2014 looks to be a difficult year in
immigration around the world. There
seems to be little forward movement on any of the major challenging issues and
significant back sliding in other areas.
The following is brief roundup of some of the hurdles facing different
areas of the globe with respect to human migration.
Middle East - Syria
The most challenging and heartrending
humanitarian crisis continues to grind on in Syria. The conflict appears set to extend well
beyond 2014. While diplomats are
currently convened in an idyllic Swiss town, the killing continues and neither
side seems to be winning or exhausted.
Peace under these conditions has little chance. Meanwhile, over 6.5 million people
are internally displaced, constituting almost 30% of the total
population. The international aspect of
this refugee crisis has been deeply impacting neighboring countries and is now
demanding the attention of countries further afield. The UNHCR has register
nearly 2.4 million Syrian refugees, with nearly 900,000 currently in
neighboring Lebanon, a country with a total population of around 5 million. (This would be the proportional equivalent of
100 million refugees arriving in the US).
The Prime Minister of Lebanon, Najib Mikat, recently
wrote an open letter insisting that financial aid, while vital, is not
enough, and calling for the international community to secure safe zones within
Syria itself. The international
community, viz the US and NATO, have little appetite for this type of massive
military intervention and without the support of China and Russia nothing like
the intervention seen in Yugoslavia seems remotely feasible.
Europe and the US are also failing to help
those refugees who manage to escape the region.
According to the Washington
Post, the United States has granted asylum to only 90 Syrians and of the
60,000 refugees admitted to the US in 2012 only 31 were Syrian. There has been little political pressure for
the US to do more, especially given the weak posture of the US with regard to
intervention. Additionally, refugees
from Syria often do not fit into ridged and exclusionary categories for legal
asylum in the US and underlying fears that such people may be a security
threat.
The EU has pledged to accept a mere 12,000
or so refugees, garnering
the contempt of Amnesty International.
Germany has pledged to accept 10,000, however France has pledged only
500, Spain just 30 and Italy and the UK have pledged to accept none. Since 2012, some 50,000 Syrian refugees have
made their way to Europe with Sweden
accepting approximately 14,000 at last count. Through a chance of geography many Syrians
enter the EU via Greece which has such a dismal record of refugee treatment
that the Dublin II protocol has an exception for Greece. Normally refugees must seek asylum in the
first country they arrive at in the EU and will be returned there if
apprehended in another country. But Greece’s grave violation of human rights
protections have lead countries such as Sweden and Germany to abridge the rule,
thus allowing some Syrian refugees to seek asylum in their respective
countries, despite having arrived via Greece.
The Secretary General of Amnesty
International, Salil Shetty, recently
said, “the platitudes of Europe’s leaders ring hollow in the face of the
evidence. The EU must open its borders, provide safe passage, and halt these
deplorable human rights violations.” Thus the
Syrian refugee crisis is set to expand and worsen.
Europe
In Europe, the great experiment of free
movement embodied in the Schengen agreement stumbles forward with the
lifting of work restrictions on citizens of Bulgarians and Romanians on
January 1, 2014. Both countries became
parties to the agreement in 2007, but Western European members exercised their
right to extend work restrictions for seven years. Those seven years are now up. In the meantime, travel restrictions remain
in place and Bulgarians and Romanians will still require travel documents to
move around the Schengen zone. Romania
announced its intentions to fully partake in the free-movement scheme by
the end of the year, while Bulgaria has resigned itself to enjoying
free-movement in
2018.
Notwithstanding Europe’s hard line with
respect to refugees, there are signs of loosening at least with respect to
tourist travel. In April, the European
Council will vote to approve
visa-free travel for Peruvians. A
similar agreement looks likely for citizens of Colombia. It appears that fears of visa overstays have
been outweighed by the economic imperative to attract tourist dollars.
United States
The scene in the United States offers
little more cause for hope. Much needed
comprehensive immigration reform has most likely stalled in 2014. Pundits and Washington insiders consider the
topic too divisive and dangerous for Congress to touch in an election
year. Despite this pessimism, President Obama
has predicted immigration reform for this year. This
sentiment has been echoed by Speaker John
Boehner who will present principles for comprehensive reform to his caucus
later this week. It seems unlikely that
the House and the Senate will agree given the acrimonious nature of the debate
and the fragmentation of the Republican Party.
In the meantime, the immigration system in
the US is facing a potential collapse as nearly
half of immigration judges will become eligible for retirement in
2014. The immigration court system, a
fiefdom cloistered away from the main judicial system, faces a backlog of over
350,000 cases. Immigration courts
received very little of the additional funding funneled at the immigration
administration and immigration judges are notoriously overworked and
understaffed. Luckily because the
immigration courts are part of the executive branch, the nomination of
replacement judges would not depend on gridlocked Congress.
