international vs. national protection for refugees ...€¦ · hondurans by mexico and u.s,...
TRANSCRIPT
April 10, 2019 Event
International vs. National
Protection for Refugees:
Diverging Trends?
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David FitzGeraldUniversity of California,
San Diego
@FitzGeraldUCSD
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1939. Rejection of St. Louis
Frank family’s application for a U.S. visa, 1941
Anne Frank, died at Bergen-Belsen, 1945
How can a refugee reach a place of sanctuary?
Less than 1% of world’s refugees are resettled
Little or no access to “diplomatic asylum” at embassies and consulates
In the handful of very small programs to apply in-country, risks of revealing intentions to persecutors
Territorial asylum
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Non-refoulement:
Protection against return to a country where a person has reason to fear persecution for reasons of race, religion, nationality, membership of a particular social group or political opinion- 1951 UN Refugee Convention/ 1967 Protocol - 148 states, including U.S., are party
Prohibits the forced return of anyone facing torture- 1984 UN Convention against Torture- 162 states, , including U.S., are party
States evade asylum regime by manipulating territoriality
“Remote control” pushes out border control far beyond the state’s territory
(extra-territorialization)
Simultaneously, states restrict access to asylum and “territorial rights of personhood” by making micro distinctions at border line
(hyper-territorialization)
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Modern remote control is a global system:
Architecture of repulsion: cages, domes, moats, buffers, & barbicans
Functions of structures linked to one another
Circulation of knowledge, coercive capacity, funding
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The Cage
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UNHCR Zaatari camp, Jordan
Australia’s “offshore processing”
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The Dome
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The Moat
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250,000 people intercepted by U.S. Coast Guard, 1982-2015
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0
10,000
20,000
30,000
40,000
50,000
60,000
70,000Haiti
Dominican Republic
China
Cuba
Ecuador
Other
Source: US Coast Guard 2016.
Note: Does not include Mexico
The Euro-Moat
States intercepting boats on high seas cannot refoule passengers - European Court of Human Rights, Hirsi Jamaaand Others v. Italy (2012)
Italian solution: pay Libyan coast guard and militias to intercept, detain, & deport
17 Source: Reuters 2017, UNICEF 2017
“The Guatemalan border with Chiapas is now our southern border.”– Alan Bersin, DHS Assistant Secretary for Policy, 2012
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The Buffer
Deportations of Guatemalans, Salvadorans, and Hondurans by Mexico and U.S, 1990-2017
19Sources: Boletines Estadísticos 2001-2017, SEGOB; Casillas
2008: 159; INS and DHS Yearbooks and Enforcement Reports,
1992-2017
0
50,000
100,000
150,000
200,000
250,000
The Barbican
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Comments welcomed
David FitzGerald
University of California,
San Diego
@FitzGeraldUCSD
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