On the migrant trail to Australia

by Chris Bertram on November 16, 2013

I blogged a few days ago about Oscar Martinez’s brilliant account of the dangers migrants from Central America face as the travel through Mexico, so this is a follow-up to that. In the latest New York Times Magazine, journalist Luke Mogelson and photographer Joel van Houdt recount the experience of disguising themselves as migrants and taking the trail from Kabul to Australia. Harrowing and depressing stuff. There are fewer predators on the road, but the mostly Iranian travelers have to face the endless sea and the burning sun, and, at the end there is no hope. All detained and sent to Nauru or Papua New Guinea and their dreams of new lives in Australia turn to dust. In the piece we learn that Australia has absorbed a tiny number of asylum seekers compared to many European states, but the votes are in pandering to the racists, so that’s what Australian politicians do. (h/t to the brilliant BritCits )

{ 37 comments }

1

hix 11.16.13 at 7:46 pm

There is no reason why there should be hope for this particular subset of poor people that tries to get out of poverty through illegal immigration. Just giving everyone asylum that somehow makes it into a rich country is no solution that scales up against global poverty. Neither is it particular fair. Illegal immigrants/asylum seakers etc, are emotional closer than other poor for us in the west, so stories with pure emotional appeal about them work. Thats about it.

2

godoggo 11.16.13 at 7:52 pm

The ones in America tend to send money back home. I believe it’s a fairly large part of the Mexican economy. I guess I could google it. Not the perfect solution but something.

3

Emma in Sydney 11.16.13 at 9:20 pm

Many many Australians are deeply opposed to our government’s position on refugees and ashamed of our country’s actions. This issue is one that has, I believe, helped to destroy the alliances that supported the Australian Labor Party and has permanently changed progressive politics here. And the human toll is huge. Thanks for linking to the article.

4

Chris Bertram 11.16.13 at 11:14 pm

hix: if you had read the article you’d see that Iranians aren’t fleeing because of “global poverty” but because of the effect of sanctions on their ability to make a living. It seems that the Iranian regime is sufficiently terrible to warrant international sanctions, but not terrible enough that we should grant its citizens asylum.

5

novakant 11.16.13 at 11:40 pm

Ironically, Iran currently hosts around 1 million refugees, mainly from Afghanistan. The Iranians as well as Pakistan, Syria and Jordan are picking up the tab for the total clusterfuck created by the recent US/UK involvement in the region.

6

P O'Neill 11.17.13 at 12:34 am

Not that there’s a competition for worst of the migrant routes, but the Sahel-Mediterranean route seems like the depths of human misery. The latter stage of the route has been joined by Syrians, who merited enough international attention when it seemed like the US might bomb Damascus, but not a whole lot once that threat was removed, and definitely not a welcome mat from northern European countries even with the Assad killing machine still in business.

7

John 11.17.13 at 7:26 am

This issue is more complicated then you describe. Firstly, Australians believe in fairness. The do not think its fair that people with money should “jump the queue” ahead of those stuck in refugee camps, particularly when they are driven by economic reasons, and should be classed as economic migrants and not refugees:

ECONOMIC deprivation rather than the fear of persecution is driving Afghan Hazaras to risk their lives to come to Australia, a previously secret government-commissioned report has found.

The rejection rate for Afghan refugee claims is about 50 per cent – up from 10 per cent 18 months ago – but 70 per cent of those rejected have their refugee status confirmed on appeal.

”Lower-income classes feel their opportunities are virtually non-existent and that clandestine migration is their only option,” the report says about those in Bamyan province.

”The vast majority of focus group participants from Ghazni regard migration to Australia as a livelihood strategy and coping mechanism to respond to social and economic needs.”

From http://www.smh.com.au/national/better-life-main-reason-for-refugees-journey-20110503-1e6ui.html#ixzz1LMNvy45l

Further, the people who come from Afghanistan and Iraq are highly likely to be on centrelink for a long period:

MORE than 60 per cent of refugees to Australia have failed to get a job after five years, according to a damning Federal Government report into the humanitarian settlement program.

And 83 per cent of those households now rely on welfare payments for income.

The greatest unemployment rate was recorded among new arrivals from Iraq and Afghanistan, with less than one in 10 finding full-time work and 93.7 per cent of households receiving Centrelink payments.

From http://www.dailytelegraph.com.au/news/national/a-world-of-long-term-welfare-for-refugees/story-e6freuzr-1226050094427

Surely that can explain why Australians are so strongly opposed to these boat people. In addition, most of the refugees end up in the suburbs of Sydney and Melbourne. State governments have underinvested in infrastructure to support these areas. This means people in those areas are strongly against more migrants coming to those areas, as they make existing problems worse.

8

John 11.17.13 at 9:02 am

More context: http://www.theaustralian.com.au/news/features/our-high-profile-muslim-minority/story-e6frg6z6-1226007821201

But for all his seemingly heartfelt intentions, two uncomfortable truths remain. The first is that Australia’s fast-growing Muslim population is a source of deep community angst, which fuels a polarised and sometimes ugly debate, as exemplified by reports opposition immigration spokesman Scott Morrison urged his Coalition colleagues to “capitalise on” such concern. (Morrison dismissed the reports as gossip but didn’t say they weren’t true.)

Muslim leaders know they have to confront this head-on, but struggle in the political arena. “We’ve never been engaged in the political process. We never understood it because our forefathers were literally factory workers,” Sydney’s Lebanese Muslim Association president Samier Dandan says. He’s pushing for Muslims to become more politically engaged.

“There are no terrorists in Australia in terms of execution. There are people who have the mindset to commit harm, but no one has the capacity to execute anything. What it is, is just a mindset – just talk and ideas.”

The second truth is the expanding Muslim diaspora is afflicted by entrenched socioeconomic problems that fuel alienation and resentment, which no amount of political rhetoric alone will fix.

Two recent sets of statistics illustrate the issues at hand.

The first is a report published last month by the Washington-based Pew Research Centre’s Forum on Religion and Public Life, The Future of the Global Muslim Population: Projections for 2010-2030. Using figures from the Australian Bureau of Statistics, it predicts Muslim numbers in Australia will increase by 80 per cent, compared with 18 per cent for the population overall growing from 399,000 at present to 714,000. This is due first to higher reproduction rates – Muslim families typically have four or more children, while other Australians have one or two – and, second, to migration from Muslim majority countries such as Afghanistan, Somalia, Iraq and Iran.

“That is of great concern to us because we don’t have the facilities and the infrastructure, and the government is not supporting us,” he says.

The Muslim community has plenty on its plate already: intergenerational poverty, undereducation and unemployment, a pressing need for more social, welfare and aged-care services, a siege mentality fostered by a suspicious public and often hostile news media, close attention from the police and security agencies and the problem of pockets of religious extremism.

The challenges are compounded in a diaspora that is diverse and disunited – in truth, many communities rather than one – and suffers from a lack of language skills, public relations and lobbying know-how, strong leadership and political clout.

Dandan claims Muslim communities have been abandoned politically, particularly in southwest Sydney, where they happen to live in electorates safely held by the Labor Party.

“We’re a growing community, so where are the services? Our youth get no services, our elderly no services, employment, no service, hospitals atrocious, our schools – don’t even talk about it, go and have a look at our schools. Are we not getting the services because we’re Muslim or because these are safe Labor seats?”

9

novakant 11.17.13 at 10:06 am

Oh my god, that’s just a terrible burden on Australians, ranked 69th in the world on the refugee per capita scale and 49th for total refugee intake:

http://www.factsfightback.org.au/does-australia-take-the-most-refugees-check-the-facts/

That is 1 refugee per 1000 Australians, which is nothing really compared to, say Sweden (8.8), Germany (7), Iran (14.5). I am fully aware that refugees can cause a variety of problems that need to be dealt with, but if Australian society can’t handle such a small amount then this reflects badly on Australians rather than refugees.

10

alex 11.17.13 at 12:53 pm

But, being poor isn’t grounds for an asylum claim. That’s restricted to persecution for reasons of race, religion, nationality, membership of a particular social group or political opinion (aka reasons the Nazis try and get you). There’s also the first safe country principle, and Australia’s perfectly entitled to remove people who could have claimed elsewhere so long as they’ll be safe. I think it confuses things to try and use asylum (designed to protect people from persecution) as a talking point in discussions which are really motivated by the desirability of economic migration.

11

novakant 11.17.13 at 1:47 pm

As CB has pointed out with regard to Iran, the actions of Western countries (in this case sanctions) directly drive people to emigrate. The mess they created in Iraq and Afghanistan has similar effects. And more generally poverty is fueled by war, the weapons used to fight it being provided by us:

http://www.amnesty.org/en/news/big-six-arms-exporters-2012-06-11

So while it might be useful to distinguish between migration caused by persecution and migration motivated by poverty in order to guarantee the people affected by the former special status the line between the two is blurry. Poor people are much more likely to be victims of human rights abuses and the urge to better one’s economic situation is by no means immoral. Conversely, the concept of the nation state is morally on shaky ground, especially those that were founded on economic exploitation, genocide and land grab:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uEx5G-GOS1k

There are practical considerations of course, but that’s about it.

12

alex 11.17.13 at 3:14 pm

I kind of agree with what you say. But the line isn’t blurry. When people sat down to decide who could claim asylum, they knew exactly what they were doing. The decided things like religion and race and politics were important, but didn’t think things like sex or sexual orientation or age or disability were. They thought active “persecution” was important, but duties like conscription or things like the passive risk of crime or being collateral damage in war or poverty weren’t.

Asylum’s historical roots are protection from the criminal justice system of another country. Assange and Snowden are good modern examples. I’m just think moving somewhere for a better life free from poverty is very different. I’m not sure blurring the two helps.

13

Matt 11.17.13 at 3:21 pm

This post touches on one of the more interesting questions in refugee policy (one there is also no legal agreement on, as far as I can tell)- how must the duty owed to refugees be met, and may a country that, for reasons good or (usually) bad, does not want many immigrants or immigrants of a certain sort, “buy out” it’s obligation by paying other countries to take some or all of what would be the country in question’s “fair share”. The best known significant discussion of the issue is, I believe, Peter Schuck’s “Refugee Burden-Sharing: A Modest Proposal”. (It was originally in 22 Yale Journal of International Law 243 (1997), and reprinted in his book _Citizens, Strangers, and In-Betweens_, for those who are interested in the subject.) I’m pretty sympathetic, in principle, with Schuck’s argument that countries should be able to “buy out” their share of the refugee burden, though because I otherwise tend to strongly disagree with Schuck on pretty much every issue, this makes me less confident about the view than I might otherwise be, even in principle.

I think that the case in principle isn’t too hard to make. There is good reason to think that our duties to refugees are two-fold: first, to not return them to a country where they would face persecution, and secondly, to provided them access to permanent residence and eventually full membership in a society where they can live safely. (The 2nd follows because of the nature of refugees, as I try to show in the linked paper.) But, typically, there is no reason why this duty should have to be met in any particular country, and typically the country of “first asylum”- the place where would-be refugees come first, or aim at- has no particular obligation to these particular refugees. This means that the first and second parts of what is owed to refugees (non-refoulement and a “durable solution”, in semi-technical jargon) can come apart and be fulfilled in different countries, at least typically (*) and in principle. What is owed to refugees is the right to not be returned and to live somewhere safely, but generally not the right to live in a particular place. Because of this, dreams of new lives in Australia will typically be of little normative importance on their own.

In practice, I have significantly more doubt about whether such a scheme can work, at least if it’s not part of a large, multi-lateral agreement with some sort of body that has the authority and power to ensure compliance. That doesn’t seem like a very likely development to me. That this is unlikely to work well in practice is even more the case when we consider the punitive anti-refugee measures (such as detention in intentionally harsh conditions) that many states, including but not limited to Australia, practice. There’s also pretty good reason to think that states “buying out” their obligations this way have not, and likely will not without some enforcement mechanism, taken steps to ensure that the states working as their agents are treating refugees as they should be. Without these steps, this isn’t in practice an acceptable solution. (Of course, this discussion assumes that Australia isn’t otherwise meeting its fair share of the world’s obligation to refugees, but that seems to me to be a trivially easy case to make, even though the specifics of “fair shares” here are tricky.)

(*) The idea that refugees have no claim to receive a “durable solution” in any particular country or in the country of their choice has several plausible exceptions. To my mind the easiest would be if close family members of the would-be refugees are already firmly re-settled in a particular country. Perhaps more interesting would be cases where the receiving country has important and clear causal connections to the problem necessitating flight. Famous historical examples would be an obligation by Germany to take in “ethnic Germans” subject to ethnic cleansing in eastern and central Europe after WWII, or the obligation of the US to take in so-called “boat people” from Vietnam after the fall of South Vietnam. U.S. obligations to refugees from Iraq are also plausible candidates, some obviously so. There are probably other exceptions to the general claim, too, but the example in the post doesn’t seem like a very clear one to me.

14

Jexpat 11.17.13 at 4:00 pm

John:

I have often made the comparison between hysterically xenophobic Americans and xenophobic Australians (the behaviours and social dynamics are startlingly similar) only to be met with denialism.

Your posts -along with the reliance on Murdoch publications, are proof positive of the point.

15

Realist 11.17.13 at 4:16 pm

Wait, sanctions on Iran are the West’s fault? Not, say, justified by Iran’s flagrant blowing off of Rawl’s first principal of justice? What is this, Bahai’s to the back of the bus?

16

novakant 11.17.13 at 5:01 pm

Wait, sanctions on Iran are the West’s fault?

Yes.

17

Chris Bertram 11.17.13 at 6:30 pm

When people sat down to decide who could claim asylum, they knew exactly what they were doing.

Maybe they did, but if they did then politicians ever since (and particularly since 1989) have been trying to work out ways in which they can interpret the criteria more and more restrictively and arrange things so that the Convention doesn’t apply to them.

I say particularly since 1989 because before that, pretty much anybody from a European “communist” state could claim asylum in the West, just by being from there. Despite Western attempt to portray Iran as a totalitarian hell-hole, its inhabitants don’t get the benefit of the doubt in the way Poles or Czechs once did. I wonder why?

18

Chris Bertram 11.17.13 at 6:52 pm

Thanks for the reference Matt. Of course, there’s a big difference between finding people refuge in a third country where they can build a decent life in conditions where their basic rights are respected and dumping them anywhere that will take them. It would border on the euphemistic to describe the policy of Australian politicians even as reckless in this respect.

19

Paul Foord 11.17.13 at 9:56 pm

20

Paul Foord 11.17.13 at 10:00 pm

Apologies for the above formatting mess Wikipedia is a useful resource on “Mandatory detention in Australia”, also there was a second link to an ABC Lateline report broadcast: 21 Nov 2001 on “Liberals accused of trying to rewrite history”

21

SoU 11.17.13 at 10:08 pm

@17, “Despite Western attempt to portray Iran as a totalitarian hell-hole, its inhabitants don’t get the benefit of the doubt in the way Poles or Czechs once did. I wonder why?”

for starters i always appreciate a good bit of ‘spot the hypocrisy’ when looking at the conventional wisdom.

speaking from a US perspective, Iran, (and Iranians), has been set up as an Other to the West. the government is simultaneously an illegitimate totalitarian imposition by a group of Muslim crazies, as well as a reflection of the innate radicalism of the people of that region using anti-Western gestures to keep popular support. the discourse about Iran/Iranians that has been ready-made for the US public moves between these two conceptions of Iranian state-society relations with ease. I certainly struggle to keep from slipping into said ready made frames, to say nothing of the media, etc. How much of this is likewise Down Under?

Its not just racial, and I actually don’t think this is the main element at all. But Iranians inhabit a different frame from Westerns. they differ in too many ways to occupy the same frame of the human. part of this is the result of a patient effort to marginalize Iran and its people. cribbing a bit from the old de Maistre line: i’ve known people to talk about Americans and Iranians and Africans and Asians, but never met anyone who earnestly talks about humans in general.

a slight exaggeration of course, but for everyday citizens there is this weird phenomenon whereby the particularities of the individuals overwhelm the universality of the human condition, but on closer inspection the particularities are just the characteristics of their groupings into populations (religion, race, region, history) and not the true particulars of the individuals as individuals. now, maybe the latter would be a way forward, but i am more interested in parsing out the universal elements. how do you build (upon) this general frame of the human? or is that just misguided?

22

SoU 11.17.13 at 10:12 pm

also – re: 15 – it is kinda funny seeing comments on international principles of justice and exasperation over the US being responsible for its own actions coming from someone named Realist, but maybe I am just missing the joke?

23

alex 11.18.13 at 2:11 am

CB @ 17. The Convention (which is a miminal requirement) is interpreted more broadly than it was pre-1990, largely due to lobbying by feminists and gay rights campaigners which has encouraged very wide readings of religion, social group or politics.

I don’t agree with the communist point either. The west ran a system, totally outside the unhrc and any convention duties, as part of cold war strategy designed to destablise governments, cause states to fail and propagandise to domestic voters. If you want to wonder why this stopped, it’s because whatever their other faults our leaders aren’t quite crazy enough to use refugee policy as a weapon of war. That would be a massive escalation of our problems with Iran, not anything to hark back to.

24

Helen 11.18.13 at 5:41 am

Emma in Sydney @3:

Many many Australians are deeply opposed to our government’s position on refugees and ashamed of our country’s actions. This issue is one that has, I believe, helped to destroy the alliances that supported the Australian Labor Party and has permanently changed progressive politics here. And the human toll is huge. Thanks for linking to the article.

I second what Emma said.
The large blocks of text by “John” are cut and pasted (you can tell by abrupt changes) and consist of the usual, already-debunked talking points found in News Ltd comment threads (e.g. the idea that a “queue” exists in which asylum seekers ought to “wait”.) As such, I think the loving mallet of correction should be in the warming chamber, mods, as John Scalzi would say.

25

John 11.18.13 at 6:46 am

Unlike what you claim, I added the text from those articles because it adds context to the discusssion around Australia and asylum seekers, notably:

* People from Iraq and Afghanistan (who mainly come by boat) have been shown to have a high rate of unemployment, leading to negative views about those communities

* The muslim community needs to be engaged politically, they feel disenfranchised and this is causing to pockets of radicalisation, leading to more mistrust from the general community worsening the situation

* Australians believe in fairness and perceive those who come by boat as ‘queue jumping’ and often coming for a better life rather then because they are fleeing persecution as typified by comments by bob carr (former foreign minister):

“So when asked how many of the asylum seeker arrivals he thinks are economic migrants rather than refugees, here is what Bob Carr had to say.

BOB CARR, FOREIGN MINISTER: I would need to get that out of our, out of the Immigration Department, but as I’ve looked at data about recent vessels, I would suggest it’s been 100 per cent, it’s been 100 per cent. ”

From http://www.abc.net.au/lateline/content/2013/s3792346.htm

Personally, I think DIAC do a terrible job at assisting refugees. They outsource it to community groups, which means refugees often stay within close knit communities and do not engage with the broader Australian community. I think that we need to rethink how we help refugees integrate into Australian life.

My preference is also to assist those stuck in refugee camps, ahead of those who pay people smugglers. We should not encourage this horrifc trade, which fleeces refugees, encourages corruption in Indonesia, Malaysia, and Pakistan. I would like us to take more refugees, but only after we improve the servies we have in place to assist them.

26

Chris Bertram 11.18.13 at 9:48 am

alex: yes, human rights lawyers have pushed for more expansive readings, but politicians ( the group I referenced) have not and they’ve done their best to ensure that potential asylum claimants never actually get into a position where then can have their claim adjudicated by preventing them from reaching sovereign territory.

27

Sasha Clarkson 11.18.13 at 10:33 am

Wovon lebt der Mensch?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GR-qwE0VKtg

Where do rights come from? I had an argument recently with a Tory about inheritance tax. With the law of the jungle, all you inherit is your genes. Anything else you have to fight to gain or to keep. Human beings modify that by cooperation within communities. Empathy helps the social bonding and has enabled us to become the dominant species on the planet.

My late mother arrived in the UK as a stateless 17 year old refugee in 1946. She was sponsored and taken in by a Quaker doctor’s family in Cumberland. Although the distinction between asylum seekers and economic migrants has become blurred, I don’t blame anyone for trying to improve their lives by moving somewhere else. On the other hand, a few years ago I remember being very relieved that some distant cousins from Kiev couldn’t get visas and turn up on our doorstep. Two ended up in Israel instead as they were part-Jewish.

I’m all-right Jack. I live in semi-rural West Wales far from the madding crowd. Who am I to say how generous others should be unless I am prepared to make a personal sacrifice to help too? For if the global stresses which create the migrants are caused by the elite, the burdens fall upon communities of poor ordinary citizens whose hard gained social contracts are threatened. Empathy has its limits: it ends when people try to protect what they already have. Then the law of the jungle returns. That’s reality, not something to be proud of.

“Erst kommt das Fressen – Dann kommt die Moral.”

If you want to make the world a better place, don’t pontificate: give generously (and consider making your spare room available?)

http://www.refugeecouncil.org.uk/how_you_can_help_us

http://www.refugeecouncil.org.au/g/don.php

http://www.redcross.org.au/asylum-seeker-assistance-scheme.aspx

28

Matt 11.18.13 at 11:42 am

and they’ve done their best to ensure that potential asylum claimants never actually get into a position where then can have their claim adjudicated by preventing them from reaching sovereign territory.

This is an important issue. The most obvious cases involve interdiction at sea w/o even the least plausible credible fear interviews, but the more serious forms of carrier sanctions (a sort of privatizing border control onto airlines) and refusing to give visas to people who it’s expected might claim asylum also plays an important role. Of course, there are complicated issues here that are hard to know how to best address, but requiring genuine credible fear interviews for people stopped at sea, and not refusing visas merely on the grounds that there’s a good chance the person in question will claim asylum would be good first steps.

29

rwschnetler 11.18.13 at 11:56 am

Helen @ 24:

Are you saying that all refugees should be allowed to migrate to whichever country they like? As in an open border policy?

30

Mao Cheng Ji 11.18.13 at 1:46 pm

@13 ” There is good reason to think that our duties to refugees are two-fold: first, to not return them to a country where they would face persecution, and secondly, to provided them access to permanent residence and eventually full membership in a society where they can live safely. (The 2nd follows because of the nature of refugees, as I try to show in the linked paper.)”

I haven’t read the linked paper, but what you’re saying here doesn’t seem right at all. The default solution is the repatriation. Something bad happens in you country, you cross the border, you are sheltered somewhere until the situation in your country has normalized, you go back, end of story. This is the normal scenario. If you have to become a permanent resident and eventually a full citizen in a different society, that, in the grand scheme of things, is a failure.

31

Matt 11.18.13 at 1:56 pm

If you have to become a permanent resident and eventually a full citizen in a different society, that, in the grand scheme of things, is a failure.

Yes- that’s certainly so. But it’s for this reason that there is usually a distinction between asylum and various versions of “temporary protected status”. Asylum is usually assumed to be for indefinite duration, which is why those given it typically have access to full membership after some time. In the paper I link to, I try to explain why we should expect this to be so in the case of “convention refugees”. Broader and more popular usage of the term of course covers lots of people for whom some sort of temporary protected status is the right measure.

32

Chris Bertram 11.18.13 at 2:17 pm

Something bad happens in you country, you cross the border, you are sheltered somewhere until the situation in your country has normalized, you go back, end of story.

Or not. Back on September 11th, I started a post about the anniversary of the Chilean coup by relating a conversation I’d had with one of the cleaners in our department. She had come to the UK as a refugee, but her children then grew up here, went to British schools, got jobs in the UK, married UK citizens. When she went to visit Chile, years later, it was a foreign country to her, to which she could not relate: “home” was not in the UK. That’s just how it is. If people stay in a country long enough they put down roots, it is just part of the normal process of being human and a sensible asylum, refugee and migration system has to accommodate that.

33

Mao Cheng Ji 11.18.13 at 2:27 pm

It’s called ‘resettlement’. The least desirable, exceptional solution. It’s a little odd that it attracts so much attention.

34

Mao Cheng Ji 11.18.13 at 2:30 pm

(that was in response to 31, Matt)

35

Matt 11.18.13 at 2:38 pm

It’s called ‘resettlement’. The least desirable, exceptional solution. It’s a little odd that it attracts so much attention.

Since I’m someone who works on this issue both as a lawyer and theorist, I know about the issue. But, it’s also a very normal solution, so it’s not at all odd that it attracts so much attention. It’s also not surprising, given the sort of situations that give rise to refugees. (And, ‘resettlement’ is the term normally used for finding permanent homes for people living in camps. That’s an important and not unusual problem. But, it’s also not at all the only way that people are given access to a ‘durable solution’. People who apply affirmatively for asylum are not typically ‘resettled’.) And, it’s not at all obviously the “least desirable” solution. The “least desirable” would refoulement to a country where one faces persecution. Next would be lingering for years in a camp where return is very unlikely and one can’t make a life. Resettlement is clearly more desirable than either of those scenarios. So, I think you’re more than a bit off in you assessment of these issues.

36

Mao Cheng Ji 11.18.13 at 2:56 pm

Well, “refoulement to a country where one faces persecution” is not a solution. Obviously we’re talking about solutions for refugees, not solutions for governments that want to get rid of them. I’m just saying that getting some sort of temporary/renewable residence permit in a neighboring (culturally similar) country might easily be a better solution for most people than permanent residence in Australia. IOW, permanent residence in Australia is not necessarily the most burning issue. Although it is an issue nevertheless, I agree.

37

TheSophist 11.18.13 at 4:05 pm

Chris @32: I have some first-hand experience of this. My family came from the UK to the US in 1977 for religious reasons (the Scottish church had refused my widowed father permission to marry a (gasp!) divorcee, and the ECUSA was much more reasonable.) Calling us refugees would be too strong, but it was definitely immigration based upon need rather than desire. I was 13, and the oldest of three. While I still identify very much as Scottish, and might return there to live/work if the opportunity arose, my sister feels as much a tourist when she returns to the UK as she does when she visits anywhere else, and certainly identifies as completely American.

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