Thread by @JeremyKonyndyk

Oh HELL no.

As a guy who knows a bit about humanitarian crises and how the USG handles them:

HELL no.

https://twitter.com/JakeSherman/status/1082640249644351488

As I teach my grad students, humanitarian crises follow some kind of shock that disrupts a previous equilibrium. The best way to resolve the crisis - if possible - is to address that originating shock.

So what's the shock in this case?

*THE* disruption that has caused the crisis on the southern border is a change in US policy. The backups at the border reflect this intentional rationing of asylum processing, as @DLind has extensively documented. vox.com/2018/11/28/180…

Using a humanitarian framing for this is horseshit. It's a punitive policy decision, fully *intended* to make people suffer as a deterrent to asylum.

This is the logic of extortion - throwing a rock through a shop window, then forcing the shopkeep to pay you protection money.

You don't fix this setting up a protection racket. You do it by *not throwing rocks through people's windows.*

Now, the administration would have you believe the shock is different: that it's the flow of people to the border.

But that's baloney too - and even if it were true, it wouldn't really help their case. Here's why:

Sure, there *is* an uptick in asylum claims from the Northern Triangle countries in Central America, due to severe violence there. But the total volume of border apprehensions has declined dramatically in recent decades (as @MargLTaylor notes here). lawfareblog.com/declaring-emer…

That's hardly grounds for characterizing this as such a disruptive shock that it rises to the level of a humanitarian crisis that requires dramatic action.

But imagine for a second it were. Then what?

Well, the administration has been trying to argue that fleeing violence in central America is *not* grounds for a claim of US asylum. Ex-AG Sessions issued a policy change arguing precisely that last June:
nytimes.com/2018/06/11/us/…

But saying that also means characterizing these folks as economic migrants with no claim to the protection of international asylum regimes.

Which is more than a little at odds with saying this is a humanitarian crisis.

BUT EVEN if you accept that framing (which you really really shouldn't) - what is then the appropriate way to handle this?

It ain't by building a wall.

How does the world handle true humanitarian crises that involve people fleeing across borders?

By involving UNHCR and IOM to handle asylum processing; granting them asylum in the first safe country; and providing them with aid and legal protection until they can safely return home.

The Trump administration is doing none of these things.

They have not sought help from UNHCR and IOM (typically *step 1* in a legit humanitarian crisis of this type).

And they are refusing the migrants entry into the US to claim asylum forcing them to stay unsafely in Mexico. humanrightsfirst.org/resource/mexic…

So no matter how you spin it, this "humanitarian" framing doesn't pass the smell test.

Instead of a wall, there's a pretty straightforward way to handle this manufactured crisis: implement a humane asylum policy, in line with US law and treaty obligations.

/end