Refugees often face similar risks as migrants, including trafficking and smuggling, leading to trauma or loss of life. Many use asylum channels for legal stay, causing backlogs and overwhelming systems. Public anxiety, exacerbated by anti-foreigner rhetoric, is heightened by the perception of chaotic arrivals and the lack of control and fairness, especially when individuals without legal stay cannot be returned to their countries.

As noted by the High Commissioner for Refugees “mixed flows of refugees moving alongside migrants along routes fraught with risk, like the scourge of human trafficking, represent one of the biggest challenges we must face.”

Responding more effectively and predictably to the challenges of mixed movements requires a broader, whole-of-route approach. Applying innovative approaches to engage States to ensure international protection and solutions for refugees, while upholding rights and creating opportunities for migrants, along key routes, is critical.

At the core of this approach is a shift towards more humane and effective responses, concrete actions to counter smuggling and trafficking, and delivering better outcomes for those on the move, affected communities and States alike. 

In April 2023 the High Commissioner, in his speech at the Melbourne University , called for a panoramic view to deal with mixed and onwards movement of refugees and migrants. The whole-of-route approach articulated in the speech recognizes the need for States, UNHCR, IOM and others to take a new approach to deal with the mixed movement of refugees and migrants, as well as the onwards movement of refugees, to strengthen protection and solutions for both groups as well as supporting States managing such movements.

An inter-bureaux and inter-divisional task team (Task Team on Onwards and Mixed Movements - TTOMM) was set up in 2022 to look at new ways to meet the diverse challenges posed by onwards and mixed movements of refugees and migrants. 

The TTOMM has since March 2024 been coordinated by DIP, under the leadership of the AHC for Protection and is supporting the conceptualization and implementation of a route-based approach as it is taken forward by Bureaux and Operations in all regions, for four prioritized routes. The term route-based approach is used to capture the need to look comprehensively at situations of mixed and onwards movement along routes. In some regions other terms capturing this may work better, such as whole-of route approach or the hemispheric approach in the Americas.

The route-based based approach to onward and mixed movements aligns with the aim in UNHCR’s Strategic Directions 2022-2026 of “safeguarding international protection, including in the context of mixed movements” and builds on the objectives of the New York Declaration, the Global Compact on Refugees (GCR) and the Global Compact on Safe, Orderly and Regular Migration (GCM).  

1. UNHCR’s 10-Point Plan of Action on Refugee Protection and Mixed Movements
2. Serving and Protecting Together: IOM/UNHCR Framework of Engagement (and joint letter 2024)

The approach requires a shift towards a people centric approach, political commitments and willingness, including through funding where relevant, and to explore innovative ways of managing mixed movements of refugees and migrants.

The approach foresees cooperation and responsibility sharing and builds on the ambition of the New York Declaration, the Global Compact on Refugees and the Global Compact for Safe, Orderly and Regular Migration. It also engages with, and complements, important State- led and regional processes, and will require new, flexible fora to bring States together on concrete solutions for various categories of people engaged in mixed movements along specific routes.

1. The Need for a ‘Panoramic’ Approach to Mixed Movements, Opening Statement, ExCom 74
2. OpEd 'There is a Better Way' with Amy Pope (IOM) and Filippo Grandi
3. Remarks 'In Pursuit of the Possible: Addressing Population Flows in the Americas' at Georgetown University, Washington DC, 3 June 2024
4. Speech "The Narrative of Possibility" at the University of Nairobi, 24 June 2024

Asylum & Migration Section

Valerie Svobodova

Chief of Asylum and Migration Section

svobodov@unhcr.org