After the Last Border

by Jessica Goudeau

  Whether that withdrawal: See James Franklin Jeffrey, “Behind the U.S. Withdrawal from Iraq,” The Wall Street Journal, November 2, 2014: https://www.wsj.com/articles/james-franklin-jeffrey-behind-the-u-s-withdrawal-from-iraq-1414972705.

  Obama issued a White House statement: “Remarks by the President to the White House Press Corps,” The President Barack Obama White House website, August 20, 2012: https://obamawhitehouse.archives.gov/the-press-office/2012/08/20/remarks-president-white-house-press-corps.

  But when the red line: See the final report of the United Nations Mission to Investigate Allegations of the Use of Chemical Weapons in the Syrian Arab Republic, from the Secretary-General of the United Nations to the President of the General Assembly and the President of the Security Council, December 13, 2013: https://undocs.org/A/68/663.

  On Saturday, August 31, President Obama: “Statement by the President on Syria,” The President Barack Obama White House website, August 31, 2012: https://obamawhitehouse.archives.gov/the-press-office/2013/08/31/statement-president-syria.

  On September 3, House Speaker: See David Jackson, “Boehner, Cantor Back Obama on Force Against Syria,” USA Today, September 3, 2013: https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/politics/2013/09/03/obama-syria-strike-chemical-weapons-congress-g-20-russia/2756991/; and Mark Landler, Michael Gordon, and Thom Shanker, “House Leaders Express Their Support for Syria Strike,” The New York Times, September 3, 2013: https://www.nytimes.com/2013/09/04/us/politics/obama-administration-presses-case-on-syria.html.

  He used language of international cooperation: “Weekly Address: Pursuing a Diplomatic Solution in Syria,” The President Barack Obama White House website, September 14, 2013: https://obamawhitehouse.archives.gov/photos-and-video/video/2013/09/14/weekly-address-pursuing-diplomatic-solution-syria#transcript.

  Some attacks were clearly: See Reese Erlich, Inside Syria: The Backstory of Their Civil War and What the World Can Expect (New York: Prometheus Books, 2014).

  Civilians endured documented gas attacks: See “Timeline of Syrian Chemical Weapons Activity, 2012–2019,” Arms Control Association website: https://www.armscontrol.org/factsheets/Timeline-of-Syrian-Chemical-Weapons-Activity; and “Chlorine Likely Used in Attack on Syria Town Douma, Says OPCW,” Al-Jazeera, March 2, 2019: https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2019/03/chlorine-attack-syria-town-douma-opcw-190302063053270.html.

  Improvised explosive devices. Barrel bombs: See “Weaponry Used by Different Factions,” on the Syrian Civil War Map Project’s website: https://syriancivilwarmap.com/weaponry-used-different-factions/; “Syria War: Weapons Key Players Have at Their Disposal,” BBC News, April 12, 2018: https://www.bbc.com/news/world-middle-east-43730068.

  In fall 2015: See Annalisa Merelli and Caitlin Hu, “These Photos Will Change How the World Sees the Syrian Refugee Crisis,” Quartz, September 2, 2015: https://qz.com/494068/these-photos-will-change-how-the-west-sees-the-syrian-refugee-crisis/; and Tima Kurdi, The Boy on the Beach: My Family’s Escape from Syria and Our Hope for a New Home (New York: Simon & Schuster, 2018).

  In April 2017: See Michael Edison Hayden, “Father Loses 9-Month-Old Twins in Syrian Chemical Attack,” ABC News, April 5, 2017: https://abcnews.go.com/International/father-loses-month-twins-syrian-chemical-weapons-attack/story?id=46596223.

  In 2015, 1,682 Syrians: “UNHCR Statistics—The World in Numbers,” UNHCR website: http://popstats.unhcr.org/en/overview.

  Reports trickling out: See Paul Cruickshank, “The Inside Story of the Paris and Brussels Attacks,” CNN, October 30, 2017: https://www.cnn.com/2016/03/30/europe/inside-paris-brussels-terror-attacks/index.html.

  Despite the fact: “Refugee Resettlement—Security Screening Information,” Human Rights First website, Feb. 1, 2017: https://www.humanrightsfirst.org/resource/refugee-resettlement-security-screening-information.

  How the United States and other countries: Obama, “Remarks by President Obama at Leaders’ Summit on Refugees,” United Nations, New York (September 20, 2016): https://obamawhitehouse.archives.gov/the-press-office/2016/09/20/remarks-president-obama-leaders-summit-refugees.

  In August 2016, the 10,000th refugee: Haeyoun Park and Rudy Omri, “U.S. Reaches Goal of Admitting 10,000 Refugees. Here’s Where They Went,” The New York Times, August 31, 2016: https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2016/08/30/us/syrian-refugees-in-the-united-states.html.

  More than 120,000 Cubans: Obama, “Presidential Determination—Refugee Admissions for Fiscal Year 2017,” Memorandum for the Secretary of State, September 28, 2017: https://obamawhitehouse.archives.gov/the-press-office/2016/09/28/presidential-determination-refugee-admissions-fiscal-year-2017.

  On September 28: Editorial Board, “America Has Accepted 10,000 Syrian Refugees. That’s Still Too Few,” The Washington Post, September 2, 2016: https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/global-opinions/america-has-accepted-10000-syrian-refugees-thats-still-too-few/2016/09/02/470446e2-6fc0-11e6-8533-6b0b0ded0253_story.html?utm_term=.ce0f2188358c.

  CHAPTER 27

  The US was one of the top destinations: “IOM Turkey Helps Resettle Over 21,000 Refugees in 2016,” International Organization for Migration website, January 17, 2017: https://www.iom.int/news/iom-turkey-helps-resettle-over-21000-refugees-2016.

  CHAPTER 29

  The caption, “Refugees?” in white letters: See Lizzie Dearden, “The fake refugee images that are being used to distort public opinion on asylum seekers,” The Independent, September 16, 2015: https://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/europe/the-fake-refugee-images-that-are-being-used-to-distort-public-opinion-on-asylum-seekers-10503703.html; and Mike Wendling, “Laith Al Saleh: This viral photo falsely claims to show an IS fighter posing as a refugee,” BBC News, September 7, 2015: https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/blogs-trending-34176631.

  He had just begun using: See Frank Rich, “Trump’s Appeasers,” New York magazine, November 1, 2016: http://nymag.com/daily/intelligencer/2016/11/charles-lindbergh-is-a-cautionary-tale-for-republicans.html. As Rich comments, Lindbergh’s speeches “sounded like the Ur-text for much of Trump’s America First campaign.”

  Trump framed Syrian refugees: Ali Vitali, “‘The Snake’: Trump Poetry Slams Syrian Refugees with Allegorical Song,” NBC News, January 12, 2016: http://www.nbcnews.com/politics/2016-election/snake-trump-poetry-slams-syrian-refugees-allegorical-song-n495311; and “FNN: Donald Trump Reads ‘Snake’ Poem to Syrian Refugees,” Fox 10 Phoenix, January 12, 2016: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=V-NaN1ujo_0.

  He conflated all Syrian refugees: “Everything We Know About the San Bernardino Shooting Terror Investigation,” The Los Angeles Times, December 14, 2015: http://www.latimes.com/local/california/la-me-san-bernardino-shooting-terror-investigation-htmlstory.html.

  At the same rally: As several journalists noted at the time, Brown based his lyrics for the song sung by Al Wilson in 1968 on one of Aesop’s fables. Brown’s grandson, Sidakarav Dasa, wrote a Facebook post on January 13, 2016, the day after Trump’s rally, to protest that it is “a relationship allegory, a dialog between two persons, and it is not supposed to be taken as an indictment of an entire nationality, or race, or religion.” Sidakarav Dasa tagged Trump in the post and suggested another of Oscar Brown Jr.’s poems, “Debris,” as being more appropriate to Trump’s campaign; he also suggested Trump, and not the Syrian people, was the snake. The Facebook post has since been removed.

  The simplistic, sing-song rhythm: Princeton professor Josh Zeitz noted the direct correlation between the rhetoric being used in the 1930s by the America First movement and the rhetoric Trump and other politicians used in 2016 about refugees: “Then as now, skepticism of religious and ethnic minorities and concerns that refugees might pose a threat to national security deeply influenced the debate over American immigration policy.” Josh Zeitz, “Yes, It’s Fair to Compare the Plight of the Syrians to the Plight of the Jews. Here’s Why,” Politico, November 22, 2015: http://www.politico.com/magazine/story/2015/11/syrian-refugees-jews-hol
ocaust-world-war-ii-213384.

  Effective immediately, the sweeping “Executive Order”: Donald Trump, “Executive Order Protecting the Nation from Foreign Terrorist Entry into the United States,” Executive Order issued by the President of the United States, January 27, 2017: https://www.whitehouse.gov/presidential-actions/executive-order-protecting-nation-foreign-terrorist-entry-united-states/.

  In a striking deviation from every other president: While the ensuing court battles about the ban would keep the Trump administration from being able to completely overturn the Obama administration’s Presidential Determination, they successfully kept admissions for fiscal year 2017 close to their 45,000 target, with slightly more than 53,000 refugees actually admitted. See Dara Lind, “Under Trump, Refugee Admissions Are Falling Way Short—Except for Europeans,” Vox, September 17, 2018: https://www.vox.com/2018/9/17/17832912/trump-refugee-news-statistics.

  Soon the Trump administration: Mike Pence, Vice President of the United States, “We’re going to BUILD THE WALL. We’re going to END CHAIN MIGRATION. We’re going to END THE VISA LOTTERY PROGRAM, and we’re going to address DACA. But this administration is going to do it in a way that will meet the expectations of the American people. #MAGA,” Twitter, January 10, 2018: https://twitter.com/vp/status/951251616514084864?lang=en.

  Presidential senior policy adviser Stephen Miller: David S. Glosser, “Stephen Miller Is an Immigration Hypocrite. I Know Because I’m His Uncle,” Politico, August 31, 2018: https://www.politico.com/magazine/story/2018/08/13/stephen-miller-is-an-immigration-hypocrite-i-know-because-im-his-uncle-219351.

  Lawsuits filed by the ACLU: “Timeline of the Muslim Ban,” ACLU Washington website: https://www.aclu-wa.org/pages/timeline-muslim-ban.

  On March 6, 2017: See Kaitlyn Schalhorn, “Trump Travel Ban: Timeline of a Legal Journey,” Fox News, June 26, 2018: https://www.foxnews.com/politics/trump-travel-ban-timeline-of-a-legal-journey, among many other sources.

  “The admission and exclusion of foreign nationals”: Trump, President of the United States, et al., v. Hawaii, et al., 585 U.S. ___ (2018).

  There was every reason to think: The countries listed by UNHCR are: “Argentina, Australia, Austria, Belarus, Belgium, Brazil, Bulgaria, Canada, Chile, Croatia, Czech Republic, Denmark, Estonia, Finland, France, Germany, Hungary, Iceland, Ireland, Italy, Japan, Republic of Korea, Latvia, Liechtenstein, Lithuania, Luxembourg, Netherlands, New Zealand, Norway, Portugal, Romania, Spain, Sweden, Switzerland, United Kingdom, United States of America, Uruguay.” “Information on UNHCR Resettlement,” UNHCR website: https://www.unhcr.org/information-on-unhcr-resettlement.html.

  And yet the number of people accepted anywhere: Phillip Connor and Jens Manuel Krogstad, “For the first time, U.S. resettles fewer refugees than the rest of the world,” FactTank: News in the Numbers, Pew Research Center website, July 5, 2018: http://www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank/2018/07/05/for-the-first-time-u-s-resettles-fewer-refugees-than-the-rest-of-the-world.

  The number rose more than 2 million: “Population Statistics,” UNHCR website: http://popstats.unhcr.org/en/overview.

  If it were possible: “Countries in the World by Population (2019),” Worldometers website: http://www.worldometers.info/world-population/population-by-country.

  By population, if the 103,000: American FactFinder, the Census Bureau website: https://factfinder.census.gov/.

  For the first time: Connor and Krogstad, FactTank: News in the Numbers, Pew Research Center website.

  Canada surpassed the United States: Nadine Yousif, “Canada’s Resettlement of Refugees Highest in the World for First Time in 72 Years, New Data Shows,” The Star (Edmonton, Alberta, Canada), January 23, 2019: https://www.thestar.com/edmonton/2019/01/23/canadas-resettlement-of-refugees-highest-in-the-world-for-first-time-in-72-years-new-data-shows.html.

  True to his administration’s promises: Paige Winfield Cunningham, “The Health 202: The Trump Administration’s Refugee Policy Is Dismantling the Infrastructure That Cares for Them,” The Washington Post, December 19, 2018: https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/powerpost/paloma/the-health-202/2018/12/19/the-health-202-the-trump-administration-s-refugee-policy-is-dismantling-the-infrastructures-that-cares-for-them/5c193e8a1b326b2d6629d4e3/?utm_term=.11b02d064754.

  There were still a handful: Nayla Rush, “Refugeee Resettlement Admissions in FY 2018,” for the Center for Immigration Studies website, October 1, 2018: https://cis.org/Rush/Refugee-Resettlement-Admissions-FY-2018; and Cunningham, “The Health 202,” The Washington Post.

  In 2018, the Assad regime: “Syria Emergency,” UNHCR website: https://www.unhcr.org/syria-emergency.html.

  There were now 3.3 million: “Operational Portal, Refugee Situations: Syria Regional Refugee Response,” UNHCR website, “Lebanon”: https://data2.unhcr.org/en/situations/syria/location/71 and “Jordan”: http://reporting.unhcr.org/sites/default/files/UNHCR%20Jordan%20Fact%20Sheet%20-%20June%202018.pdf.

  As an unnamed official understood: Jonathan Blitzer, “How Stephen Miller Single-Handedly Got the U.S. to Accept Fewer Refugees,” The New Yorker, October 13, 2017: https://www.newyorker.com/news/news-desk/how-stephen-miller-single-handedly-got-the-us-to-accept-fewer-refugees.

  By adding extra procedures: Dan De Luce and Julia Ainsley, “Trump admin intentionally slowing FBI vetting of refugees, ex-officials say,” NBC News, August 24, 2018: https://www.nbcnews.com/politics/immigration/trump-admin-intentionally-slowing-fbi-vetting-refugees-ex-officials-say-n903346.

  The federal government provided each refugee: Scott Bixby, “The New Collateral Damage in Trump’s War on Refugees,” The Daily Beast, September 24, 2018: https://www.thedailybeast.com/the-new-collateral-damage-in-trumps-war-on-refugees.

  The State Department announced in February: Mica Rosenberg, “Exclusive: Dozens of Refugee Resettlement Offices to Close as Trump Downsizes Program,” Reuters, February 14, 2018: https://www.reuters.com/article/us-usa-immigration-refugees-exclusive/exclusive-dozens-of-refugee-resettlement-offices-to-close-as-trump-downsizes-program-idUSKCN1FY1EJ.

  By April 2018, in Florida alone: David C. Adams, “U.S. Refugee Resettlement Offices Close as Flow of Arrivals Dries Up Under Trump,” Univision News, April 24, 2018: https://www.univision.com/univision-news/united-states/us-refugee-resettlement-offices-close-as-refugee-flow-dries-up-under-trump.

  The radio program This American Life: “Let Me Count the Ways,” This American Life, episode 656, September 14, 2018: https://www.thisamericanlife.org/656/transcript.

  In September 2018: “Presidential Determination on Refugee Admissions for Fiscal Year 2018,” Presidential Determination No. 2019-01, October 4, 2018: https://www.federalregister.gov/documents/2018/11/01/2018-24135/presidential-determination-on-refugee-admissions-for-fiscal-year-2019.

  It certainly sounded impressive: Asylum seekers are processed under DHS. In Fiscal Year 2016, 73,081 people applied for asylum and 20,455 received it, which is about 28 percent (Zuzana Cepla, “Fact Sheet: U.S. Asylum Process,” the National Immigration Forum website, January 10, 2019). While the number of asylum seekers has risen, the percentage of those who would actually receive asylum would remain statistically low throughout 2019.

  He touted “these expansive figures”: “Remarks to the Media,” Michael R. Pompeo, Secretary of State on the U.S. Department of State website, September 17, 2018: https://www.state.gov/remarks-to-the-media/, accessed May 20, 2019.

  Caritas of Austin: Nancy Flores, “As Refugee Flow Dwindles, Caritas to End Resettlement Program,” Austin American-Statesman, September 26, 2018: https://www.statesman.com/news/20180926/as-refugee-flow-dwindles-caritas-to-end-resettlement-program.

  As RST CEO Russell Smith: In a Wednesday, October 3, 2018, interview with the author.

  One anonymous source estimated: Private email to the author in March 2019.

  Officials publicly toyed with the idea: See Didi Martinez and Nahal Toosi, “Pompeo Urged to Not Cut State Dep
artment Refugee Office,” Politico, July 23, 2018: https://www.politico.com/story/2018/07/23/mike-pompeo-state-department-refugee-office-735801; and Dan De Luce and Robbie Gramer, “White House Weighs Taking Refugee Programs Away from the State Department,” Foreign Policy, May 2, 2018: https://foreignpolicy.com/2018/05/02/white-house-weighs-stripping-state-department-of-control-over-refugee-policy-u-s-agency-for-international-development-trump-pompeo-immigration.

  A planned closure: Vanessa Romo, “Trump Administration Seeks to Close International Immigration Offices,” NPR, March 12, 2019: https://www.npr.org/2019/03/12/702807908/trump-administration-seeks-to-close-international-immigration-offices.

  The administration’s proposed 2020 budget: Carol Morello, “Budget Calls for Deep Cuts to Foreign Aid, Especially for Refugees and in Humanitarian Crises,” The Washington Post, March 11, 2019: https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/national-security/budget-calls-for-deep-cuts-to-foreign-aid-especially-for-refugees-and-in-humanitarian-crises/2019/03/11/4acc1d2f-bcd1-4022-8514-6f49b7321881_story.html?utm_term=.6c4573edee22.

  As of the writing of this book: See “Former Refugee, Advocates, and Experts Respond to Reports that Trump Administration Plans to Cut Refugee Admissions to Zero,” Refugee Council USA blog, July, 22, 2019: http://www.rcusa.org/blog/former-refugee-advocates-and-experts-respond-to-reports-that-trump-administration-plans-to-cut-refugee-admissions-to-zero-a-r.