Refugees, asylum seekers, and migrants: challenging the misinformation

Discussion of migration, asylum, and refugees is often misinformed, over politicised, and very heated. When government leaders repeatedly use words like “invasion”, “crisis”, or even, as I saw somewhere this week “infestation”, can we be surprised when many people start to feel uneasy, threatened, and, yes, angry?

In Geneva, organisations like the UN Refugee Agency (UNHCR) or the International Organisation for Migration (IOM), try day in day out, to present the facts around migration and asylum, but their voices are rarely as loud as the populist politician’s, the mass circulation tabloid, or the often hateful untruths that circulate on social media.

It was really heartening, then, to be contacted by a group of people from the state of Arizona, all of whom work in one way or another on migration and refugee issues, to ask if Inside Geneva could invite some of the professionals from the UNHCR and the IOM on to the podcast to answer their questions – and perhaps explode some of the myths.

So this week’s episode of Inside Geneva features Shabio Mantoo of the UNHCR, answering questions from Charlotte, Ami, Natsenet, Connie, Dragan, Jay, Rosine and Rafiki. Some of the questions may be ones you have too: what’s the difference between an asylum seeker and an undocumented migrant? Can the UNHCR prosecute member states who violate the 1951 convention on refugees?

Useful facts

Do take a listen, it’s a lively and informed discussion. But for now, for those who may have only a few minutes to read (right now anyway, I’m sure you can all find half an hour for Inside Geneva sometime in your day), here are a few handy facts that might be useful the next time the sound and fury around migration and asylum descend on your dinner table.

Many people, Mantoo tells us, when asked who accepts the most asylum seekers, immediately answer “we do”, ie their own country. The headlines in the United Kingdom (current population 67 million) about 40,000 people crossing the channel in small boats have caused reactions bordering on hysteria in some quarters.

For some perspective; the country currently hosting the most refugees is Turkey (population 85 million) with 3.7 million, most of them from Syria. After that comes Colombia, which has opened its borders to those fleeing Venezuela, with 2.5 million. Only then does a European country appear on the list, and it’s not the UK, but Germany, with 2.2 million.

But, as our panel putting the questions to Mantoo and the IOM’s Dillon point out; not everyone trying to get into a country is a bonafide refugee. The UNHCR accepts that and does not expect every country to accept every individual that comes knocking on the door. But, the UN does expect member states which have ratified the UN convention on refugees to honour their obligations.

“You just can’t push back people at borders if they’re seeking international protection” says Mantoo. “They need to be afforded that right to seek asylum.’”

The responsible thing to do, the UNHCR says, is to calmly and carefully check claims for asylum as quickly as possible. Then those who are assessed as refugees (and at last count well over half of those crossing the English channel did have their asylum claims accepted) can be allowed to stay, and work. And those who are not will be expected to return home.

Emotional and toxic conversations

Fixing the asylum claims system, making it efficient but still fair, would ease the doubt and anger – seeing a system that actually works is always reassuring. It would also avoid some of the misery endured by asylum seekers and migrants alike, who can spend months or even years in cramped asylum centres, with no clear idea of what their future is going to be. And of course, an efficient system would make it that much harder for the people traffickers, who exploit not just desperate refugees and migrants, but the weaknesses of the asylum process.

The cynic in me though sometimes worries that it’s much easier for self-serving politicians to have a crisis to point at, and an “other” to blame, than it is to actually put in the hard graft of fixing the system. This is a problem the IOM and the UNHCR are well aware of, and, as I said at the start of this article, they work hard every day to provide the facts, and offer workable solutions to that “migrant crisis” we hear about all the time.

But when the IOM’s Dillon came into the studio to record Inside Geneva, he was weary. He had spent the afternoon fielding calls from journalists who had bought into the “crisis”, and who had little desire to let facts get in the way of their story.

“The conversation is toxic, divisive, and dangerous” he told us. “Those conversations are not really fact based, they’re emotive.”

So, a couple of final thoughts from Mantoo and Dillon, based on their long experience of working with, and for, people who for one reason or another leave their homes. Many, Dillon admits, go looking for a better life, but still he adds:

“Most people don’t want to leave. They leave because they feel like there’s no other option but to leave.”

And, Mantoo reminds us, there are situations where the only choice is to flee.

“Refugees are forced to leave their countries because of war, conflict, human rights violations. Basically their lives are in danger.”

Points to bear in mind when the eternal debate about migration gets heated.