About refugees

Happy World Refugee Day

Of all the ironies, today is World Refugee Day. 

Folks around the globe are hosting events that support refugee populations, that allow refugees to honor and express their hopes for their home countries, that consider the history of refugees that fled from their own shores. 

In the US, we are building concentration camps for tiny children.

Many of the families being forcibly separated at the US border are seeking asylum–they are refugees. 

So, while Jeff Sessions and others misuse the Bible to support their monstrous policies, I give you instead some foundational texts in international law to remind us exactly what we’re supposed to be standing for.

. . . .

For extra irony, and since I’m writing from Budapest, the Hungarian Parliament passed a set of laws today that criminalizes groups who help “illegal” immigrants, along with a constitutional amendment that forbids settling “an alien population” in Hungary. 

Dare we ask what this means for celebratory national myths about the Honfoglalás?

Death threats, despair and deportations: Three years on the front lines of Europe's migration crisis

On World Refugee Day, 25.4 million people find themselves forcibly displaced and living in another country, more than double the population of Belgium.

Countries around the world, not least the United States, are grappling with what is becoming the norm: an increasing number of people fleeing their homes because of conflict, persecution, poverty or climate change.

In Europe, almost three years on from what became known as the refugee crisis, tens of thousands are stranded in camps, living hand to mouth on the streets of cities or under the constant threat of deportation.

Refugees held by Australia languish in a world beyond suffering and suicide