Is International Law Helpful For Progressive Immigration Policy Efforts?

Is the concept of citizenship broken? If a refugee has left their country of origin who and where do they belong to. Who is responsible for their well-being?

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Image credit: UNICEF Ethiopia

Emma: And I want to just return to this concept of enforcing laws that you brought up that Kamala Harris used as a part of her just stay-home speech in south America. I wonder what your take is on the usage of international law and some of these debates. Because yes international law says that we need to accept asylum seekers and even US law says that right? But a lot of times laws like how Kamala Harris used them can be deployed in a way that upholds capital and upholds inequity and exploitation. And it seems to be one she's not enforcing our laws right because of our asylum laws. But at the same time, she can say oh I’m enforcing at the time at least title 42 which is our law. So in using that is it more of a helpful tool for us as progressives and your work and what we're trying to achieve? Or is it usually deployed more cynically like by people like Kamala Harris?

Dan Melo: Well I honestly mostly the latter right? Like the law generally and you know I try to point this out multiple times and the text. Is like the long most of the time is used as a tool of exclusion rather than inclusion right? And there's a level at which and we don't have time today but like there's a level at which that's just inherent in the nature of nation-states and citizenship. Because it is a question of who is included in we. But even more broadly it's like the international context there's just there are no guarantees whatsoever. And the Jewish refugee scholar philosopher Hannah Aaron talks a little bit about this. That it's like the refugee actually is the true person of rights because they have no guarantors of those they exist only in and of themselves. And in many ways, the fact that that there is no nation to protect them proves that this concept of citizenship is actually broken.

Sam: I mean just to expand a little bit on that. Because that's I think that's important for people to understand this sort of notion of like the failure of the idea that you can have people sort of in-between being a citizen and not. Sort of stuck in this netherworld is an indictment of the concept of citizenship.

Melo: Yeah absolutely I mean the millions of refugees worldwide is a daily indictment of that in my opinion. Because you know to use a recent example of Afghanistan right it's like we have 20 years of conflict there. Millions of displaced people. there's no one literally no one that's accountable to them. No nation is required to take them on. The US has no responsibility to bring any of them here. It's really only by the goodwill of a handful of places that they even get their paltry you know refugee camps that you know are set up throughout the globe right? So yes in that sense right the concept of citizenship is broken because the idea that everyone belongs somewhere and has protection from someone is inherently untrue.