Asylum Seekers and Refugees
We are today dealing with millions of asylum seekers in the United States. I do not think that is an exaggeration. Not much of one if at all. Most, however, are not what we have typically described as asylum seekers. Nor are they what we typically describe as refugees. Nor are they illegals. Yet, these are the terms we are stuck with.
What is an asylum seeker? Historically it is a person fleeing a political regime. If I recall, political asylum drives the plot of Mikhail Baryshnikov and Gregory Hines’ 1985 movie, “White Nights”. Back then we were routinely embracing asylum seekers, romanticized defectors, fleeing the Soviet Union. . . the Soviet bloc. Baryshnikov himself did exactly that. It turns out, upon reflection that the tale is autobiographical? But all of it is basically an example of political asylum. Baryshnikov, who originates from Latvia, defected, and applied for asylum. He went on to become an American citizen.
We can, I imagine, having groups of people defect from a regime and seek asylum. In the end, however, it involves an act of conscience, and individual. It is an individual asserting that they cannot support a political regime and desiring to literally move away from that position, from that group, that state.
The above is but part of what it is to be an asylum seeker. The key perhaps is persecution. The person seeking asylum either fears persecution, or is being persecuted by a state, the government under which they live. And this can be seen in the example I point to above — Baryshnikov. He feared persecution if he expressed his actual opinions regarding the regime and its actions. In short, an asylums seeker, such as Mikhail Baryshnikov, seeks asylum because they are unable to live the life they desire under the state and government of which they are a citizen of.
The above is not researched fact, but I do believe it is largely accurate. Just ideas I have found myself pondering over the last few days. Actually, more like weeks and months. And I am pondering these ideas because of the constant media updates regarding the US southern border and likewise cities such as New York and Chicago, sanctuary cities, cities that typically welcome immigrants legal and not. These immigrants, today’s asylum seekers, keep in mind, are legal. Yet, legal or not, New York City Mayor claims they will destroy New York City.
This essay, is not focused on that claim. I am just trying to qualify if the immigrants arriving today are either asylum seekers or refugees. So far, I have just looked at what it is to be an asylum seeker. With the little I have said, however, we can safely say that today’s asylum seekers that are arriving in Chicago and New York are not being persecuted by the state or government of the countries they originate from. It is not fear of these states that propel them.
If anything, it might be more a lack of a state, a failure of government that propels these immigrants. They do not feel safe in their cities, their villages, their countries. Their state, their governments are unable or unwilling to protect them. In short, they often fear violence. They fear that they and their families are not safe.
It is not only violence. There is also an economic fear. They fear they cannot or will not economically survive in the countries and states they originate from. They fear they will be unable to put food on the table or are not able to do so. Between, the fear of violence, of street gangs and cartels, and the lack of economic opportunities, they fear they will or cannot survive.
This is what seems to drive today’s asylum seeker. It is not that they fear the state, but rather they fear what their sates and governments have failed to address. It is not the state they fear but their failures. That, however, is not historically what asylum is about.
What of refugees? To be a refugee points not to political actor, but to be a member of group. To be a refugee is typically to be a member of a group that is fleeing something. It can be the persecutin of a state or government, a regime. It can and often is a war, whether it involve two nations or it is internal, a civil war. To be a refugee can be the result of an environmental or economic catastrophe. Like an asylum seeker, refugees aredriven by fear, but now we are talking of large populations and the fear is existential. The threat is not something that may happen. It is happening now. These people must flee now. It is now or never.
A flood requires one to move now. An economic collapse may take time, but we are pointing here to the last stages of that collapse. A drought, likewise, takes time, but what a refugee is fleeing is the consequent of the drought. It is the consequence of these events that they are or were enduring and that propelled them to flee. And these consequents are life threatening. Things such as war, economic and environmental collapse, and failure of a government response to these require them to move. Now.
This sounds much more like some of things today’s asylum seekers are dealing with. Yet we do not classify them as refugees. Sadly, our system seems to be driven by a process of classification that perhaps needs revision? Asylum seekers and refugees are differentiated it seems by whether they apply in the US or whether it is the case that we allow them entry based upon their status. Asylum seekers can enter an American Embassy abroad and ask for asylum, but generally they ask for asylum in or on US territory. Refugees, however, are allowed to enter the US specifically because of their status as a refugee.
None of the million who have crossed our border today are classified as refugees. Rather, they claim they are asylum seekers largely because they initiate the claim on US territory. That decision is based upon US law, as opposed to what we would in fact describe them as, what I detail above.
Again, as per US law, the difference between a refugee and an asylum seeker dwells at least initially upon not who they are and their story, but rather, where they initiate their claim, their case. And with that, it is anticipated that most of today’s asylum seekers will not be granted asylum. Their’s is not a story of asylum, even if initiated on US territory.
Meanwhile, those who arrive as refugees will be allowed entrance into the US because they typically are refugees. A Ukrainian today will have little issue claiming some type of refugee status in the US and properly so, and they will most like initiate that case abroad, outside the US.
Do what you like with these general observations and thoughts, but boy it is time, if any of the above is true, to review and update our laws and how we engage.
