In 2019, migration due to humanitarian crises has reached an unprecedented high with more than 272 million people not residing in their homes. As around 50 percent of recent refugees and immigrants worldwide were underaged, adverse experiences linked to migration hit them during critical periods of youth development. Strong families can provide resources to protect youth development amid seeking refuge and immigration. Specifically, effective parenting behavior was found to buffer the negative impact of adversity. In response to the increasing numbers of migrants and refugees worldwide, several receiving countries have modified their refugee policies, with consequences for the post-migration living circumstances of refugee and immigrant families. The purpose of this chapter is to discuss the impact of selected refugee policy domains (right to asylum, detention, family unification) on parenting behavior. We focus on the United States and Germany as the two Western countries with the largest populations of immigrants and refugees based on their population sizes. Although to different extents, both countries restricted their refugee policies since immigration has started to increase in 2015. Mechanisms through which refugee policies affect parenting include parent-child separation, hardship, access barriers to support services, experiences of community violence and demanding asylum policies. Apart from specific regulations for unaccompanied minors in Germany, children’s needs for positive development are left widely unattended in the current refugee policies of both countries. Interdisciplinary research needs to empirically substantiate cascading effects from refugee policies to family- and individual-level processes such as parenting and child development. A better understanding of these links can contribute to support immigrant and refugee families upon arrival, reduce emerging disparities and promote pluralistic societies of tomorrow.