The Republican Party has released its Platform for 2024. As usual with these things, it is short on specifics and long on political rhetoric. The first issue mentioned in the Platform is immigration: “Common Sense tells us clearly, in President Trump’s words, that ‘If we don’t have a Border, we don’t have a Country.'” It continues: “We must not allow Biden’s Migrant Invasion to alter our Country.” “Under the Trump Administration and a Republican Congress, it will be defeated immediately.” But how?
The Platform has a six-part plan “to stop the open-border policies that have opened the floodgates to a tidal wave of illegal Aliens, deadly drugs, and Migrant Crime.” Here, we’ll take a look at the plan and I will offer some thoughts. (more…)
The Republican Party Platform is finally here (yippee!). While the document does not bind either the party or its candidate, it does tell us something about Republican thinking on a wide variety of topics. Two paragraphs in the 54-page Platform cover asylum and refugee issues, and I want to discuss those here.
The RNC Platform would block “the gays” from receiving asylum in the U.S. It would also make it easier for them to get asylum FROM the U.S.
Interestingly, the Platform itself does not call for a “total and complete shutdown of Muslims entering the United States.” However, it does view asylum through the prism of national security, and it does place extra scrutiny on people coming from “regions associated with Islamic terrorism.”
The first paragraph of interest (found on page 26 of the Platform) reconfirms America’s commitment to assisting refugees, but with a few caveats–
From its beginning, our country has been a haven of refuge and asylum. That should continue — but with major changes. Asylum should be limited to cases of political, ethnic or religious persecution. As the Director of the FBI has noted, it is not possible to vet fully all potential refugees. To ensure our national security, refugees who cannot be carefully vetted cannot be admitted to the country, especially those whose homelands have been the breeding grounds for terrorism.
I take issue with a few points here. First, the Platform seeks to limit asylum to people who face “political, ethnic or religious persecution.” Under our current law, a person can qualify for asylum if she fears persecution on account of race, religion, nationality, political opinion or particular social group. Presumably, “ethnic” persecution in the Platform refers to persecution on account of race or nationality under existing law, which means that four of the five protected categories are covered in the RNC document.
Conspicuously absent from the Platform’s language, however, is protection for people who are members of a “particular social group.” This omission is significant for a few reasons. First, it contravenes our treaty obligations (we are signatories to the 1967 Protocol Relating to the Status of Refugees, which covers all five protected categories). If we seek to modify our obligations under the treaty, other countries may follow suit. This would have an unfortunate ripple effect on refugee protection throughout the world. It would also downgrade our leadership role with regards to refugee resettlement, and may signal a withdrawal of our leadership in world affairs more generally.
Second, the change would mean that we no longer offer refuge to many people who we now protect. Those who fear persecution on account of sexual orientation, female genital mutilation, and domestic violence are some prime examples of people we protect because they are members of a particular social group (“PSG”). Indeed, those refugees most affected by this change would be women and sexual minorities. I suppose this is consistent with the rest of the RNC Platform, which–to say the least–is not all that friendly towards women or LGBT individuals.
Third, eliminating PSG as a protected category would effectively end any possibility for relief for the unaccompanied minors who have been arriving at our Southern border in large numbers since about 2012. Most of these young people are fleeing violence in Central America. They already have a difficult time obtaining protection in the U.S., but if the PSG category were eliminated, the likelihood that any of them could obtain asylum would become virtually nil.
The second paragraph in the RNC Platform related to refugees appears on page 42 of the document–
[We] cannot ignore the reality that border security is a national security issue, and that our nation’s immigration and refugee policies are placing Americans at risk. To keep our people safe, we must secure our borders, enforce our immigration laws, and properly screen refugees and other immigrants entering from any country. In particular we must apply special scrutiny to those foreign nationals seeking to enter the United States from terror-sponsoring countries or from regions associated with Islamic terrorism. This was done successfully after September 11, 2001, under the National Security Entry-Exit Registration System, which should be renewed now.
I take issue with a number of points in this paragraph, but here I will discuss only those related to refugees. First, the paragraph echos Donald Trump, who has claimed that we don’t know where these refugees come from, or who they are. This is utterly false. In truth, we know far more about the refugees who come here than we know about other categories of immigrants or non-immigrant visitors. Refugees are subject to intensive screenings and multiple background checks. Indeed, we probably know more about the refugees (and immigrants) entering our country than we know about our own citizens, and most studies show that such people are less likely to commit crimes than the native born.
I also disagree with the Platform’s plan to re-start the National Security Entry-Exit Registration System (“NSEERS”), which was suspended in 2011. Under NSEERS, men and boys from many Arab and Muslim countries were required to specially register with the U.S. government. The confusing system led to great difficulty for many of these people (and their families), but resulted in no terrorism-related convictions. In other words, there is basically no evidence that NSEERS made us any safer, but there is plenty of evidence that it harmed innocent people who happened to be from Arab or Muslim countries.
Finally, there is one point in the Platform that I agree with: We must continue to screen refugees and others who come to our country from regions that produce terrorists (and from everywhere else as well). Of course, we already do this, and I don’t think there is anyone in American who thinks we should do otherwise. The RNC’s implied accusation here is that Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama have been letting un-vetted refugees enter our country. That is a lie, and anyone who follows the painfully-slow process of refugee admissions knows it.
What little the RNC has to say in its Platform is not good for refugees, and it is especially bad for refugees who happen to be women, children, LGBT individuals or Muslims. If there is a silver lining here, I suppose it is that the Platform devotes only two paragraphs to refugee issues. These days, when it comes to Republicans and refugees, the less said, the better.
The platforms of the various political parties are basically statements about what those parties believe and what they intend to do if elected. Since it is now election season (the joy), I thought it might be interesting to see what the party platforms have to say about refugees, so here we go:
Republicans
The Republican Party Platform is the only platform that directly references our country’s commitment to refugees. The Platform states:
We affirm our country’s historic tradition of welcoming refugees from troubled lands. In some cases, they are people who stood with us during dangerous times, and they have first call on our hospitality.
“My wife owns a couple of refugees.”
This is a positive statement, and it is encouraging. As an asylum attorney, I particularly like the second sentence, which acknowledges that some refugees are people who stood with the United States and now face persecution in their homelands. I represent many people from Iraq, Afghanistan, and elsewhere who assisted the U.S., often at great risk to themselves. My clients include law enforcement officers, journalists, interpreters, human rights workers, and others. Given that they risked their lives to help us in our mission, we should offer them refuge when needed.
Unfortunately, of late, we have heard many anti-Muslim statements from prominent members of the Republican party. It seems that such bigotry is inapposite to the Party Platform, which recognizes people like my Muslim clients who “stood with us during dangerous times.” I hope that the spirit of the Platform–rather than the hatefulness of some Republican officials–will prevail in the Grand Old Party.
Democrats
The Democratic Party Platform does not specifically mention refugees. It does discuss immigration, and endorses comprehensive immigration reform, the DREAM Act, and the new Deferred Action program. However, it is disappointing that the Platform is silent on refugee issues.
“If you’re a refugee and you live in a tent, you didn’t build that.”
Since President Obama has been in office for several years, we can safely assume that his policy on refugees and asylees will continue forward if he is re-elected. The Obama Administration has capped the number of refugees admitted into the U.S. at 80,000 per year. However, we have never reached the cap. In 2009, we admitted 74,602 refugees; in 2010, we admitted 73,293; and in 2011, we admitted 56,384 refugees. As for asylees, we admitted 22,219 in 2009; in 2010, we admitted 21,056; and in 2011, we admitted 24,988 (all of this is courtesy of the DHS Yearbook of Immigration Statistics).
President Obama’s policies have been comparable with his predecessors, and I think we can expect similar policies if he has a second term.
Libertarian Party
Since I have an affinity for third parties, I thought I would mention two. The first is the Libertarian Party. The party’s Platform is silent on refugee issues. The only mention of human rights is in the context of property law: “Property rights are entitled to the same protection as all other human rights.” The Platforms mentions immigration and states:
Sexual orientation, preference, gender, or gender identity should have no impact on the government’s treatment of individuals, such as in current marriage, child custody, adoption, immigration or military service laws.
Given the general Libertarian philosophy (“We would end the current U.S. government policy of foreign intervention, including military and economic aid”), I’d imagine that they would leave refugee assistance up to private individuals and agencies, such as churches or humanitarian NGOs. Like much of Libertarianism, this is nice in theory, but has problems in practice. For various reasons, refugees impact national security and relationships between nations. For this reason, governments cannot always leave refugee policy in the hands of private organizations.
Green Party
Finally, the Green Party Platform mentions refugees several times, but always in the context of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict: “We reaffirm the right and feasibility of Palestinian refugees to return to their homes in Israel.”
While I support the rights of Palestinian refugees, this is pretty ridiculous. Why single out Palestinians among all the world’s refugees while at the same time completely ignoring refugees from other countries, including many who are living (and dying) under worse conditions than the Palestinians? It seems to me that this is not a serious party platform, which is unfortunate, as we could certainly use a strong, articulate liberal voice on this and other issues.
OK, so there you have it. To judge solely by party platform, I’d say that the Republicans win on the refugee issue, though I suppose the win is mostly by default.
