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Culture War Roundup for the week of February 10, 2025

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I'd be curious to know what he thinks should be done with people who have filed asylum claims

Put them in concentration camps and make them pay for food and shelter, I presume.

Outlawing asylum is a principled stance, but I'd like to actually hear him and others make this argument instead of hiding behind everything being "illegal" and "fraudulent".

Lying on an asylum claim is a dictionary example of fraud. I can't think of a better word to describe it.

Is there any formal requirement that "asylum" implies anything other than safe(r) living arrangements? I'm not aware of any treaty or international law requirements that would require free travel permissions or right-to-work within the granting nation. As far as I can tell, dumping refugees into camps of some sort (hopefully hospitable ones) is pretty common in other parts of the world.

"I'm being persecuted by my government" can be fixed with, in theory, three hots (meals) and a cot in the Nevada desert. Presumably the current strategy of work permits, free travel rights, and housing assistance was at some point deemed easier, cheaper, or nicer, and that's why we do it. But I don't see why we're bound to it beyond the usual process for changing actions of Congress or the Executive.

On the other hand, I know people who arrived in the US as refugees as young kids (from Iran in the late 70s and the Balkans in the 90s, for example) and have gone on to do great things for the country. I'm not opposed to the program on principle even if I question it's lack of guard rails as of late.

Is there any formal requirement that "asylum" implies anything other than safe(r) living arrangements?

The Refugee Convention gives refugees numerous rights, and is legally binding in the US under the Supremacy Clause (as a ratified treaty). It contains numerous clauses setting out what rights refugees had, including freedom of within-country movement, working rights etc. on the same basis as citizens. It doesn't contain any procedural provisions on how you tell who is and isn't a refugee, which has become a problem, to say the least.

That said, most of the rights the Refugee Convention protects only apply to refugees who are "lawfully present" in a country. The simple and obvious reading of the Convention text is that refugees who illegally cross a border from one safe country (e.g. Mexico) to another (e.g. the US) lose most of their Convention rights - although not the right of non-refoulment, which is absolute.

Trump doesn't even seem to want to end asylum, though- he designated Afrikaners as refugees.