Standardizing Refuge: Pipelines and Pathways in the U.S. Refugee Resettlement Program

How do bureaucracies pattern durable inequalities? Predominant approaches emphasize the role of administrative categories, which prioritize certain populations for valued resources based on broader regimes human worth. This article extends this body work by examining how categorical inequalities become embedded within infrastructures and institutional pathways. I develop argument through a case study United States’ refugee resettlement program. Drawing together previously unseen government statistics, expert interviews, documentary analysis, show that U.S. is organized pipelines create path dependent imbalances in distribution scarce spaces. Social political logics immigrant worthiness are important, yet full understanding these requires attention to tendency self-reproducing. identify three factors account tendency: calculative rationales, reactivity, structured visibility. three-part conceptualization can be applied other contexts origins, dynamics, durability social inequalities. My findings also demonstrate analytically autonomous policy administration shaping ethnoracial selection.