So what about the other 59,400,000?

Last updated on: November 19, 2015 at 12:43 pm by Jane the Actuary

So what about the other 59,400,000? 2015-11-19T12:43:23-06:00 Jane the Actuary

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By U.S. Department of State [Public domain], via Wikimedia Commons

According to the UNHCR (here, and a PDF report here), there are 59,500,000 refugees and internally displaced persons.

38.2 million are internally displaced (7.6 million in Syria, 6 million in Colombia, 3.6 million in Iraq, 2.8 million in the DR Congo, and lots elsewhere)

19.5 million are refugees, or 14.4 million if you exclude the Palestinians, with the largest numbers from Syria, Afghanistan, Somalia, Sudan, DR Congo, and Myanmar. Presumably this is understated as it seems to include only those who are either formally registered as refugees, not those who have moved to a neighboring country and live and work there illegally, though it’s not entirely clear.

Of this number, 100,000 were resettled to third countries in 2014; and of that, 3/4ths went to the United States. The rest either wait for resettlement or, it is hoped, for most, a return home.

Which makes the discussion about whether the United States should take in 10,000 Syrians, or 100,000, or none at all, foolish and entirely missing the point.

In any case where there is a real, meaningful chance that the country of origin could be made “habitable” again, and refugees would be able to return, repatriation should be the objective, and a just and humane (but sensible and cost-efficient) provision for refugees’ needs in the meantime. In cases, where no return is imagined to be possible — because the regime that persecuted or expelled them is expected to stay in power indefinitely — then, yes, we should be talking about resettlement, and the only question should be where, that is, which locations can best economically and culturally integrate the newcomers, and whether wealthier third countries (or maybe “fourth countries”?) should pitch in with economic assistance for poorer receiving countries.

Hence: in Myanmar, for instance, there is no expectation that the existing regime will relent in its persecution of the Rohingyas (though I’ll have to renew my subscription to The Economist to be more up-to-date here than just a Wikipedia article), and there’s no real pressure from the West to do so. Going back further in history, when the United States accepted both Jews and ethnically-cleansed ethnic Germans, among others, post World War II, there was no doubt that these people could not return home.

But in Syria, there’s a shooting war. Maybe it lasts years longer, or even decades, or generations. But are we so certain of that? Maybe it ends. Heck, last I heard, the French were finally taking the initiative to bomb ISIS strongholds. There is a real, meaningful chance that Syrians (or at least the majority Muslims; perhaps never the Christians and other minority religions) will be able to return to their homes, or that, at least, it’d be poverty, rather than persecution, that keeps them away.

So: why are we resettling a relative handful of Syrian refugees — this small fraction of the total displaced — in the U.S., rather than kicking in the necessary funds for the refugee camps to operate more humanely and at less of a burden to their host countries?

How much cash does the U.S. contribute to the operation of refugee camps? Is the reason why we resettle that resettlement has fewer immediately-visible costs, more hidden costs? That there are interest groups who profit from refugee resettlement in the U.S.?

Resettlement is our first impulse. Bring them here, we’ll take care of them. We imagine pitching in to cover the rent for a refugee family, or putting them up in an empty nester’s empty bedrooms, or bringing over groceries, or sitting down with them to help them learn English. Well, OK, maybe we don’t imagine ourselves, personally, doing these things, but it’s how we imagine helping refugees, in general. It’s a Matthew 25 thing: Jesus said, “I was hungry and you fed me,” not “and you wrote a check to a global charity that runs refugee camps.” We think of hands-on efforts as more worthy than supporting others with our pocketbooks.

Refugee resettlement is also how we prove our openness to other races, other cultures, how we establish our bona fides as a welcoming people.

Even at the political level, the number of refugees resettled in the U.S., not the number aided in camps or other local provision, is how we “prove” we’re right-thinking people.

And, again, resettlement (though not necessarily in the United States) makes sense for those groups where there is no foreseeable return home, where the alternative is a lifetime in a refugee camp.

But is it really a prudent, responsible action, with respect to Syrians, given that (remember Mark Krikorian’s 12: 1 ratio) we can spend our money far more effectively on helping them in place? And this has nothing to do with whether Syrians are more likely than Americans or other potential resettled refugees to join up with radical Islamic supremacist groups. But we need to take a pause from these accusations (“you’re a xenophobe!” “you don’t care about the welfare of Americans!”) and think about whether what we’re doing makes any sense in the big picture.

(Image: A close-up view of the Za’atri camp in Jordan for Syrian refugees as seen on July 18, 2013, from a helicopter carrying U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry and Jordanian Foreign Minister Nasser Judeh. [State Department photo/ Public Domain])

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