For the past few years, our news headlines have been rife with stories detailing the migration of thousands of people fleeing repressive regimes, wars, violent armed groups, and economic strife. In light of the most recent and ongoing migration crisis in Europe, it is important to reflect on these recent migration and refugee crises that have occurred globally. Earlier this year, thousands of Rohingya people from Myanmar and Bangladesh attempted to migrate to neighboring South Asian countries in hopes of finding new homes after being oppressed by the Burmese government for their ethnic identity.[i] Due to the conflict in Ukraine, over two million people became refugees or were internally displaced in the Eastern European region.[ii] Closer to home, in 2014, tens of thousands of migrants from Central America fled to the United States border to escape rampant violence and poverty in their home countries.[iii] What is most shocking about these repeated crises is that each one is greeted with shock, disorder, and internal political battles. Why has some order not been established to handle these crises, especially as they seem to become more and more prevalent?

Few continue to discuss the Central American Migration Crisis of 2014 that highlighted issues in the United States’ immigration framework, party divides, and the domestic instability that our close neighbors continue to face. Between October 1st, 2013 and July 31st, 2014 about 63,000 unaccompanied minors mostly from Central America came to the United States hoping to start anew. This number, in children alone, is about twice the migrants the United States received from this region in the previous year.[iv] The children, mostly from Honduras, El Salvador, and Guatemala, fled their homes to escape systemic violence and persistent poverty; the three nations held the world’s first, fourth, and fifth highest homicide rates in the world, respectively, according to the UNODC.[v] Crime had spiked in these nations due to weak federal institutions and the increasing prevalence of gangs, which were particularly targeting young boys as recruits.[vi] On the other hand, many were residents of the poorest regions of their nations, and were travelling to the United States looking for economic opportunities.[vii]

In response to the crisis, President Obama requested $3.7 billion dollars from Congress to address the influx of migrants.[viii] This money was intended to fund increased border surveillance, detention facilities, and law enforcement personnel among additional measures. In response, the House of Representatives appropriated $694 million to help address the issue, less than one third of the requested value. Some attribute this to the desire of ultra-conservatives to limit President Obama’s ability to act on certain immigration issues and out of fear of further unilateral steps by the White House.[ix] In addition, in a largely unrelated and political measure, it passed a bill attempting to repeal Obama’s Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA) executive order, which would allow individuals who entered the country as children before 2010 to be granted deferred deportation.[x] On top of this, Governor Perry of Texas sent hundreds of National Guard troops to the Texas-Mexico border, creating domestic political turmoil and conflict.[xi] The crisis revealed, albeit already relatively unearthed, domestic party conflict that took much of the dialogue away from the issue at hand and refocused it on U.S. party politics. While the thousands of Central American children who fled their nations because of dangerous conditions and oppression put their lives on the line, the U.S. political system began to argue internally. In Mexico, comparatively ad hoc policies were adopted that looked to decrease the porosity of the border it shares with Guatemala.[xii] They began random raids on freight train lines known to carry migrants north, which did not actually solve the issue, but just pushed the migrants to look for alternate transportation.[xiii]

Although clearly very different in its root causes, the refugee crisis currently affecting Europe has highlighted many of the same challenges that our nation faced last year. In the past few months, over half a million Syrian refugees and irregular migrants have fled to the E.U. mostly through Turkey and the Aegean Syria via transportation from criminal networks, human smugglers, and the like.[xiv] Over 3,000 of the migrants have drowned or gone missing at sea on the first portion of their journey from Turkey on towards Greece attempting to enter the majority of mainland Europe.[xv] This rapid influx has elicited much of the same types of reactions among the European community as was seen in the U.S.: political struggle, resistance, and disorder. In response to this unexpected influx, nations have scrambled to establish emergency measures to address the large numbers of migrants: Hungary sealed its border to Croatia and since October 17, 2015 its parliament voted to grant special powers to the army to permit soldiers to join police in monitoring the Croatian border.[xvi] The crisis has unearthed divisions in domestic systems and within Europe, as well: Bishops of the Church of England have criticized Prime Minister David Cameron of its “inadequate” response to the crisis and as the EU and Turkey have battled over the issue, Turkey has leveraged its political desires and aspirations to enter the European Union in coming to a deal.[xvii]

What has been shocking, but not adequately addressed, is the fact that despite the increasing prevalence of migration and refugee crises in the world community, there has been little effort to develop plans to handle these issues ahead of time. The global community time and time again has responded with emergency measures, ad hoc policies, and internal strife to attempt to either keep refugees out or somehow integrate them into their nations. But how can these policies be the best if they are rushed and developed in the most heated of political situations? If we are to continue to experience high levels of violence, oppression, economic instability, and other unlivable circumstances in our world, wouldn’t it only be responsible to ensure that we are prepared for the refugees that apparently inevitably will go someone’s way? The global community, regional organizations such as the European Union, and individual nations should be engineering preemptive plans to control these situations. Having these plans in place beforehand will avoid hasty policy decisions, the unearthing of political divides, and encourage social debates and conversations before these crises take place. This is not only for the well-being of the migrants and refugees themselves, who can’t be blamed for the situation they are in, but also for the well-being of the international systems and federal governments that might have to handle these situations.

References:

[i] Graham, David A. “Burma Doesn’t Want the Rohingya but Insists on Keeping Them.” The Atlantic, June 12, 2015.

[ii] Moldovan, Ioana. “Ukraine: World’s Unseen Refugee Crisis.” Al Jazeera, July 24, 2015.

[iii] Renwick, Danielle. “The U.S. Child Migrant Influx.” Council on Foreign Relations. September 1, 2014.

[iv] Ibid.

[v] Ibid.

[vi] Ibid

[vii] Greenblatt, Alan. “What’s Causing The Latest Immigration Crisis? A Brief Explainer.” NPR. July 9, 2014.

[viii] Ibid.

[ix] Bash, Dana, Deirdre Walsh, and Tom Cohen. “House GOP Passes Border Bill — Likely to No Effect.” CNN. August 1, 2014.

[x] Renwick, Danielle.

[xi] Ibid.

[xii] Villegas, Rodrigo Dominguez. “Central American Migrants and “La Bestia”: The Route, Dangers, and Government Responses.” Migration Policy Institute. September 10, 2014.

[xiii] Sorrentino, Joseph. “How the U.S. ‘Solved’ the Central American Migrant Crisis.” In These Times, May 12, 2015.

[xiv] Kirişci, Kemal. “What the New Turkey-EU Cooperation Really Means for Syrian Refugees.” The Brookings Institution. October 19, 2015.

[xv] “EU Calls Mini-summit on Refugee Crisis as Slovenia Tightens Border.” The Guardian.

[xvi] Ibid.

[xvii] “Turkey’s Erdogan, Wooed by EU on Migration, Says Cyprus Solution Needed.” Reuters. October 17, 2015.;

“Bishops Accuse Government of ‘inadequate’ Response to Migrant Crisis.” Eastern Daily Press. October 18, 2015.