Migration Increases While Political Asylum Crumbles.
Mega-Problems That Won’t Go Away, Part 2
Migration — as well as the controversy it generates — is a phenomenon much older than national borders. It has increased steadily as information and transportation networks have globalized. Often driven by wars, famine, political oppression, and poverty, a new cause is gaining strength: climate change. In the last five decades, the number of estimated migrants trebled. Despite Covid, the number of people forced to flee their homes rose, with 100 million in 2022 alone.[1] Many of them joined millions of others who are waiting for admission to other countries in squalid camps. No one disputes it is a major cause of human suffering and abuse and a near-intractable problem that threatens governments and world peace. Yet the governmental response is almost always short-term — to contain migration rather than normalize it.
International legal protections for migrants are weak. Sovereign nations may choose to admit or rebuff migrants, and yet according to the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, everyone has the right to leave their own country for another, as well as the right to return to their own country. There is an international treaty that guarantees basic human rights to migrants, but it has the fewest ratifications in the UN human rights treaty collection.[2] No wonder Bentham called unenforceable human rights “nonsense on stilts.”
The aftermath of World War II was a pivotal moment. The human rights movement gained traction and the right to political asylum was recognized, first for war refugees, and then for all facing political persecution. Two treaties, the 1951 Convention Relating to the Status of Refugees and its 1967 Protocol, formalized the obligation of countries to protect refugees from expulsion or return to frontiers of countries where their life or freedom would be threatened on account of “race, religion, nationality, membership of a particular social group or political opinion.” Over time, that criterion expanded to protect from persecution based on sex or gender. But it did not apply to those fleeing poverty, war, man-made or natural disasters, or the internally displaced. As is obvious, persecution is often married to these other elements.
Despite the lessons of WWII and the efforts of the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees, it has always been an uphill battle to get wealthy nations to abide by their legal obligation to identify and protect refugees. Governments have tried to escape this duty by either denying that those seeking shelter are legal “refugees” rather than economic migrants, or by keeping asylum-seekers from presenting themselves at their borders. Making the journey dangerous and expensive, and the asylum process as prolonged and difficult as possible, are other time-worn deterrent tactics.
In the last few years, Europe, Australia, and the United States have all tried keeping both irregular migrants and asylum-seekers far away from their borders, warehousing them in other countries where they are vulnerable to crime and squalid conditions. Notable developments in 2022 included the London High Court approving the UK’s plan to send tens of thousands of migrants to Rwanda for processing, a move that Denmark and Austria may emulate. The Biden Administration, after criticizing Trump’s Title 42 border policy of expulsions in the name of public health, used it as a means to stem rising migration from Venezuela, and then found it could not terminate the policy while litigation plays out. Pushbacks and border barriers proliferated, with Frontex, Europe’s border agency, reportedly implicated in both tolerating and covering up abuses of migrants on the Greece-Turkey border. The relatively hospitable welcome of Ukrainian refugees in Europe contrasted with the horrific abuse of Africans that Europe has sent to Libya for (hardly voluntary) “assisted returns.”
Despite the danger and hardships involved, people will continue to migrate and seek asylum because staying in place is life-threatening. Although many in Europe and the US see migrants as simple economic opportunists, countries with dire human rights records and deadly conflicts generate the largest numbers, among them Syria, Venezuela, Afghanistan, South Sudan, and Myanmar, not to mention Ukraine where more than seven million have been displaced. In each of these countries, economic and political reasons to flee are intertwined.
Climate migration, though largely within national borders, is also steadily on the rise, highlighted vividly this year at the 27th Conference of Parties to the Convention on Climate Change (COP27). That meeting produced $230 million in new pledges for adaptation solutions for the most climate-vulnerable communities, but past pledges have not all been fulfilled. Even here, the effort is to keep people in their country, rather than enable them to find a safer home.
What’s the significance of these long-term trends? Halting migration is a key rallying point for populist politics of the authoritarian/nationalist strain. At the same time, migrant labor is vital to 21st-century capitalist societies, and in many is in short supply. Modern democracies are increasingly and inevitably multi-cultural, and profit from incorporating new strivers. But their citizens often fear migrants will take their jobs, displace them in influence and power or change the cultural character of the nation.
Human rights groups often try to tackle these issues with portrayals of suffering meant to stir the conscience, and explication of how these policies violate the international legal protections of asylum-seekers. That may stir the conscience of some. Condemnations, however, only go so far in changing public perception.
Migration tests the ethical vagal nerve of every human society: our sense of who are insiders and who are outsiders (and therefore, who we are). Human beings are tribal to the core, even when they are universalists in conscience. And activists need to deal with the challenges that come from that, and ask themselves how do we refashion national identity to be more open and inclusive, without causing wrenching populist backlash? When do newcomers morph from being perceived as threats to becoming members of our community, and can that be made a faster process with a more durable outcome?
The portrayal and treatment of migrants in every society is a bellwether of human rights and deserves stronger focus. It is one thing to invest in more blankets and tents, but addressing the social conscience in ways that inoculate against populist backlash is much more difficult and requires sustained and fierce focus. You need hard data on the value of migrants to developed economies and societies. You need a persistent rapid response to disinformation and demonization campaigns to put out sparks that demagogues will continually scatter. And you need to include in your strategy for change media depictions, social media memes, religious activism, educational programs, and other creative means of normalizing new populations and reinforcing values of tolerance and welcome. The UN High Commissioner for Refugees was doing just that, trying to soften US attitudes by reminding people that Einstein was a refugee, rather than relying on disaster porn.[3]
How the language and performative demands of identity politics affect the incorporation of migrants is a sensitive question, but one that demands some consideration. Is it helpful to condemn insensitivities to cultural difference — does it impel social acceptance or harden the perception of “otherness” — and can we find more foolproof ways to create sensitivity? Should we support institutions that promote national pride or assimilate people to a national identity — like the military draft, or compulsory civic education? To do so doesn’t necessarily require silencing debate on national failings or particular identities, but even discussing these topics is difficult.
Hectoring people to drop their prejudices is one approach to making national identity more diverse and inclusive, but hardly sufficient. More expensive and difficult is promoting the right investments in education, supporting high-profile demonstrations of inclusion, and providing tangible standards and programs for employment and advancement. These are policy questions that should be part and parcel of any rights discussion on migration.
To this end, it’s important to make sure the social incorporation of migrants and refugees is both successful and perceived as universally beneficial rather than threatening. Human rights groups need to devote some attention to the institutions and investments that help migrants become part of the national community, and not leave this to humanitarian groups alone. That means tackling restrictive family reunification policies, education, housing, healthcare and labor rights as well as admission. Even with international law’s weak enforceability, every effort should be made to expand the concept of asylum to include temporary relocations, special situations, and a much wider understanding of what constitutes a “threat to life and freedom” based on discrimination, and therefore who can gain the durable legal protections.
Of course, addressing the underlying causes of migration is the long-term solution, and the hardest. Foreign aid is an unpopular budget item everywhere. But the migration crisis is as dire a threat to world peace as climate change — slow moving, always with us, but capable of sparking slaughter and the downfall of governments and democratic protections as it gathers force. Alas, this may be the most compelling argument for why the citizens of rich nations must insist their governments support human rights in poor and abusive neighbors — lest their populations come camping at the doorstep.
