“Every Crisis is a Time for opportunity”: Immigrant-Refugee Leadership Perspectives in the COVID-19 Era

ABSTRACT

The coronavirus pandemic has disproportionately affected immigrant and refugee communities, along with community-based ethnic organizations (CBEOs) serving these communities. Our study explored the impact of COVID-19 on immigrant and refugee communities and the CBEOs serving them by conducting in-depth interviews with CBEO leaders (N = 7). Six salient themes emerged: heightened organizational strain; COVID-19’s exacerbation of social issues; loss of community wealth; barriers to COVID-19 information; immigration policies, vulnerability, and structural barriers; and a path to better opportunities.

KEYWORDS:

• Community-based ethnic organization (CBEO)
• COVID-19
• immigrant and refugee organizations
• digital capital
• community capital

The novel coronavirus disease COVID-19 has changed life as we know it. In the United States, COVID-19 has exposed systemic injustices whereby ethnic minoritized communities, including immigrants and refugees, are disproportionately at risk of contracting COVID-19 and experiencing its negative consequences (Alcendor, 2020). These communities also bear the brunt of historical racial, economic, and political inequities, largely through discrimination, gaps in human services, precarious employment, poor health outcomes, or lack of access to digital technology (Bernstein et al., 2020). COVID-19 has exacerbated these barriers among immigrant/refugee communities, with a disproportionate effect on their ability to navigate health and human service resources.

Social workers play a crucial role in the provision and delivery of human services to vulnerable groups, mostly through human service organizations (HSOs), particularly in the nonprofit sector (Maleku et al., 2020). Recently, this sector has seen rising demand for services related to job loss, benefit applications, health services, and so forth, as more people turn to HSOs for daily survival and support. As resources become scarcer and nonprofits – where many social workers are employed – get stretched too thin to serve their communities (Akingbola, 2020), minoritized communities face increased risk of multiple vulnerabilities and often fall through societal cracks. These vulnerabilities threaten the social justice goals of the social work profession (Okafor et al., 2021).

In the context of COVID-19, the International Federation of Social Workers states that social workers have an inherent responsibility for health advocacy, reducing inequalities, and mitigating social and economic challenges. Social workers must play a key role in the mobilization of communities and organizations (International Federation of Social Workers, 2020). Within this human services landscape sits a unique group of grassroots community-based ethnic organizations (CBEOs), also known as refugee community organizations or community-based organizations (Griffiths et al., 2005), which often are organized directly by immigrant/refugee communities. For the purpose of this article, we use the broad term CBEO to encompass a wide range of immigrant/refugee-led organizations that provide culturally and linguistically responsive services to their communities.

Historically, CBEOs have played a crucial role in mitigating service gaps, promoting integration in new spaces, strengthening ethnic ties, and building social capital among immigrant/refugee communities (Orozco & Garcia-Zanello, 2009). Despite their cultural expertise and broader reach in these communities, however, CBEOs often are isolated from mainstream HSOs (Maleku et al., 2020). CBEOs are also underrepresented in HSO research. Thus, the understanding of their impact on immigrant/refugee communities and broader human services remains fragmented (Gleeson & Bloemraad, 2013). Additionally, despite unique leadership experiences and perspectives of CBEO leaders, research on HSOs and leadership rarely includes these diverse voices (Chin, 2013; Chin et al., 2016). As a result, the minoritization of immigrant and refugee experiences also may go unnoticed among immigrant/refugee CBEO leaders (Maleku et al., 2020).

These gaps in the literature call for the intentional inclusion of CBEOs and immigrant/refugee leadership. As social workers play a vital role in supporting HSOs, increasing the legitimacy of CBEOs in the human service sector, and thus promoting their ability to provide culturally responsive services to immigrant/refugee populations (Lacroix et al., 2015), should be a continual goal for social workers seeking to create equitable human services (Maleku et al., 2020). Social workers also have an ethical responsibility to advance leadership opportunities for systematically oppressed and underrepresented groups (Haidar, 2017). As the COVID-19 pandemic continues to affect vulnerable immigrant/refugee groups, partnerships between social workers and CBEOs may mitigate service gaps and promote equitable human services.

To that end, we examine the perspectives of immigrants and refugees serving in leadership positions at CBEOs in a local context to explore the impact of COVID-19 on CBEOs and on the mechanisms of service provision and delivery during the pandemic. Understanding these dynamics through immigrant/refugee leaders’ lens can inform targeted grassroots solutions, empower CBEOs, and provide opportunities for CBEO and social work partnerships in the promotion of equitable human services.

Impacts of COVID-19 on immigrant and refugee communities

While a full review of the US Refugee Resettlement Program is outside the scope of this article (see Brown & Scribner, 2014), the limited support refugees receive upon arrival in the United States and the expectations of self-sufficiency create long-term implications for this population. Immigrants and refugees in the United States are vulnerable due to their immigration status, which often intersects with other socioeconomic parameters, including income, education, and access to resources. These existing social and structural barriers have been further exacerbated by COVID-19, since foreign-born populations have lower levels of testing yet higher test positivity rates (Strully et al., 2021). Immigrants and refugees are also more likely to work in essential jobs, where they must continue to work in person and in close contact with others (Clark et al., 2020), and are at increased risk of experiencing food insecurity (Smith & Wesselbaum, 2020), mental health concerns (Qiu et al., 2020), and gaps in access to digital technology (McMullin, 2020). The political rhetoric during the COVID-19 pandemic, especially during the Trump administration, has further marginalized many immigrant/refugee communities (Ruiz et al., 2020). In the wake of these inequities, CBEOs have played increasingly vital roles in mitigating crucial service gaps.

Human services and CBEOs

HSOs – community agencies that work to improve the communities they serve and to preserve the social values needed for successful societal function (Bunger & Lengnick-Hall, 2019; Sarri, 1971) – are crucial catalysts for social workers’ service provision and delivery. Yet the COVID-driven recession is already causing federal budget cuts, loss of grant funding, and decreases in charitable assets (Kulish, 2020). Smaller organizations such as CBEOs are less likely to receive funding through the Coronavirus Aid, Relief, and Economic Security (CARES) Act – an economic relief package passed by the US government to provide support to businesses affected by COVID-19—putting them at increased risk of closure.

CBEOs fill important service gaps that formal HSOs may not be culturally equipped to handle (Griffiths et al., 2005). They help retain the culture and language of refugee clientele, provide services in a culturally sensitive way, and can be powerful liaisons in mitigating the larger human service gaps (Piacentini, 2015), particularly in the COVID-19 context. However, they are often disconnected from mainstream HSOs and face many constraints, largely due to limited resources, acute competition for funding, and reduced capacity (Maleku et al., 2020). Collaboration between social workers and CBEOs will help expand outreach to immigrant/refugee communities and provide efficient, culturally responsive services during COVID-19 (Clark et al., 2020).

Inclusion of CBEOs in human service systems by engaging immigrants and refugees to serve their own communities can also dismantle power hierarchies and avoid the “white savior” practice that has impeded the current modality of serving minoritized populations (Lau, 2021). Because CBEOs are significant community assets across US urban areas, their meaningful presence is crucial in the postpandemic world. Moreover, since social workers and CBEOs have overlapping goals and interests in serving immigrant/refugee communities, social workers should view CBEOs as powerful social work organizations that actively support the inclusion of immigrant/refugee populations in the United States (Gonzalez Benson, 2020). However, literature exploring immigrant/refugee-led CBEOs is extremely limited. Particularly, little is known about how COVID-19 has affected CBEOs.

The present study

The Midwestern US region, our study site, is among the nation’s top five refugee resettlement sites, hosting Bhutanese-Nepali, Congolese, Eritrean, and Somali refugee communities, among others (Community Refugee and Immigration Services, 2020). Centering the voices of local immigrant/refugee leaders, our study explored the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on immigrant/refugee-led CBEOs and the immigrant/refugee communities they serve by examining barriers and facilitators of CBEO service provision and delivery, and COVID-19-induced stressors on CBEO leadership.

Conceptual and methodological framework

The guiding framework for this study is the Cascading Hazards to disAsters that are Socially constructed eMerging out of Social Vulnerability (CHASMS) model. CHASMS posits that social vulnerabilities are produced by the friction between the needs of local communities and larger social structures; these “cascading disasters are entrenched in the power structures that create inequalities and the cascade emerges out of social, political, cultural and economic systems that shape community and individual risk at multiple temporal and spatial scales” (Thomas et al., 2020, p. 3). The CHASMS framework places social structures and conditions at the forefront of cascading disasters and asserts that pandemics like COVID-19 bring unrelated triggers, which occur in tandem and overburden response and recovery capabilities.

This framework is particularly crucial in immigrant/refugee literature, which often is limited to examining acculturation processes that focus on individual behaviors but overlooks the effect of structural environments on immigrant/refugee well-being (Maleku et al., 2020). Immigration policies, increased health risks, and concerns about discrimination were some of the compounding vulnerabilities experienced by immigrant/refugee populations during COVID-19 (Cross & Gonzalez Benson, 2021). The pandemic also emerged during the last year of the Trump presidency, which had debilitating impacts on immigrant/refugee communities and the CBEOs serving them (Garcini et al., 2020).

CHASMS emphasizes seven major forms of capital: financial (monetary resources); human (education, knowledge, and leadership); natural (quantity and quality of one’s physical environment); physical (built infrastructure); social; cultural (values, norms, and beliefs); and political (influence of policy, laws, and regulations; Thomas et al., 2020). Each form acts as a buffer enabling communities to adapt to structural pressures, reduce vulnerability, and increase resilience. Given that the growing digital divide during COVID-19 has worsened social inequality, we added digital capital to the seven forms emphasized by CHASMS. Even before the pandemic, digital capital, bridging online and offline worlds, had already been touted as key to accumulating social, economic, and cultural resources, as only those with enough digital capital can reap the benefits of “offline capital” (Ragnedda & Ruiu, 2020, p. 37). In the COVID-19 context, digital capital such as broadband access has been referred to as a social determinant of health (Brenda et al., 2020). Digital capital also accumulates and converts into other forms of capital, leading to an increase in life chances. Thus, we argue that digital capital can be viewed as the catalyzing capital, spurring communities with other capital to acquire greater advantage.

Vulnerable populations, including immigrant/refugee populations, who have lower levels of these eight forms of capital may experience more negative impacts induced by COVID-19 stressors. Additionally, the process of theoretical integration – which has been shown to enhance outcomes and move qualitative research away from being just theoretical and toward practical application (Grbich, 2019) – bolstered the overall rigor of our study.

Methods

Sample and data collection

For this study, we purposively sampled immigrants and refugees in CBEO leadership positions who are recognized as key local informants and advocates. Based on our established relationships with these CBEOs, we sent direct e-mails to all relevant leaders, requesting their participation in the study. These local leaders constitute a niche group, making the sample representative due to the limited number of possible participants (Saunders & Townsend, 2016). Ten participants were originally contacted, and seven agreed to participate in the study.

Our sample (N = 7) represents a significant portion of the group of CBEO leaders, as determined by their membership in the New Americans Advisory Council, a formal county-level group of organizations working within the local immigrant and refugee space (New Americans Advisory Council, 2021). It is crucial to note that despite the differences between immigrants and refugee leaders, we included both in the sample, largely due to the relatively small number of CBEO leaders in the local region and their similarities to the refugee subpopulations they serve. The dearth of literature on immigrant/refugee leadership, particularly in the COVID-19 context, also prompted the decision to include both groups in our study.

In-person data collection was originally planned, but due to COVID-19 restrictions, virtual interviews were conducted using the secure Zoom platform. Each 90-minute interview explored the impact of COVID-19 on immigrant/refugee-serving CBEOs and their target communities. All interviews were conducted in English between November 2020 and February 2021, video recorded, and transcribed verbatim using Zoom transcription, followed by manual transcription to ensure accuracy. The Institutional Review Board at The Ohio State University approved the study at the study site, and informed consent forms were obtained virtually from participants before the interviews. Our study sample (N = 7) represented immigrant/refugee leaders from various nations: Bhutan, Ethiopia, India, Mexico, Russia, Rwanda, and Somalia (Table 1). Our sample included more female (57%) than male (43%) CBEO leaders. A majority of the participants (57%) had been serving their communities as a CBEO leader for 10 years or more. All participants received $50 as an incentive for their participation in the study.

Table 1. Demographic characteristics.

Characteristic	n	%
Age
18–40	2	28
41–60	4	57
61 and over	1	14
Gender
Male	3	43
Female	4	57
Country of origin
Bhutan	1	14
Ethiopia	1	14
India	1	14
Mexico	1	14
Russia	1	14
Rwanda	1	14
Somalia	1	14
Number of years in leadership
3–5	2	28
6–7	1	14
10 or more	4	57

Data analysis

Grounded theory approaches were used to analyze the data, using ATLAS.ti software in three phases: initial coding, axial coding, and selective coding. After gaining familiarity with the data, the first and second authors independently completed open coding using a line-by-line coding strategy (Strauss & Corbin, 1997). Using an interactive team approach, these data coders first agreed on the initial open codes before moving to the second phase of data analysis – independent axial coding – to make connections between the open codes. After agreeing on the axial codes, the two coders generated final overarching themes based on distinct definitions of the themes that represented the data (Charmaz, 2008). All authors then finalized the translation of themes (Table 2). Constant comparison and researcher reflexivity strategies during data collection and analysis assisted in achieving theoretical saturation of data, supporting the adequacy of the sample size (N = 7) for in-depth interviews (Padgett, 2017).

Table 2. Translation of themes.

Extracted original codes (f)	Category	Overarching theme
Closing agency (6), decreased donations/fundraising (4), funding (27), sustainability (1), impact on strategic plan (3), technology to assist (6), resettlement decreases (5), service shift (17), stress on leaders (12), support from other leaders (3), personal impact on leader (5)	Funding impacts; impact on leaders	Heightened organizational strain: Resource and capacity challenges
Addiction (2), digital divide (13), domestic violence (5), mental health (31), old problems worse (8), schools (3), teen pregnancy (3), transportation (2), where to get resources (19), housing (11), provide resources (5), technology to assist (9), violence (3), employment (11), compassion fatigue (1)	Exacerbation of previous concerns	COVID-19 disruption and exacerbation of social issues
Employment (11), business community (11), loss progress made (17), no more house buying (3), technology to assist (9)	Loss of community progress	Loss of community wealth and economic progress reversal
Advocacy (2), cultural barriers (5), culturally appropriate services (21), lack of technology (1), lack of understanding (7), negative event feels “normal” due to trauma (3), vaccination concerns (2), hopelessness (5), providing resources (1)	Culturally appropriate services	Access to COVID-19 information: cultural, linguistic, and digital technology barriers
Community already struggling (2), cultural barriers (5), discrimination (11), immigration policies (3), political impacts (4), resettlement decrease (5), system not made for us (2), Trump (4)	Politics and COVID-19; discrimination	The “discrimination trifecta:” Immigration policies, vulnerability, and structural barriers
Advocacy (1), collectivist response (13), community input on services (1), community organizing (1), cultural cohesion (8), flexible (2), hopeful (13), new clients (1), planning (5), support from other leaders (3), unintended benefits (34)	Opportunities due to COVID-19	COVID-19 crisis as a path to better opportunities

f = frequency of codes.

Results

The six overarching themes and representative quotes below exemplify the effect of COVID-19 on CBEO leadership, service provision, and service delivery during the COVID-19 pandemic.

Theme 1: Heightened organizational strain

Participants highlighted the economic strain on CBEOs due to narrowed funding opportunities. Previous funding streams used for myriad services were now focused solely on relief efforts for COVID-19. This left CBEOs scrambling to manage preexisting day-to-day operational and community needs unrelated to the pandemic. Participants asserted that depletion of funding sources had caused potential agency closure concerns and the need to restructure service delivery. According to a male CBEO leader, “What we have seen is some resources available to social services to provide assistance for COVID-19. But one door closes, one door opens – probably not fully, but it’s still something. We understand that this coming 2020, 2021 years are going to be probably very difficult years.”

The inability to fundraise, and decreased donations, compounded funding constraints during the COVID-19 pandemic. For smaller organizations, donations and fundraising efforts can be life-saving income sources that often come without ties, providing more budgeting flexibility. The inability to host recurring events, along with donor hesitation based on economic uncertainty, further contributed to budget concerns. “When donors are struggling themselves, we lose that time, opportunity to do fundraising,” said a male participant, “That money comes with no ties; we could have flexibility to spend that money. So we are in a very much tighter restriction. All money that we have is tied to some funding.”

Participants affirmed that reductions in funding negatively affected organizational growth. For instance, staff reductions and the need to cut some programs forced tough decisions to keep organizations afloat. Letting go of employees during a time of nationwide economic upheaval not only impacted service delivery but also placed additional strain on the leaders on a personal level. One female leader stated, “I also hold the 24/7 helpline calls for the agency, because we do not have an after-hours person. People were rotating it but now we couldn’t do it; I just dropped [the position] as the impact of budget cuts. I had to let go of the person. Even three advocates. That’s why I’m on call, after five and till nine in the morning.”

Participants also referenced the looming fear of having to close their agency without an uptick in funding. For these hard-to-reach communities, agency closures can have devastating consequences, particularly during COVID-19, when client challenges are often magnified. A female leader said, “It really impacted us. We were in a position to close the doors, but luckily we got funded by the city. I really didn’t want to close the doors.”

Overall, changes in funding changed how organizations operate. CBEO leaders scrambled to provide services (especially indoor services) while also considering service providers’ well-being and following public health recommendations. Virtual service provision has unique barriers for immigrant/refugee populations, largely due to low technological literacy and reduced access to and utilization of digital technology (Warschauer, 2003). While the CBEOs adapted some services virtually, they had to continue to provide in-person services due to the digital inequities among immigrant/refugee communities. One female leader described her organization’s response: “We quickly put together a curriculum, a work-at-home policy, and then we created a curriculum for virtual tutorial programs and virtual English second language classes and virtual work skills and others, but still had to provide services [like before].”

Theme 2: COVID-19’s disruption and exacerbation of social issues

Participants emphasized that COVID-19 exacerbated preexisting challenges faced by immigrant/refugee communities, such as mental health difficulties, substance misuse, and domestic violence. Changes in employment status, the stress of not knowing how COVID-19 would shape the future, and stay-at-home orders exacerbated many social issues. Participants were concerned that these issues would necessitate more services and treatments, so they worried about the future of their CBEO and how to maintain operations. Additional stressors such as job loss or challenges meeting basic family needs also were identified as contributing factors. Intrapersonal challenges among community members included feelings of hopelessness, stress, and worry. One female participant noted, “It has severely limited people with their ability to feel good, feel hopeful, and have that energy and enthusiasm to move forward. We have seen domestic violence cases two times, three times more than we used to.”

Maladaptive coping mechanisms, such as substance misuse and engagement in violence, increased among youth, effects that leaders are concerned may linger after the pandemic. Changes in school schedules and remote-learning modalities not only created challenges for parents but also put youth in precarious positions where they had less structure and supervision. Participants noted the negative effects of teens being left at home alone during the day, without adult supervision or school structures to help monitor their behavior and give them a sense of purpose. In conjunction with other home and family hardships, this lack of structure prompted an increase in substance use, violence, and unintended pregnancies. “It’s impacting more youth, because there’s not much programming right now and there’s a lot of substance abuse and gun violence in the community,” reported a male participant. “So, in the last three months, we lost about four young people.”

COVID-19 also exacerbated underlying mental health challenges. Social isolation was identified as a contributing factor, especially among older people. Increased unemployment and the stress of trying to meet basic needs during financially precarious times also affected clients’ mental health, contributing to an increase in substance misuse among adults and youth. Barriers to accessing culturally and linguistically appropriate health care services have long plagued immigrant/refugee communities (van der Boor & White, 2020). Additionally, cultural barriers such as mental health stigma have become more pronounced as CBEOs struggled to mitigate such challenges with fewer resources. A male leader said, “COVID drastically impacted the mental health and well-being of refugee populations. They already don’t have as much access to wellness care as other communities because of language and also culture.”

Theme 3: Loss of community wealth and reversal of economic progress

Wealth attainment is a central element of economic integration in new spaces. Many immigrant/refugee communities have successfully navigated the challenging US economic structure, with higher labor force participation rates than the general population and more engagement in entrepreneurship (Vijaya, 2020). Leaders noted the important progress many immigrant/refugee communities had made toward home and business ownership, but sadly, the onset of COVID-19 stifled and even reversed many community gains. Said one male leader, “The gain that we have made, be it about the agency or the community, in the last five, six years – people were working hard and they were going to work, saving money, started going to better school, started business, moving to suburb and better neighborhood. There was a moment we not only felt, but other refugee communities also felt, making those progresses. Now all that is halted.”

According to CBEO leaders, some communities had been working toward economic success for more than two decades, so stopping or reversing their progress could cause long-term intergenerational setbacks. Many clients spent years finding suitable employment, for instance, but then faced job loss during COVID-19. Furthermore, many migrant-owned businesses did not have the wealth to withstand a sustained decline in revenue, leading to closures. “I do not know how they [small businesses] are going to survive and get back; looks like they [will have to] start again,” said a male CBEO leader. “I am worried about that, because small business is at the core for our economic integrity and growth – that will be the long-term impact.”

The CBEOs encountered an increased number of clients seeking economic support, even as the agencies themselves experienced increased financial stress. Given their own affiliation with immigrant/refugee communities, CBEO leaders also experienced the personal trauma of seeing their communities’ decline in economic progress, which had evolved over time, through hard work and sacrifice.

Theme 4: Cultural, linguistic, and digital technology barriers to access COVID-19 information

Cultural and linguistic differences created barriers to accessing information about COVID-19, which was only compounded by the increasing digital divide. Differences in cultural norms and ways of living, such as multigenerational households, made implementing public health recommendations challenging. Leaders worked to fight misinformation and to help clients navigate resources not provided in their language. Cultural differences also made it challenging to engage in social distancing and avoid large gatherings. One leader discussed the challenge of conveying the severity of the virus and encouraging best practices to mitigate its spread. In addition, the digital divide among immigrant/refugee communities presented an additional hurdle to providing pertinent COVID-19 information, especially for segments of the population with limited technological literacy or access to the internet and smartphones. A female CBEO leader noted, “If a physician’s office does not give them enough instruction, they don’t even know how to get [information]. The assumption during this COVID time, that everybody has access to internet service and everybody has access to computers, is not true, not at all.”

In recognition of the multitude of barriers to accessing relevant COVID-19 information, CBEO leaders used innovative approaches to reach their communities, including providing videos in multiple languages, created by native speakers of those languages rather than by a transcription service. Some leaders also provided translations of government information, such as daily briefings and speeches, using social media. A male participant reported, “The lack of accessibility to immigrant community in getting the information first came from communications, for example, the governor’s speeches, every day. When COVID started, those communications weren’t transmitted into non-English-speaking communities. We realized it after the second day of this speech and started doing live interpretation [on] Facebook.”

Theme 5: The “discrimination trifecta”

CBEO leaders identified anti-immigration policies and rhetoric, structural barriers, and vulnerability as three factors contributing to immigrant/refugee discrimination. Vulnerability was characterized as the inability of the community to be self-reliant, due to structural barriers stemming from anti-immigration sentiments, which have created a lack of access to resources and eroded trust in institutions. These barriers forced the community to be more reliant on CBEOs. Anti-immigration sentiments from the Trump administration – including the refugee travel ban, severe cuts to the refugee resettlement program, and decreased ability to seek asylum at the southern US border – had already contributed to challenges faced by CBEOs, which only grew in the wake of COVID-19. Immigrant/refugee communities and the CBEOs thus experienced compounding impacts of discrimination and political turmoil as well as service inequities. A male leader said, “To sustain and maintain is [challenging], because for us it was double. The previous [Trump] administration, really [put] heavy burden, every moment it was something new, harassing refugees and immigrants and the organizations. Then this COVID-19 came.”

Despite the competencies among immigrant/refugee groups, the complexity of navigating the US system placed a high burden on CBEOs to help facilitate the transaction of services and resources. As the pandemic progressed, CBEOs saw communities becoming increasingly reliant on them, particularly to support unemployment benefit applications, navigate public health guidelines, and manage other initiatives rolled out during COVID-19. A female leader pointed out that it is unhelpful “to tell people ‘Do it yourself,’ because we know that they can’t, regardless. If they don’t speak English and there’s nobody who speaks their language on the other side, they can’t schedule appointments, they can’t apply for unemployment, and so and it reverts back to relying on us.”

Theme 6: The covid-19 crisis as a path to better opportunities

Despite these difficulties, leaders also discussed the silver linings of the pandemic, focusing on the cohesion between communities and CBEOs that came together to provide support and share resources. CBEO leaders were able to facilitate rapid services, such as programming for youth and assistance with unemployment benefits, to provide supplies and personal protective equipment, to translate information on best practices for mitigating COVID-19, and to aid other CBEOs for collective action. Some leaders discussed the importance of collective action in their cultures and their hope that although the pandemic illuminated and exacerbated challenges in the community, people were reminded of the value of coming together. As one male participant stated, “It’s not us versus them, so that is a good asset. I hope we will not lose this. Being Americanized, the younger generation may say it’s a good thing to learn, a great thing to learn from America, but it’s also important to keep our values intact.”

On an individual level, stay-at-home orders allowed some people to connect with family members and spend more time checking on one another’s well-being. These moments of connection can be particularly valuable for community members who may feel in some way removed or excluded, or who are experiencing mental health challenges. “There is someone there to talk to him or ask him and also observe that he is becoming cranky and things like that,” said a male leader. “We are able to respond to his change in attitude. So I think that is one of the reasons – families are spending more time together, so the suicide rate has gone down.”

Collaboration among CBEOs was also noted by participants. One CBEO was called to help another implement a similar outreach program and coordinate services. The CBEOs’ work was also tied to the shared identities between the leaders and their communities. The leaders understood these challenges on a personal level and were willing to help other peer organizations. Despite the challenges, CBEO leaders also found hope and a path to move forward. A male participant stated, “A lot of other refugee organizations are actually looking to us to guide or provide any support. I was invited to participate in some of these national presentations and symposiums with [federal health and human services agencies] in the last couple of months. They heard my name, they heard of our project, contacted us.”

Discussion

Our study emphasized the crucial role of immigrant/refugee-led CBEOs in human service provision and delivery during the rapidly evolving COVID-19 pandemic. Study findings corroborate prior literature on how CBEOs have helped to mitigate service gaps, promote integration in new spaces, strengthen ethnic ties, and increase advocacy (Gonzalez Benson, 2020). Consistent with other studies, our findings highlight that immigrant/refugee populations are especially at risk in times of crisis because they are less likely to receive formal support and are more likely to rely on social networks (Hayward et al., 2021). Exacerbation of social challenges, illumination of unjust governing, and poor structural shields to prevent devastation created spaces ripe for COVID-19 to wreak havoc across minoritized communities (Thomas et al., 2020). The confluence of the COVID-19 pandemic, troubling changes in immigration policies, and anti-immigrant rhetoric have placed immigrant/refugee communities and the CBEOs serving them in precarious conditions. Our use of the CHASMS framework helped identify the impact of COVID-19 on various forms of community capital – physical, political, natural, cultural, financial, social, and human – and examine how cascading events, such as COVID-19, converge to affect them (Thomas et al., 2020). Our findings confirm digital capital as a crucial eighth form of community capital, as digital inequities have compounded during COVID-19 (Brenda et al., 2020).

Community partnerships and CBEOs have been shown to be effective in serving immigrant/refugee communities (Huslage et al., 2021). Consistent with the literature, our findings also showed that trust between communities and CBEO leaders was a key facilitator for serving clients deeply affected by COVID-19. CBEO leaders also demonstrated that despite the challenges of accessing the full benefits of the CARES Act, and changes in budgets and funding, CBEOs were able to creatively serve their clients based on access to their social and human capital.

Findings also illuminate how the cascading events of COVID-19 and anti-immigrant sentiment have caused the loss of hard-earned wealth and other social gains. Community leaders noticed an increase in substance misuse, domestic violence, and troubling behavior among youth across immigrant/refugee communities. Cultural, linguistic, and systemic service barriers increased immigrant/refugee communities’ reliance on CBEOs, particularly for assistance with parsing misinformation, accessing personal protective equipment, and enrolling in government safety net programs such as unemployment benefits.

In the wake of the pandemic, digital capital has been central to everyday life. Digital inequities and the digital divide relative to the access, utilization, and availability of technology across communities have been at the forefront during the pandemic (Brenda et al., 2020). Yet immigrant/refugee populations are more likely to face barriers to accessing technology and report lower digital literacy (Cherewka, 2020; Im & George, 2021). Our findings suggest that the digital divide resulted in additional barriers to immigrant/refugee populations’ ability to access vital information regarding the pandemic and to maintain access to previously in-person services. These challenges will only be amplified for immigrant/refugee communities and as some members of society become increasingly comfortable with technology, many immigrant/refugee communities will be left further behind (Bernstein et al., 2020).

These findings likewise point to the disruption caused by COVID-19 in asset- and wealth-building processes among immigrant/refugee populations. Wealth – especially land and business ownership and a promising economic future for subsequent generations – is much more than economic self-sufficiency, which simplifies economic standing in the absence or presence of reliance on social assistance (Fee, 2019). Although economic self-sufficiency is a major US Refugee Resettlement Program goal, wealth is more holistic, encompassing access to tangible resources that benefit individuals, families, and communities (Agius Vallejo & Keister, 2020). Immigrant/refugee communities have continually met the demands of the challenging US economic structure, displaying higher labor force participation rates than the general population and being more likely to engage in entrepreneurship (Kerwin, 2018). COVID-19 has not only stifled important progress toward home and business ownership but also reversed many community gains, which will have long-term consequences for immigrant/refugee communities.

Limitations

COVID-19 is a continually evolving global crisis. Thus, information collected during different phases of the pandemic can elicit varied responses. Even during the four months of data collection, changes in participant response patterns were evident. Our study findings should be interpreted with caution, especially beyond the Midwestern region, due to our purposive sampling and relatively small sample size. Our study likewise included seven immigrant/refugee community representatives with diverse linguistic and cultural backgrounds and migration experiences, but examining sociodemographic differences, including gender, across CBEO leaders; exploring differences between immigrant and refugee perspectives; and examining differences across the subpopulation groups served by the CBEOs was beyond the scope of this study. Future research could provide a deeper analysis of demographic differences, as well as differences in immigrant and refugee perspectives. Finally, our study was conducted in English and although all participants were fluent in English, it was not their first language, possibly limiting their ability to verbalize their views. Despite these limitations, our study offers preliminary evidence of COVID-19’s impact on immigrant/refugee communities.

Implications

The COVID-19 pandemic has uncovered inequities in human services that call for multipronged approaches to immigrant/refugee inclusion in the larger human service landscape (Im & George, 2021). Social workers must engage in more diverse forms of practice, meet clients where they are, and consciously recognize how each form of community capital is affected by cascading events. Our study highlighted the strengths of immigrant/refugee communities, particularly CBEOs, which have played a crucial role in meeting their communities’ needs throughout the COVID-19 pandemic (Finsterwalder et al., 2020). Unfortunately, agencies that support minoritized populations are disproportionately underfunded (Garrow, 2014), an impact that could be exacerbated during the pandemic, given the overall depletion of economic resources. Despite the funding shortages and barriers to accessing available funding, CBEOs – the default source of assistance to immigrant and refugee populations – have swiftly pivoted to fill gaps in human services, including public health efforts (Betts et al., 2021). As the COVID-19 pandemic has revealed the interconnectedness of seemingly disparate, cascading challenges, CBEOs can offer great potential, including digital inclusion mechanisms that are fundamental to inclusion and participation of immigrant and refugee members of the society in the post-pandemic world. Recognition of CBEO assistance as a social protection liaison and funding investments to build their capacities (Betts et al., 2021) will further catalyze immigrant and refugee inclusion efforts.

Engaging in collective practices with CBEOs to bridge gaps in human services, empower CBEOs, and promote CBEO leadership will not only help provide comprehensive, culturally responsive solutions across immigrant/refugee communities, but also engender an equitable human service environment. Advancement of an equitable human service environment will require both individual and structural investment including reimagining strategies for policy, legislative and funding initiatives. Social workers have the opportunity to increase collaborations between CBEOs and other stakeholders – academic institutions, policy makers, mainstream HSOs, and the general public – which will be crucial in solving complex problems and coproducing knowledge for sustainable solutions (Maleku et al., 2021). There is an urgent need for collective advocacy for a radical renovation of the current U.S. refugee resettlement program to include refugee voices, including CBEOs and refugee leadership. Because integration in a new space is a continual process, expansion of the idea of resettlement to belonging and inclusion will bolster the existing refugee resettlement program. This multidimensional approach also points to the need to expand the current Ethnic Community Self-Help program – a funding program for CBEOs to provide critical services for refugees who have arrived in the U.S. within the last five years to become integrated members of the American society – by the Office of Refugee Resettlement (Office of Refugee Resettlement, 2015) to longer-term investments in refugee resettlement and inclusion efforts. Increased funding to CBEOs who are experts of their own communities at local, state, and federal levels will best inform sustainable community grounded solutions. Thus, intentional partnership with local and national immigrant and refugee rights organizations – including, but not limited to American Civil Liberties Union, National Immigration Forum, Refugees International, and International Rescue Committee – to advocate for legislative and policy changes to support CBEOs to ultimately empower immigrant and refugee communities are crucial. Furthermore, engaging local and national political leaders in radical leadership to promote and advance immigration and refugee resettlement systems by bolstering CBEOs will be a pragmatic step in the right direction to harness an equitable human services system.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).