Migrant Crisis Raises Issues of Refugees’ Rights and Nations’ Obligations

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A Macedonian police officer directed migrants toward a camp after they crossed the border from Greece.

 

The flood of migrants and refugees into Europe this year — more than a half-million so far, many fleeing the civil war in Syria and other conflict zones — has sorely strained the Continent’s ability to absorb them. Leaders argued bitterly for weeks before the European Union could adopt a plan on Tuesday to share the burden among its members.

 

The plan will require some countries to accept refugees and some people to be relocated whether they like it or not, raising issues of freedom, rights and obligations under international law. Here are answers to some of the key questions.

 

 

Can refugees choose where they get asylum?

 

To a certain extent, yes. People fleeing war or persecution are free to choose where to seek asylum. Most often it will be a neighboring country or the first safe place they are able to reach, but it could also be a country halfway around the world. Under international law, nations have a legal duty not to turn refugees away; they must be allowed to apply for asylum, even if they have entered a host country’s territory illegally.

 

But it is up to each host country to decide under its own laws whether to allow refugees to stay there permanently and whether they and their children can become citizens, among other issues.

 

 

Can host countries send refugees elsewhere?

 

Yes, within limits. Nothing in international law prohibits countries from agreeing to distribute refugees among them, as the European Union plans to do, in order to share the burden of accommodating arrivals while their asylum applications are considered.

 

There is an important caveat, though: Countries are barred from sending refugees to a place where they would not be protected from persecution.

 

For that reason, it may be hard for the European Union to justify distributing refugees to a country like Hungary that has been actively hostile to accepting them, according to Madeline Garlick, a lawyer for the Migration Policy Institute in Brussels. But Ms. Garlick said there is no bar to sending refugees who are awaiting asylum to be housed in Poland, for example, even if they said they wanted to go to Germany.

 

 

Are there precedents for distributing refugees this way?

 

When refugees began to reach Australia from Southeast Asia in large numbers, Australia tried to send some of them to Malaysia to be housed. The Australian courts struck down the arrangement because Malaysia did not have a good record of providing protection to refugees, according to James C. Hathaway, a law professor at the University of Michigan. But he said the European Union’s plan was “absolutely, utterly correct and legal.”

 

The situation in Europe is complicated by the bloc’s system of open internal borders and free movement. A longstanding rule that asylum seekers should be accommodated by the first member country they entered, and can be sent back there if they go elsewhere in the union, has partly broken down under the pressure of the current wave of migrants.

 

 

Can asylum be denied? What happens then?

 

If refugees cannot demonstrate “a well-founded fear of persecution” in the country they fled, they can be denied asylum and deported. But the refugees are entitled to a full and fair hearing first, and not a swift rejection in what the United Nations last week called “summary proceedings.”

 

They can also be denied asylum and lose their protected status as refugees if they are found to have committed war crimes or crimes against humanity.

 

 

How can refugees receive asylum in the United States?

 

One way is to physically reach American soil. A person who then claims to be fleeing war or persecution must be allowed to make that case before a court.

 

Another way, for those who cannot get to America on their own, is to be referred through the United Nations refugee agency. Thousands of such applicants are granted asylum each year after being screened first by the United Nations and then by American officials, a process that generally takes 18 to 24 months. The refugees might not have chosen the United States specifically; the United Nations agency decides where to refer them. Once they are in the United States, these refugees usually get help with housing and job placement, and they can eventually become citizens.