Correction: More than a Wall: The Rise and Fall of US Asylum and Refugee Policy

Abstract

This article uses a multidisciplinary approach — analyzing historical sources, refugee and asylum admissions data, legislative provisions, and public opinion data — to track the rise and fall of the US asylum and refugee policy. It shows that there has always been a political struggle between people who advocate for a generous refugee and asylum system and those who oppose it. Today, the flexible system of protecting refugees and asylees, established in 1980, is giving way to policies that weaponize them. It offers a historical analysis of US refugee and asylum policies, as well as xenophobic and nativist attitudes toward refugees. It places Trump administration refugee policies in three categories: those that abandon longstanding US legal principles and policies, most notably non-refoulement and due process; those that block the entry of refugees and asylees; and those that criminalize foreign nationals who attempt to seek asylum in the United States. The article concludes with an analysis of public opinion research to square the growing public support for refugees and asylees shown in polling data with the subgroup popularity of Donald Trump’s harsh xenophobic rhetoric and policies. These seemingly contradictory trends are consistent with research on right-wing populism. It argues that the restoration of generous humanitarian policies requires robust civic engagement and steadfast legislative efforts.

Charting a Course to Rebuild and Strengthen the US Refugee Admissions Program (USRAP): Findings and Recommendations from the Center for Migration Studies Refugee Resettlement Survey: 2020

“… Source : Original data from Immigration and Naturalization Service Statistical Yearbook, FY2000, Table 29: Wasem (2020).…”

“…-1,00,000 2,00,000 3,00,000 4,00,000 5,00,000 1946-50 1951 -60 1961 -70 1971 -80 Source: Original data from Immigration and Naturalization Service Statistical Yearbook, FY2000, Table 29: Wasem (2020).…”

COVID-19 and decreased asylum access: mother work, precarity and preocupación among Central American asylum-seekers in Los Angeles

“…From past discrimination against southern European and Chinese migrants in the nineteenth century to Latin American and Middle Eastern migrants today, there has been a constant ideological war waged between the concept of the U.S. as a country welcoming to immigrants and nativist concerns for sustaining a pure (i.e. White and English speaking) American racial and cultural identity through the illegalization of racialized migrant groups (De Genova 2002 ; Ngai 2004 ; Sáenz and Douglas 2015 ; Wasem 2020 ). This nativism has been hardened into a fear on the part of White America that Latinx migrants cannot and will not assimilate into mainstream U.S. society, making them a threat to the continuity of White U.S. culture (Sáenz and Douglas 2015 ).…”

“…This included limiting the daily number of migrants allowed to cross the border to request asylum from inside the U.S., significantly decreasing the annual number of refugee admissions for those who requested asylum from outside the U.S., limiting the number of judges who worked asylum court cases, enacting the Migrant Protection (“remain in Mexico”) Protocols, and the increase in raids on migrant communities by Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) officers (American Immigration Council 2020 ; Center for Reproductive Rights 2020 ; Shear and Kanno-Youngs 2019 ). These policies increased socioeconomic exclusion for those who lawfully sought asylum from within the U.S. by prolonging the asylum process, denying access to work permits, and enacting nearly impossible rules against proving the need for asylum (American Immigration Council 2020 ; Pierce, Bolter, and Selee 2018 ; Wasem 2020 ).…”

Migrant Detention and COVID-19: Pandemic Responses in Four New Jersey Detention Centers

“…The Trump era increases can in part be attributed to the increased detention of asylum seekers (Young 2017; Schmidt 2019; Wasem 2020), as well as a “no-release” detention policy that eschews existing risk assessment tools and subjects “low risk-immigrants to blanket detention” (Koulish and Evans 2020). Modern rates of detention are also affected by President Donald Trump’s renewal of Secure Communities (and disbanding of PEP) in one of his first Executive Orders (ICE 2021c), as well as his direction to federal agencies to use “all lawful means” against “all removable aliens,” not only those who had already been convicted but also those who could be charged with a crime (Capps et al 2018).…”