[UNHCR] Nothing Has Changed

Written by Breitbart

US is willing to work with other countries on resettling refugees, but how honest are these assurances?

“From abandoning Bagram Air Base before we got all of our citizens out of the country to leaving high-tech weapon systems for the Taliban’s taking, to unnecessarily pushing President Trump’s withdrawal date from May to the middle of “fighting season” in Afghanistan, President Biden and our generals have failed us all.” - J.D. Vance, Republican candidate for US Senate in Ohio .

The US refugees resettlement systems have been on spotlight ever since the refugee admissions ceiling was first slashed to 45,000 by former US President Donald Trump in January 2017.  As he continued to drop the numbers further, to nearly 18,000 in 2020, many countries all over the world condemned the US leader for taking such a strong stance against refugees, and expressed their hope for change upon the change in administration. 

Yet, even upon the election of Democrats, no change has been seen. For example, the Democrats have actively chosen to leave Title 42 in place, which expels migrants from the border. Within five months of the new president’s reign, over 400,000 migrants have been expelled from the border, causing asylum seekers to be sent into Central America to face certain doom. To date, over 3,300 migrants who were turned away have faced horrifying abuses of human rights, including getting trafficked, assaulted, kidnapped and raped. 

The current administration tried to excuse their actions by claiming that it was to prevent further spread of the pandemic, though health experts have disagreed, as there is no solid evidence to prove their unintelligent statement. These issues were also discussed in the ongoing United Nations High Commissioners for Refugees conference, where although issues of the COVID-19 spreading in refugee camps were brought up, the topic was not pursued further. Just ignored. 

Deflecting reasonable accusations of mismanagement while blaming a global pandemic is repulsive. It shows how little responsibility the US government feels towards the disadvantaged. 

Yet, somehow, during the ongoing conference, the delegate of the US has maintained a very quiet stance, and remains hesitatant to suggest or address any concrete issues, only sticking to agreeing with the solutions that other countries have come up with regarding the smooth integration of refugees into their host country.

When asked further on whether the solutions being suggested in the conference would be suitable and viable for America, they have also resorted to not comment, showing that the US delegation is really not very keen on the topics discussed during the conference. From this, we can infer that the US maintains a strong attitude against refugees and despite the talks happening, we can assume that the US delegation plans to only support other countries’ ideas blindly in order to maintain good international relations. 

In conclusion, the US administration has failed refugees once more. For now, we can only hope to see a day where refugees will be welcomed into the “Land of the Free”. 

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