Refugees and World Order.docx

Refugees, Migrants, and World Order Richard Falk “There is no humanitarian response able to resolve the problems of so many people.” Antonio Guterres, UN High Commissioner for Refugees When governments restrict movement of citizens within their borders we consider it a sign of totalitarian governance. Yet when governments restrict the flow of people across their borders we consider it to be a normal exercise of sovereignty, sometimes controversial and lamentable, but nevertheless part of the way things are, and should be in a world of territorially distinct sovereign states with national governments exerting autonomy over who enters and who leaves. From an internationalist perspective states remain the outer limit of political community as derived from the still prevailing Westphalian framework of world order. See Richard Falk, The Declining World Order: America’s Imperial Geopolitics (Routledge, 2004), 3-44; see also Gregory A. Raymond, Exorcising the Ghost of Westphalia: Building World Order in the New Millennium (Prentice-Hall, 2003); Gene Lyons & Michael Mastanduno, eds., Beyond Westphalia: State Sovereignty and International Intervention (Johns Hopkins University Press, 1993). There are some radical ideas of post-Westphalian notions of world that have surfaced in recent decades, including corporate one worldism, ideas of regional or civilizational community as most developed by the European Union, Islamic ideas of community as associated with al Qaeda and ISIS. Although the Berlin Wall, using lethal violence to keep East Germans from escaping an oppressive regime, was a symbol of the oppressive failure of Communist rule in East Europe, yet it was never formally or legally challenged because it did not encroach on the territory of West Berlin. It became a focal point of Western propaganda and was often politically condemned, most famously by Ronald Reagan’s memorable taunt, “Mr. Gorbachev, tear down that wall!” When Donald Trump promises the American electorate a high wall on the border with Mexico his prudence is questioned but not the nationalist prerogative that is being claimed as necessary to keep the unwanted and undesirable out, although his ancillary promise of sending the bill to Mexico is greeted with sneers, especially in Mexico, and if such a wall is ever built it will undoubtedly strain diplomatic relations, and may have a negative impact on trade and tourism. The World Court considered the Israeli separation wall being built on occupied Palestine, and found it unlawful, decreeing its dismantling, and declaring that compensation for harm done was due to Palestinians. See Legal Consequences of the Construction of a Wall in the Occupied Palestinian Territory, Advisory Opinion, ICJ Reports, 2004. What is key here is that the legal conclusion was based not on the erection of a wall to keep Palestinians out of Israel, but due to the fact that the wall encroached on Palestinian territory. It seems all but certain that had the Soviet Union constructed the Berlin Wall by as little as one meter inside West Berlin World War III would have followed, or at the very least a world crisis that could only be resolved by relocating the wall on the East Berlin side of the division of the city. In effect, territoriality is the defining principle of contemporary world order, and even the UN is from this perspective irrelevant to resolving the humanitarian crisis posed by the interface between migratory pressures and nationalist resistance. The point here is not to claim that states have an unlimited legal, much less a moral, right to bar and regulate the entry of persons seeking sanctuary, but to point out that this right is subordinated to security and ideological imperatives that dominate a state-centric system of world order. This assessment also does not claim that territorial sovereignty insulates states from the interventionary impulses of geopolitical actors with strategic ambitions involve resources, markets, alignments. It only argues that there is a considerable measure of acceptance at this stage of international history of sovereign discretion when it comes to the treatment of refugees and related issues of internal practices with human rights implications. In effect, international law speaks softly and carries no stick when it comes to upholding human rights with respect to refugee issues. The norms, such as exist, are vague guidelines, susceptible to self-serving interpretations by affected national governments, and offer individuals and groups neither remedies nor prospects of enforcement. For instance, Article 13 of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights (UDHR) affirms in provision (1) “Everyone has the right to freedom of movement and residence within the borders of each state” and in (2) “Everyone has the right to leave any country, including his own, and to return to his country.” Apartheid South Africa rigidly restricted places of residence on the basis of race within its borders, and Israel freely expels Palestinians it finds disruptive and stubbornly refuses to honor any right of return even for Palestinians who had been forcibly dispossessed from their own country. More pertinently with respect to refugees, Article 14 of the UDHR asserts that “Everyone has the right to seek and enjoy in other countries asylum from persecution.” UN Declaration of Human Rights, GA Res. 217A, adopted 10 December 1948; note that Articles 12 & 13 of the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights (1966) is more restrictive. It confirms the right of movement within a country, but only if entry was lawfully obtained, and is silent on the right of return or the right to seek asylum. Partly this is justified because of the adoption of a Convention Relating to the Status of Refugees in 1951. The language of ‘seek and enjoy’ leaves the plight of refugees at the mercy of sovereign states, but does give humanitarian NGOs some leverage in influencing policy. As most governments care about the international image and reputation, according publicity to the hardships facing refugees can under certain circumstances create ripples of compassionate response. When addressing refugees explicitly the main regulatory effort of international law is to declare that no one should be returned forcibly to a country where he or she has reason to fear persecution. Here, too, state practice with respect to this right of refoulement proceeds without any supervisory constraints imposed on the basis of internatonal legal obligation. During the Cold War the United States returned nationals of Central American countries despite the credible fears of persecution by their government. In reaction churches participated in ‘a sanctuary movement’ to provide refuge for such threatened individuals. In this respect, social forces within sovereign territory may uphold norms that the territorial government defies. In practice all issues pertaining to the implementation of standards with respect to people internationally displaced from their homes is treated as a matter of policy rather than of law or of rights. It is true that those who have internationally displaced, most notably the Palestinians, have devoted great energy to establishing their right of return. See GA Res. 181; Julia Petect, Landscape of Hope and Despair: Palestine Refugee Camps (2005); Victoria Brittain, “60 Years of Shame: The Palestinian camps in Lebanon,” Middle East Eye, 7 March 2016 http://www.middleeasteye/net/users/victoria-brittain ; and forthcoming, Susan Akram & Terry Rempel, Out of Place, Out of Time: Refugees, Rights and the Re-making of Palestine/Israel (Pluto, forthcoming). but the issue has been transformed by Israel into a matter suitable for diplomacy, that is, political negotiation, and seems subject to power-generated adjustments, which seem likely, if ever resolved by agreement, to reflect realist calculations based on Israel’s insistence on a demographic balance that maintains a clear Jewish majority. Israel also denies Palestinians confined to Gaza the option to leave even in period of intense combat, thus disallowing the option of becoming a migrant or exercising this minimum form of the human right to leave a country of residence that is affirmed in Article 13 of the UDHR. Being confined to combat zones would seem inconsistent with the international humanitarian law, as embodied in the Fourth Geneva Convention governing Belligerent Occupation, although not addressed specifically. Surprisingly, those representing Palestine have so far not challenged this policy of locking civilians into combat zones, thereby denying the option to become a refugee despite the risks of remaining. I think, then, it is accurate to suggest that realist approaches to refugee policies prevail, which accord only marginal relevance to legal and moral understandings that take into account of values associated with humanitarianism and human rights. Other considerations may accord great relevance to other factors such as ethnic or religious identity. Again, Israel’s commitment to allow Jews the world over to seek entry, residence, and nationality rights in Israel is the most unconditional example of according persons, whether or not forcibly displaced or subject to persecution, rights of permanent entry. When it comes to those internally displaced there is not even a pretense of international protection even if persons are escaping from situations of extreme danger or acute persecution, and at most, a moral interest in taking note of such suffering as part of the broader ‘refugee crisis.’ But see Francis Deng on ‘responsible sovereignty,’ an influential effort to accord attention to internally displaced persons (IDPs). Deng, Sovereignty as Responsibility: Conflict Management in Africa (Brookings Institution, 1996). Deng served as the UN Special Rapporteur on the Human Rights of IDPs between 1992-2004. The only exceptions are associated with claims of ‘responsibility to protect’ (R2P), humanitarian intervention, and the authority to prevent the commission of genocide. See Anne Orford’s two illuminating and useful books addressing these themes: Reading Humanitarian Intervention: Human Rights and the Use of Force in International Relations (Cambridge University Press, 2003) & International Authority and the Responsibility to Protect (Cambridge University Press, 2011); see also Gareth J. Evans, The Responsibility to Protect: Ending Mass Atrocity Once and For All (Brookings Institution, 2008). The Libyan intervention under NATO auspices and on the basis of Security Council authorization, is illustrative of a claim to intervene to protect the civilian population from threatened genocide, but also of geopolitical ambition manipulating and obscuring the human rights mandate. See Richard Falk, Chaos and Counterrevolution: After the Arab Spring (Just World Books, 2015), 95-118; Marc Lynch, The Arab Uprising: The Unfinished Revolution of the Middle East (Public Affairs, 2012), 167-176. International law is silent on so-called IDPs, although their plight is recently more commonly taken into account in assessing the overall refugee challenge and finds its way into critical approaches to sovereignty. See Note 7. At least, the UN High Commission for Refugees (UNHCR) now groups IDPs with ‘refugees’ (those seeking refuge beyond their borders) and stateless persons (those without any prospect of protection by an existing state). According to the most recent figures released by UNHCR there are currently 59.5 million forcibly displaced persons worldwide, of whom 19.5 million are classified as refugees and 10 million as stateless. These are the highest levels of displacement on record. There is a confusing ambiguity associated with the UNHCR undifferentiated classification of migrants as ‘refugees’ provided only that the person leaves country of residence with the goal of settling elsewhere, which lumps together those who have been granted refugee status as asylum seekers and those refused such status, or who remain undocumented. The argument being set forth here is that IDPs and stateless persons are the most vulnerable because there is no international or national protective role that is acknowledged. Perhaps, most vulnerable of all are an occupied people who caught in the midst of armed struggle and not permitted to leave. See Note 6. For refugees, there are at least some weak international law rules and accompanying humanitarian expectations, but the extent of their implementation reflects some considerations of geographic proximity, ethnic or religious affinity, political and economic self-interest, as well as residual claims of humanitarian and cosmopolitan values. More significant than normative factors are geopolitical claims and nationalistic calculations, as well as the vagaries of internal national politics. In effect, money and trade have a far more robust entitlement to mobility across borders than do people, suggesting the relative success of the neoliberal world economy to escape the tyranny of international boundaries. The current American backlash against international agreements designed to promote free trade suggest that economic nationalism may soon reverse recent trends toward deterritorialization associated with neoliberal globalization, and thus complement the ethnic nationalism and nativism intent on closing borders in Europe and the United States. A Structural Diagnosis of the Migrant Crisis The choice of words can be important. A refugee is someone who has crossed a border, and has been formally recognized as such by a government or UN agency on the basis of a procedure on the basis of an application for asylum. But see definitional issues as indicated in Note 11. A refugee cannot be forcibly repatriated to country of origin if a well founded risk of persecution exists. A migrant is someone who has left his country for unspecified reasons, including material circumstances, and seeks to settle elsewhere. A migrant has no status in international law, and has no special claim to protection. For instance, the outflow of Syrians escaping from war torn Syria, and seeking settlement in Europe, is generally described as ‘a migrant crisis’ to underscore the discretion of European countries to seal their borders, however desperate the situation of those seeking entry happens to be. In other words, there is not even a soft law obligation, and at most, a moral or humanitarian case to be made. Pro-refugee demonstrations carry posters with messages such as “Open the Borders,” “We are human beings, we have rights,” and “Stand up to racisim.” Such claims are set forth in moral language appealing for political action, and do not purport to be implementing law beyond the rhetorical contention that as human beings persons have rights. This vulnerability suggests two dimensions of the problem posed by the current situation involving large number of people seeking to escape intolerable conditions in their homeland. One dimension arises from uprooting of persons from their habitual place of residence, characteristically for reasons of acute fear or severe material deprivation. In effect, most people are attached to their place of birth and traditional residence, and leave only as acts of desperation. Migrants are predominantly poor and often materially deprived, which means that whatever resources they possess are usually expended to facilitate migration to chosen country of destination. By reasons of these conditions, migrants are extremely vulnerable, and easily exploited by human smugglers and foreign labor markets. The human side of migration from the perspective of the migrants is one of pervasive loss combined with this condition of vulnerability to abuse and exclusion. Migration from the perspective of the states that are sought as places of refuge and opportunity, is most often perceived as threats to societal coherence and political moderation, weakening the domestic labor market and threatening stability. Whether statistically justified or not, migrants can be effectively portrayed by opportunistic politicians as taking jobs away, lowering salaries, raising the crime rate, as well as threatening traditional societal identities and ethnic/religious balances. This is in turn creates a vicious cycle of xenophobia and nativism that stiffens resistance to legalized migration, and contributes to the outbreak of crime and the heightening of tensions between natives and migrants. In effect, migrants are most often treated as strangers who should be excluded or at the very least monitored as suspicious intruders. A wideranging inquiry on the underlying question of helping strangers see Nicholas J. Wheeler, Saving Strangers: Humanitarian Intervention in International Society (Oxford University Press, 2000). As Japanese present in the United States discovered at the onset of World War II, wartime security pressures can overwhelm legal protections for those whose ethnic identity is aligned with ‘the enemy.’ There was also a racist element present, as German residents were treated without suspicion as compared to Japanese residents. See generally, Richard Reeves, Infamy: The Shocking Story of the Japanese-American Internment in World War II (Henry Holt, 2014). When migrants are large in number, differences in race, ethnicity, culture, and religion heighten societal resistance in host countries, especially if the economy is stressed. In rare circumstances in the contemporary world, labor shortages may create counter-pressures to admit migrants despite societal resistance. This partly accounts for Germany’s relatively ‘humane’ approach to the European migrant crisis of the last several years, which is forthcoming because it also serves national economic interests. As the rise of right wing extremism in Germany confirms, a governmental policy of hospitality, even if motivated by national interest, does not always avoid ugly ethnically motivated reactions. The current European and North American response to migratory flows from the Middle East and Syria magnify this pattern due to the widespread fear of jihadi terrorism, which is overwhelmingly associated with Islam and Arab ethnicities. Scattered incidents in recent years such as the 9/11 attacks on the US World Trade Center and Pentagon along with the Paris and Brussels events in 2015-2016 add credibility to this intermingling of terrorist fears and policy toward migrants. Under these conditions the security of the host state is given a clear priority over humanitarian and moral concerns, and even legal considerations. In other words the impacts of migrants is the almost exclusive focus of policy debates, with scant consideration given to upholding the human dignity of those who seek refuge. It is against this background that the structural factors can be interpreted. There exist a variety of conditions at the level of sovereign states that prompt large numbers of individuals to accept the risks and costs of migration from their home country. Migratory flows are threatening in a variety of ways to the countries, which due to material, social, and political conditions, encourage the adoption of restrictive policies. Given the desperation of the migrants, many raise the stakes of the situation, by attempting entry without permission, which in turns increases host country hostility as well as prompts the construction of walls and lethal forms of border control. In effect, when the national community of people collapses as a source of human security there is no alternative available. The problem of migration can be examined as an insoluble collective goods problem of global scope. In this respect it resembles challenges associated with the elimination of nuclear weapons and the control of climate change. In both contexts, despite an underlying human and global interest in finding a solution, the different and competing orientations of states, inhibits agreement on a cooperative solution based on the aggregation of national interests. Richard Falk, Power Shift: The Changing Global Order (Zed, 2016). With migration the situation is more vivid as there is no underlying common interest beyond a rhetorical commitment to humanitarian and cosmopolitan values that is incapable of challenging existential commitments to preserving national identities and advantages. In all these instances, what is apparent is the world order deficiency arising from the absence of capabilities able to protect the human or global interest. The UN purports to do this but it is far too weak as a political actor to offset the geopolitical weight on hegemonic states, and for migration, even for weaker states. The most that the UN is able to provide is a venue, creating auspices where the interaction of national political wills can be potentially harmonized. The Paris Agreement on Climate Change is viewed as both an example of a successful process of combining diverse national outlooks to achieve multilateral agreement, and of an outcome that falls dangerously short of what the scientific consensus deems as necessary in terms of curtailing greenhouse gas emissions. See Richard Falk, “Climate Change, Policy Knowledge, and the Temporal Imagination,” in Paul Wapner & Hilal Elver, eds., Reimagining Climate Change (Routledge, 2016), and Hilal Elver & Richard Falk, “Post-Paris Challenges and Concerns,” <richardfalk.wordpress.com> posted Jan. 1, 2016. Such a tension seems to identify the outer limits of multilateral diplomacy under UN auspices, and to show that although more than pessimists expected, it still falls short of what is needed to solve the ‘problem’ of climate change. See relevant distinction between ‘problem solving’ and ‘transformative’ orientations in international relations. See Robert W. Cox & Timothy J. Sinclair, eds., Approaches to World Order (Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press, 1996), 4-6, 85-123. It is possible that responses to dangerous contagious diseases yield a more encouraging conceptions of problem-solving potential in a state-centric world order. With respect to the containment and eradication there exists a common national interest that is shared globally. As to the distribution of multilateral burdens there are challenges associated with equity and free rider complaints. Nevertheless, there exists a strong enough incentive to find solutions so that possible obstructions from claims of sovereignty or disagreements about relative burdens are more likely to be overcome as compared to these issues as emergent in the context of migrations. For one thing societies are united in keeping in keeping infectious diseases out, and no human rights issues are presented in favor of letting them in. For another, there is no the immediacy of causal relationship between the external challenge and the domestic effects. Given the scale and character of migration under current world conditions, there exists definite North/South, affluent/poor, white Christian/non-white Muslim dimensions that are contributing to a rightward drift in political attitudes, shifting the mood in many liberal democratic society in xenophobic, ultra-nationalist, and nativist direction that translates into a political wave of a fascist and autocratic character. The European Migratory Crisis Even in the context of the European Union it has been proven impossible to overcome nationalist priorities and implement a common regional policy on migration that distributes the burdens. The result is embittered controversy, politically extremist backlashes against humanitarian and cosmopolitan political leadership at the national level, and a worsening of the migrant experience even by exclusion or by xenophobic backlash. In other words, the structural dominance of sovereign states, and their diversity of circumstances and identities, precludes humane solutions to current migrant flows. There is no political will or capability to optimize policy on the basis of human or global interests. This world order deficiency is accentuated for migrants who lack strong state sponsors of their claims and aspirations. Unlike nuclear weaponry, climate change, disease control there are no states with strong national interests in achieving a humane outcome of the migration crises of our time. For instance, Syria views those who leave the country as generally hostile, or at best, irrelevant, and have no interest in protecting them. The Palestinian refugees, languishing in sub-standard conditions for decades, are treated with minimum hospitality by host countries that seek to avoid permanent settlement by insisting upon repatriation. Several recent European political developments reveal the depth of the structural crisis on a regional level. Because of the inability of Europe to handle the pressure mounted by increasing numbers of migrants coming from the Middle East, the EU struck a Faustian Bargain with Turkey that went into effect in March 2016, but may yet collapse due to conditions that each side fins unacceptable. It offered Turkey a caretaking subsidy of $3.3 billion, some concessions relating to travel to Europe without former visa requirements, and the ‘unfreezing’ or ‘reenergizing’ of talks on EU accession for Turkey in exchange for agreeing to allow Greece to deny asylum requests and return migrants to Turkey. There is an additional provision that requires the EU to accept one Syrian applicant for asylum for each one returned to Turkey. [cite discussion of arrangements, and possible collapse] There is skepticism about whether this will ease the pressure of migration on Greece, and the rest of Europe (most of those coming to Greece are in transit to other countries in Europe, especially Germany), or merely shift the migration flow to the more dangerous route via North Africa to Italy or possibly Spain. It is not clear whether Greece is able to implement the agreement, and how the return to Turkey will be handled. It is reported that up until March 143,000 refugee-seeking Syrians came from Turkey to Greece during 2016, with 460 dying en route, and Greece already struggling to deal with a severe economic crisis. Then there is the May 2016 election in Austria that saw the anti-immigrant Freedom Party candidate, Norbert Hofer, gain 49.7% of the vote, and lose by the narrowest of margins to an environmentalist who had been a Green Party activist, Alexander van Bellen. Throughout Europe anti-migrant political candidates are flourishing as are ultra-nationalist politicians, with a weakening of centrist parties, and a renewed challenge from a post-Marxist left that is relatively silent about the immigration agenda. The Trump and Sanders phenomena in the United States also exhibit some similar tendencies, anti-immigrant far right extremism, economic protectionism, and an unexpected socialist surge, both success stories surprising challenges to centrist politics. Mysteries Surrounding the Refugee Crisis of our Time There is currently an unprecedented and dominant concern about the influx of refugees in Western countries at this time. Refugee policy has moved from the sidelines of public policy to center stage. The increase in numbers is one part of this unfolding story as is the prospect for continued pressure from people desperate to flee either for reasons of vulnerability in combat zones, as in Syria or Afghanistan, or to escape severe poverty often aggravated by such ecological factors as long-term drought and rising temperatures, as in parts of Africa. See Thomas L. Friedman’s three-part article on climate change and forced migration in the context of central Africa. Friedman, “Out of Africa”, New York Times, April 13, 20, & 27, 2016. Yet the most alarming part of the story is the moral panic that refugee pressures seem to be generating in Europe and North America. The surprisingly successful presidential campaign of Donald Trump rests on nativist and xenophobic rhetoric and such inflammatory proposals as the exclusion of all Muslims from entering the country and the deportation of more than 11 million Latinos illegally present in the United States. In Europe the rise of right wing political parties is most centrally understood as expressive of an ultra-nationalist response to refugees, especially those from the Middle East and North Africa. The problematic situation associated with the European response to migrants has captured most attention, but there are many analogous issues posed throughout the rest of the world. It is notable, for instance, that despite geographic proximity and national wealth, Saudi Arabia and Gulf countries have shown zero willingness to allow migrants to enter their countries, presumably fearing destabilizing effects. Also several Asian countries have either closed their borders to migrants or confined them under conditions that fall below international standards. There are several developments that underlie the moral panic that is producing a frightening pattern of political backlash. Perhaps, the most central development is the perceived threat of transnational terrorism as associated with ISIS, and related Islamic extremist groups. Ever since the 9/11 attacks, the vulnerability of Western societies to terrorism has produced a security backlash that has cast a net of suspicion across Muslim communities as a whole and singled out immigrants and asylum seekers for extraordinary scrutiny. Such incidents as the Paris, Brussels, and San Bernadino attacks confirm the transnational dimensions of the threat, and the related logic of closing borders, building walls, expelling those that have entered unlawfully, and scrutinizing far more carefully asylum seekers, especially if identified as Muslims, Arabs, Latinos, and so on. In effect, attention is shifted from empathy for those desperate people whose lives in their home countries were so disrupted as to lead them to seek refuge abroad to the torments and dilemmas confronting countries faced with large numbers of migrants seeking entry. This shift is itself an indicator that states take precedence over persons, and that when state interests are significantly engaged, contrary human rights considerations are subordinated. Another way of putting this reality is to underscore the gaps between economic globalization and moral globalization. As the world has become more integrated and interconnected economically it has not had corresponding enlargements in prevailing ideas of identity and community. What is to be done The preceding sections have tried to explain the vulnerability of migrants under current conditions of world order, international law, and human rights. In effect, to the extent that the protection of strangers and receptivity to migrants has been evolved in law and human rights, it has not been developed in forms that challenge the prerogatives of national sovereignty, the priorities of geopolitical actors, and the policies shaping national, regional, and global security regimes. The historical circumstances are such as to both generate large transnational migratory flows and strong patterns of governmental and societal resistance. This is both an accurate description of the current situation and seemingly, a reliable portrayal of what to expect in the future, which if anything seems likely to intensify pressures and backlash. In view of the weakness of law and morality and the gathering strength and momentum associated with anti-migrant resistance within states and on the part of geopolitical actors, that something different in the realm of policy needs to be explored. The essence of this proposed approach is to shift from an effects and reactive fire fighting orientation to one that concentrates on root causes and prevention. I owe consideration of this revision of perspective to Paul Amar’s insightful comment during a discussion of the refugee crisis at a public meeting devoted to the global refugee crisis at a meeting in Santa Barbara sponsored by the Global Dialogue Project on May 19, 2016. Of course, this is easier to propose than to get done, but it is the only practical way to address the migrant challenge on the basis of cosmopolitan values as mediated by sovereign states led by realist political leaders and peopled by citizenries protective of stability, identity, and moderation. Put another way, a humane approach to the migrant challenge presupposes strong enough structures to enable the articulation and implementation of regional and global interests (as distinct from national and geopolitical interests), and these structures do not exist, nor are likely to come into existence for the foreseeable future. This prevailing context is easily conveyed by the degree of attention given to the feared impacts of migrations as compared to the hardships and ordeals of the migrants as people. In other words, the concern with Syrian migrants is not a reflection of compassion associated with their desperate plight but rather a concern about the backlash in terms of extremist politics that such migrants threaten to produce in a setting where passions of Islamophobia have been widely disseminated and security has been shattered by spectacular terrorist incidents that induce both ultra-national and autocratic political reflexes. The causes of large-scale migrations are quite evident: war torn combat zones lead large numbers of people to seek safety by fleeing across borders in search of safety; oppressive governments induce people to find sanctuary in more permissive national settings, especially if the political opposition lost an insurgent effort to gain control of state power or was displaced by an insurgent challenge; massive and sustained poverty, unemployment, and developmental pessimism encourage people to seek more favorable opportunities elsewhere; and ecological pressures, accentuated by climate change in the form of intense heat, prolonged droughts, devastating floods and extreme weather events cause people to migrate in increasingly large numbers. For economic and ecological migrants, even the weak moral and legal scaffolding that is available for political migrants and those escaping combat zones, is absent, a normative black hole is present for these migrants with no expectation of a favorable response to asylum appeals except in the occasional case of a labor shortage or the existence of special circumstances that encourage admission.