• About Us
  • Who Are We
  • Work With Us
Thursday, August 18, 2022
No Result
View All Result
NEWSLETTER
The Globe Post
39 °f
New York
44 ° Fri
46 ° Sat
40 ° Sun
41 ° Mon
No Result
View All Result
The Globe Post
No Result
View All Result
Home Featured

US Asylum Laws Must Catch up With the Reality of Today’s Refugees

Lynn Stephen by Lynn Stephen
02/18/21
in Featured, Opinion
Refugee child holding up a sign reading 'we are human like you'

Photo: Bulent Kilic, AFP

Share on FacebookShare on Twitter

“I am going to ask for asylum,” Maria said. The mother and her three children, hailing from Honduras, hoped to gain asylum when they arrived at the US southern border in February 2019.

“They killed my father. We went to the police and they put the person who killed him in jail. But he paid about 150,000 Honduran lempira ($6,250) and they let him out. Then they came to threaten me and my brother with death because we went to the police. That is why I left. 

Also, because my husband beat our kids and me all the time, and we are so poor.”

Two years later, on February 2, 2021, President Joe Biden signed an executive order seeking to attack the root causes of Central American refugees fleeing, extend asylum programs and resettlement capacity in the region, and review all the policies Donald Trump’s administration put into place to eliminate access to asylum.

This is an opportunity to fundamentally rethink asylum.

Fleeing in Groups

Currently, asylum can be granted in the United States if an applicant can demonstrate they have been persecuted in the past or have a well-founded fear of persecution on five grounds: membership in a particular social group, religion, race, nationality, or political opinion.

However, my work as an expert witness in more than 100 cases of asylum seekers from Mexico and Central America suggests that asylum pertains not just to individuals fleeing persecution but also to networks of people who are connected in daily life. Violence, poverty, climate change, and unemployment are experienced collectively, in communities.

Moreover, people flee internally before they leave their countries. While some come alone, many come with families and would like to bring the larger networks of people they are connected with who are fleeing together for multiple, complex reasons. 

Most are already connected to extended families and people from their communities of origin who live in the US.

Rethinking Asylum

In 2018, Americans were horrified by the separation of parents from children at the border as thousands of Central American families seeking asylum flooded legal points of entry. That so many Americans felt their heartbreak suggests we should fundamentally rethink asylum.

What if we allowed people to apply for asylum together, as a group; for example, as families or as a group of families from one community? Doing that would allow people to settle in the US with a wider support system while recognizing the complex interconnections that fuel the global refugee crisis.

Broadening Asylum

Biden’s February 2 executive order seeks to “identify and prioritize actions to address the underlying factors leading to migration in the region.” This goal faces major challenges.

US foreign and development policy in Central America has for decades helped to foster corruption, state-sponsored violence, poverty, anti-democratic and authoritarian tendencies, anti-Indigenous and anti-Black racism, horrific gendered violence, and an open door for organized crime.

Migrants heading toward the United States
Migrants seeking for asylum in the United States walk to the U.S.-Mexico border at El Chaparral crossing in Tijuana on May 7, 2017. Photo: Guillermo Arias, AFP

Correcting bad foreign policy will take time. Right now, we should focus a bright light on existing immigrant communities in the US as a resource. Let us work with them to rethink our asylum system and accommodate the reality of today’s refugees from Central America and elsewhere.

Why not pass a law designating additional groups of people for resettlement in the US through our refugee program, such as Central American refugees?

Broadening asylum to allow for multiple and connected persecutions and causes as experienced by groups of people such as Maria and her extended family would bring US policy in line with the lived experience of today’s refugees.

Disclaimer: The views and opinions expressed here are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the editorial position of The Globe Post.
ShareTweet
Lynn Stephen

Lynn Stephen

Distinguished Professor of Anthropology and Philip H. Knight Chair at the University of Oregon. Currently conducting research on access to justice for Guatemalan indigenous refugees fleeing violence in the Guatemalan justice system and in US immigration courts

Related Posts

gavel
National

Court Blocks Biden Lifting US Border Expulsion Policy

by Staff Writer
April 25, 2022
Dollar bills held against a world map
Opinion

The Global Tax Won’t Fix Historically High Inequality, It Will Make It Worse

by Benjamin Waddell
February 21, 2022
A noose is seen on makeshift gallows as supporters of US President Donald Trump gather on the West side of the US Capitol in Washington DC on January 6, 2021
Opinion

How Praise and Blame Rhetoric Are Poisoning American Democracy

by Ryan Skinnell
November 2, 2021
The US Supreme Court in Washington, DC
National

US Justice Dept Asks Supreme Court to Block Texas Abortion Ban

by Staff Writer
October 18, 2021
A person receives the Moderna COVID-19 vaccine.
National

US Authorizes COVID Boosters for Those With Weakened Immune Systems

by Staff Writer
August 13, 2021
Palestine war, Gaza
Featured

Giving Voice to the Voiceless: The Dead Children of Gaza and Israel

by Stephen J. Lyons
October 26, 2021
Next Post
Why Not Equality for America’s Puerto Rican Men and Women?

Why Not Equality for America’s Puerto Rican Men and Women?

A health care worker conducting tests for COVID-19 in Antananarivo, Madagascar.

One in Two S. Africans Infected by Covid: Study and Estimates

Recommended

Zelensky

Zelensky Calls on UN to ‘Ensure Security’ of Nuclear Plant

August 18, 2022
A demonstrator sprays paint over an upside-down portrait of Chinese leader Xi Jinping

China Use of Psychiatric Hospitals to Punish Activists ‘Widespread:’ Report

August 17, 2022
US President Donald Trump

Donald Trump Thanks You for Your Sacrifice

August 17, 2022
People carry their belonging on their heads while they walk on a flooded road following heavy rain downpour in Wawa in Ogun State southwest Nigeria

Deadly Floods Kill 50 in Northern Nigeria

August 17, 2022
Marina Ovsyannikova

Russian TV Journalist Faces Jail Time for Anti-Putin Protest

August 10, 2022
Mar-A-Lago raid

FBI Raid on Trump’s Home Ignites Political Firestorm

August 9, 2022

Opinion

US President Donald Trump

Donald Trump Thanks You for Your Sacrifice

August 17, 2022
Protesters stand with placards in front of the statue of India's independence leader Mahatma Gandhi in Parliament Square, central London, after a demonstration outside the US Embassy

Considering the Patience of Gandhi for These Troubled Times

August 5, 2022
US President Donald Trump

Owning the Words and the Libs

June 16, 2022
Officers in Uvalde, Texas, stand outside Robb Elementary School near a makeshift memorial for the shooting victims

Child Sacrifice Makes a Comeback

June 3, 2022
A Lebanese election official stands at a polling station

New Group Threatens Lebanese Elections… and Potentially Middle East Peace

May 18, 2022
A man holding a gun

Safely Back in USA, Land of Guns and Burgers

May 2, 2022
Facebook Twitter

Newsletter

Do you like our reporting?
SUBSCRIBE

About Us

The Globe Post

The Globe Post is part of Globe Post Media, a U.S. digital news organization that is publishing the world's best targeted news sites.

submit oped

© 2018 The Globe Post

No Result
View All Result
  • National
  • World
  • Business
  • Interviews
  • Lifestyle
  • Democracy at Risk
    • Media Freedom
  • Opinion
    • Editorials
    • Columns
    • Book Reviews
    • Stage
  • Submit Op-ed

© 2018 The Globe Post