Expert: Ukrainian refugees enter a more welcoming Europe

The experience of Ukrainian refugees differs from those fleeing other conflicts and difficulties, such as those escaping civil war in Syria and economic hardship in North Africa, says immigration policy scholar David Laitin.

Since Russia invaded Ukraine one month ago on February 24, nearly 3.5 million people have fled Ukraine, and should the conflict continue, an additional 5 million more refugees will likely flee from the country within a year—a rate that is nearly five times as fast as the flow of refugees from Syria and North Africa.

Laitin is professor at Stanford University and is a faculty co-director of the Stanford Immigration Policy Lab, which designs and evaluates immigration and integration policies and programs. Over the past decade, mostly in collaboration with colleague James Fearon, Laitin has published several papers on ethnicity, ethnic cooperation, the sources of civil war and policies that work to settle civil wars.

Laitin offers insight into how European Union (EU) policy is supporting a surge of refugees that the United Nations has described as the largest humanitarian crisis Europe has seen since World War II. Given its magnitude, the Ukraine crisis may prompt leaders to consider policies that cast a wider lens, Laitin says.

Here he discusses Ukrainian refugees and their reception in Europe:

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