky." Two immigration attorneys addressed the crowd, providing information for non-residents on their rights should they encounter Immigration and Customs Enforcement personnel.

Flannery (1999) — Religious: Bosnian and Croatian immigrants in St. Louis are finding jobs and fitting into the American economy, partly because some St. Louis businesses have gone out of their way to help the newcomers adapt. One bank vice president noted that his institution had issued some 300 car loans to Bosnian immigrants without a single missed payment. "They are very industrious. ... They understand dollars and cents real well. They are very tight with their money. They are very aggressive on their payments."

Bailon (2013): The vibrant Bosnian community in the Bevo Mill neighborhood has established strong bonds within its community while also adapting to U.S. customs, language, and culture. Unlike many previous waves of immigration, the Bosnian refugees arrived in a concentrated time frame, fleeing brutality and atrocities that included thousands killed from 1992 to 1995. The psychological trauma of human carnage, familial loss, and physical displacement remains today as older generations straddle two worlds, while younger Bosnians have adopted English and American lifestyles — rooting for local sports teams like the Blues and Cardinals rather than their national sport of soccer.

Brown (1999) — Religious: The Bosnian ambassador to the United States, Dr. Nedzib Sacirbey, urged Bosnian refugees at a gathering in St. Louis to keep Bosnia in their hearts but to learn to adjust to America and the American way of life. "Adjustment will be more comfortable than worrying about when refugees will be allowed to go home," he said. "The presence of the Bosnian people in America is important because they will be a reminder of what went on in their country."

McDermott (2014): "[St. Louis] has been called Bosnia's second capital. America has given us a home, and we love it. It's amazing how welcoming the city of St. Louis has been ... the way St. Louis has opened its arms. Just like with the Italians on The Hill. We're the next generation of the Italians."

Conclusion and Recommendations

As noted in the introductory chapter, the purpose of this study was to investigate the pros and cons of the settlement of Muslim Bosnian refugees in an urban community in the United States such as St. Louis, as well as a legal analysis of the international law that governs refugees, in order to demonstrate how the success of the Bosnian matriculation to St. Louis can be used as a blueprint for the refugee problem currently plaguing Europe. As the excerpts in Table 1 make clear, the city of St. Louis faces difficult challenges in balancing its need for skilled human resources with its longstanding legacy of racial segregation and tension, combined with the views of many of its white residents concerning the desirability of welcoming large numbers of Muslim refugees from Islamic countries.

Indeed, many Americans — including the residents of St. Louis — are scared of the unknown and of what little is known about their Muslim neighbors. For many, the threat of terrorism looms above all else. The research also showed, however, that with 65 million refugees worldwide, there is plenty of misery to go around — but the suffering could be alleviated in major ways if more cities the size of St. Louis or larger, especially those suffering from human resource shortages, made the effort required to make their communities more accommodating to refugees.

As also indicated in the excerpts presented in Table 2, the successful integration of 70,000-plus Bosnians into the St. Louis community has not been an accident. It is rather the result of concerted efforts by organizations such as the International Institute and other community-based agencies committed to actually helping foreigners who have been the victims of unrelenting violence in their homelands. As the excerpts in Table 1 also show, this mentality is not limited to Muslims and extends to the Jewish community in St. Louis as well. In sum, the future of St. Louis appears to depend in large part on how well and how quickly public and private sector leaders are able to resolve these conflicting issues by promoting diversity in its workforce through public awareness educational campaigns that highlight the contributions Bosnian refugees have already made to the city's economic development and how they can help in the future.

Based on the best practices and lessons learned from the experiences of the Muslim Bosnians resettled in the St. Louis area, the following recommendations are provided:

• Implement public awareness campaigns concerning the economic development benefits that accrue to cities that accept refugees.

• Sponsor city-wide cultural celebration festivals similar to St. Louis's Festival of Nations.

• Provide community-based agencies that can facilitate the assimilation of refugees into American society.

• Help refugee organizations reach out to their American host communities to dispel myths about their religions and intentions in the United States.

• Develop databases of religious and racial hate crime offenders in order to prevent future recurrences to the maximum extent possible.

• Provide specialized educational programs for English language learners in local schools to promote assimilation.

• Implement coursework in public schools concerning the global plight of tens of millions of refugees and identify opportunities for young people to help.

• Implement a speakers program featuring representatives from refugee communities to explain why they wanted to come to the United States and how they are making a meaningful contribution to improving their respective communities.