America’s Horrible Record on Refugees
Those who keep up with international news on a regular basis will most likely know about the current global refugee crisis. Headlines about refugees suffering while making the journey to Europe from the Middle East and Africa, as well as within Europe, leave audiences across the world shaken to the core. People encounter stories about desperate people trying to flee Afghanistan, Syria, Yemen, Libya, Myanmar, Ethiopia, Belarus, Ukraine, and countless other countries to escape persecution, war, economic collapse, and other threats to lives and livelihoods in those countries. Many of those who are desperate are making the perilous journey to European countries, like Poland and Greece, among others. While the policies of these and other European countries, along with the European Union, do not address the underlying problems leading to the refugee crisis, it is still a significantly higher contribution than that of the United States.
As of June 30, 2022, there are estimated to be “more than 89 million displaced people in the world today. Of these, 36.1 million people are refugees who have fled to another country” (Christophersen, 2022). As conflicts and chaos like the 2011 civil wars of Libya and Syria, the 2020 Lebanese economic crisis, the 2021 coup in Myanmar, and the 2015 Yemeni Civil War rage on, more and more people will be forced to flee from the countries they once called their home. With even newer periods of chaos, such as the 2022 overthrow of Sri Lankan president Gotabaya Rajapaksa, along with his family, there are bound to be more (Burke, 2022). All of these catastrophes were sparked by corruption leading to political repression and suffering economies.
Although governments of these and other countries did preside over an environment where violence and economic collapse took place, the United States was not a neutral party in all of them. For example, during the 2011 Libyan Civil War, the United States “refueled European aircraft on the great majority of missions against [President Muammar] Gaddafi’s forces…[used] JSTARS aircraft…[to] track the movement of rival forces…[along with] Predator drones…[, and assisted] British and French forces special forces…[and those from] Qatar and Jordan…[to train the rebels]” (Barry, 2011). The U.S. has pursued similar policies in the Syrian Civil War since 2011. As a result, in 2011, the Libyan government collapsed, and the area is now plagued by an ongoing civil war that involves terrorist groups like the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria (ISIS, or Daesh, in Arabic). In Syria, “12 million people [were] food insecure[,] 2.5 million people [were] severely food insecure[, and] 6.8 million people [were] internally displaced” as of July 6, 2022 (WFP, 2022). All sides had (and still have) a role in perpetuating the war. The Syrian rebels, who Daesh has sided with, and the alliance of Syria, Russia, Iran, and Hezbollah have done so by launching raids against armed opponents and unarmed civilians in Syria, as well as spreading propaganda about the legitimacy of their cause, even when they commit atrocities. This results in widespread carnage, as well as famine, which humanitarian aid workers from the United Nations face difficulty in solving (WFP, 2022).
Despite America having played a role in effectively prolonging or worsening some armed conflicts, like the aforementioned civil wars, the U.S. took very little action to take in the flood of refugees that would inevitably follow. The United States offers refugees “three months of support, plus welfare, to set them up in their new country” (Barlow, 2022). In addition, the United States does not have a record of admitting large numbers of refugees, at least not in recent times. For example, America admitted “nearly 85,000 refugees in FY 2016, a number that declined to fewer than 54,000 refugees in FY 2017…[which Trump did] via executive order…[until falling to] 15,000 refugees to be resettled in FY 2021” (National Immigration Forum, 2020). When Biden set the FY (Fiscal Year)1 2022 limit to 125,000, funding for infrastructure that resettles refugees was “depleted, and the administration has struggled to reach those targets in terms of actual refugees resettled” (National Immigration Forum, 2020). On the other hand, there are estimated to be 36.1 million refugees in the world today (Christophersen, 2022). Although no country has the resources to admit all of the world’s refugees (especially when that would singlehandedly boost the host nation’s population by 11%), America is significantly behind countries like Lebanon, which currently hosts 1.5 million refugees from Syria alone, representing approximately 25% of its population. Yet Lebanon is less developed than the U.S. and faces its own economic crisis (Christophersen, 2022).
A critical factor of this disgraceful record on refugees is the xenophobia involved. Even now, Americans express outrage towards refugees most when the people who come to the U.S. come from countries where black and brown people are dominant. As Representative Tony Gonzales of Texas explained, “In my district, there were 53 migrants cooked to death in the back of a trailer. The Biden border crisis has continued to spiral out of control…half of them were from Mexico, half of them were from Guatemala, and a few others were from surrounding areas…It is over 100 degrees in Texas, and no one seems to care. No one seems to notice” (160 Cong. Rec. H6512, 2022). All too often in the U.S., protecting refugees from threats to health, (the heat wave already killed 53), persecution, and financial harm is seen as impractical and worthless. In contrast to this statement by Rep. Gonzales, Representative Rose drew attention to a different aspect of the crisis. On that same day, he said, “There have been 2.6 million migrant encounters since Biden took office. We see a new record every month. Still, the Biden administration wants to end Title 42 [of the United States Code]. Additionally…Border Patrol officials have seized more than 1 million pounds of illegal drugs. Overdose deaths in this country are at an all time high. The president must enforce our laws and save lives” (160 Cong. Rec. H6514, 2022). Raising concerns about drug trafficking is valid for any nation. However, Rep. Rose calls for the continuation of Title 42, a set of statutes of the United States Code, that allows the government to restrain entry into the U.S. from outside during a health emergency in a part of the U.S., especially 42 U.S.C. 265, which allows the Surgeon General to ban entry during a health crisis if there is a “serious danger of the introduction of such [a communicable] disease” The reason it is based on xenophobia is that in states like Texas, the prevailing “communicable disease” of COVID-19 was already there, yet relatively little restrictions were placed on movement of people inside Texas, or from outside Texas and within the U.S., and the policy disregards people in situations like Rep. Gonzales described. Although Rep. Rose did not make an explicitly xenophobic remark, his sentiments are xenophobic because he has not discussed similar measures for non-immigrants, and it ignores the suffering of people fleeing for, among other reasons, their health. Europe takes the reverse, equivalent approach of protecting its population while reinforcing health and housing inequities (Dalingwater et al., 2022).
America’s awful refugee record can be attributed to a lack of political will, as well as xenophobia. Until the U.S. reckons with its role in this crisis, refugees will suffer around the world.
Note:
The fiscal year of the U.S. federal government begins on October 1 of the calendar year and ends on September 30 of the year after, as per 31 U.S.C. 1102. FY 2022 will last from October 1, 2022 to September 30, 2023.
Works Cited
160 Cong. Rec. H6512 (daily ed. Jul. 14, 2022) (statement of Rep. Gonzales). https://www.congress.gov/117/crec/2022/07/14/168/116/CREC-2022-07-14.pdf
160 Cong. Rec. H6514 (daily ed. Jul. 14, 2022) (statement of Rep. Rose). https://www.congress.gov/117/crec/2022/07/14/168/116/CREC-2022-07-14.pdf
Barry, J. (2011, August 31). America’s secret Libya war. Atlantic Council. https://www.atlanticcouncil.org/blogs/natosource/america-s-secret-libya-war/
Barlow, R. (2022, June 27). America the miserly: How our refugee system fails desperate people. The Brink. https://www.bu.edu/articles/2022/how-united-states-refugee-system-fails-refugees/
Burke, J. (2022, July 13). How the Rajapaksa family fell after 15 years at the top in Sri Lanka. The Guardian. https://www.theguardian.com/world/2022/jul/13/how-the-rajapaksa-family-fell-after-15-years-at-the-top-in-sri-lanka
Christophersen, E. (2022, June 30). A few countries take responsibility for most of the world’s refugees. Norwegian Refugee Council. https://www.nrc.no/shorthand/fr/a-few-countries-take-responsibility-for-most-of-the-worlds-refugees/index.html
Dalingwater, L., Mangrio, E., Strange, M., & Zdravkovic, S. (2022). Policies on marginalized migrant communities during Covid-19: migration management prioritized over population health. Taylor & Francis Online. https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/19460171.2022.2102046?src=
National Immigration Forum. (2020, November 5). Fact sheet: U.S. refugee resettlement. https://immigrationforum.org/article/fact-sheet-u-s-refugee-resettlement/
Public Health Service Act, 42 U.S.C. 265. (1944). https://uscode.house.gov/view.xhtml?req=granuleid:USC-prelim-title42-section265&num=0&edition=prelim
Terry, P. C. (2015). The Libya intervention (2011): neither lawful, nor successful. The Comparative and International Law Journal of Southern Africa, 48(2), 162–182. http://www.jstor.org/stable/24585876
WFP. (2022). WFP Syria Situation Report #5, May 2022. ReliefWeb. https://reliefweb.int/report/syrian-arab-republic/wfp-syria-situation-report-5-may-2022
