ON REFUGEES, MEXICO AND ECONOMIC MIGRANTS

OUR SOUTHERN BORDER IS BEING PENETRATED BY CARAVANS OF  “REFUGEES”

THESE FOLKS WANT TO CLAIM POLITICAL ASYLUM AND SOME SAY WE CAN NOT RETURN THEM TO MEXICO BASED ON EXISTING REFUGEE PROTOCOLS

BUT THEY HAVE MIGRATED THROUGH MEXICO WITH THE AID AND ENCOURAGEMENT OF THE MEXICAN GOVERNMENT.  THEIR LIVES  ARE NOT THREATENED IN MEXICO. THEY CAN BE RETURNED TO MEXICO

THEY WOULD SIMPLY PREFER TO RESIDE IN THE USA.

ACTUAL REFUGEES FROM ECUADOR ARE MEXICO’S RESPONSIBILITY

World nations have been granting asylum to refugees for hundreds of years.  Wars, natural disaster, political persecution have all caused people to seek asylum elsewhere.  Providing asylum is a humane and just policy.  Since the Bush-Obama wars in the Middle East,  we have seen a massive surge of refugeees from those affected nations.  The UN (See: UN.org) estimates there are at present some 65 million displaced people around the world.  Of those, about a third or 22 million are actual refugees.  The tragic war in Syria alone has generated nearly 6 million refugees from that country.

In the United States, our southern border has been overrun for years on end with mostly economic migrants.  These are people who are seeking opportunities for employment and and a better life.  They cross the border illegally and become illegal immigrants (not “undocumented” immigrants).  But these are not refugees threatened with death, torture or imprisonment.  They migrate for economic reasons.  There are specific laws which correctly and justifiably  protect those who are escaping from war-torn regions or from natural disasters.  Recently, some in the political realm have tried to embarrass the new Trump Administartion by attempting to use these protocols for refugees as a political brickbat by claiming to designate Equadoran (and others) economic migrants as real “refugees”.

The convention which controls how refugees are treated had its origin in the  post WWII era.  In 1951 the UN agreed upon and published  a “Convention on the Status of Refugees”.  It was revised in 1967. Other related laws have further codified this protocol , such as the Universal Declaration of Human rights, The American Declaration of Rights and Duties of Man and others.  All of these agreements leave it up to the individual states as to determine wether a person appearing at the border of a state meets the defitinition as a refugee.

NON-REFOULMENT
A common tenet of all these “refugee” laws and general agreements is the prohibition of “refoulment”  (or return).   This means that the state to which the refugee appears has an obligation not to return a valid refugee to the “frontiers of territories where his or her life would be threatened by their race, religion, political opinion or membership in a particular social group”.  Such and action would be clearly at odds with the humanitarian focus of the refugee agreements.  No one disagrees on that.

But the exceptions to refoulment are very important.

EXCLUDED INDIVIDUALS
Refugees may be excluded from protected status and refoulment (and be returned) if there is serious reason to suspect that the applicant has committed serious crimes.  Another cause for exclusion is for those  who have traveled through a third country,or received protection in a third country.    For example, the caravans of Ecuadorians attempting to enter the USA after passing through Mexico are no longer fleeing persecution.  They are not threatened in Mexico.  They are NOT refugees when they reach our border.  Another reason to deny refugee status is if the individual has aid from the third country.  In the case of the Ecuadorians they have received tacit and direct protection from Mexico to move northward toward our border.  These people  are no longer fleeing conditions which threaten their lives,  but are simply attempting to make a “quality of life” choice:  “Where would I prefer to live north or south of the Mexican-American border? “  These folks are NOT refugees in the legal sense described above.

These migrants have enetered Mexico’s southern border, have received aid and assistance from Mexico on their migration north.  They are not refugees but economic migrants.  We should not be forced to accept them at the border. If Mexico designates thee immigrants as refugees seeking asylum from persecution in Ecuador,,,they become the responsibility of Mexico, not the USA.

If however they want to go through the process of all legal immigrants...they should do so.