In a 2025 Ethnic and Racial Studies article, Stanford postdoctoral scholar Pei Palmgren, Tomás Jiménez, and colleagues analyze the U.S. refugee co-sponsorship model, where community volunteers partner with resettlement agencies to help newcomers establish their lives. Drawing on interviews with agency staff, volunteers, and refugees, the study shows how these partnerships both sustain resettlement and expose tensions within it.

The findings show that co-sponsorship can effectively support refugees’ material needs—such as housing, transportation, and access to services—while also fostering social integration through friendship, mentorship, and everyday acts of solidarity. Yet there are strains: mismatched expectations between volunteers, agencies, and refugees can generate friction, especially when the boundaries of responsibility are unclear. The paper highlights practices that make sponsorship work—role clarity, coordination rituals, and sustained communication—while also cautioning against overreliance on unpaid volunteer labor for what are, in many cases, essential services.

By identifying both the promise and pitfalls of co-sponsorship, the article provides a blueprint for scaling community-based resettlement equitably, offering valuable lessons for policymakers and advocates seeking to welcome refugees more effectively in the United States and beyond.