Helping Refugees in an Era of Nationalism (with Adam Bates)

Adam Bates, from the International Refugee Assistance Project (IRAP), joins us this week for our 250th episode to talk about how the Muslim ban, which President Trump initiated during his first week in office, inspired him to change his work focus from criminal justice reform to refugee relief.Bates addresses how the Administration is “overtly hostile” towards refugees. In our current political climate, it is an extremely trying time for refugee law, but also to be a refugee. The Refugee Act of 1980 allows the President to decide each year what the refugee cap is for the following year. President Trump set the lowest cap in the last 38 years at 45,000 refugees for the 2018 fiscal year. We have only resettled 16,000 refugees so far this year. We are incredibly far away from our maximum capacity of refugees.What is a refugee by definition? Are there exceptions to this definition? What is “temporary-protected status”? How is an asylum-seeker different than a refugee? How does the refugee process work? Which countries are accepting the most refugees? Is the United States really the “beacon on the hill” that we think we are?Further ReadingsIRAP response to the travel banUNHCR defines what types of refugess they classifyPresident Donald Trump advocated last year for dropping the refugee cap.Related ContentThe Truth About Immigration, Free Thoughts EpisodeTrump’s Immigration Crackdown, Free Thoughts EpisodeImmigrants and Guns: Different Issues, The Same Bad Arguments, written by Trevor Burrus Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.