The SS St. Louis was once a luxury cruise liner, the kind people would have marveled at, before it became a refugee vessel. More than nine hundred men, women, and children fleeing for their lives boarded the St. Louis with eyes set on the United States. Yet, when they arrived on the Florida coast, they were never given the chance to dock. The St. Louis had no other choice but to turn around—to sail the dreadful expanse of the Atlantic back to Europe.
It was May of 1939, only months before Britain would declare war against Nazi Germany. Jews had been trying to flee Germany for years but very few countries were allowing them entrance. Even then, those countries that did, did so reluctantly. Eventually, Belgium, France, and the UK agreed to take in the refugees on board the St. Louis. Not everyone would be as lucky. Years later, after the Holocaust, countries including the United States passed refugee treaties that would seem to claim, “never again.” Never again would helpless refugees like those of the St. Louis be turned away at salvation’s gates.
Indeed, in 1967 the UN Refugee Protocol affirmed the right to seek asylum for all refugees, including: the right to access the courts of the host country, to not be punished for illegal entry, and to not be expelled except under strict and defined conditions. Moreover, the 1951 Refugee Convention—which the 1967 Refugee Protocol owed its foundation to—condemned the practice of returning refugees to the very places in which they would face persecution and violence.
Some 50 years later, these established tenets of human rights legislation are routinely violated. The Open Arms, a vessel carrying over one-hundred refugees, expected to arrive in Italy on the 19th of August. With conditions worsening by the day, panic attacks and suicide attempts were becoming increasingly commonplace on board. Yet they were refused the chance to dock. The Italian interior minister, a staunch nationalist bent on preventing migrants from entering Italy, celebrated the moment: “Italy has stopped being Europe’s refugee camp.”
Of course, this rhetoric is not alien in contemporary American political discourse. President Donald Trump expresses strong anti-asylum sentiments regularly. “The United States will not be a migrant camp,” President Trump said in 2018, “and it will not be a refugee holding facility.” He pointed to the deteriorating refugee crisis in Europe. “We can’t allow that to happen to the United States,” he said.
Now, a year later, we continue to face the worst refugee crisis in modern history. Syria remains ravaged by civil war. Millions of refugees who have migrated to neighboring countries like Turkey are expelled because they are seen as criminals and lacking proper documentation, even as many of those deported are neither. Meanwhile, Yemen also continues to be torn apart by war crimes as the US, UK, and France logistically support a government struggling against Iran-backed forces. Despite US involvement in the crisis and the backlog of asylum applications from Yemen, though, the U.S. granted asylum to only two Yemeni refugees in 2018.
To not give these refugees at least a fair chance of asylum is inhumane. Over 146 nations, including the United States, are party to the 1967 Refugee Protocol that legally affords all refugees the right to seek asylum in any country. Many still wonder as to what is to be done when countless refugees, exercising this legal right to seek asylum, arrive at the southern border of the United States. What is required is simple. Within the framework of international law, refugees must have access to the courts of the host country for at least that chance to be afforded asylum.
What is now expected, though, is far more draconian. Charli Carpenter, a political science professor at the University of Amherst, Massachusetts, argues that the United States goes as far as to stand in violation of the fourth Geneva Convention. Since the US has sent military troops to the southern border and has declared zones of military law, the US has, for all intents and purposes, treated the southern border as a warzone. Yet the fourth Geneva Convention states that, in a warzone, civilian detainees such as refugees must be treated humanely. These civilian detainees must be given adequate food, shelter, medical attention, and due process. The United States has failed to meet any of these requirements.
In the United States, refugee families are punished as they separated. They are stuffed into holding cells and left to sleep on concrete. They are fed partially-thawed, “slimy” sandwiches. Those requiring serious medical attention are routinely ignored, and much-needed medication for illnesses like asthma and diabetes are confiscated. Meanwhile, the Trump administration works to infringe the refugees’ right to fairly access the courts. Many refugees are kicked out of the country “temporarily” as they are forced to wait years, suspended in limbo, until their chance to appear before a judge. Those that are lucky enough to finally appear in the courtroom are no longer afforded interpreters and are not guaranteed bilingual lawyers.
Thus, in clear violation of the 1967 Refugee Protocol and the fourth Geneva Convention, the United States not only refuses to amend its wrongdoings, but instead actively works to make the situation at the border all the to navigate and to survive. International law states that refugees cannot be punished for crossing borders illegally. However, on August 21st, the administration announced a new regulation for the southern border: the indefinite detention of those who enter the country illegally.
At this point, it is worth noting that the United States was once a world leader in refugee resettlement and has to date resettled more refugees than any other country. In 1982, conservative icon Ronald Reagan set the number of refugees which could be admitted into the country at 140,000. Now, watching as the worldwide number of refugees increases by the day, and understanding that there is no end in sight to turmoil in places like Syria, Yemen, Venezuela, and Central America, President Trump has decided on a new, far lower refugee limit.
This year, only 30,000 refugees will be allowed admittance into the United States. However, the Trump administration is in no way obligated to even reach this refugee limit that they have placed for themselves. In 2018, the number of refugees that were actually resettled was less than half of that year’s refugee limit. It would not be surprising for the same to happen this year. However, what may happen in 2020 would dramatically lower even these low refugee numbers. According to sources within the Trump administration, the President is considering slashing the refugee limit to zero.
The ruin which would be wrought by such a decision could be incalculable. Countless refugees would lose their lives every day while the US stands idly by. On the domestic side, the 200+ public refugee agencies based in the US would disappear without refugees to service, thereby crippling the refugee resettlement network for any future administration. Meanwhile, other countries would have to evaluate whether they have the infrastructure and political capital to welcome the refugees that would have otherwise gone to the United States. It is entirely possible that no country would step up to the challenge. Worse, more countries could follow the example set by the US and also accept lower numbers or zero refugees.
The United States must comply with the 1967 Refugee Protocol and the fourth Geneva Convention. Although no international body or other country can realistically enforce compliance, more pressure can be applied by domestic and non-domestic actors to either force change within the current administration, or ensure that the next administration not only complies with current international law, but also increases the number of refugees that are allowed into the country. Refugees have very few places they can realistically begin life again. The United States has the capability to afford them that chance.
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