why are refugees treated differentlywhy are refugees treated differently

Al Jazeera journalist Virginia Pietromarchi notes, Bloody conflicts in Syria, Somalia, and other places have not received the wide-reaching international media coverageor urgent international government actionthat the invasion of Ukraine has inspired." The deal gives EU states free passes to return migrants and failed asylum seekers to Turkey. Why don't we treat all refugees as though they were Ukrainian? He's the host of NPR's Book of the Day podcast and a frequent host on Life Kit. As they work out where to go next, it's not clear they'll find refuge in Europe. How to Handle People Who Are Eternally Evasive, Mass Shooters and the Myth That Evil Is Obvious, Transforming Empathy Into Compassion: Why It Matters, No Dr. Spock for Black Parents: Lessons From Tyre Nichols, Research Shows Why Attractive People Are More Narcissistic. Religious and other prejudices are often intertwined; the disparity between how the EU treats Ukrainian and non-Ukrainian refugees stems from Europeans empathy for Ukrainians and the othering of African and Middle Eastern refugees. LIMBONG: Rana Khoury, a research associate at Princeton University focusing on conflict and displacement, says this language has impacts on global refugee policy. What is threatening about refugees? In a survey of almost 20,000 Europeans across 15 countries in 2016, my IPL colleagues found a strong anti-Muslim bias. NPR's Andrew Limbong has more. The participants were initially asked how many refugees Germany could host per year and then asked what would happen if this number was exceeded. 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. 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. . 2016. With blanket news coverage of the dire situation in Ukraine, Europeans are observing the situation of Ukrainians through this humanitarian lens and thus express greater support for them. Racism also impacts refugee treatment by influencing media coverage. In other words, the choice presented to the Lebanese people by . 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. Why Are So Many Young Men Single And Sexless? Compared to college students in previous samples, these participants reported perceiving even stronger threats and experiencing more hostility toward refugees. The way we talk about conflicts can impact those who are already most directly affected by war, refugees. Many refugees are coming from northern Africa and the Middle East, with roughly 50 percent of the population of Syria seeking refuge from war. Accuracy and availability may vary. The reasons for this difference. Landmann, H., Gaschler, R., & Rohmann, A. Here, Laitin discusses how the experience of Ukrainian refugees compares to those fleeing other conflicts and difficulties, such as those escaping civil war in Syria and economic hardship in North Africa. The asylum program works to provide refugee protection to people in Canada who: have a well-founded fear of persecution or. Bulgarian Prime Minister Kiril Petkov recently drew a distinct line between the two groups, justifying differential treatment and fostering a sense of Ukrainian exceptionalism: Underscoring this justification is Islamophobia; Ukrainian refugees are primarily Christian, while refugees from Syria and North Africa are mostly Muslim. The EU refused to activate the Temporary Protection Directive in 2015, incentivized other nations to thwart the flow of refugees, and neglected to discipline border patrol agents who violated the rights of asylum seekers. Yet, as Khalid notes, we do not have a stereotype of white people being inherently violent and prone to domestic terrorism." Branding Muslims as terrorists and using such accusations to reject Muslim asylum seekers are thinly veiled attempts for religious, racial, and ethnic prejudice to masquerade as national security concerns. 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. Full coverage at CTVNews.ca/Ukraine. The EUs response to the refugee crisis also shapes its posture towards Russia and reignites Cold War concerns about Russian aggression, for Eastern Europeans acknowledge the potential for Putin to invade their nations as well. The other hundreds, or perhaps thousands, of girls and young women who survived the journey are still in Kakuma Refugee Camp. "Many nations today are spending much more money and energy on finding ways to prevent refugees and asylum seekers from ever crossing their border than they are in protecting people who have been. These two groups are treated very differently, however, due to the prevalent stereotypes that exist about them in society. 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. It is not enough for them simply to stay alive. Germany, for example, has suffered fromzero population growth for years and is in acute need of young, able-bodied workers to feed its massive industrial economy. The impact of racism on refugee treatment is evident in how African, Middle Eastern, and Asian refugees fleeing Ukraine are treated. LIMBONG: Mahdis Keshavarz is a board member with the Arab and Middle Eastern Journalists Association, which put out a statement criticizing this framing, which Keshavarz says relies on old tropes. show that asylum centers tend to isolate residents. For an optimal experience visit our site on another browser. 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? Refugees, for instance, pose an economic threat because they need jobs, low-cost housing, access to health care, etc. Today, U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) detention centers have custody of approximately 54,000 refugees, asylum-seekers, and migrants. Syrians are careful to disassociate themselves from the refugee identity. Contrarily, due to racial, religious, cultural, and ethnic differences, Europeans feel less sympathy for other refugees. Some refugee families say they aren't being treated the same as families fleeing from Ukraine. Poland, Hungary and the Czech Republic refused to accept asylum seekers the EU attempted to relocate from Italy and Germany. Copyright 2022 NPR. Watch on. To receive Stanford news daily, An additional . The 2014-15 refugees had no such rights. Kotada Al-Younes, a young Syrian journalist who has found exile in Sweden, told me that many Syrians in Sweden share this frustration with being confined and labelled as refugees: People want to keep their identity and their profession when they go abroad. Even though refugees are always victims of conflict, the civil war in Syria is more difficult to fit into this binary of right versus wrong, which may affect the EUs perceived political expediency of aiding Syrian refugees. The Harbour Project charity said many Ukrainians received immediate refugee. Editor's note: Last year, thousands of asylum seekers and migrants from the Middle East, Africa, and South Asia found themselves used as pawns in a political showdown between Belarus and the EU: stuck in a dense forest along the Polish-Belarusian border and pushed back and forth by security services as temperatures plummeted below zero. In other words, the deaths of African and Middle Eastern civilians have elicited less attention from media outlets and foreign governments than the deaths of Ukrainians. Approximately 18,000 Europeans from 15 countries were given profiles and asked whom they would grant asylum; the study found a consistent bias against Muslim asylum-seekers, who were 11 percentage points less likely to be accepted than otherwise similar Christians. Corroborating this anti-Muslim bias among Europeans, another experiment in France concluded that increasing numbers of Muslims in France resulted in increased xenophobia. Social Issues and Policy Review, 11, 78-123. There were 89.3 millionpeople forcibly displaced world-wide at the end of 2021. The International Monetary Fund has also urged the EU to lift labor restrictions on refugees and migrants, and reward employers for providing them employment. 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. U.S. intelligence agencies have assessed that. While media outlets have labeled Ukrainians refugees, they oscillated between refugees and migrants when referring to Middle Eastern and African refugees in 2015. The Refugee Act is a federal immigration law that was adopted in 1980. Giulia McPherson is the director of advocacy and operations at Jesuit Refugee Service/USA. 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. She says that's a pretty good sign of civilization. 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. An anchor for Al-Jazeera English called Ukrainian refugees, quote, "middle-class people," in comparison to refugees from the Middle East and North Africa. Asylum-seekers must not be forced back to the trauma and violence that theyre so desperately fleeing. Describing them as 'refugees' would draw in a governance apparatus that today includes development actors. Six threat types emerged from the analysis of the responses:1. As Al-Younes noted, who wants to hire an asylum seeker still at risk of deportation, since their application hasnt been accepted yet? 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Data collected from three IPL projects shows that Muslim immigrants and refugees face higher levels of discrimination in Europe than those with a Christian heritage. While the first three threats may be considered direct threats, the other three are extended threats. Knowing what you value will help you build the most meaningful life possible. LIMBONG: Rana Khoury, a research associate at Princeton University focusing on conflict and displacement, says this language has impacts on global refugee policy. Since the media expose Europeans more to the conflict in Ukraine, they are more aware of the atrocities and trauma necessitating Ukrainians flight to nearby countries; therefore, refugees need for asylum seems more legitimate. Therefore, the latter must contend with heightened xenophobia, and numerous studies evidence discrimination against Muslim asylum seekers. Lest we forget, barrel bombs are not the only threat to life. 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. Refugee implies involuntary exodus, while migrant refers more to voluntary movement; therefore, the use of the latter undermines non-Ukrainian refugees requests for asylum. The massive migration flow to the north has produced a war of semantics: Are the new arrivals refugees or migrants? Author Kate Zernike dissects the years-long fight for gender equality at MIT, NASA made history by knocking an asteroid off course. 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. The UNHCR has warned that the conflation of refugees and migrants has politicized humanitarian work, but the distinction was political at the onset, as it prioritizes victims of physical violence over victims of structural and economic violence. In addition, they found that every threat typeeven altruistic threat (concerns about the host countrys ability to care for refugees)was linked with negative views of immigration and refugees. During the 2015 refugee "crisis," the EU called for detaining arriving refugees for up to 18 months. 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. KESHAVARZ: So as journalists, I think it's really critical that we look at that duality, and we question why that is. According to new research, many asylum seekers experience discrimination on the Swedish labor market. 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. Attitudes also are affected by humanitarian concerns: When a refugee is perceived to have a valid claim or specific vulnerability for example, if he or she was a victim of torture support is generally higher. In 2012, at the onset of the current refugee crisis, I interviewed young Afghan and African asylum seekers in Denmark who expressed frustration with their confinement in asylum centers in remote areas, which they felt prevented them from integrating with their host community. Eastern Europe is treating Ukrainians better than Syrians and Afghansbut giving people the means to resist is the only way to prevent future crises. Islamophobia also underlies the assumption that Middle Eastern refugees are violent terroristsa sentiment echoed in Petkovs speech and Orbns comments that Muslim asylum seekers are Muslim invaders, accepting Middle Eastern migrants is importing terrorism, and all the terrorists are basically migrants. This assumption is a blatant fallacy of composition not applied to whites. In practice, refugees and migrants apply for the same asylum, which has somewhat disrupted the easy management of these categories. They often have no or very limited access to services, material assistance, adequate housing, health . The decision that wealthy northern European countries such as Denmark and the UK made last fall, when they dismissed the EUs call for sharing the responsibility by refusing to receive any of the 120,000 asylum seekers relocated from the south, revealed their humanitarian priorities. 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. Currently, Ukrainians benefit from the unprecedented implementation of the Temporary Protection Directive, which allows Ukrainian refugees to reside, seek employment, and attend school in the EU for three years, no official asylum approval necessary. In line with these recommendations, countries with high migration rate such as Germany, Sweden, and Italy offer asylum seekers temporary work permits while their applications are being processed. Of racism on refugee treatment by influencing media coverage people by accepted yet millionpeople forcibly displaced at. Reported perceiving even stronger threats and experiencing more hostility toward refugees in 1980 Young women who the... Ukrainians better than syrians and Afghansbut giving people the means to resist the., R., & quot ; crisis, & Rohmann, a dissects the years-long fight for gender at! 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