Seeking Asylum in the U.S.

Summary

Throughline: Seeking Asylum in the U.S.

Hosted by Rund Abdelfatah and Ramtin Arablouei | NPR | Release Date: December 5, 2024

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Introduction: The Promise and Challenge of Asylum

Throughline embarks on a comprehensive exploration of the United States asylum system, tracing its origins, evolution, and the myriad challenges it faces today. Hosted by Rund Abdelfatah and Ramtin Arablouei, this episode delves into how the asylum framework has been shaped by historical crises, legislative changes, and shifting political landscapes.

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Defining Asylum Seekers and Refugees

Timestamp: [06:06]

The episode begins by clarifying the distinction between asylum seekers and refugees. According to the 1951 United Nations Refugee Convention, both groups must demonstrate a "well-founded fear of persecution on account of race, religion, nationality, membership in a particular social group, or political opinion."

Maria Cristina Garcia, a history professor at Cornell University, notes, “While the definition is the same, I would argue it's harder to meet the definition of an asylee than meet the definition of a refugee” ([06:26]). The hosts explain that refugees typically begin their asylum process outside the U.S., often at embassies or refugee camps, whereas asylum seekers initiate their claims after arriving in the U.S. or at designated ports of entry.

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Historical Foundations: From Ellis Island to the 1924 Immigration Act

Timestamp: [11:08]

The narrative shifts to the late 19th and early 20th centuries, a period marked by massive immigration through iconic entry points like Ellis Island and Angel Island. During this era, the U.S. lacked a formal asylum system, responding instead with increasingly restrictive immigration laws driven by nativist sentiments.

Emmanuel Celler, a Congressional figure, criticized the era's restrictive policies: “The Johnson-Reid act has already done more than anything I know of to bring about discord among our resident aliens” ([13:19]). The Johnson-Reid Act of 1924 established strict quotas based on national origins, severely limiting immigration from countries such as Ethiopia and Iraq to just 100 spots each, effectively barring Asian immigration.

---

The 1965 Hart-Celler Act: A Paradigm Shift

Timestamp: [22:10]

The episode highlights the significance of the Hart-Celler Act of 1965, which revolutionized U.S. immigration policy by abolishing the national origins quota system. Instead, it prioritized family reunification and employment-based immigration, broadening the pathways for immigrants, including refugees.

In his pivotal speech nearly four decades later, Emmanuel Celler passionately stated, “We're not talking about increased immigration. We're talking about equality of opportunity for all peoples to reach this promised land” ([23:36]). Despite this legislative progress, the act initially excluded robust provisions for refugees, limiting their representation to merely 6% of visas.

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The 1980 Refugee Act: Structuring the Asylum System

Timestamp: [30:00]

Responding to humanitarian crises such as the Mariel Boatlift, where approximately 126,000 Cuban refugees arrived in the U.S., the 1980 Refugee Act was enacted. Signed by President Jimmy Carter, this landmark legislation established the Office of Refugee Resettlement and created a formal process for refugee admission and integration, including federal funding for essential services like job training and English classes.

However, the simultaneous influx of Haitian refugees, fleeing the Duvalier regime, exposed the system's limitations. The Carter administration struggled to accommodate the unexpected surge, leading to public disapproval and political backlash. Maria Cristina Garcia observed, “It was a true crisis of mass asylum” ([34:14]).

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The 1996 Illegal Immigration Reform and Immigrant Responsibility Act (IIRIRA)

Timestamp: [44:05]

The IIRIRA marked a significant shift towards enforcement and crackdowns on unauthorized migration. This legislation expanded the authority of immigration officers, introduced expedited removal procedures, and increased deportation offenses, deeply affecting asylum seekers by making their path to protection more arduous.

Maria Cristina Garcia criticized the act's impact: “It's a policy that many immigration advocates feel needs to be reformed... in order to make the system fairer and more humane” ([46:45]). The resulting backlogs, with over 3.7 million cases pending in immigration courts, have left asylum seekers in prolonged legal limbo, often without access to federal benefits.

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Case Study: The Mariel Boatlift and Its Aftermath

Timestamp: [26:20]

The Mariel Boatlift serves as a critical case study illustrating the complexities and challenges of the asylum system. In 1980, Fidel Castro opened the port of Mariel, allowing Cubans to emigrate freely, which led to a massive influx of refugees. Initial federal responses were overwhelmed, and the lack of preparedness highlighted gaps in the newly established refugee framework.

Ruth Wassem recounts the chaos: “Groups are now asking for the same special treatment afforded the Cubans, such as the Haitian boat people who staged a protest and hunger strike in front of the White House today” ([36:28]). The event underscored the tension between humanitarian obligations and logistical capacities.

---

Political and Social Dynamics Influencing Asylum Policy

Timestamp: [48:28]

The conversation delves into the interplay between political motives and humanitarian concerns in shaping asylum policies. Maria Cristina Garcia emphasizes that immigration often becomes politicized, driven by economic fears, job security, and community concerns rather than solely by xenophobia or racism. She asserts, “Immigration is not a problem to be solved. It's a phenomenon to be managed” ([51:20]).

Additionally, foreign policy interests have historically influenced asylum decisions, as seen in the differential treatment of Cuban and Haitian refugees during the Cold War. The strong Cuban American diaspora wielded significant political influence, facilitating Cuban admissions, while Haitian refugees, lacking similar advocacy, faced stringent interdictions.

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Current Challenges and the Future of Asylum in the U.S.

Timestamp: [52:17]

Looking forward, the episode addresses the pressing issues facing the asylum system today, including massive backlogs, limited resources, and the need for comprehensive reform. Rising global displacement due to climate change and ongoing conflicts necessitates a more flexible and humane approach.

Maria Cristina Garcia calls for holistic immigration reform: “What should our immigration pathways be? Do we want to have a track for climate change because we feel a moral responsibility?” ([52:17]). The need for a balanced system that accommodates humanitarian needs while managing logistical realities remains paramount.

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Conclusion: Navigating the Complexities of Asylum

Throughline underscores that the U.S. asylum system is a product of historical contingencies, legislative battles, and evolving humanitarian principles. As displacement increases globally, the episode calls for informed public discourse and policy innovation to uphold the nation's foundational promises while addressing contemporary challenges.

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Notable Quotes:

• Maria Cristina Garcia: “Immigration is not a problem to be solved. It's a phenomenon to be managed.” ([51:20])
• Emmanuel Celler: “We’re not talking about increased immigration. We’re talking about equality of opportunity for all peoples to reach this promised land.” ([23:43])
• Ruth Wassem: “It was a heartbreaking thing to see those refugees when they came into West Germany.” ([04:28])

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Key Takeaways:

• The U.S. asylum system has evolved through significant legislative milestones, each reflecting the socio-political climate of its time.
• Historical events like the Mariel Boatlift and legislative acts such as the Hart-Celler Act and IIRIRA have profoundly shaped current asylum policies.
• Ongoing challenges include bureaucratic backlogs, limited resources, and the need to balance humanitarian obligations with national interests.
• Future reforms must consider global displacement trends, integrating comprehensive strategies to manage asylum seekers effectively and humanely.

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For those seeking to understand the intricacies of the U.S. asylum system, this episode of Throughline provides a thorough historical and analytical perspective, highlighting the enduring tensions between compassion and control in immigration policy.

Transcript

[Capital One Representative]

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[Ramtin Arablouei]

Hey everyone, it's Ramtin here. Before we get to the show, the end of another year is coming up and our team is looking back at all the great stories we've been able to bring you in 2024 because of your support. We explored everything from the basis of the constitutional amendments to the science and politics of smell to the history of the conflict in the Middle East. And it's all because listeners like you step up to support our work, either by giving to your local station or by joining npr. If you don't know what I'm talking about, NPR is a great way to support the independent public media you rely on from npr. And when you sign up for a simple recurring donation, you support our mission of creating a more informed public and get special perks for more than 25 NPR podcasts like sponsor free listening, bonus episodes and even exclusive and discounted items from the NPR Shop and the NPR Wine Club. Your donation today supports transparent, fair and in depth reporting. Join us on the plus side [e-mail] thank you.

[Emma Lazarus]

The New Colossus by Emma Lazarus not like the brazen giant of Greek fame With conquering limbs astride from land to land, Here at our sea washed sunset gates shall stand a mighty woman with a torch.

[Rund Abdelfatah]

This poem, written in 1883, is etched into the base of the Statue of Liberty.

[Emma Lazarus]

Give me your tired, your poor, your huddled masses yearning to breathe free. Send these the homeless tempest tossed to me, I lift my lamp beside the golden door.

[Rund Abdelfatah]

He says he's planning to swim across the Rio Grande and ask for asylum. If you want a security border, there's.

[Emmanuel Celler]

Three things you need to do.

[Ruth Wassem]

Number one, you need to change asylum laws.

[Maria Cristina Garcia]

Mayor Adams says supporting asylum seekers is.

[Rund Abdelfatah]

Putting New York City into a financial crisis.

[Ramtin Arablouei]

This issue will destroy New York City.

[Maria Cristina Garcia]

They're welcome if they come legally. They're not welcome if they're illegal. Earlier today, President Biden signed an executive order that shuts down asylum claims once they reach a certain level.

[Ruth Wassem]

Our country is full. And when he's back in the White.

[Ramtin Arablouei]

House, President Elect Trump has promised to immediately crack down.

[Ruth Wassem]

Can't take you anymore. I'm sorry. Can't happen. So turn around.

[Rund Abdelfatah]

In 2023, 1.6 million immigrants arrived in the U.S. that same year, more than 450,000 people filed for asylum. The Highest number on record.

[Ramtin Arablouei]

Put very simply, and we'll get into this more later, asylum seekers are fleeing persecution in their home countries and asking to be allowed to stay in the.

[Rund Abdelfatah]

US to request asylum, you first have to be inside the US and many of the people seeking asylum now cross into the US Via the border with Mexico, which is part of what puts asylum at the center of immigration policy debates. While Americans don't all agree on what the solutions are to immigration, the majorities say that the number of people seeking to enter at the southern border is a problem and that the government is doing a bad job of addressing it.

[Ramtin Arablouei]

But it is legal to seek asylum, and the US has long professed that it's a country where people can come to do that. That's the promise etched into the base of the Statue of Liberty. It's an idea that remains at the heart of many of the debates about immigration today, debates that are and have long been ultimately about when, why, and to whom we open our doors.

[Ruth Wassem]

It was a heartbreaking thing to see those refugees when they came into West Germany. He tried to come to this country in the hope of a better future. I left Vietnam on May 12, 1979, on a very small boat, and they didn't have anything to eat. They were sick. We got nothing left except the clothes we wear on our body.

[Maria Cristina Garcia]

God willing, the judge gives us the opportunity on that day to obtain asylum in this great country.

[Rund Abdelfatah]

I'm Rund Abdelfatah.

[Ramtin Arablouei]

And I'm Ramtin Arabloue. Coming up, the story of how the US Asylum system was forged in response to moments of crisis and where it left gaps, from Jewish refugees fleeing the Holocaust to Cuban and Haitian asylum seekers during the Cold War, to the precarious system of today. Howdy. This is Emile Hartz from Denver, and.

[Capital One Representative]

You'Re listening to Throughline from npr.

[Ruth Wassem]

I wanted to also genuinely thank you.

[Ramtin Arablouei]

You have changed my life for the better. Before we get into the history of the asylum system, we first need to understand more about what asylum is and how it's different from other immigration pathways to the U.S. bear with us as we go through this. It's all gonna pay off later. So first things first. What defines an asylum seeker?

[Historical Expert]

A well founded fear of persecution on account of race, religion, nationality, membership in a particular social group or political opinion.

[Ramtin Arablouei]

These criteria come from the 1951 United nations refugee Convention. And like the name suggests, refugees and asylum seekers have to meet the same standards.

[Maria Cristina Garcia]

While the definition is the same, I would argue it's harder to meet the definition of an asylee than meet the definition of a refugee.

[Ramtin Arablouei]

So refugees and asylum seekers, same criteria, but two parallel tracks in our immigration system. Refugees start their process outside the US Maybe at a US Embassy or a refugee camp. And they stay outside the US until they're approved for resettlement. This is the path my family took to come to the US From Iran.

[Rund Abdelfatah]

For asylum seekers, the process looks different. Their journey through the system begins after they've already arrived in the US or at what's called a port of entry.

[Historical Expert]

It could be an airport, like JFK or Dulles.

[Rund Abdelfatah]

This is Maria Christina Garcia. She's a professor of history at Cornell University who studies immigrants, refugees, and asylum seekers.

[Historical Expert]

Or it could be another port of entry, like the U.S. mexico border or the U.S. canada border.

[Rund Abdelfatah]

Under a temporary Biden administration regulation, asylum seekers have to enter the US Lawfully to be eligible for asylum. One of the only ways you can do that today is by scheduling an appointment at a port of entry through an app called CBP1. That's an important point, because appointments are very limited. On any given day, tens of thousands of people try for around 1,500 spots.

[Ramtin Arablouei]

Once the asylum seeker manages to get an appointment, an official at the port of entry will interview them to determine if they have a credible fear of persecution if they were returned to their home country. And the burden of proof for this is on the asylum seeker, which isn't always easy.

[Historical Expert]

Oftentimes, when you're fleeing for your life, you don't have time to pick up the supporting documentation that you need that might help to make a successful case for asylum. Oftentimes, you don't even have proof of identity.

[Ramtin Arablouei]

And that kind of thing can count against you.

[Historical Expert]

There's a belief that the person who is requesting asylum intends to deceive and will say just about anything in order to enter the United States.

[Ramtin Arablouei]

Those who aren't granted asylum after their interview might be scheduled to have a hearing in immigration court where they can further plead their case. But getting in front of a judge is easier said than done.

[Historical Expert]

There's a huge backlog. It can be as long as three years before you have your first hearing.

[Rund Abdelfatah]

Currently, the backlog in US immigration courts is over 3.7 million cases, 1.6 million of which are pending asylum cases. And there are only around 800 immigration judges in the US handling the massive backlog.

[Maria Cristina Garcia]

Refugees and asylees and border security, they're all interlocking.

[Rund Abdelfatah]

This is Ruth Wassem. She spent nearly three decades working at the Congressional Research Service researching immigration policy.

[Maria Cristina Garcia]

And that complexity is Very difficult to maneuver if you're a potential immigrant or a potential refugee, and if you're a policymaker trying to come up with reasonable policies to deal with the 21st century.

[Rund Abdelfatah]

While asylum seekers wait, they're in legal limbo. Some are held in detention as they wait for their case to be decided. But most are released into the US if they don't get a decision on their case in 150 days, which is basically impossible given the backlog, they become eligible for work authorization, but until their case is decided, they're generally not eligible for federal benefits.

[Ramtin Arablouei]

If this all seems super complicated, it's because it is.

[Maria Cristina Garcia]

Our entire immigration system is based on laws second only to the tax code in the volume of law, the complexity of which gets down to the very detailed particulars of who's eligible and who isn't. Refugees in asylum, we're always an afterthought in that system.

[Ramtin Arablouei]

So why do we have this system?

[Emma Lazarus]

Send these. The homeless Tempest tossed to me.

[Maria Cristina Garcia]

I.

[Emma Lazarus]

Lift my lamp beside the golden door.

[Rund Abdelfatah]

We'Re back at the end of the 19th century and beginning of the 20th century, before any sort of asylum system even existed. It was a period of massive immigration. People from China, Germany, Ireland, and England who were leaving behind famines and job shortages. People fleeing the Balkan Wars, Russians fleeing the Russian Revolution, and Jewish people fleeing antisemitic pogroms.

[Ramtin Arablouei]

Today, we might call some of these people asylum seekers or refugees, but back then, the US didn't have those legal categories.

[Rund Abdelfatah]

Many of these immigrants came through Ellis island in New York City or Angel island off San Francisco. They often settled nearby, creating new ethnic enclaves and immigrant neighborhoods. And Congress took notice.

[Historical Expert]

Congress began to pass ever more draconian laws to restrict immigration from different parts of the world. And the laws reflected who they were most concerned about at a particular moment in time.

[Rund Abdelfatah]

They reflected growing nativist sentiments in the.

[Historical Expert]

US So with every passing decade, different populations were targeted for control. So first it was the Chinese, but then it was other Asian populations, political radicals, Southern and Eastern Europeans, Mormons and.

[Rund Abdelfatah]

Homosexuals, until it all culminated in one bill, the Johnson Reid act, also known as the Immigration act of 1924. The bill would limit immigration by setting strict quotas for each country.

[Maria Cristina Garcia]

They went back to the census data, and they allocated annual admissions of immigrants based on the percent of the US population in 1890 that was living here, so that we didn't get so many Italians, didn't get so many Serbians, didn't get so many people from Russia.

[Immigration Policy Analyst]

People who, some of whom today would be considered White American.

[Maria Cristina Garcia]

But at that time they weren't then.

[Emmanuel Celler]

This bill has already done more than anything I know of to bring about discord among our resident aliens.

[Ramtin Arablouei]

Emmanuel Celler was one of the few people in Congress to speak out against this bill.

[Emmanuel Celler]

The Italian is told he's not wanted. The poll is confronted with the stigma of inferiority. Fortunate is the one whose cradle was rocked in Germany or England.

[Ramtin Arablouei]

It was his first year as a representative from New York.

[Maria Cristina Garcia]

And I'm not one to talk about great men in terms of his history as being explained by great men. But I am someone to talk about perseverance and people that do seize the moment. Emanuel Sellers was one of that.

[Ramtin Arablouei]

Emanuel Seller was the grandson of immigrants.

[Maria Cristina Garcia]

He was a German Jew. Started out as a young lawyer, he.

[Ramtin Arablouei]

Had built a law practice around helping immigrants who had broken the law and were under the threat of deportation. He thought the bill would create resentment towards the United States and other parts of the world because of how restrictive it was towards people from Asia or.

[Emmanuel Celler]

Eastern Europe, thanks to the ill considered and improvident Johnson bill. And so race is set against race, class against class.

[Ramtin Arablouei]

Despite Emmanuel Suller's protests, the 1924 Immigration act passed both the House and Senate with overwhelming majorities. It was signed into law in May 1924, and for the next several decades, it would limit immigration by imposing strict quotas. The highest quota was the 65,000 spots given to Great Britain and Northern Ireland. But more than three dozen countries from Ethiopia to Iraq were given just 100 spots each, and immigration from Asia was effectively banned.

[Immigration Policy Analyst]

What would you say is the driving kind of social force that culminates in such a, as you say, draconian measure against immigration?

[Historical Expert]

Well, there was a concern that the numbers were just too large, you know, that millions of people were coming in during a very short period of time. And they wondered what the influx of so many people in a short period of time would mean for democratic institutions, would mean for the cultural makeup of the United States, what it would mean for the prosperity of the country. So it's economic concerns, but it's also cultural and political concerns that are driving the passage of these draconian immigration laws in the first decades of the 20th century.

[Immigration Policy Analyst]

So these laws pass, and then the 1924 act, you know, really takes it to an even more severe level. One of the targets in this early 20th century period is specifically Eastern European Jews. And as we move into the post World War I period and the pre World War II period, can you describe what is happening around that community in Particular when it comes to the attempted immigration to the US as war expands.

[Historical Expert]

Across Europe in the 1930s and before the US enters the Second World War, there are many opportunities to accommodate Jewish refugees who are fleeing Europe within the law. Even though the quotas are quite small, there are still opportunities, and we forfeit that opportunity. During the 1930s and into the 1940s, the quotas from Europe remain unfilled. Some immigration historians have posited that, you know, there's a concern with sponsoring spies and saboteurs that might hurt the United States, and it's those national security concerns that are dictating U.S. policy.

[Ramtin Arablouei]

People at the highest levels of government, including President Franklin Roosevelt, supported extra scrutiny and restrictions on refugees from World War II, particularly Jewish refugees.

[Historical Expert]

Others have made a convincing argument that it's really antisemitism that is, that is shaping who we allow in and in what numbers.

[Immigration Policy Analyst]

I mean, the Nazis were making their intentions clear throughout the 30s, but once the war breaks out, I mean, now it was. They were implementing these policies explicitly. And you had Roosevelt in office in the US Someone who was arguably maybe the most progressive president of the 20th century.

[Historical Expert]

You're absolutely right. And he fails to exercise any political will. When you look at the arc of refugee history in the United States, you see that at distinct moments, there are either presidents or members of Congress who feel that we have a humanitarian obligation to assist a particular population, and they use all the methods at their disposal. They exercise political will to make it happen. Even though the public opinion polls are telling them that Americans are ambivalent or outright opposed to the admission of more people, they still find a way to make it happen because they think it's the right thing to do. But clearly, at this moment, there is no political will.

[Immigration Policy Analyst]

After World War II ends and the, you know, and the horrors of the Holocaust become plain for everyone to see, how does that impact what happens to the refugee system in the US you.

[Historical Expert]

Would think that as Americans become more and more aware of the horrors of the Holocaust, that there would have been overwhelming support to bend, if not break, immigration laws to accommodate the survivors of the Holocaust and survivors of the European conflict and the conflict in Asia. But there really isn't. The first piece of legislation to pass to accommodate displaced persons passes in 1948. It takes three years for Congress to pass any legislation to accommodate displaced people from the European conflict. And even then, you know, this law only focuses on Europe. There is no attempt to even recognize that there are people in need in Asia. So the Displaced Persons act focuses largely on accommodating displaced Europeans and accommodating ethnic Germans in particular. In fact, the number of Jewish refugees who are accommodated in initially through the Displaced Persons act is quite small.

[Capital One Representative]

If the Congress were still in session.

[Ramtin Arablouei]

I would return this bill without my.

[Capital One Representative]

Approval and urge that a fairer, more.

[Ramtin Arablouei]

Humane bill be passed.

[Rund Abdelfatah]

This is the statement that President Harry S. Truman put out after he signed the 1948 Displaced Persons act into law.

[Historical Expert]

He signs it reluctantly, but he feels that it's a law that does not exemplify American values.

[Ramtin Arablouei]

The bill discriminates in callous fashion against displaced persons of the Jewish faith.

[Capital One Representative]

This brutal fact cannot be obscured by.

[Ramtin Arablouei]

The maze of technicalities in the bill.

[Historical Expert]

What we see happening are different laws that are passed on an ad hoc basis to deal with particular emergencies. So the Displaced Persons act is an attempt to respond to the crisis in Europe. But then other laws are passed to accommodate particular groups of people. So there's the War Brides act, for example, to in the European and Asian spouses and family members of American service personnel, because we want to make sure that they're happy, we want to recognize their service, and we want to make sure that their families remain intact.

[Ramtin Arablouei]

This was passed in the wake of World War II and other laws followed specific to other groups.

[Immigration Policy Analyst]

So you're basically getting the beginnings of a refugee system that's kind of a hodgepodge of loopholes is what it sounds like, right? It's like, oh, okay, we need to make space for War Brides, as you said, we need to make space for European Jews. So we're making these sort of accommodations. But it doesn't seem like at this point, there's a sort of philosophy around refugees really being articulated through the system. It seems like it's sort of a let's react to the latest sort of crisis that's arisen.

[Historical Expert]

You're right. It's not really until the 1965 Hart Seller act that these quotas are completely overhauled and we get a very, very different immigration system.

[Rund Abdelfatah]

The 1965 Hart Celler act, if something about that name sounds familiar, that's because it is.

[Emmanuel Celler]

Throughout all these years as a member of Congress, I fought for change. I do not want to wait another 40 years.

[Rund Abdelfatah]

Emmanuel Seller, who spoke out in 1924 against immigration quotas, is still in Congress, and he's still mad about those quotas.

[Maria Cristina Garcia]

Almost every Congress that he served in, in addition to introducing legislation to get rid of the quota laws, he also had civil rights and voting rights bills. So he spent his entire legislative career on these issues.

[Rund Abdelfatah]

And at the height of the civil rights movement, he saw that he finally had the political momentum to finish this career long battle to get rid of the quota laws once and for all.

[Emmanuel Celler]

I respectfully submit that the fears and phobias of four decades ago have no place in our society in 1964.

[Rund Abdelfatah]

This is an excerpt of the speech Seller gave to Congress nearly 40 years later to the day after his very first speech on the House floor.

[Maria Cristina Garcia]

He was a seasoned person by this point. He was negotiating and he wanted to get this across the finish line.

[Emmanuel Celler]

I want to make it clear, since every discussion surrounding immigration changes is obscured by arguments about our unemployment, our lack of classrooms, our housing. We're not talking about increased immigration. We're talking about equality of opportunity for all peoples to reach this promised land.

[Rund Abdelfatah]

The Hart Celler act passed and with it came a new system. Instead of quotas that were different for each country, the act created a system based primarily on immigrants, family relationships with U.S. citizens or permanent residents. There were still caps on the number of people who would be let in legally, but they were broader and didn't prioritize any one country. These changes opened the golden door to people who had been restricted for decades.

[Maria Cristina Garcia]

Manuel Sellers however, in order to pass the 65 act, you know what? He had to drop out the refugee provisions. He had to drop out the refugee provisions. It was part of the negotiations.

[Rund Abdelfatah]

In the end, the law made space for 6% of visas to be given out to refugees. It was the first time Congress had permanently authorized such a thing. But it soon turned out it wasn't enough. That's coming up.

[Ruth Wassem]

Hi, this is Austin from Charlotte calling again three years later and you're listening to Throughline on npr.

[Capital One Representative]

This message comes from Capital One offering commercial solutions you can bank on. Now more than ever, your business faces unique challenges and opportunities. That's why Capital One offers a comprehensive suite of financial services all tailored to your short and long term goals. Backed by the strength and stability of a top 10 commercial bank. Their dedicated experts work with you to build lasting success. Explore the [e-mail] Commercial A Member FDIC this message comes from Progressive and its name your price tool. Say how much you want to pay for car insurance and they'll show coverage options within your budget. Visit progressive.com progressive casualty insurance company and affiliates price and coverage match limited by state law.

[Ruth Wassem]

Back in the city, normal patterns of behavior in a climate of every man.

[Ramtin Arablouei]

For himself American Homes officers April 1975 Saigon was in chaos. As the North Vietnamese army drew closer to the city. The Capital of South Vietnam. US Forces were rushing to get both American and South Vietnamese people out.

[Ruth Wassem]

A North Vietnamese tank broke the gate at the President's palace in Saigon. A Communist soldier ran the revolution's flag across the empty lawn.

[Ramtin Arablouei]

On April 30, the North Vietnamese army finally captured the capital, renaming it Ho Chi Minh City and marking the end of the Vietnam War and the beginning of a refugee crisis.

[Maria Cristina Garcia]

We had thousands of people coming.

[Ramtin Arablouei]

Ruth Wassem, former researcher at the Congressional.

[Ruth Wassem]

Research Office The American airlift only took a fraction of those who wanted to leave. And for hours after the last departure, scores of people separated and crying out for help, pleading not to be left behind, clutching at the last straw of vote.

[Maria Cristina Garcia]

And these were wars we were the lead player in.

[Rund Abdelfatah]

US Actions had contributed to the crisis. But the idea of welcoming refugees from the wars in Vietnam, Cambodia and Laos was not too popular in the U.S. a 1975 Gallup poll found that only 36% of Americans favored allowing Vietnamese refugees to rebuild their lives here.

[Maria Cristina Garcia]

The public opinion had never been supportive of refugees in the United States unless it was a small number. If it was going to be 100,000 people of displaced persons, maybe a third of the country supported that. And immigration has always been the politics of numbers. Thresholds are important. People are generous, literally to a point.

[Immigration Policy Analyst]

Like if it's. If it feels like there's a literal.

[Maria Cristina Garcia]

Wave, yes, that's where it gets dodgy. Because a lot of times when there's mass asylum or refugee crisis, it's a wave. These don't happen in a trickle unless it's something like people fleeing the former Soviet Union, where you couldn't get out.

[Rund Abdelfatah]

On top of the public disapproval, the immigration system was also struggling to handle the influx of people. The 1965 Hart Celler act had not set up a system for resettlement in.

[Maria Cristina Garcia]

The US Creating a refugee category was extremely important. There was a window and a crying need to have this.

[Rund Abdelfatah]

Now it was up to Congress to write some legislation, which quickly became a mess. There were legislators who wanted to make refugees part of the preexisting immigration system, which meant they'd be subject to the same numerical limits as other immigration pathways. Other legislators said, wait a minute, that's not going to work. Because then refugees would be competing for spots with immigrants coming to the US for work or to reunite with family members.

[Maria Cristina Garcia]

It's pretty hard when you have a political consensus for limiting the numbers to then start to have fights over refugees versus family.

[Immigration Policy Analyst]

That's why they wanted to create a separate track.

[Maria Cristina Garcia]

They wanted a totally Separate track.

[Ramtin Arablouei]

But nobody could come up with a way to impose limits on the new system that everyone could agree on. So they landed on a compromise.

[Maria Cristina Garcia]

They said Congress will do a consultation with the President every year to set the numbers. Because of the President's foreign policy role.

[Ramtin Arablouei]

Like in the case of Vietnamese refugees. President Jimmy Carter, who'd taken office in 1977, wanted to make sure that people who'd helped Americans in the war were able to resettle in the US Afterwards.

[Maria Cristina Garcia]

A president never wanted Congress to be able to control refugees because it's a diploma. Diplomacy is so important. Congress didn't want to cede power because they had control over immigration. They write the laws, they control it. And so that's. That was the compromise.

[Ramtin Arablouei]

The 1980 Refugee act passed 85. 0.

[Rund Abdelfatah]

Wow. Overwhelmingly passed.

[Maria Cristina Garcia]

It was legislative drafting and negotiations at its finest.

[Ramtin Arablouei]

President Carter signed it into law in March of that year.

[Rund Abdelfatah]

This law created the Office of Refugee Resettlement that we still have today. It created a process for refugees to be admitted and a pathway to permanent residency. It laid out all kinds of federally funded resources that should be available to refugees, like job training and English language classes. And it said that the federal government would supply resources and funding to offset any burden to the states where refugees were resettled.

[Maria Cristina Garcia]

And the euphoria of finally, after all these years, passing the Refugee act. And the ink was hardly dry. And we had the Mariel boat lift.

[Rund Abdelfatah]

By 1980, Fidel Castro had ruled over Cuba for over two decades. Castro's regime was politically repressive. He dismantled the free press, executed political enemies, and threw dissidents in jail. Cuba was a communist country 90 miles away from the United States.

[Ramtin Arablouei]

It was in the middle of the Cold War. Over the next few decades, hundreds of thousands of Cubans migrated to the United States as refugees of Castro's regime. Off and on, Castro would close the island nation's borders and prevent Cuban citizens from leaving. But in April 1980.

[Historical Expert]

Fidel Castro announces that he is opening up the port of Mariel.

[Ramtin Arablouei]

This is Maria Cristina Garcia, professor of history at Cornell University, and he invites.

[Historical Expert]

Cuban Americans living in South Florida and other parts of the US to sail into the port of Mariel and pick up their relatives.

[Ramtin Arablouei]

Castro's announcement meant that any Cuban citizen who wanted to leave could get on a boat and head for the United States to seek asylum. And the federal government felt an obligation to accept these people who were fleeing a communist regime in the height of the Cold War.

[Rund Abdelfatah]

Coast Guard officials fear there may be dozens, perhaps even hundreds of boats adrift in the Florida Straits without radios, unable to contact rescuers.

[Ruth Wassem]

I asked several people how many refugees they thought would come here eventually. One man sitting on a bench gave a tip. Everybody, because the whole world wants to come. If they let them out, then Fidel will stay there in Cuba by himself. Everybody wants to come. Only Fidel will stay behind.

[Historical Expert]

Over the next couple of months, the Mariel boat lift, as it came to be known, brings in about 126,000 people from Cuba.

[Rund Abdelfatah]

City officials and local volunteer organizations are.

[Maria Cristina Garcia]

Working round the clock to try to.

[Rund Abdelfatah]

Get food, clothing and shelter.

[Historical Expert]

So at the same time that Congress is passing this Refugee act, we're dealing with this humanitarian crisis with Cuba, and the Carter administration is trying to impose order.

[Maria Cristina Garcia]

It was a true crisis of mass asylum. I'm sure people drowned at sea. It was a humanitarian crisis.

[Ramtin Arablouei]

To make matters worse, on top of the Cubans arriving at this time, 25,000 more people were showing up in Florida from Haiti, where they were fleeing dictator Jean Claude Duvalier.

[Maria Cristina Garcia]

Lots of federal money had to go down to protect them, feed and clothe them. Local communities didn't have the capacity. They had set up these refugee resettlement programs. That was a main feature of the Refugee act of 1980, was that it wouldn't be a burden on communities to have people come in because they'd set up, you know, what was originally intended to be three years of transitional assistance in social services until they were well established in the community. And suddenly you have this, an influx of people. How do you even process it? We hardly had any asylum officers.

[Immigration Policy Analyst]

Right. Like, I mean, the act had just passed, really. It's the first time, right, that, like asylum, as we know it is being tested, that people are going to land, you know, in the US and request to stay.

[Historical Expert]

And the 1980s become a key decade for the asylum system. The 1980 Refugee act provides a mechanism for granting asylum. And that too is new. But, you know, prior to the 1980s, most Americans didn't really think about asylum seekers. If they heard about asylum seekers. It was usually high profile individuals who defected from a communist country, say a Russian ballet dancer or a Chinese physicist. Those high profile individuals received a lot of attention because of their defection. The Maria boatlift in 1980 really put asylum on the national consciousness. Right.

[Ramtin Arablouei]

And people weren't necessarily happy to throw open America's doors.

[Maria Cristina Garcia]

Good evening.

[Ruth Wassem]

Politicians from several states tonight are sharply.

[Maria Cristina Garcia]

Criticizing President Carter's handling of the Cuban refugee problem.

[Ramtin Arablouei]

I believe that Americans should not take so many people in that they can't take care of their own people.

[Maria Cristina Garcia]

I Don't think it's right.

[Ramtin Arablouei]

And then, I mean, all right, the.

[Historical Expert]

Government support, but we pay the tax.

[Rund Abdelfatah]

Dehumanizing language was common, and other refugee.

[Ruth Wassem]

Groups are now asking for the same special treatment afforded the Cubans, such as the Haitian boat people who staged a protest and hunger strike in front of the White house today. The 1980 Refugee act was supposed to take care of problems like these, but it hasn't.

[Historical Expert]

You can imagine that many Americans of this time period felt that this other country, Cuba, was dictating US Immigration policy, and they demanded that something be done about it.

[Rund Abdelfatah]

Unfortunately for Jimmy Carter, this was all unfolding during an election year where he's running against Ronald Reagan.

[Maria Cristina Garcia]

I don't think it was the issue that defeated Carter for reelection, but it certainly didn't help him.

[Rund Abdelfatah]

Ronald Reagan won in a landslide victory where Carter only carried six states. Over the next few years, Reagan would allow Cubans who had come during the boat lift to be processed and obtain legal residency status.

[Ramtin Arablouei]

But when it came to Haitians, one of Reagan's early acts in office was to change the way the US Approached Haitian immigrants coming by sea.

[Maria Cristina Garcia]

He signed an interdiction agreement with the dictator of Haiti.

[Rund Abdelfatah]

Interdiction basically meant that when a U.S. coast Guard vessel came across Haitian boats, they would intercept them before they could even reach US Soil, before people on board had a chance to make an asylum claim.

[Maria Cristina Garcia]

So for many, many years, Haitians were interdicted on the high seas by the US Coast Guard and sent back to Haiti.

[Rund Abdelfatah]

The United States had backed the Duvalier dictatorships for years, hoping to keep communism from spreading from Cuba to Haiti. The US had opened its doors to Cubans as a statement against communism, and it closed them to Haitians who were fleeing a regime the US supported. For the first decade of this policy, over 25,000 Haitian immigrants were intercepted by the coast guard, and only 28 were allowed to enter the US to pursue asylum claims.

[Historical Expert]

So if you were coming without authorization from Cuba during the Cold War and even in the post Cold War period, you were allowed to stay. But if you were coming from Haiti, you were not.

[Maria Cristina Garcia]

Cubans already had a diaspora that was politically powerful and politically sophisticated.

[Immigration Policy Analyst]

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

[Maria Cristina Garcia]

They had well established, prominent, vocal Cuban American community in a position to advocate for them, and Haitians did not. And also an administration wasn't going to negotiate a deal like that with Castro, whereas Duvalier was open for business.

[Immigration Policy Analyst]

How much do you see the refugee sort of calculus as a political calculus, and how much is it a humanitarian one?

[Rund Abdelfatah]

In this period, it's both.

[Historical Expert]

You know, I think there is genuine humanitarian concern that has dictated and shaped our refugee policy. But refugee policy has also served foreign policy interests and it's oftentimes very hard to separate the two.

[Maria Cristina Garcia]

I would argue the ghost of Mario kind of haunted people trying to deal with asylum ever since.

[Rund Abdelfatah]

That's coming up.

[Ruth Wassem]

My name is Lina Blanco.

[Ramtin Arablouei]

I am residing on Coast Miwok, Kashaya.

[Ruth Wassem]

And Southern Pomo lands of Sonoma County, California.

[Rund Abdelfatah]

You're listening to Throughline.

[Capital One Representative]

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[Ruth Wassem]

There is a great deal of mixed emotion in this nation today about the refugees which are teeming to our shores from Cuba.

[Ramtin Arablouei]

In 1980, Bill Clinton was a strapping young governor with a soft twang. He was in the midst of his reelection campaign when the fallout from the Mariel boat lift seeped its way into his state of Arkansas. President Carter ordered 20,000 Cuban refugees to be housed temporarily at Fort Chaffee in northwest Arkansas.

[Ruth Wassem]

But there is one thing that I think we should remember overriding all the problems they present, and that is that after all of our faults and our failures, there are still tens of thousands of people who believe we are a beacon of freedom and hope.

[Ramtin Arablouei]

At first, Clinton was publicly supportive of President Carter. But soon tensions inside and outside the fort's walls reached a breaking point as the population of the camp swelled.

[Rund Abdelfatah]

In that incident at Fort Chaffee, several.

[Ruth Wassem]

Hundred Cuban refugees burned buildings and fought with troops, 45 people were injured.

[Ramtin Arablouei]

Politically, it wasn't a good look for Governor Clinton. And it was an election year, so he was scrambling to contain the situation.

[Ruth Wassem]

Disrupting the people of the area. Then I should be supported, should be right. Stand by.

[Ramtin Arablouei]

His opponent in the governor's race, a man named Frank D. White, used this moment against him. He campaigned on the slogan Cubans and car tax, two issues that he advertised as Clinton's failures for the people of Arkansas.

[Rund Abdelfatah]

In the election that falls, Clinton was ousted. It was the only time he'd failed to win re election. Over a decade later, as president, Clinton had learned from the political pitfalls of Mariel.

[Ruth Wassem]

All Americans, not only in the states most heavily affected but in every place in this country, are rightly disturbed by the large numbers of illegal aliens entering our country.

[Rund Abdelfatah]

When a bill landed on his desk in 1996, a bill that was.

[Maria Cristina Garcia]

It was a crackdown. It was a big enforcement bill.

[Historical Expert]

He signed it, and it's a mammoth piece of legislation.

[Rund Abdelfatah]

The Illegal Immigration Reform and Immigrant Responsibility act of 1996, also known as IRE IRA, a mouthful. I know. This bill is important, though. It represented a turning point in the US Immigration policy. It was the beginning of a shift in focus towards cracking down on unauthorized migration. The law ramped up funding for the border patrol, expanded the list of offenses that could lead to deportation, created bans on reentry for people who overstayed their visas in the US and expanded the scope of mandatory detention.

[Historical Expert]

And caught up within this immigration policy are the asylum seekers.

[Immigration Policy Analyst]

If a newspaper had been publishing like the 96 act has been passed, what would the sort of top bullet points be of what it did?

[Maria Cristina Garcia]

Asylum reforms, a lot of them, like not automatically getting a work authorization and things that were aimed at not making it too attractive again.

[Ramtin Arablouei]

This is Ruth Wasom. She's a former researcher with the Congressional Research Service.

[Maria Cristina Garcia]

They criminalized a lot more things, and that was the intention.

[Historical Expert]

So it's this law that creates the policy known as expedited removal.

[Ramtin Arablouei]

And Maria Cristina Garcia, she's a professor of history at Cornell University.

[Historical Expert]

And the law gives an immigration officer at a port of entry enormous authority without oversight to make a decision on the spot whether to admit a person into the United States to make a case for asylum. And if the individual fails to pass that credible fear test, if they fail.

[Ramtin Arablouei]

To prove they have a credible fear of persecution, if they will return to their home country, then the person is.

[Historical Expert]

Removed from the United States as quickly as possible.

[Ramtin Arablouei]

Before this law, if you didn't have.

[Maria Cristina Garcia]

Proper documents you would show up, you would request asylum, and you would get a court date, and you'd usually be released in the country. If they were suspicious of you, they certainly had the authority to detain you. But the guy that made the decision was the judge in the immigration courts.

[Immigration Policy Analyst]

Okay.

[Maria Cristina Garcia]

And so that was a key difference. The 96 act increased the power of an immigration inspector to make decisions about inadmissibility that had previously only been made by the courts.

[Rund Abdelfatah]

I see. Okay.

[Historical Expert]

It's a policy that many immigration advocates feel needs to be reformed. That in order to make the system fairer and more humane, you really need to have multiple levels of oversight to make sure that bona fide asylum seekers are not penalized, are not subject to prejudice, and removed from the United States to face persecution and possible death. Right. This 1996 law is an example of how, in an attempt to address unauthorized migration, a lot of populations fall victim to that oversight.

[Rund Abdelfatah]

It was a policy shift that leaned heavily towards law enforcement and crackdowns in a time when concerns over unauthorized immigration were growing. And while funding for US Customs and Border Protection has increased over the years, other parts of the immigration system have been stretched thin.

[Maria Cristina Garcia]

And so these are very real tensions in terms of what are the legal protections we provide asylum seekers. And under international law, we're supposed to do these things, and so are other countries. But we get very economical when we have a large number of people. And trying to come up with more efficient ways to do things often comes at the price of someone's human rights.

[Immigration Policy Analyst]

I want to understand how aira AIRA sets us up for the modern era. How would you say it shapes the future of asylum leading us up to the present. And also since that time, what would you say has changed?

[Maria Cristina Garcia]

There wasn't comparable funding that would have to deal with what would be the outcomes of increased enforcement, the outcomes of better screening at the border and all these technologies? We didn't do it. And so what do we end up with? Huge bottlenecks. And when you don't have equilibrium in these things, that's what you get.

[Immigration Policy Analyst]

One thing that throughout this conversation you've really highlighted is that on the one hand, there are these forces of xenophobia, of racism that are driving a lot of this story. On the other hand, there are very real concerns over the system being at capacity, over a fear of not being in control of people coming into the country. I'm curious beyond sort of the top line explanations that I think we sometimes get that this is just bigotry, this is racism. What do you See as the explanation in terms of things like economic fears, job loss, community security that may be motivating the present moment of anti immigrant sentiment. And perhaps these other moments that we've seen in the country's history, if somebody.

[Maria Cristina Garcia]

Was being well paid, they wouldn't resent that the person working alongside him was a foreign national that had just arrived here. And I see this a lot in these things. We have real policy issues, things that need to be addressed. But by playing this divisive rhetoric, instead of actually helping the public understand and contemplate, well, how do we want to fix this? What do we think are good ideas?

[Immigration Policy Analyst]

It's blaming people rather than institutions.

[Maria Cristina Garcia]

Yes. And policymakers.

[Historical Expert]

Historically we have tended to villainize immigrants, but we don't always recognize the way that we have contributed to their displacement and the ways that we profit from their migration. I do a lot of research in presidential libraries and it has always struck me that, you know, when I look at these memos that are sent from one office to the next and they're discussing immigration issues or they're discussing foreign policy, there is never a recognition of how a particular economic or military policy might contribute to displacement.

[Maria Cristina Garcia]

We think about these things as just immigration, and it's all interconnected.

[Historical Expert]

From the 1980s on. It's concern with unauthorized migration that seems to most dictate our immigration policies.

[Maria Cristina Garcia]

And this gets to what the issue is today. From my perspective, immigration is not a problem to be solved. It's a phenomena to be managed. So whenever there is a perception or a reality that we have lost control, people are upset.

[Historical Expert]

I think moving forward, as we continue worldwide to see more displacement, and especially displacement caused by climate change, I think the nations certainly in this region need to work together to address why people are moving.

[Maria Cristina Garcia]

It's all about what system we have overall, what are our priorities? What are our top concerns? What should our immigration pathways be? Is it just our national interest, our self interest of, like, workers with needed skills and our relatives that are abroad? Do we want to have a track for climate change because we feel a moral responsibility? Do we feel that refugees are another important track and we need to have pathways for them? And then if we're going to do this, how many are we talking about each year? How much give and take? I don't think we can answer these questions about refugees and asylees and force migrants in a vacuum without looking holistically at our immigration system, our capacity to absorb people, and what the process should be.

[Rund Abdelfatah]

That's it for this week's show. I'm Rund Abdelfatah I'm Ramtin Arablouei and.

[Ramtin Arablouei]

You'Ve been listening to Throughline from npr.

[Rund Abdelfatah]

This episode was produced by me and.

[Ramtin Arablouei]

Me and Lawrence Wu, Julie Cain, Anya.

[Emmanuel Celler]

Steinberg, Casey Minor, Christina Kim, Devin Kadayama.

[Rund Abdelfatah]

Sarah Wyman, Irene Noguchi. Thanks to Jaya Ramji Nogales, Kathleen Arnold, Johannes Dergi, Nadia Lancy, Edith Chapin and Colin Campbell.

[Ramtin Arablouei]

Voiceover work in this episode was done by Casey Minor, Devin Katayama and Ellis Oriola. Fact checking for this episode was done by Kevin Voel. The episode was mixed by Gilly Moon.

[Rund Abdelfatah]

Music for this episode was composed by Ramtin and his band Drop Electric, which.

[Emmanuel Celler]

Includes Naveed Marvi, Sho Fujiwara, Anya Mizani.

[Rund Abdelfatah]

We would love to hear from you. Send us a voicemail to 872-588-8805 and leave your name where you're from and say the line you're listening to Throughline from NPR and tell us what you think of the show. We might even feature your voicemail in a future episode. That number again is 872-588-8805. Thanks for listening.

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[Emma Lazarus]

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