The Violence of American Border Policies Continues

Both political parties say they care about families—so why would the Biden administration return to a family separation regime?

And yet, in the absence of new legislation that makes it easier to cross the border legally for work, the Biden administration has defaulted to a hard line on immigration that continues to separate families and promote border security. ...

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The Violence of American Border Policies Continues

Remote Control of Asylum Seekers

How States Evade their Protection Obligation

Zolberg observed that regulating migration at the port of embarkation abroad “is now so familiar that we tend to underestimate its radically innovative character and its fundamental importance in regulating world-wide movement.” In Refuge Beyond Reach: How Rich Democracies Repel Asylum Seekers, I show how modern remote control has become a ...
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Remote Control of Asylum Seekers

Grassroots Asylum

Escaping the Statist Paradigm

Because the asylum framework is constructed upon such subjective criteria, and is administered by states themselves, the decisions about who receives protection are stuck within a statist paradigm. Asylum is conceived of as a gift of the state, over which the state has discretion in how requests are considered. And ...
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Grassroots Asylum

As We Contemplate Change

We look at what’s possible, who makes it possible, and how people move policy

So let’s start with how change happens. Economist James K. Galbraith leads off our politics section this week with an analysis of Bernie Sanders’ economic platform: can Bernie do all these things? Read it and find out. Next, we turn to a reflection on activism, as Nick Estes interviews Native American ...
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Trump’s War on Asylum

In the summer of 2019, the Administration put in place a policy that denies asylum to any person who has traveled through another country and failed to request asylum in the transit state. It has announced a reduction of refugee admissions to 18,000, a more than 80% cut from the ...
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In the Shadow of Auschwitz

Reflections on America’s Asylum Policies in the Age of Trump

This odd combination of events sparked a number of thoughts which I offer now after further reflection. I will not enter into the discussion of whether the detention facilities to which children have been confined in the U.S. are or are not similar to concentration camps; nor am I arguing ...
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Border Crisis?

How American Policies Have Produced a Generation of Refugees 

On October 18, 2018 President Donald J. Trump continued his detrimental practice of using Twitter to fuel the already hot immigration debate. He said, in part, “I am watching the Democrat Party led (because they want Open Borders and existing weak laws) assault on our country by Guatemala, Honduras and El Salvador, ...
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Tempest Tossed

Is the US a ‘safe country’ for asylum-seekers?: A conversation with Professor Sean Rehaag on new challenges to the US-Canada

Under an agreement signed in 2002, Canada can return asylum-seekers to the US if they have traveled through the US or lived there prior to arriving in Canada. Recent policies north and south of the US-Canadian border pose new challenges to the agreement, as Sean Rehaag, professor at Osgoode Hall ...
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How You Can Help Immigrant Children Separated From Their Families

We need to take action against the U.S. government’s ‘Zero Tolerance’ Policy

We stand in support of a humane and equitable immigration path, policy, and process for all people. The federal government’s “zero tolerance” immigration policy promises to prosecute all persons who illegally cross the border, which includes individuals who seek asylum. Under the zero tolerance policy, thousands of children were forcibly ...
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How You Can Help Immigrant Children Separated From Their Families

Finding Refuge

When Secure Borders Are Not the Answer

As countries in the global North fortify their borders against irregular migrants from the global South, border walls proliferate. Argentina constructed a wall at its border with Paraguay. Hungary recently erected a second, electrified fence at its border with Serbia. And Donald Trump’s administration is still committed to building at ...
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Finding Refuge