The Politics of Immigration (2nd Edition). David Wilson
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country they fled, often in temporary shelter under precarious conditions.24
Many refugees spend years or even decades awaiting a resolution to their situation; by the end of 2013, the average time spent in a situation of displacement was seventeen years.25 The UNHCR lays out three “durable solutions” for refugees: voluntary repatriation to their country of origin when it is safe to return there; integration in the country where they have sought refuge; and resettlement to a third country when voluntary repatriation is unsafe and integration in the country hosting them is not possible.26
Refugees may prefer a particular “durable solution,” but they don’t generally have much power to choose. The political situation that led them to flee their country often stretches on, while the country where they sought refuge denies them any permanent status or rights. Many hope for resettlement, but only a tiny fraction will be lucky enough to get it. Sometimes refugees return to their homeland even though it remains unsafe, because conditions end up being worse in the country where they sought asylum. While this may count as “voluntary” repatriation, it is hardly a free choice.27
A country that is temporarily hosting refugees and doesn’t want to grant them any permanent status is likely to see their repatriation as a preferred solution. When arranging for repatriation, the UNHCR tries to ensure that conditions are adequate in the home country and that returnees won’t face persecution.28 Some refugees have been so traumatized that they don’t want to return to their native country under any circumstances; in some cases, they have nothing left to return to. The 1951 Refugee Convention recognized that some refugees with “compelling reasons arising out of previous persecution” may never go back to their countries of origin.29 (The Convention was drafted after the Second World War, when most Holocaust survivors had no homes or communities to return to, and could not imagine living among neighbors who had participated in their persecution.)
As migration scholar Katy Long notes, a real integration of returned refugees requires “a meaningful citizenship and full political membership of the community from which they were previously excluded.” It’s not enough for the returnees to be simply tolerated by society, and safe from persecution, in their home country. They must also be able to play an active role in influencing the political environment there, so that they and future generations can enjoy full rights and opportunities.30
For these reasons, resettlement—a permanent move to a diaspora community, generally in a more developed country—can seem preferable to returning to a devastated homeland.31 But fewer than 1 percent of refugees are ever accepted for permanent resettlement. Refugees get priority for resettlement when they are living in especially perilous situations, or have specific needs that cannot be addressed in their country of first refuge.32
Most of the people who enter the United States as refugees come through the resettlement program. As a large and diverse country with many resources and extensive diaspora communities, the United States is a logical option for resettlement. Refugees can move to locations where they will receive support from extended family and community networks and can integrate quickly and become self-sufficient. Refugees and asylum seekers who are able to select a destination will often base their choice on similar criteria.
In 2015, at least twenty-three countries, mostly in the “developed” world, provided permanent status to 107,100 refugees through resettlement. The United States consistently resettles more refugees than all other countries combined—66,500 in 2015. The total U.S. population is also much larger than that of other countries offering resettlement. Canada, Norway, and Australia all resettled more refugees per capita than the United States did in 2015.33
How do refugees get here?
People whose refugee status is granted outside the United States, including refugees selected for resettlement, enter the country through the U.S. Refugee Admissions Program (USRAP), a collaboration between various U.S. government agencies and international and domestic humanitarian partner organizations.34 Resettled refugees generally arrive on special flights arranged by the U.S. government; the nonprofit agency hosting them reimburses the government for their airfare, then collects payment from the refugees through a loan program.35
Asylum seekers come to the United States the same ways other migrants arrive: at a land or sea border, or through airports. If they don’t have a valid visa, and immigration authorities try to stop them from entering the country, they may ask for asylum on the basis that they have been persecuted in their country of origin and are afraid to return there. Those who are able to enter the United States legally (or who manage to enter undetected) may apply for asylum through an “affirmative” process within a year after arriving.36 People who are ordered deported from the United States can apply for asylum, “withholding of removal,” or protection under the Convention Against Torture through a “defensive” process if they are afraid to return to their country of origin.37
People who succeed in winning asylum have the same rights and status as people who arrive in the United States as refugees.38
SPECIAL TREATMENT FOR CUBANS
Discriminating based on national origin would seem to violate basic principles of fairness. But in the case of Cubans, their privileged treatment is written into law.
Some 800,000 Cubans immigrated to the United States between 1960 and 1980. They left Cuba for many reasons: some were opposed to the leftist revolution of 1959 and feared persecution; wealthy and middle-class Cubans lost property or economic opportunities because of socialist policies; and poorer Cubans fled the island later as its economy stagnated, at least in part because of a U.S. embargo. But they were able to come here because the U.S. government actively encouraged Cubans to immigrate.
From 1959 to 1961, about 125,000 Cubans arrived in the United States. The U.S. Coast Guard did nothing to stop them from entering the country, and the administration of John F. Kennedy then used executive parole authority to admit them, and those who followed, without regard to the quota limits established by the 1952 Immigration and Nationality Act.39
In 1966 Congress passed the Cuban Adjustment Act, which allowed Cuban immigrants to apply for permanent resident status after two years in the United States; the 1980 Refugee Act reduced the wait time to one year. Most restrictions on other immigrants are waived for Cubans; they can apply for resident status even if they entered without permission.40 The government even supplied assistance to Cuban immigrants as they arrived—$1.4 billion by 1980.
Welcoming Cuban immigrants fit in with U.S. efforts in the early 1960s to bring down President Fidel Castro. The policy provided a pool of people who could be recruited to fight the Cuban government; at the same time, it hurt the Cuban economy by luring away academics, scientists, professionals, and experienced managers. And the streams of refugees fleeing the island hurt the reputation of the Cuban revolution.41
Over a seven-month period from April 15 to October 31, 1980, starting just a few weeks after the passage of the Refugee Act, some 130,000 Cubans landed in Florida in a “freedom flotilla” from the Cuban port of Mariel. This time the migrants were primarily young working-class men, many of them black.42 The Refugee Act now provided a process for determining whether individual migrants qualified for asylum, but the administration of then-president Jimmy Carter chose not to apply the Act’s provisions to the new wave. Instead, Carter used executive authority to parole the Marielitos, as they became known, into the United States under a new category of “Cuban-Haitian entrants.”43
The United States was happy to receive the first wave of Cuban immigrants, who were “disproportionately well-educated, white, and of upper-echelon occupations and income,” according to New York University professor David M. Reimers. But as the later waves of Cubans turned out to be less well educated and less white, they “were not as welcome as earlier groups had been.” A Gallup poll in 1980 indicated that 59 percent of the U.S. public felt immigration by the Marielitos wasn’t good for the country, with only 19 percent