by Carolina Brusoni & Artem Moskvin (KU Leuven)
This blog post was written for the course "Current Issues in Global and EU Affairs", which took place from February 11-May 9, 2019.
For years,
Europe and the US have been Worldwide human rights champions, but some recent
developments in treatments of migrant and policies challenge such perception,
putting into perspective nothing less than the international Liberal Order
itself.
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| Syrian refugees and migrants pass through Slovenia in 2015. Image Credit: Robert Cotič, via Wikimedia Commons |
During the
2015 immigration crisis, over one
million and 800 thousand people have arrived in Europe. The 80% of migrants
has travelled through two main corridors: from the Aegean islands and from the
land route across the Balkan countries. The images of crowds marching along the
roads and those of drifting boats have globally presented the image of a
chaotic Europe facing an unexpected and epochal exodus. As a consequence, this
phenomenon translated into a 'sovereign' discourse of zero immigration
tolerance, foreseeing a Europe made up of hermetically closed nations.
In March 2000,
with the approval of the Lisbon
Strategy - the economic reform program adopted by the European
Council - the EU seemed to usher in a new era: immigration was then considered
a precious resource to develop the continent into one of the most dynamic and
globally competitive economies. However, the policies adopted by individual
countries have decisively verged in the opposite direction. In reaction to the
tensions caused by international terrorism, countries such as the Netherlands,
Denmark, Germany and Austria have introduced measures that subordinate
immigration opportunities to the requirement of integration. In other words,
migrants would be required to attend compulsory language and culture courses to
stay in the country, a procedure also introduced in Italy in 2009 with the
so-called "Integration
Agreement". Moreover, foreigners who request family
reunification would be asked to take the language and culture tests at the European
Memebr States’ embassies in their countries of origin. This trend was
accompanied by stricter entry-level policies aimed at granting only short-term
residence permits (between three and five months). During the 2000s, therefore,
legally entering Europe has become a difficult path, especially for African and
Middle Eastern migrants. Many of them, who previously could have hoped to
obtain a regular entry visa for work or family reunification, begin then to
look for other migratory channels, mostly irregular ones.
Since 2011,
with the fall of the Ben-Ali regime in Tunisia and with the start of the civil
war in Libya, the flows of those forced to flee have intensified. The
escalation culminates in 2015, when the humanitarian catastrophe in Syria
dramatically increases the pressure on the eastern
routes already used, among others, by Iraqis, Iranians,
Pakistanis and Afghans.
Faced with
chaos, the EU failed to reach an agreement on the crucial issue of asylum
seekers’ internal redistribution, demanding instead the strict application of
the Dublin Regulation and clearly disadvantaging the “first entry” countries on
the Mediterranean.
On the other
side of the Atlantic Ocean, things didn’t take a much different direction.
Cutting down
on immigration was one of the major themes of Donald Trump’s presidential
campaign as an essential part of “Putting America First” narrative. Trump not
only plead to build a wall on the Mexican border but also made a number of
other promises from banning all
Muslims from entering the US to putting an end to birthright
citizenship, which in fact is guaranteed by The Fourteenth
Amendment of the US Constitution adopted in 1868. And President Trump started
to deliver on his promises in this field very soon.
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The seven nations affected by the
executive order. Pie charts indicate
the number and type of visas issued
the year before the travel ban.
|
On the 27th
of January 2017, a week after his inauguration ceremony, the 45th
POTUS signed a notorious Executive Order (EO) preventing
citizens of seven Muslim-majority countries from visiting the United
States and restricting rights of refugees coming from those same nations as
well. This Executive Order provoked a strong backlash in the country and faced
significant resistance, but nevertheless set a tone for the future immigration
policies of the Trump Administration. It is probably even more relevant that
the implementation of this Order set a completely distinct pattern for said
policies: first the President or his Administration try to repeal existing
policy protecting migrants like it was with DACA and DAPA or to reduce
migration with newer tools like the Wall or the travel ban, then it eventually
faces a lot of opposition and struggles to be fully implemented, all in the
environment of a very heated national public debate on a matter.
These debates
will likely echo in the US’ domestic political discourse for years to come
regardless of the outcome of the 2020 presidential election. In a scenario
presenting an ever-growing
polarization and a drastic difference in the perception of the
country’s priorities, Trump is
merely a symptom, not a core problem as such, since he just fulfills his mandate
while retaining support from his base. This phenomenon is a reproof that
immigration, just like some other issues that have been belittled into an
exclusively partisan problem, will struggle to be considered a critical
ensemble of data and pools’ statistics. It wouldn’t be accurate to claim that
the US drifted from the welcoming image of the “American Dream” since half of
its population still support such perception. Nevertheless, the rise of an
increasing xenophobic and protectionist narrative can’t -and shouldn’t- be
ignored. It is indeed undeniable that the repeated violations of migrants’ and
refugees’ rights undermine the basis of human rights’ defense on which the
Liberal Order as such puts its fundaments.
It is
difficult to imagine how far-reaching the consequences of these troubling
developments will be, especially considering the various national contexts and
actors involved. What
is certain, however, is that this trend is not one-sided and is not a one-way
process. Both the EU and the USA should reconsider their
-sometimes de-humanizing- narrative on migrants as quotas and percentages to
then remember the
basis of tolerance, acceptance and multiculturality that made them the
international players they are.
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