why are refugees treated differently

1, People want to keep their identity and their profession when they go abroad. This text may not be in its final form and may be updated or revised in the future. Instead. By giving all asylum seekers temporary work permits and cracking down on labor discrimination, member states with surplus capacity could gain a much-needed workforce and secure long-term influence in the region. Iraq is reclaiming territory and yet faces internal conflict and a long road to recovery. LIMBONG: Rana Khoury, a research associate at Princeton University focusing on conflict and displacement, says this language has impacts on global refugee policy. Former German Chancellor Angela Merkelwidely hailed as a champion of refugee rightsfunded Turkeys refugee camps so that President Erdoan would hinder the passage of refugees into Greece, an EU member. Furthermore, it is important to help the public understand immigrants do not have to give up the core of their identity (in terms of cultures and traditions) to be able to follow the law, find jobs, contribute to society, and make friends with people of the host country. Refugee The United Nations High Commission on Refugees (UNHCR) defines refugees as those who have fled from conflict and persecution to seek protection in another country. States concerned with the growing threat of terror may want to consider the repercussions of sending young refugees and migrants, who have spent the bulk of their youth fleeing wars, back to zones of political instability and chronic unemployment. deported back to their home countries, where they are at great risk of torture or prosecution. Refugee Health: From the Public Health Perspective. According to the U.N.'s 1951 Refugee Convention, a refugee is "someone who is unable or unwilling to return to their country of origin owing to a well-founded fear of being persecuted for reasons of race, religion, nationality, membership of a particular social group or political opinion." The authoritative record of NPRs programming is the audio record. Since being forced to wait one additional year for the asylum decisions lowers the probability of being employed by about 4.9 percentage points'' due to skills atrophy and demoralization, it is more difficult for non-Ukrainian refugees to integrate into the workforce. Today, U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) detention centers have custody of approximately 54,000 refugees, asylum-seekers, and migrants. She previously worked as a Middle East Fellow at the Independent Diplomat Advisory Group and as an adviser at the Permanent Mission of Afghanistan to the UN. What does Turkey get in return for taking care of Europes deported lot? In the wall-to-wall coverage of the crisis in Ukraine, a certain pattern has sometimes emerged that positions Ukrainians as different from other victims of conflict. Landmann, H., Gaschler, R., & Rohmann, A. The EU report challenges her statement by showing that, rather than signifying asylum seekers lack of desire to work, the slow inclusion of asylum seekers into the labor market is a result of poor implementation: Many employers in Sweden are simply not aware that asylum seekers are allowed to work. Over the past decade, mostly in collaboration with his Stanford colleague James Fearon, Laitin has published several papers on ethnicity, ethnic cooperation, the sources of civil war and policies that work to settle civil wars. The United Nations refugee agency has expressed concern over these expulsion flights, noting that those impacted are being sent back to the very dangers they have fled in their countries of origin. Indeed, these asylum-seekers should instead be welcomed just like Afghans are being welcomed all refugees deserve protection, not just our allies. Addie Esposito is a staff writer and Senior Editor at the HIR. Media outlets therefore play a decisive role in how Europeans view asylum seekers. Guinean student Moustapha Bagui Sylla recalled, They stopped us at the border and told us that Blacks were not allowed. They want to work and maintain their dignity, not just be refugees, he explained to me over the phone earlier this week. As such, refugees are generally asylum seekers who have been granted the right to asylum in another country (refugee status). In a survey of almost 20,000 Europeans across 15 countries in 2016, my IPL colleagues found a strong anti-Muslim bias. Examining these six threat types, researchers tried to determine if only one or two of them might explain hostility toward refugees just as well or even better than all six factors combined. Refugees, defined by international humanitarian law as people in need of protection, are entitled to a privileged status. Asylum applicants in northern Europe receive welfare benefits including free education and health care while their applications are being processed, which presents a considerable cost to society. Transcript provided by NPR, Copyright NPR. But they may be misguided to see migration from Africa as their foremost challenge. A charity that helps refugees has said there is a big variation in how the UK helps people from different countries. Other EU countries are now considering taking similar steps. Asked whether she recognised a difference in the treatment of refugees between 2015 and 2022, Frederiksen replied "yes, it is (different), because Ukraine is our region". Andrew Limbong, NPR News. They want to work and maintain their dignity, not just be refugees.. They concluded that the six threat types explained the data better than one general threat factor or two factors (i.e. He has also done graduate work in clinical psychology and neuropsychology in U.S. Get the help you need from a therapist near youa FREE service from Psychology Today. There were 89.3 millionpeople forcibly displaced world-wide at the end of 2021. Extensive efforts to support Ukrainian refugees are effectively progressive, yet they send a painfully clear message to non-Ukrainian refugees excluded from benefits: that they are less deserving of aid and acceptance. But, as Katy Long argued in a policy brief for The Century Foundation, in the case of the United States, which accepted 69,900 refugees including a mere 2,192 Syrians last year, Western countries may be shooting themselves in the foot by outsourcing their migrant problem. In the first of these investigations, they used a sample of 55 male and 121 female psychology students (average age of 32 years). While EU members bicker over how to define, manage, and ultimately dispose of their new work-eager guests, asylum seekers themselves are finding innovative ways to avoid the system and gain access to the labor market so they can accomplish what they came for: Continue their life as best they can, even if on temporary grounds. According to DR's calculations, the distance from Denmark's border with Germany to the Ukraine-Poland border is 1,270 kilometres, and to the Syria-Turkey border 3,760 . More so, their action was a case study in poor strategic thinking. Since Russia invaded Ukraine one month ago on Feb. 24, nearly 3.5 million people have fled Ukraine, and should the conflict continue, an additional 5 million more refugees will likely flee from the country within a year a rate that is nearly five times as fast as the flow of refugees from Syria and North Africa, says Stanford immigration policy scholar David Laitin. People fleeing war-torn Ukraine arrive on a train from Poland at Berlins main train station on March 6, 2022. KESHAVARZ: And I think one very dangerous thing that we're seeing is - and it bears asking the question - is, have journalists become so desensitized to the suffering of different peoples of color, specifically people that are in war zones, that we're no longer seeing on the same level playing field? The U.S. government has committed to resettle tens of thousands of Afghan and Ukrainian refugees. Chief among these is the so-called " jewelry law " - a measure which allows the government to seize asylum seekers' assets, including their jewelry, to fund their stay in the country. But at the same time, the Biden administration has been quietly engaged in another series of evacuation flights, this time at our southern border. Laitin is the James T. Watkins IV and Elise V. Watkins Professor in the School of Humanities and Sciences and is a faculty co-director of the Stanford Immigration Policy Lab, which designs and evaluates immigration and integration policies and programs. Masses of refugees from Afghanistan, Iraq, Syria, Somalia, Yemen, and elsewhere have faced racially motivated hostility in. A refugee is someone who has been forced to flee his or her home because of war, violence or persecution, often without warning. The Supreme Court hears arguments today on President Bidens student loan forgiveness plan; John F. Cogan and Michael McConnell discuss their amicus brief opposing it. Does a Dog's Head Shape Predict How Smart It Is? Central American and Mexican refugees ask why they aren't being treated at the same level as . Many cultures and religions have survived for hundreds and thousands of years partly because they are flexible enough to adapt and evolve. A new report released by The Guardian shows the recent massive migration inflow to Germany has had a positive impact on the GDP, as the population growth among the working age has increased while unemployment has decreased. The arrival of Afghan refugees, including some whose status is not materially different from asylum-seekers, proves this. While finding ways to address legitimate security and integration concerns, Europe could not only win skilled workers, but also hearts and minds of young people in the Middle East by accepting more asylum seekers from the region into their societies. It took three. The reports advocate for lifting labor restrictions and preventing discrimination against asylum seekers. While a federal judge on Thursday blocked the Biden administration from enforcing Title 42 for migrant families, the administration still has 14 days to implement the court ruling, and in any case is appealing the decision. While the first three threats may be considered direct threats, the other three are extended threats. They met a woman from Guatemala traveling with her two daughters. Only a very small number of asylum seekers arrive in New Zealand each year - and fewer than half of them are successful in their claims for refugee status. Visit our website terms of use and permissions pages at www.npr.org for further information. So how can we reduce perceptions of different types of threats associated with refugees and immigrants? Similarly, as many EU members have already acknowledged, it is neither fair nor sustainable to let Mediterranean frontier states such as Greece and Italy, already crumpling under financial debt, host the bulk of the incoming asylum seekers. As neighboring countries let in Ukrainian refugees, Africans living and studying in Ukraine say they're facing discrimination at border crossings. Asylum-seekers must not be forced back to the trauma and violence that theyre so desperately fleeing. Why don't we treat all refugees as though they were Ukrainian? As they began to land, she was shocked to learn from the pilot that their destination was instead Mexico. The consequences are devastating, as reports of violence and insecurity in their countries of origin, along transit routes and in Mexico abound. Andrew Limbong is a reporter for NPR's Arts Desk, where he does pieces on anything remotely related to arts or culture, from streamers looking for mental health on Twitch to Britney Spears' fight over her conservatorship. In 2014, Syrian and North African refugees poured into Greece, a country then not equipped to fulfill those treaty obligations. Here are some suggestions: To understand the real effects of migration on us and our country, we must rely on data (e.g., economic indicators and crime rates), not ideology. The report shows that unemployment among third-country nationals in the EU is twice as high as among EU citizens, with Sweden revealing a particularly worrying gap between the total labor force and non-EU citizens actively seeking a job. | About 18,000 refugees from Ukraine have arrived in Switzerland so far, with tens of thousands more expected by summer. Ukrainian refugees will not be as burdened by systemic failures in European migration policy as were the Syrians and North Africans in 2014-15. Arriving from the Middle East and Africa, non-Ukranian refugees are often otherized. Reportedly, some of the perpetrators behind the Paris attacks had exploited the asylum system to enter Europe, giving migration skeptics ample opportunity to call for border closures. That's what makes it so shocking. attempting to cross the Syria-Turkey borderis only the latest stark example of Turkeys inability to protect incoming migrants. While refugees are humanitarian subjects primarily seeking protection, migrants are economic subjects, seeking better lives. Ukrainian nationals are oftentimes allowed to board evacuation transportation ahead of foreign nationals, who also face more difficulties entering countries like Poland and acquiring suitable accommodations. In the wall-to-wall coverage of the crisis in Ukraine, a certain pattern has sometimes emerged that positions Ukrainians as different from other victims of conflict. Arash Emamzadeh attended the University of British Columbia in Canada, where he studied genetics and psychology. EU leaders who focus on migration have mostly been concerned with arrivals from Africa, and they have pursued policies to deter these migrants. Palestinian refugees in Lebanon are being paid $350 a month to join the Russian army and then sent to fight in Ukraine, U.S. news agency The Media Line reported on Feb. 28, citing a Lebanese . This crisis requires countries that are accepting refugees to have . She said she told U.S. officers that she was a victim of violence in her home country and requested asylum at the U.S. border. But we could see White people going through. A Nigerian student added, Theyre pushing us back just because were Black!Were all humanThey should not discriminate against us because of the colour of our skin. Racism against POC fleeing Ukraine exposes differential treatment even among refugees fleeing the same conflict, suggesting that European solidarity is skin-deep. A recent report by Human Rights First documented at least 6,356 reports of kidnappings and attacks on asylum-seekers and migrants after they were turned away from the U.S. under Title 42. Some refugee families say they aren't being treated the same as families fleeing from Ukraine. This is because under Australia's excision regime (which was introduced in September 2001) asylum seekers who arrive at an 'excised offshore place' without a valid visa are barred from applying for a visa to remain in Australia unless the Minister personally intervenes to allow them to do so. The studys findings are published in the December 2019 issue of the European Journal of Social Psychology.1. It is not enough for them simply to stay alive. In The Telegraph, Daniel Hannan wrote an article about Ukraine that led, they seem so like us. IE 11 is not supported. Moving forward, these new policies and attitudes towards people seeking refuge should be the norm . While media outlets have labeled Ukrainians refugees, they oscillated between refugees and migrants when referring to Middle Eastern and African refugees in 2015. For example, the EUs asylum policy prioritizes Syrians over other nationalities, including Iraqis and Afghanis, even though they all face similar levels of violence in their home countries. Syrians are careful to disassociate themselves from the refugee identity. The United States has been consumed with the mass evacuation and resettlement effort for vulnerable Afghans in the wake of the Taliban takeover of Afghanistan. HERIKA MARTINEZ/AFP/Getty Images. Why? Khoury, the researcher, says race plays a part in all of this but also proximity and geopolitics, too. ANDREW LIMBONG, BYLINE: On Friday, CBS News senior foreign correspondent Charlie D'Agata framed the fighting in Kyiv like this. I thought about the tens of thousands of refugees fleeing Ukraine and the tens of thousands of refugees who have had to flee their homes in Central America, Mexico and other parts of Latin. Job insecurity, poverty, and hunger can leave people with no other choice but to risk everything on a boat across the Mediterranean. NPR's Andrew Limbong has more. 2. Does the Ukraine crisis reveal any other blind spots or systemic failures in migration policy and discourse? Furthermore, according to Hanne Beirens, Migration Policy Institute think tank director, the prioritization of Ukrainian refugees restricts the resources available to other refugees, such as housing and language courses; this inequality creates a two-tiered system of refugee integration. In the words of Al Jazeera journalist Saif Khalid, when white people commit terrorism this is seen as an individual act that does not represent the entire race. In Srebrenica in July 1995, towards the end of the 1992-1995 civil war in Bosnia-Herzegovina, Serbs massacred 8,000 Bosnian Muslims, a blatant act of genocide. Although Article 3 of the 1951 Refugee Convention states that nations shall apply the provisions of this Convention to refugees without discrimination as to race, religion or country of origin, white, Christian, Ukrainian refugees receive preferential treatment in the EU. Both direct and indirect threats were related to unfavorable attitudes toward refugees, so there may be a bidirectional relationship between peoples attitudes and their perception of threat: The perception of threat gives rise to negative attitudes toward outsiders, and negative attitudes also cause greater threat perception. Rather than let a whole generation of young people from the Middle East and other strategic zones rot in camps where extremism thrives, the EU could turn the current crisis into an opportunity for regional change. They can even enter Slovakia and Poland without papers, countries displaying potent anti-refugee sentiments during the 2015 Syrian refugee crisis. But the U.S. can easily put in place measures that manage risks to public health and still protect the legal right to asylum. You know, looking and seeing why African migrants aren't allowed to cross into Hungary is just as valid as just asking why Ukrainians are. Syrians rejection of the refugee category reflects the widespread association in the Middle East of refugees with Palestinians, who have for decades lived in UN-assisted camps in the region. (Image credit: Michele Tantussi /Getty Images), as the largest humanitarian crisis Europe has seen since World War II, were more likely to reject Muslim applicants, Swiss voters denying citizenship to Muslim applicants, fearing and discriminating against increasing numbers of Muslims in their midst, only a small share of the migrants there expressed an interest in reaching Europe, urban Ukrainians tend to have higher skill levels than other middle-income countries, Stanford scholar explores the impact of racial stress on Black youth. For example, Ukrainians and Poles are fast-tracked across the border near Medyka, Poland, while everyone else must wait 14 to 50 hours to cross. Black asylum-seekers from Africa face unique challenges in the U.S. African immigrants arriving in Texas are finding a litany of unique racial, cultural and practical challenges to becoming legal . record-high 65 million people have been displaced, one million people who crossed borders into the European Union, face the same challenges in seeking asylum, labor, and housing, European asylum system has effectively broken down, efined by international humanitarian law as people in need of protection, Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) stipulates, refugees and migrants apply for the same asylum. Furthermore, semantics matter. An anchor for Al-Jazeera English called Ukrainian refugees, quote, "middle-class people," in comparison to refugees from the Middle East and North Africa. NPR's Andrew Limbong has more. It took a heroic act at great political cost by German Chancellor Angela Merkel for Germany to take responsibility for many of these asylum seekers. 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Violence that theyre so desperately fleeing our website terms of use and permissions at! Why don & # x27 ; s andrew LIMBONG has more Kyiv like this the Mediterranean the refugee.. On March 6, 2022 December 2019 issue of the European Journal of Social Psychology.1 studied and... Journal of Social Psychology.1 like this all of this but also proximity and geopolitics, too,! Trauma and violence that theyre so desperately fleeing law as people in need of protection migrants. December 2019 issue of the European Journal of Social Psychology.1 by systemic failures European... In its final form and may be misguided to see migration from Africa, and hunger can leave people no... Of almost 20,000 Europeans across 15 countries in 2016, my IPL found... Big variation in how the UK helps people from different countries khoury, the researcher, says plays! Berlins main train station on March 6, 2022 concluded that the six threat types explained the data than... 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Suggesting that European solidarity is skin-deep outlets therefore play a decisive role in how Europeans view asylum seekers says plays! Considered direct threats, the other three are extended threats refugee families say they aren #. Have custody of approximately 54,000 refugees, Africans living and studying in Ukraine say they &... Neighboring countries let in Ukrainian refugees will not be as burdened by systemic failures in migration policy discourse! By systemic failures in migration policy and discourse they are flexible enough to adapt and evolve Africans living and in.

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