One of the quickest ways to get an indifferent global media to pay attention to an issue is to facilitate the involvement of an international celebrity. Thus, Australia’s government must be dismayed at the (admittedly conflicting) reports that Angelina Jolie had recently accepted an invitation to visit the tiny Micronesian island nation of Nauru, which curiously hosts a processing facility for asylum seekers trying to reach Australia. This peculiar arrangement is part of Australia’s efforts to stem a tide of South Asians from arriving on its shores by boat; would-be refugees are intercepted at sea by the Australian Navy and directed elsewhere for final determination of their status. Ms Jolie is a special envoy for the UNHCR, the United Nations refugee agency. If the reports about the trip are accurate, her visit to the Nauru camp may intensify scrutiny of this unusual policy, which is nonetheless popular with many Australian voters.
Australia is not the only country, of course, that is struggling to develop a coherent strategy to address an influx of migrants. The United States is currently experiencing an exponentially abnormal increase in the numbers of unaccompanied minors from Central America crossing its southern border with Mexico. The government of the United States is wrestling with the question of whether these children should be considered ‘refugees’ or merely undocumented migrants, a challenge shared by the countries of southern Europe, who face daily multitudes of desperate souls from North Africa trying to reach their shores.
While it is wealthy countries that grapple most publicly with questions of migration and asylum, it is in fact the international community’s less developed members who bear the brunt of refugee flows. More than 80 per cent of the world’s refugees are hosted by poor or middle-income nations: Pakistan hosts the largest number of refugees in the world, some 1.6 million. Syria’s neighbours continue to be overwhelmed by the exodus fleeing that country’s civil war — it is estimated that more than 25 per cent of Lebanon’s population is comprised of Syrian refugees, a state of affairs which is exacerbated by historical tensions and religious differences. And Kenya’s Dadaab refugee camp has been in existence for over 20 years and hosts almost half a million people from a variety of African countries.
Questions of migration and asylum are always controversial, as they strike so close to everybody's fear of the unknown ‘other’. Although human beings have been migrating since time immemorial — seeking better opportunities or escaping from some catastrophe — the modern world of borders, citizenship laws and ever-scarcer resources can no longer accommodate them as easily as it once could. However, activists on all sides muddy the waters by cherry-picking their data and acting as if there is a one-size-fits-all solution easily at hand. In fact, migration policy is an enormously complex issue influenced by humanitarian concerns, political considerations and economic factors.
It is very easy to look at a rich and powerful country like the United States — which, according to the UNCHR, hosts roughly 260,000 refugees, or less than one-tenth of one percent of its population — and demand that it ‘do more’. However, it is also estimated that the US is already home to 11.7 million undocumented (or ‘illegal’) immigrants, a number equal to the entire population of refugees in the world today. This is not to say that the United States cannot and should not have a more generous asylum policy — just that the situation is more complicated than immigration advocates sometimes imply.
If thousands of years of history are anything to go by, human beings will continue to migrate in the 21st century—either willingly or because they are compelled to do so by circumstances beyond their control. Hoping that it will be ‘someone else’s problem’ is not a workable long-term strategy. Governments need to cooperate with the aid agencies and each other to determine a coherent and humane approach to dealing with this truly global phenomenon.
Published in The Express Tribune, July 17th, 2014.
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