Let’s Not Pretend We’re Keeping Our Promises on Asylum - Megan Stack - The New York Times

The Trump crowds, the Republicans in conventions assembled, chanting USA, USA have no affinity for the words of Emma Lazarus. But it's not just them.  We have admitted favored groups -mostly European,  But that sentiment has largely faded.  The late great historian of Europe Tony Judt in his masterful Post-War described the massive relocations of ethnic groups after WWII ended.  The Volga Germans were uprooted after centuries on the Volga; Jews who survived history's most brutal and systematic extermination were not welcomed in the lands of their birth - mainly Germany and Poland but were directed  to replace the Palestinians in the Holy Land.

In 1951 the United Nations adopted the Convention Relating to the Status of Refugees - which we have yet to sign.  But the Refugee Act of 1980 at 8 USC 1158 finally adopted the Convention's approach.  It says: 8 USC 1101 (42).

A “refugee” is any person who is outside his or her country of nationality (or, if stateless, outside the country of last habitual residence) and is unable or unwilling to return to that country because of persecution or well-founded fear of persecution on account of race, religion, nationality, political opinion, or membership in a particular social group.

Not included are refugees from war or famine. 

We've sent El Salvadorans back, denied entry to Haitians, and dreaded thousands of men, women and children in 'caravans' approaching the southern border.

 = GWC

Opinion | Let’s Not Pretend We’re Keeping Our Promises on Asylum - The New York Times

By Megan K. Stack [Fellow, George Washington University School of Media and Public Affairs]

In this restive age of unprecedented human displacement, 100 million people have fled disaster and oppression to try their luck in a world that’s increasingly tired of dealing with them.

The high-minded international agreements that were guiltily drafted after World War II to protect refugees and asylum seekers have been steadily hollowed out by the very same wealthy nations that consider themselves standard bearers of human rights.

The United States has been at the vanguard of this undoing. The government is well aware of its international treaty obligations: The pleas of foreigners who arrive on our territory seeking protection from persecution are supposed to be heard. Asylum seekers should be treated as potential refugees until their cases have been decided. It is illegal for governments to force people back to countries where they have a reasonable fear of persecution.

***

Generations of schoolkids learned the words of Emma Lazarus: “Give me your tired, your poor … The wretched refuse of your teeming shore.” It was a demand, not a leery acceptance. She did not write, Oh, OK, if we must, but just a few. We told ourselves that story, and maybe it made us a little better, even if it wasn’t true.

What we’re really talking about — beyond the laws and boats, the checkpoints and caravans — is the collapse of an idealism that has grown steadily less realistic. At some point, it seems, demand grew so fast it outpaced our good intentions, and we stopped trying.

Let’s at least stop being disingenuous. Let’s admit that our asylum process has become a myth and that we are the most flagrant undoers of our own ideals. We should expand legal pathways to immigration, raise the ceilings, accept our fair share of refugees, hear the cases, keep our word. We should go back to trying, which was ugly and imperfect but still gave some people a fair shake.

Or, if we can’t, we should state frankly our reasons for dismantling the asylum system and withdraw our promises. That would crush a lot of hopes, including mine, but at least we’d know who we are.