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Viewpoints and Advocacy
Themes and Issues |
Durable Solutions
for Refugees
Knock, Knock, Knocking on Europe's Door
- The Case to Expand Resettlement of Refugees
in the EU
Presentation of John K. Bingham,
Head of Advocacy, International Catholic Migration Commission
to the II World Social Forum on Migration - Madrid June 24, 2006
Introduction
A word about me. For eight years,
I worked with Cambodian refugees, first teaching human rights
and criminal justice in a camp of 240,000 on the Thai-Cambodian
border and, after repatriation, teaching international business
law at the university in Phnom Penh. I then worked another eight
years with immigrants and refugees in New York, heading a program
that worked with large numbers of people and families actively
seeking asylum in the US courts or arriving as refugees already
approved overseas for resettlement in America.
I am an immigrant to France and a migrant worker, crossing the
border to Switzerland every day, where I am the Head of advocacy
for the International Catholic Migration Commission.
ICMC works with refugees and asylum seekers in
6 ways. Directly, ICMC is active in:
- Refugee identification and processing:
For over a decade. ICMC has operated a large "Overseas
Processing Entity" in Turkey, which processes thousands
of refugees from North Africa, Mideast and Southwest Asia regions
every year for resettlement principally in the United States,
with large numbers of Iranian refugees in recent years. These
refugees, for whom resettlement is the only durable solution
available, are referred by UNHCR based on criteria established
in the UNHCR Resettlement Handbook. ICMC has also organized
rapid, one-time programs to process for resettlement refugees
in urgent need of a durable solution, such as a recent program
the Australian government supported for resettlement of Liberian
refugees languishing in devastating circumstances in refugee
camps in Guinea and Ghana. Most of these refugees were women
head of households and their children.
- Deployment of experts to augment
UNHCR staff in their resettlement offices worldwide, with some
60 ICMC staff in 30 UNHCR offices worldwide. These experts,
20% of them Europeans, offer expertise in several areas, including
determining refugee status, reaching "best interest determinations"
for refugee children, and assessing psycho-social needs that
need to be considered.
- Voluntary return programs that
have assisted refugees and displaced persons in considering
and completing their return home, most recently in the Balkans
and Indonesia. ICMC has assisted refugees in finding adequate
housing, jobs, schooling and medical care, with particular emphasis
on the need for special attention and solutions for the most
vulnerable returnees.
- Emergency humanitarian assistance
to refugees and IDPs in conflict and post-conflict situations
and after natural disasters, such as after the tsunami in Indonesia
and the earthquake in Pakistan.
- Advocacy, from our offices in
Geneva, Washington and Brussels, primarily at international
and regional levels, including training and capacity building
of government and non-government agencies as well as policy
work.
More indirectly, ICMC is also active with refugees
and asylum seekers:
- through 172 Church-related member organizations
working in camps, urban settings, and detention centers, and
in national and local asylum and refugee settlement programs,
like the one with which I worked.
It is important to note that our Church remembers that Jesus
himself was a refugee, so our motivation is a matter of faith
and identity as well as heart and humanity.
My talk will have 4 parts to it:
Part 1: The "real"
importance of access to asylum and resettlement
Our topic here is "Threats to Access" to asylum and
resettlement. Let's start right there with the importance of access
to those procedures; the need for access. Because it is difficult
not only to get legal access, that is, to participate in asylum
and resettlement processes, but also to physically get a chance
at access. And the lengths to which people go just to get physical
access to asylum and resettlement processes tells us how important
that access truly is for them. That is where we must begin, and
center, and test and turbocharge our attention in these matters.
3 quick stories.
I was working in the Cambodian refugee
camp, managing security in the camp for the UN one Sunday,
when we heard an explosion just outside the camp. About 20 minutes
later, I got a radio call from one of the camp hospitals saying
that a woman had stepped on a land mine trying to get into the
camp with her son and sister. At the hospital, I stood holding
her son's hand as the medics tried to clean up what was left of
her leg, with the son just looking at her and at me, with eyes
filled with incomprehension and pain.
This story tells what human beings will risk just to try for
the possibility of asylum or resettlement, and how important access
is to them.
The second story was presented in a report
this week to governments, the UNHCR and NGOs involved in resettlement
at the annual tripartite consultation on resettlement in Geneva.
A doctor reports:
"I recently had a large family from Ethiopia come in for
testing. There were probably about eight or nine of them, and
only the mother turned out to be HIV-positive. I called her back
in to tell her about the result and asked her to come back for
reconfirmation testing the following week. About a month later,
after I'd been calling quite a while, one of the other family
members told me that she'd killed herself after she found out
[she was HIV-positive]. They said that she wanted them to be able
to go [to the country of resettlement], and they couldn't since
she was HIV-positive. I'm not sure about the requirements, but
I think her visa would still have been granted [despite her HIV
status]. There was no reason for her to die, but these patients
will do anything to get their families there [to the resettlement
country]."
This story tells what human beings will not only risk, but sacrifice,just
trying to get access to resettlement; how incredibly important
that access is to them.
We all know the stories. And the tough thing is: they're not
just "stories." They're real human beings.
The third however, is a story of the kind of
resistance to access that refugees and asylum seekers can face
from governments.
This is also from this week's annual tripartite consultation
in Geneva, just a few hours before I got on the plane for this
conference. One of the NGOs in Australia told of a new law being
proposed by their government there: to process refugee claims
on an island off Australia, not belonging to Australia, for anyone
picked up on a boat or on the shore who asked for refugee status.
However, even the few actually given refugee status would still
not be allowed to enter Australia. The idea was that the refugees
would either be offered to other countries for resettlement or
even traded to countries for refugees that the other countries
did not want. Someone sarcastically suggested that submarines
might be the next step of logic and efficiency for such thinking
on refugee processing and invisibility…
That's resistance alright.
Now, "6 and 6":
Part 2: 6 current "threats"
to access to asylum and refugee resettlement.
The first three threats are very closely related, and probably
all too common in too many parts of the world.
The first big threat is the bad habits
of too many political leaders and the media.
This includes in particular:
- Populism, which the UN's High
Commissioner for Refugees António Guterres cited as the
number one problem regarding world migration today. There is
an alarming growth in political and campaign rhetoric-and media
reporting-that feeds and feeds on xenophobia, racism and the
fear of the new or unknown.
- Fixation and overrepresentation of the
worst problems, stories and photos.
- Forgotten crises. For example,
who remembers Northern Uganda? When was the last time you read
or heard news of the 2 million displaced there, many for over
10 years now?
The second threat is ever-hardening
laws and systems (national and regional)
Laws and systems have always been unequal to begin with, but
all are getting tougher and tougher against those seeking asylum
or resettlement. How many locks do we need on the door? One nation
after another is debating or legislating ever-more selective immigration
("l'immigration choisie") while restricting and reducing
its asylum or resettlement processes.
In fact, the number of asylum applications alone has dropped
more than 40% in just the past 5 years! This raises the question-which
is neither asked often enough nor ever answered: why do so many
political leaders and the media continue to talk as if asylum
seekers are a rising flood and crisis? Similarly, global refugee
numbers are at their lowest since 1980.
Perhaps as CEAR President Ignazio Díaz de Aguilar said
a few days ago , indeed "legal walls are more subtle and
efficient" than walls of concrete and barbed wire.
Perhaps it is also important to remind governments that under
international legal agreements as well as basic moral and human
standards , they need to provide protection to asylum seekers
and refugees, not be protected from them…
The third threat is the increase in
"fortress" mentalities-the three "d's":
- Unwarranted demonizing of asylum seekers
and refugees, for example, recent US legislation barring
consideration of asylum seekers or refugees who may have been
even unwittingly associated or forced participants in groups
considered dangerous or terrorist, with the result that only
40,000 refugees are expected to be processed for resettlement
in the US this year even though the US president expressly authorized
70,000;
- An excessive "defense reflex",
for example, the harsh interdiction of migrants trying to arrive
in Ceuta, Mellila, Florida and Australia; and
- Disproportionate security, including
the militarization of borders and points of entry, the externalization
of processing (as in the proposal of the Australian government),
and the development of "outer rings," enlisting neighboring
countries as agents of migration control.
The fourth threat is a lack of consensus
on important gender issues:
Just 2 examples:
- UNHCR right now is struggling with opposition among certain
UN member states to adopting a Conclusion on Women and Girls
at Risk designed to clarify and make uniform standards for protection
of those refugees. Though the draft conclusion has been in process
for quite some time and had seemed to be achieving broad support
among member states, recent disagreements over harmful traditional
practices such as genital mutilation and forced marriage may
derail its adoption this year and its consideration beyond.
The failure to achieve a conclusion of any kind would be a missed
opportunity for the over 50% of refugees who are women and girls.
- A lack of consistency in processing female refugees. For example,
of the millions of Afghans refugees that continue to live in
Pakistan and other countries, UNHCR projected only 300 referrals
of women at risk this year, and actually referred for resettlement
only 100.
The fifth threat, to refugee resettlement
specifically, is a lack of UNHCR capacity.
There are two aspects to this. On UNHCR's list of the five top
challenges just presented at this week's Annual Tripartite Consultations
on Resettlement in Geneva, lack of capacity was listed as # 1…
and # 2… AND # 3!!!
This is coming after an already difficult year-which itself was
predicted by UNHCR at last year's Tripartite Consultations when,
for example, they warned:
"The figures in the Projected Global Resettlement Needs
for 2006 show an increase from 2005 to 48,000 plus, but UNHCR
only has the capacity to address the resettlement needs of 34,000
refugees. […] In Africa for instance, 14 out of 31 country
offices do not have the sufficient human resources and capacity
to deliver the projected needs. […] In the Americas region,
three countries will not be able to meet the projected needs unless
additional resources are found. Although the absolute number is
less than 600 people, the deficit represents 30 percent."
Given UNHCR's current budget crisis, with 20-40% budget cuts
across the board and as much as 60% reductions in certain departments,
the lack of capacity that was already bad may only be expected
to get worse.
The sixth and last threat is actually
2 false battles that we non-government organizations (NGOs) have
to beware.
False battle # 1: Asylum (processing
where the applicant is already inside the country) versus
refugee resettlement (processing where the applicant is
outside the country). It is easy for NGOs to get distracted and
divided into opposing camps on this, especially NGOs who work
exclusively with and are passionate about just one or the other
of the two issues. But we must keep our eyes on the prize, which
is protection. And both asylum and refugee resettlement processes
are about protection. So it is not either-or, it is both that
are needed. One should keep in mind that those that engage in
the long travel to Europe to seek asylum once there are often
the strongest and the fittest. The most vulnerable refugees, including
largely women and children, are less able to undertake such hazardous
journeys and are dependent on durable solutions such as resettlement
from abroad.
Above all, we must be very careful that WE don't become the ones
locking the doors against people who are knocking begging for
protection. The problem is not whether they are knocking on the
inside or the outside: the problem is the locked door.
False battle # 2: Asylum seekers and refugees
versus more "useful" economic migrants. We have
to watch that as the world gets increasingly excited about the
"positives" of migrants and "skilled labor"
and remittances and supporting "graying societies,"
a utilitarian approach and priority does not smother the urgency-and
international obligations-to offer protection.
Part 3: 6 "signs of hope"
for access to asylum and refugee resettlement.
As always with "hope," some of these signs of hope
are like small lights in areas of darkness. Some are the bright
side of a tough story-for example:
The first good sign is that the numbers
of refugees and asylum seekers are indeed way down. While
as already mentioned, this is in part a result of a toughening
of laws and processes that force people either to migrate by irregular
routes or to stay within their own borders as internally (i.e.,
non-refugee) displaced, in truth the numbers are also down substantially
because over the past few years millions of refugees have actually
gone home, to Afghanistan in particular. And that is clear, objective
good news-and a sign of great hope.
The second good sign is that more countries
worldwide are involved or expressing new interest in refugee resettlement,
especially following the "Mexico Plan of Action" in
2004. Whereas some of this engagement is slow, several countries,
including Chile and Uruguay, have recently joined the traditional
resettlement countries. At the same time, only eight countries
in all of Europe (six members of the European Union) participate
in refugee resettlement , accepting about 5,000 of the 90,000
refugees that resettle each year. However, recent steps offer
hope for greater resettlement: a "1000 more" campaign
launched this year to increase Denmark's current annual quota
of 500 (though the Danish government has not agreed), a proposal
for Italy to engage in a resettlement program, and a commitment
by Spain to accept 500 refugees from outside the country for resettlement
in addition to those granted asylum in processes inside the country.
The third good sign, like several others,
brightens an area of worry described earlier: there is ongoing
(and big!) improvement in at least certain gender-related areas,
even if there is not necessarily international consensus in every
case. This is especially true with respect to victims of human
trafficking and of gender-based violence. Laws, procedural decision-making
and services that support these victims are increasing dramatically,
including for example a case this past year in Spain that granted
asylum to a woman from Iran entirely on the basis of 20 years
of domestic violence.
The fourth good sign is what I call (like
the song) the "Don't worry be happy!" mood-swing on
global migration, embodied in the report of the Global
Commission on International Migration and the various conferences
and reports prepared by the World Bank and a number of UN and
other international organizations in the lead-up to the UN high
level dialogue on international migration and development in September
2006.
The fifth good sign is the increase in
trainings worldwide, like these, both of non-government
organizations and government entities, to develop or improve standards
for asylum and refugee processing. For example, last month ICMC
organized a nearly three week training for that purpose of Ministry
of Interior officials in Turkey, as we have for the past three
years. In one of the trainings, a border guard supervisor asked
a question about the "10-day rule" under Turkey's law
that said people lost their right to an asylum process if they
did not request it within 10 days of crossing the border. To the
surprise of many of the participants, the boss, who was also in
the training, announced that the rule no longer applied! At another
of the trainings, there was an active and positive discussion
of the role of NGOs in partnering with the government for better
response to refugees and asylum seekers. These training experiences
are great signs of hope, visible in many countries and settings.
That leads directly to the sixth and last
sign of hope I'd mention, what I'd call the "frog in the
cooking pot" principle: the increasing role and influence
of civil society in matters of asylum and refugee processing.
You may be familiar with the story of the frog in the pot, where
the frog doesn't know he's being cooked even as the heat goes
up higher and higher. That's the way it is in this work worldwide:
if the frog in our work is bad policies, practices and proposals
regarding asylum and refugees, we need only to keep the heat on.
And maybe we won't know it or even sense it happening, but we
will win better protection and access for asylum seekers and refugees
by simply keeping the heat on.
Part 4: The case for
greater resettlement of refugees in Europe, that
is, adding external resettlement processing without reducing or
externalizing internal asylum processing.
We have to make this case, to which ICMC and our affiliate ICMC-Europe
in Brussels are firmly and actively committed. Having begun our
work over 50 years ago with refugees in Europe, and based on experience
in the decades since helping to process and resettle millions
of refugees in many parts of the world, we see 10 reasons for
Europe to further develop its resettlement of refugees :
- Resettlement creates opportunities for protection, especially
in protracted situations (also called "refugee warehousing.")
- Resettlement programming offers possibilities for solidarity
and burden-sharing among nations that otherwise are too often
left in two separate groups: one, small group of nations, typically
with limited resources, that receive and host large numbers
of refugees, and the rest who don't.
- Resettlement opens ordered access for refugees to Europe
at a time when huge efforts and resources are being directed
to restrict access.
- Formal resettlement processes allow for high-quality reception
and integration programs.
- Resettlement complements existing national asylum systems.
Like the last two above, these next five are quite practical,
but call for great care, prudential judgement, and evaluation
with respect to how related policies and programs are developed
and actually implemented.
- Formal resettlement processes offer governments a choice in
which refugees come to the country, how many and when. While
this can be problematic and improperly manipulated , the experience
of many of the traditional resettlement countries is that among
other things, it helps to promote the integration interest of
the refugee as well as the state. For example, it permits a
constructive matching of culture and language to the native
demographic or to other immigrant communities already there.
- Formal resettlement processes offer genuine alternatives
to irregular migration, human smuggling and trafficking (as
well as rescue) to the several hundred or thousand that might
be resettled each year.
- Strategic use of resettlement opens up other possibilities
for governments and regional or international objectives. For
example, moving and resettling a refugee population:
- is often a final step to peace in a conflict;
- "makes room" for other refugees in greater need
(e.g., the resettlement of Vietnamese and Cambodians from
Thailand made it more possible for Thailand to host refugees
from Burma)
- even reduces spontaneous arrivals of refugees and asylum-seekers
by demonstrating a formal and ordered process as an alternative.
- Flexible use of resettlement allows governments and the world
to respond to specific situations and crises, a point noted
favourably in a European Commission Communication dated June
4, 2004.
- Finally, the public is generally more accepting of refugees
already recognized as having credible protection needs, e.g.,
through formal resettlement processes. With proper respect to
privacy and dignity, organized resettlement programs also tend
to offer easier public relations and media opportunities.
Conclusion
It all comes down to three simple propositions.
- Human beings flee persecution in their country of origin and
need protection.
- Some seek another country's protection by applying for refugee
status inside that country (in asylum processes), some by applying
from outside (for refugee resettlement), usually from a region
in which they have remained a refugee for many years, without
any hope of constructing a future for themselves or their children.
- Under international laws and agreements, and for the sake
of humanity, nations in Europe and around the world are called
to answer that knock on their door, whether it comes from inside
or outside.
NGOs must promote that response, and partner in it.
Refugees and asylum seekers like the Cambodian in the minefield
and the Ethiopian mother are risking their hopes, their children,
and their lives for that response.
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