Refugees Welcome!

Today there are some 63.5 million refugees in the world, people who have fled their own countries because of war and persecution.  Resources are meagre in the refugee camps.  There are shortages of food and clean water.  Shelter, at best, is a tent no matter how warm or cold it is.  Fuel for cooking and heating is usually scarce.  And there normally is no school for children.  This is not a situation that most of us have experienced, nor want to experience.

Alternet — As President Barack Obama pushes back against a chorus of anti-refugee sentiments in the United States, a New York Times article Thursday shows that for our neighbors to the north, “refugees welcome” is more than just a campaign slogan: it's a promise that is being kept.

“Across Canada, ordinary citizens, distressed by news reports of drowning children and the shunning of desperate migrants, are intervening in one of the world’s most pressing problems,” Damon Winters writes.  …

“I can’t provide refugees fast enough for all the Canadians who want to sponsor them,” Canadian immigration minister John McCallum, told the Times.  …

And for refugees, the support espoused by sponsors is both unfamiliar  and life-affirming. “A human life has value here,” refugee Muaz Ballani told the Times. “You can feel it everywhere.”

NY Times — One frigid day in February, Kerry McLorg drove to an airport hotel here to pick up a family of Syrian refugees. She was cautious by nature, with a job poring over insurance data, but she had never even spoken to the people who were about to move into her basement.

“I don’t know if they even know we exist,” she said.

At the hotel, Abdullah Mohammad’s room phone rang, and an interpreter told him to go downstairs. His children’s only belongings were in pink plastic bags, and the family’s documents lay in a white paper bag printed with a Canadian flag. His sponsors had come, he was told. He had no idea what that meant.

Across Canada, ordinary citizens, distressed by news reports of drowning children and the shunning of desperate migrants, are intervening in one of the world’s most pressing problems. Their country allows them a rare power and responsibility: They can band together in small groups and personally resettle — essentially adopt — a refugee family. In Toronto alone, hockey moms, dog-walking friends, book club members, poker buddies and lawyers have formed circles to take in Syrian families. The Canadian government says sponsors officially number in the thousands, but the groups have many more extended members.

Ariaana Eva Soto-Mak, left, and Paige Escoffery-Stewart with two of the Mohammad children, Batoul, 9, and Bayan, 10. Credit Damon Winter/The New York Times       

When Ms. McLorg walked into the hotel lobby to meet Mr. Mohammad and his wife, Eman, she had a letter to explain how sponsorship worked: For one year, Ms. McLorg and her group would provide financial and practical support, from subsidizing food and rent to supplying clothes to helping them learn English and find work. She and her partners had already raised more than 40,000 Canadian dollars (about $30,700), selected an apartment, talked to the local school and found a nearby mosque.

Ms. McLorg, the mother of two teenagers, made her way through the crowded lobby, a kind of purgatory for newly arrived Syrians. Another member of the group clutched a welcome sign she had written in Arabic but then realized she could not tell if the words faced up or down. When the Mohammads appeared, Ms. McLorg asked their permission to shake hands and took in the people standing before her, no longer just names on a form. Mr. Mohammad looked older than his 35 years. His wife was unreadable, wearing a flowing niqab that obscured her face except for a narrow slot for her eyes. Their four children, all under 10, wore donated parkas with the tags still on.

This NY Times article is long and gives a look at the experiences of several refugee families and their sponsors.  At my church, we have sponsored six families and 2 single women.  Our support comes from both inside and outside the church community, from Christians and from Muslims.  It is not easy for refugees to integrate into such a foreign country with all its different laws and customs.  But as PM Justin Trudeau said today on Parliament Hill, "This is who we are.  This is what we believe in.  This is Canada!"

Canada.com — When an Iranian man and a Somali woman set themselves on fire in an Australian detention camp on a small Pacific island recently, Australia’s Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull was coldly pragmatic, urging his country to hold fast to its refusal of all uninvited refugees.

Australians “cannot be misty-eyed about this,” he said.

Likewise, when Papua New Guinea’s Supreme Court ruled Australia’s camp on its Manus Island is illegal and must close, his resolve persisted. Between PNG and the island nation of Nauru, Australia has diverted and detained more than 1,200 sea-borne migrants, leaving these asylum seekers in limbo, and Australians with a big problem.

So now, in an election campaign in which both main parties agree on the blanket rejection policy, politicians have been casting around for an international solution, a distant place to unload the wretched of Nauru and Manus, as if to say, “If we will not be misty-eyed, then who might?”

Enter Justin Trudeau, dewy-eyed heartthrob of geopolitics, who has been busy telegraphing his benevolence toward refugees since long before his election. As one Australian parliamentarian put it, he is the “obvious” choice.

Canada has taken in 25,000 refugees from the Middle East, many from Syria, so far in 2016 with more on the horizon.  We have tried to step up to the plate to honour our commitment to the 1951 UN Convention Relating to the Status of Refugees and subsequent amendments.  So to me, it is galling that Australia would try to abdicate their responsibility and indeed look to PM Justin Trudeau as a patsy.

From The Conversation — The convention was drafted as a response to the displacement of millions of people by World War Two and the refusal of many nations to take in Jewish refugees escaping the Holocaust. It is designed to ensure no country ever turns its back again on vulnerable groups who need to escape persecution. Australia ratified the convention in 1954.

The most important feature of the convention is that it defines a particular group of people as “refugees” and obliges countries who have signed the convention to give such individuals certain rights. A “refugee” is a person outside of their own country who fears persecution because of their race, nationality, membership of a particular social group or political opinion.  …

Many asylum seekers (90% of those who have come to Australia in recent years by boat) are in fact refugees and have rights under the convention, regardless of whether or not Australia has processed their claim or recognised their refugee status.

What is interesting about the convention is that it obliges nations to provide certain rights to refugees who are in a nation’s “jurisdiction” (that is under the control or power of a country), or in a nation’s territory. The convention does not oblige a country to go out and find refugees to bring back and resettle. This means that while there may be very strong moral reasons for Australia to resettle refugees from refugee camps in places like Africa or south east Asia, Australia only owes a legal obligation to refugees who reach its territory by boat or plane.  …

Australia’s refugee “problem” is miniscule by international standards. The UN High Commissioner for Refugees reports that in 2012, 83,400 asylum seekers claimed refugee status in the United States, 64,500 claims were made in Germany and 54,900 claims were made in France. Yet none of these countries are calling for re-examination of the convention. In the same time period Australia had 15,800 applications for asylum.

Here is a link to the Convention relating to the Status of Refugees if you are interested in reading about the resposibilities of countries who have signed the Convention, and in the rights of refugees.