I'd like to add a third comment - apologies if I am spamming your comment board. I have just listened to a video by one of my favourite political commentators, Phil Moorhouse, who runs a youtube channel called 'a different bias'. He's just done a video on the importance of the ECHR, the European Convention of Human Rights and how it provides protection against abuses by governments.
Fascinating perspective. Ironically, I’m a native Californian and always considered myself a Californian first and foremost, until I was shipwrecked in Washington DC almost a decade ago now. What is happening there now lies somewhere between totally absurd and terribly scary, suggesting that the worry warts about Trump were right all along. Coincidentally, to return to the discussion of immigration, if the United States were to separate into two or more countries, California and several other states (not all of them contiguous) would lead the blue bloc. And ironically, one of the major political challenges facing that bloc would probably be “illegal” immigration, mostly from the red bloc country next door.
Now you've combined two areas of interest for me - migration (I am a descendant of an asylum seeker because of religious persecution and I am an economic migrant.) and the break-up of countries (yep, Indy supporter here!)
:-)
PS I absolutely hate 'Migrationshintergrund' - that's such an awful word!
I have got a couple of points to make and I'll split them into separate comments, so that it is easier to engage in a conversation.
I'll start with 'illegal alien' - I am aware that this is a fairly standard American phrase, but for my European ears it sounds awful. Absolutely awful. The 'alien' bit conjures images of that creature in those films with Sigourney Weaver when the people under consideration are human beings like everyone else.
It is one way of 'othering' people and it makes me uncomfortable. I am attaching a short youtube clip, where an elderly lady asks the then Home Secretary (not sure whether your equivalent would be the Secretary of the Interior or DHS Secretary) to tone down her language about migrants. She makes the point that 'othering' language does not necessarily lead to violence but that violence starts with language. (She also mentioned that she is a Holocaust survivor, which makes her comments very poignant.) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=krpxl7hUQVE
I get the impression - and I might be wrong - that over the last few years there had been a movement to replace the phrase but that in the last few months it has become part of official use (again). I also get the impression that there are some people who seem to be using the phrase with obvious gusto, as if they're relishing the othering.
I'd like to provide a bit of contrast: Here the government has been using the phrase 'people of Scotland', it is a very deliberate attempt at inclusivity, at including people like me: I am not Scottish, but I am part of the people of Scotland.
Thanks for the commentary. I usually use "irregular" rather than "illegal" but neither term is completely accurate. Irregular refers to people who come to the U.S. outside of the legal immigration system, though some (TPS, Dreamers, asylum seekers, etc) have a form of status and aren't illegal.
I have to say I agree with you and react in similar fashion when I am reminded to consciously think of that phrase, as you have just made me do. The more appropriate term is undocumented migrant, probably. Our initial use of the offending phrase was lifted verbatim from a DHS page citing recent statistics. But you’re right also that illegal alien has sunk so deep into the American lexicon that I mostly don’t react to it anymore. Very useful to get the outside reaction, which I used to get as a matter of course.
My second comment is relating to people asking for asylum. Which is also a hot political topic here with the governmentS (especially the previous one) looking for a range of tools to stop people crossing the Channel by boat. In the public discourse there are some people who are proposing all kinds of ideas, most of them completely impractical and some are utterly illegal. Some of the ideas include abandoning human rights protections (the ECHR) and leaving the Refugee Convention.
The creation of the Refugee Convention is of course a direct development from the treatment of the MS St Louis, where people looking to find asylum as their home country had become very dangerous were being turned away from a number of ports.
It looks as if we are forgetting that particular history lesson.
Yes. And I learned early on as a US diplomat that if people came to a US embassy and asked for political asylum, the proper response was to send them to the nearest UNHCR office so that they could be given refugee status from which they (if they qualified) could be entered into a process and eventually given asylum in some country (given statistics, it would most likely be in the United States but not always or necessarily). The only people who can ask for asylum right then and there are those already in our country. Hence, the explosion of economic migrants posing as political asylum seekers that has caused the current backlash.
I'd like to challenge you as regards your last sentence, about the distinction of between asylum seekers and economic migrants. Bear with me, please, it might be a somewhat round-about way how'll put what I am trying to say.
Let's think about Jewish people leaving Germany. But let's think about them without the knowledge of their fate, please. So, a Jewish family leaving Germany in 1934 - would they have been political refugees or economic migrants? Or 1937? Or after Kristallnacht?
If a Jewish business owner was leaving after having sold his business, again we might have considered this differently if he had sold before the many measures of repression had been implemented or after, basically if he had voluntarily sold or had been forced to?
If a Jewish professional was leaving after he had been forced out of his profession, you could call him an economic migrant, someone looking to establish a new career away from Germany.
What I am trying to say is that the distinction is not always clear-cut.
Perfectly valid point. I think it can be a genuinely difficult call to distinguish one from the other in a formal process (which I know the United States used to take seriously. Now, not so sure. )
But to play the devil’s advocate (doubly apt for the point I’m about to make), let’s say all economic migrants in the world also could be judged legitimate political asylees. Would rich countries be ethically/legally required to make room for ALL of them? Lots more people would come, that’s for sure.
As regards the question how many would flee - the website for the David Milliband organisation has got a calculation somewhere (I read it a while ago, so I am quoting from memory): Approx 100m people have fled their home, due to war or other disasters. Of those approx half have moved to a different place in their own country (internally displaced persons). Of the rest about half have left their own country but have settled in a neighbouring, often quite poor country. (Eg the 1m Syrians in Lebanon, a country of 4/5m)
Which means that it's only a small proportion of refugees, which are actually looking for asylum further away. When looking at Europe, the countries with the largest per capita number of asylum seekers, that's Cyprus and Greece.
Here in the UK, the likes of Mr Fromage claim that the UK is a key asylum destination, implying that there are disproportionately many asylum seekers here. Which is actually not the case, the UK takes considerably fewer compared to the likes of France and Germany.
Coming back to your question, whether we (=Western countries) are required to make room for all of them? No. But we should recognise that the vast majority of refugees are being looked after elsewhere in the world.
I wasn't actually going to so far as claiming that all the economic migrants also have a valid claim of persecution .....
One interesting case are Eritreans. In some discussion fora I've read claims that they are economic migrants because they want to get out of doing military service and that this is not a valid reason for an asylum claim. True. However, there the military service is mandatory and in the region of approx 20 years in length. You can argue that people fleeing for economic reasons because they are prevented from establishing a career or setting up a business. Or you could argue that this is a form of indentured servitude instituted by a repressive regime.
I'd like to add a third comment - apologies if I am spamming your comment board. I have just listened to a video by one of my favourite political commentators, Phil Moorhouse, who runs a youtube channel called 'a different bias'. He's just done a video on the importance of the ECHR, the European Convention of Human Rights and how it provides protection against abuses by governments.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mM2V1KnN07Y
In one section he provides contrasts between some of Trump's actions and how the ECHR would provide protections for people.
Fascinating perspective. Ironically, I’m a native Californian and always considered myself a Californian first and foremost, until I was shipwrecked in Washington DC almost a decade ago now. What is happening there now lies somewhere between totally absurd and terribly scary, suggesting that the worry warts about Trump were right all along. Coincidentally, to return to the discussion of immigration, if the United States were to separate into two or more countries, California and several other states (not all of them contiguous) would lead the blue bloc. And ironically, one of the major political challenges facing that bloc would probably be “illegal” immigration, mostly from the red bloc country next door.
Now you've combined two areas of interest for me - migration (I am a descendant of an asylum seeker because of religious persecution and I am an economic migrant.) and the break-up of countries (yep, Indy supporter here!)
:-)
PS I absolutely hate 'Migrationshintergrund' - that's such an awful word!
I have got a couple of points to make and I'll split them into separate comments, so that it is easier to engage in a conversation.
I'll start with 'illegal alien' - I am aware that this is a fairly standard American phrase, but for my European ears it sounds awful. Absolutely awful. The 'alien' bit conjures images of that creature in those films with Sigourney Weaver when the people under consideration are human beings like everyone else.
It is one way of 'othering' people and it makes me uncomfortable. I am attaching a short youtube clip, where an elderly lady asks the then Home Secretary (not sure whether your equivalent would be the Secretary of the Interior or DHS Secretary) to tone down her language about migrants. She makes the point that 'othering' language does not necessarily lead to violence but that violence starts with language. (She also mentioned that she is a Holocaust survivor, which makes her comments very poignant.) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=krpxl7hUQVE
I get the impression - and I might be wrong - that over the last few years there had been a movement to replace the phrase but that in the last few months it has become part of official use (again). I also get the impression that there are some people who seem to be using the phrase with obvious gusto, as if they're relishing the othering.
I'd like to provide a bit of contrast: Here the government has been using the phrase 'people of Scotland', it is a very deliberate attempt at inclusivity, at including people like me: I am not Scottish, but I am part of the people of Scotland.
Thanks for the commentary. I usually use "irregular" rather than "illegal" but neither term is completely accurate. Irregular refers to people who come to the U.S. outside of the legal immigration system, though some (TPS, Dreamers, asylum seekers, etc) have a form of status and aren't illegal.
I have to say I agree with you and react in similar fashion when I am reminded to consciously think of that phrase, as you have just made me do. The more appropriate term is undocumented migrant, probably. Our initial use of the offending phrase was lifted verbatim from a DHS page citing recent statistics. But you’re right also that illegal alien has sunk so deep into the American lexicon that I mostly don’t react to it anymore. Very useful to get the outside reaction, which I used to get as a matter of course.
My second comment is relating to people asking for asylum. Which is also a hot political topic here with the governmentS (especially the previous one) looking for a range of tools to stop people crossing the Channel by boat. In the public discourse there are some people who are proposing all kinds of ideas, most of them completely impractical and some are utterly illegal. Some of the ideas include abandoning human rights protections (the ECHR) and leaving the Refugee Convention.
The creation of the Refugee Convention is of course a direct development from the treatment of the MS St Louis, where people looking to find asylum as their home country had become very dangerous were being turned away from a number of ports.
It looks as if we are forgetting that particular history lesson.
Yes. And I learned early on as a US diplomat that if people came to a US embassy and asked for political asylum, the proper response was to send them to the nearest UNHCR office so that they could be given refugee status from which they (if they qualified) could be entered into a process and eventually given asylum in some country (given statistics, it would most likely be in the United States but not always or necessarily). The only people who can ask for asylum right then and there are those already in our country. Hence, the explosion of economic migrants posing as political asylum seekers that has caused the current backlash.
I'd like to challenge you as regards your last sentence, about the distinction of between asylum seekers and economic migrants. Bear with me, please, it might be a somewhat round-about way how'll put what I am trying to say.
Let's think about Jewish people leaving Germany. But let's think about them without the knowledge of their fate, please. So, a Jewish family leaving Germany in 1934 - would they have been political refugees or economic migrants? Or 1937? Or after Kristallnacht?
If a Jewish business owner was leaving after having sold his business, again we might have considered this differently if he had sold before the many measures of repression had been implemented or after, basically if he had voluntarily sold or had been forced to?
If a Jewish professional was leaving after he had been forced out of his profession, you could call him an economic migrant, someone looking to establish a new career away from Germany.
What I am trying to say is that the distinction is not always clear-cut.
Perfectly valid point. I think it can be a genuinely difficult call to distinguish one from the other in a formal process (which I know the United States used to take seriously. Now, not so sure. )
But to play the devil’s advocate (doubly apt for the point I’m about to make), let’s say all economic migrants in the world also could be judged legitimate political asylees. Would rich countries be ethically/legally required to make room for ALL of them? Lots more people would come, that’s for sure.
As regards the question how many would flee - the website for the David Milliband organisation has got a calculation somewhere (I read it a while ago, so I am quoting from memory): Approx 100m people have fled their home, due to war or other disasters. Of those approx half have moved to a different place in their own country (internally displaced persons). Of the rest about half have left their own country but have settled in a neighbouring, often quite poor country. (Eg the 1m Syrians in Lebanon, a country of 4/5m)
Which means that it's only a small proportion of refugees, which are actually looking for asylum further away. When looking at Europe, the countries with the largest per capita number of asylum seekers, that's Cyprus and Greece.
Here in the UK, the likes of Mr Fromage claim that the UK is a key asylum destination, implying that there are disproportionately many asylum seekers here. Which is actually not the case, the UK takes considerably fewer compared to the likes of France and Germany.
Coming back to your question, whether we (=Western countries) are required to make room for all of them? No. But we should recognise that the vast majority of refugees are being looked after elsewhere in the world.
I wasn't actually going to so far as claiming that all the economic migrants also have a valid claim of persecution .....
One interesting case are Eritreans. In some discussion fora I've read claims that they are economic migrants because they want to get out of doing military service and that this is not a valid reason for an asylum claim. True. However, there the military service is mandatory and in the region of approx 20 years in length. You can argue that people fleeing for economic reasons because they are prevented from establishing a career or setting up a business. Or you could argue that this is a form of indentured servitude instituted by a repressive regime.