Refugees
Refugees are persons fleeing for refuge or safety. However, the term is very often applied more broadly, such as on individuals who have sought but who have not yet been given refugee status ("asylum seekers"), on individuals who have not yet sought asylum but who may do so in the future, and on individuals who sought but who were denied asylum. Same claim, that the numbers of fake, false or bogus refugees, who are looking to rob Western prosperity (German: Wohlstandsasylanten), including many criminals, are in the majority.
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Definition
More narrowly, it refers to the special legal status of being "refugees", according to the international 1951 Refugee Convention. This refers to individuals who have moved from one country to another and who have then successfully claimed the legal right of asylum in this new country, according to the Refugee Convention. Some countries may grant asylum on more lenient grounds than on those defined in Refugee Convention. Persons involved in such legal processes, or potentially being involved, may also be referred to as refugees.
The term is usually used in a way implying that everyone mentioned are actually fleeing from some kind of persecution. In practice, such individuals may instead be economic migrants, or even be criminal migrants, fleeing not persecution, but justice. Mass immigration by claimed refugees, and later by claimed relatives, in one cause of changing White demographics and Islamization in Western countries.
- Asylum migration creates conflict within developed countries between natives and asylum seekers, and it creates conflict between neighboring developed countries, with one trying to pass the burden of migration to the other. Yet, even though the international flow of people has been on the agenda of international affairs for many years (Teitelbaum, 1984), it is still an under-researched area of international relations relative to the flow of, say, trade and finance. This article looks at an important aspect of this international flow of people and analyzes the following question: what factors can explain asylum migration to Western European countries? We will analyze whether country-specific aggregate numbers of asylum seekers in Western Europe1 can be explained by economic factors only, as the widespread perception of asylum seekers as “bogus refugees” would suggest, or whether aspects of political oppression, human rights abuse, and generalized violence in the countries of origin also play an important role.2 This has important policy implications on what destination countries can do to tackle the root causes of asylum migration. The question of what makes an asylum seeker a “genuine” refugee is of course already highly contentious (Robinson and Segrott, 2002). A refugee in the legal sense is defined in Article 1 of the 1951 Convention relating to the Status of Refugees as a person who “owing to a well-founded fear of being persecuted for reasons of race, religion, nationality, membership of a particular social group, or political opinion, is outside the country of his nationality, and is unable to or, owing to such fear, is unwilling to avail himself of the protection of that country…”. Such refugees enjoy the right of non-refoulement—the right not to be returned to their country of origin. This definition does not directly cover threats to one's personal integrity from other causes, for example, people fleeing from war, political violence not specifically directed against them, natural disasters, famine, and the like. As Roberts notes, developed countries have always been against extending the formal definition of refugees, “no doubt because of a refusal to accept the consequent duty to provide asylum” (Roberts, 1998:381). Nevertheless, because it is difficult to justify denying protection for these other “genuine” refugees altogether, many more asylum applicants are de facto accepted as refugees and granted non-refoulement. They are, however, not officially granted asylum and are often not provided with the same rights as given to those granted asylum (UNHCR, 2000).[1]
Refugees, the Holocaust, and White guilt
The 1951 Refugee Convention, created shortly after the Second World War, has been seen as motivated by White guilt due to the Holocaust. However, there are various less often mentioned aspects on this. One is that the primary problem for Jews wanting to emigrate from National Socialist Germany was that very few countries wanted to let large numbers of Jews immigrate. The Refugee Convention does not grant rights to those still in their original country and it would thus not have given immigration rights to these Jews. Furthermore, part of the reason for the increasing anti-Semitism in the Weimar Republic has been stated to be a large immigration of Jews from Poland/Russia, where they were persecuted long before Hitler gained power. Another aspect is Israel taking in very few refugees, despite being very closely located to many of the areas having many refugees and many of these refugees originating from wars supported by the Israel lobby, since they were seen as weakening enemies of Israel. Another group of refugees is the Palestinian refugees, originating from Israel itself and who are not allowed to return. See also Jews and immigration.
"Refugees" migrating to developed countries almost only go to Western countries. East Asian counties, wealthy Muslim oil countries, and Israel accept very few refugees, despite often being closer to the areas from which the "refugees" allegedly originate from.
Refugee Convention
The "Convention relating to the Status of Refugees", also known as the "1951 Refugee Convention", is a 1951 United Nations multilateral treaty. It was amended by a 1967 protocol.
Article 1 of the Convention, as amended by the 1967 Protocol, defines a refugee as:
- "A person who owing to a well-founded fear of being persecuted for reasons of race, religion, nationality, membership of a particular social group or political opinion, is outside the country of his nationality and is unable or, owing to such fear, is unwilling to avail himself of the protection of that country".
Less often mentioned aspects include:
- The convention only gives rights to an individual who has first migrated to another country. Persecuted individuals who are still in their original countries are not covered.
- The convention only gives a special legal privilege to certain privileged groups. Thus, the convention does not apply to problems arising from persecutions from ordinary criminals, from poverty, from disease, and so on.
- The convention does not give refugee status to relatives.
- The convention does not state that refugees should be given citizenship or permanent residence. A temporary residence until the threat is resolved is all that is required.
In practice, the "refugees" are usually given much more than the convention requires, such as citizenship and the right to bring in relatives. Many countries are also more lenient than the convention requires on which groups should be given this privileged status, but still exclude groups such as economic migrants. This creates an incentive for such groups to make false claims regarding the reason for migration.
"Refugee industry"
The Refugee Convention (and similar but more extensive legal rights created by individual countries) and its special legal privilege for certain groups has created an entire "industry".
Developed countries have in practice tried to protect themselves from "asylum seekers", by trying to prevent them from entering the developed countries. This has in turn created very large scale organized crime, consisting of illegal "refugee smuggling" from less developed nations to more developed nations. Once the migrants are smuggled in, they may apply for refugee status and can then not be legally expelled until this claim is legally examined and processed, which may take years. The smugglers may also provide the "refugee" with fabricated stories to tell the authorities in order to be given refugee status. If refugee status is eventually denied, the "refugee" may move on to another country and try again, possibly also changing claimed identity and story, or try to stay as an illegal alien.
False "refugees" may use a variety of methods in order to make checking their stories more difficult. Many "refugees" arrive without any identification papers. They may claim to be from countries with poor and incomplete population records, meaning that their claimed identities are difficult to check. The "refugees" may be provided with stories carefully designed to conform to refugee laws and legal processes. "Refugees" may even destroy their fingerprints, in order to hide that they have already applied for asylum in other countries, but that this was rejected.
As "refugee" smugglers often demand substantial sums for their services, those smuggled in may either be relatively wealthy (and thus among those least needing help, even if their claims are accurate) or may have agreed to later pay the smugglers with money that migrants expect to gain in their new country (and that may to some degree come from the taxpayers). The smugglers often participate in different forms of organized crime, including other forms of smuggling, such as drug smuggling or trafficking. Payments to "refugee" smugglers thus provide funds for organized crime more generally.
Another "refugee industry" consists of taking care of the asylum seekers, providing them with legal help, processing the legal claims, and so on. These expensive services are usually ultimately tax-paid, although the private sector may involved in providing them in exchange for government payments. The organizations and individuals involved in this thus have a strong interest in a high inflow of "asylum seekers" and an expensive asylum process and may lobby for measures ensuring that this should continue.
A group that is particularly difficult to return, and particularly expensive to take care of, is claimed underage children, who state that they have no relatives to return to in their original country. Consequently, many "refugees" claim that they are underage without relatives. Once such persons are given citizenship, they may "discover" their relatives and demand that they should be reunited.
Claiming that a person is a "refugee" is only one of several methods used by the "migrant industry" in order to bring migrants to developed countries, and associated benefits for the immigrants. See the Migration article.
See also
External links
References
- ↑ Eric Neumayer: Bogus Refugees? The Determinants of Asylum Migration to Western Europe, in International Studies Quarterly, Volume 49, Issue 3, September 2005, Pages 389–409
