Policy Analysis and Fieldwork

International Refugee Assistance Project Climate Program

Partner: International Refugee Assistance Project (IRAP)

HUMSI provides consultation services to support IRAP's Climate program, including drafting legal and policy documents, supporting data collection on the intersection of climate with other displacement drivers, and assessing protection frameworks for climate-displaced populations.

HUMSI led research and writing efforts for IRAP's Practice Guide on U.S. Refugee Protection Claims Related to Climate Change and Environmental Disasters, which provides an overview of how U.S. asylum and refugee resettlement mechanisms may provide protection for individuals who are displaced, in whole or in part, due to environmental and climate-related factors.

HUMSI also contributed to a Legal Action Agenda published by IRAP alongside nine nonprofit organizations engaged in climate action and migrant and refugee advocacy. This agenda outlines concrete steps to support the rights and well-being of climate-displaced people in the Americas, with recommendations designed to assist climate-impacted populations who relocate across borders or are internally displaced.

Resources: Practice Guide on U.S. Refugee Protection Claims Related to Climate Change and Environmental Disasters | Legal Action Agenda for Climate Displacement

Cross-Border Mobility in the Americas

Partners: Immigrant Defenders Advocacy Center, Quixote Center, Las Americas Immigrant Advocacy Center, Witness at the Border, American Immigration Council, Red Franciscana Para Migrantes

HUMSI led research and writing for a coalition report examining conditions faced by those crossing the Darién Gap between Colombia and Panama. In March 2024, the team conducted extensive in-person interviews in Panama with migrants, asylum seekers, and humanitarian aid workers. The report documents incidents of sexual violence, criminal exploitation, and institutional challenges affecting those who crossed in recent years. The research examines how lack of access to safe and legal pathways drives movement through remote territories where individuals face environmental hazards and organized criminal activity.

Resources: Danger in the Darién Gap Report | Press Release

Environmental Impacts and Displacement

Partners: Stanford Law School, U.S. Committee for Refugees and Immigrants, International Refugee Assistance Project (IRAP), Las Americas Immigrant Advocacy Center

HUMSI created and led a research project examining the intersection of climate change with other root causes of cross-border displacement in Central America and Mexico. The research is based on in-person interviews HUMSI conducted with asylum seekers in Tijuana, Mexico shelters, and through fieldwork by IRAP with assistance from Las Americas Immigrant Advocacy Center in Ciudad Juárez, Mexico and El Paso, Texas in January 2025.

Key findings demonstrate that environmental factors contribute to both initial displacement and compound vulnerabilities along migration routes. This research contributed to a joint advocacy report and a scholarly article published in the UCLA Journal of Environmental Law and Policy. HUMSI Director Julia Neusner presented this research at the 2023 Law and Society Association annual meeting in San Juan, Puerto Rico.

Resources: Climate of Coercion: Environmental and Other Drivers of Cross-Border Displacement in Central America and Mexico (Español) | Climate-Related Displacement and U.S. Refugee Protection, UCLA Journal of Environmental Law and Policy | Press Release | Webinar | JURIST column| Dejusticia column 

Institutional Collaboration

Stanford Law School Rule of Law Program

Partners: Stanford Law School, University of Rwanda Law School

HUMSI provides research and writing support for Stanford Law School's Rule of Law Program. This includes coordinating a legal education project on the laws and legal institutions of Rwanda with University of Rwanda law school faculty and Stanford Law School students, strengthening institutional knowledge and capacity building in legal education.