They are called illegals, migrants, aliens, refugees, immigrants, asylum seekers, invaders, displaced – each word carrying with it a subtext of who they are, what they want, and where they fit. They have been accused of bringing disease, ‘poisoning the blood’ of a nation, participating in a massive invasion that aims to bring about violent anarchy, and even eating people’s beloved pets. In this discourse each of ‘them’ rarely has a face, a name, and much less their own story (unless they do something terrible that pushes their name and face into the headlines).
The question ‘Why don’t they just come here legally?’ is asked over and over. Again, there is a subtext to that question – an implication that if ‘they’ were good people, they would seek out and follow the rules. The question also assumes that there are legal, and presumably safe, channels for those in genuine distress to request and receive asylum in a safe country, as allowed for under international law, primarily under the UN Refugee Convention. However, the reality is that even those countries that recognise and uphold the Refugee Convention, (and there are many which do not), maintain byzantine systems, set up to make it as difficult as possible for someone, especially an asylum seeker, to petition for and be granted the right to start a new life in a safe country.
The vast majority of those ‘safe’ countries require visas for individuals traveling there from much of the world. The quickest way to ensure that a visa is denied, is to respond truthfully – that the motive for travelling is to request asylum upon arrival – and when a visa is denied on those grounds, the individual is almost always put on a blacklist for future requests.
The stories below, examples based on compilations of real cases, show what might cause someone to flee their country and illustrate the Kafkaesque situations in which many find themselves.
Jairo
Jairo felt called to be a church leader as a high school student in Cuba. Despite the discrimination and bullying he experienced at school, instigated by teachers who singled him out for ridicule because of his faith, he persisted. He studied, attended a legally recognised seminary, and was assigned a church through his denomination. He married and had three children. To make ends meet, Jairo supplemented the small salary he received as a pastor with work repairing bicycles. He was effective in his ministry and the church grew, to the extent that it attracted the attention of the local Communist Party official responsible for monitoring and controlling religious groups. Jairo was careful, however, and kept his sermons and his work apolitical.
On 11 July 2021, demonstrations erupted across the country – with many of the protestors calling for democracy and political reform. Jairo, ever careful, stayed home and did not participate. However, one of the church’s youth leaders, a young man who had attended the church since he was a child with his mother, did take part. The youth leader was arrested in the violent crackdown that followed, imprisoned and later sentenced to ten years in prison. The local Communist Party official visited Jairo and ordered him to ban the mother of the imprisoned youth leader, a long-time active member of the church, from attending. Jairo said no.
Shortly thereafter, police officers shut down his bicycle repair business on the grounds that he was missing a few receipts for items he had purchased. His children returned home from school in tears on a daily basis because of the treatment they were experiencing there; they told him their teachers had said the pastor was a counter-revolutionary and asked him what that meant. He was visited again by the Communist Party official, who ordered him again to ban the mother of the youth leader from church and handed him a list of other names that the government wanted excluded as well, as part of a strategy to socially isolate them. Jairo said no, again. The official then went to the head of the denomination and threatened to shut down ten churches if Jairo was not sacked from his position as pastor. The denominational leadership felt that their hands were tied and asked Jairo to step down.
Jairo obeyed but now found himself with a family, including three increasingly traumatised children, to feed and no job. He still had support within his community, however, with various people trying to find ways to help him make ends meet. The Communist Party official visited him again, this time accompanied by a State Security agent, and they told Jairo that they wanted him gone. He’d be permitted to leave Cuba, with his family, but on the condition that he would not return, and they threatened that if he was not gone within the month, he’d face prison himself.
Jairo and his wife felt they had no choice but to flee, and they decided to make their way to the United States, where they had family and where they knew they would be likely to receive permission to stay through a program for humanitarian parole for Cubans, Nicaraguans, Venezuelans and Haitians. The United States, however, requires that the request for an interview to be considered for humanitarian parole be made online in Mexico. Jairo knew that the Mexican government would almost certainly deny visas to him and the members of his family. The only channel left was to travel as a family to Nicaragua, which does not require visas for Cubans, and to make their way, by land into Mexico, crossing two borders illegally in the process. It was difficult and dangerous, but they made it.
Once in Mexico, Jairo immediately went to a migrant centre, where the family was able to eat and he was able to access a computer and submit his application for an interview for humanitarian parole online. It was successful, and he was granted an interview in Brownsville, Texas, six weeks away. He and his family spent six fraught, frightening weeks making their way north, trying to survive and attempting to avoid the criminal groups that operate across the country, but especially at the border, and target migrants for kidnap for ransom. Finally, the interview date arrived. Jairo, his wife and his children queued up the night before in order to cross the border to make their appointment on time. Jairo was interviewed and he and his family were granted humanitarian parole – but the process of requesting and obtaining it was not easy, not safe, and little about it was legal.1
Joon-hee
Joon-hee loved Kim Jong Un with all her heart. She loved to sing songs about the Kim family and their heroic leadership of the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea (DPRK) at school and her greatest hope was that she might have the honour of serving her country in some way. She lived with her family in an urban area, and while they were not wealthy, they were comfortable enough for much of her childhood. Eventually, however, as she reached her late teens, the country’s economic difficulties began to affect them. There was less and less to eat and Joon-hee watched, as people she had grown up with began to disappear. It was not spoken about openly, but everyone knew they had left for the border with China to seek food and other necessities. Most did not return.
Joon-hee’s loyalty to her country and to Kim Jong Un never wavered, but she began to feel that she was an unnecessary burden to her parents, who were finding it difficult to provide for themselves, and even more so for their almost grown children. Joon-hee decided that she would head to the border too, where she hoped to find some kind of work, as she had heard this was possible, so that she could send money and food home to help them. She made discreet inquiries and was introduced to a man who said he could help her travel and find work in China, in return for a small down payment and a loan to be repaid after she started making money.
Joon-hee made the risky journey to the border, followed his instructions, and crossed the frozen river, at a specific point, into China. She was met by another man, and was informed that the plans had changed. She would not need to work, he told her. All she had to do was accept her new role as wife to a man who had paid off her loan for her. She had no choice but to obey. Joon-hee spent a miserable year in the home of her husband-owner. She was abused and, making things worse, was unable to send anything back to help her parents as she had hoped. She had no idea how they were, as her husband-owner would not allow her to communicate with them out of fear she might try to flee.
Eventually, she was permitted to go outside the house to do the shopping, and it was in the market that she met a woman who seemed like she might understand her predicament. She built up the courage to tell the woman what had happened and to ask for help, and told her when her husband-owner was likely to be away from the house. The woman told Joon-hee to be ready at a specific time and day. She was met by another man, which scared her at first because of what had already happened to her, but she did not feel she had any options. She followed him on foot for a few blocks to a car that was waiting for them. The car drove into the mountains, to what the man said was a safe house.
There she met a few other North Koreans who were also staying there. They were quiet at first, afraid to trust one another, but after a few days they began to open up. Each had their own story of desperation. They were visited regularly by a few men and one woman who brought them food. When Joon-hee asked them why they were helping strangers like her, they told her about their faith in someone they called Jesus. She wanted to know more about this faith and they shared with her. She was unsure about it. She had heard frightening stories about the people called Christians. She also worried she was being disloyal to Kim Jong Un, but she began to consider this belief in Jesus seriously.
After a few weeks, the people running the safe house told Joon-hee she would have to make a difficult decision. It was not possible to stay there forever. She would need to consider either returning to North Korea, or think about starting a new life in South Korea. If she chose the latter, it would involve making another dangerous journey, this time across the entirety of China to Vietnam, where they would take the risk of trying to reach the South Korean Embassy to request her relocation. They would not be able to go with her on the journey, but had people along the way who would help. Joon-hee asked why they could not just go to the South Korean Embassy in Beijing? ‘Not possible’, the people said. The Chinese had it, and other embassies, heavily guarded and would capture and detain her if she attempted to get anywhere near it. Despite having ratified the UN Convention, the Chinese authorities would then repatriate her to North Korea, where she would be interrogated about who she had met and what she had heard while in China. She would likely be sent to a prison camp as punishment for having fled the country.
If the North Korean authorities learned that she had heard about Christianity while in China, even though she had not yet made a decision about the faith, she could face execution. Joon-hee decided to accept the offer to help her to get to Vietnam. She made it as far as the city of Chongzuo, where she was intercepted by the Chinese police. No one knows what happened to Joon-hee after that.
Saleem
Saleem was born into a Christian family in Pakistan. His family was not well off, and it was not easy being a young Christian man in his village, but he persevered. He worked hard, married, had two children and was even able to save some money. He was satisfied with his life but hoped for more for his children. One day, his ten-year-old son got into an argument with another boy in the neighbourhood. It was not about anything serious, but it escalated, and the other boy hit his son so hard it left a bruise. Saleem was upset and decided to go speak to the other boy’s father. The other boy’s father did not react well, and called Saleem and his family derogatory names, ridiculing their faith. Saleem knew that he should not react, and he tried not to, but it hurt him not to be able to better defend his son.
Emboldened by the actions of his father, the other boy began to harass and bully Saleem’s son. One day, Saleem’s son snapped and said something back. It should have been nothing more than a spat between boys, but the other boy told his father, who went to the local leaders and made a public accusation of blasphemy against Saleem and his young son. Saleem knew how these things would go. Blasphemy is a capital offense and, at best, they might both be imprisoned indefinitely. At worst, their neighbours might take things into their own hands and form a mob to lynch him and his son.
Saleem and his wife decided they had no choice but to flee. It was difficult and extremely dangerous, but somehow, after pulling together all their savings and quietly appealing to their close friends and family, they were able to collect the money to purchase airplane tickets for the whole family, and they flew to Thailand. Saleem was confident that the office of the United Nations High Commission for Refugees (UNHCR) would understand their genuine need for asylum. His relatives at home in Pakistan had managed to obtain copies of some of the legal documents with the accusations of blasphemy and had sent him photos of newspaper articles calling for him and his son to be punished. Saleem was right about the UNHCR. The process did not move quickly, but it did progress and he and his family members were given the official status of refugees. Now, they told him, he would need to wait for a third country to agree to accept him, but unless he had well-resourced friends in Europe or North America who would agree to sponsor him, there was little he could do to move that process forward.
Saleem does not have any friends outside of Pakistan. Unfortunately, while a relatively safe country, the Thai government is not party to the Refugee Convention and migrants are subject to deportation, no matter what they might face at home. He learned that he was one of tens of thousands of ‘official’ refugees awaiting resettlement in Thailand – some had been there for over a decade. They live in fear of deportation, despite their official status, and are forced to work illegally to survive. Their children cannot go to university or gain legal employment either. Saleem tried to do everything right, to go through legal channels, but eight years later, he is still in Thailand. His children are now adults, limiting their resettlement options even more. They are still waiting. They are still afraid.
Jairo, Joon-hee, and Saleem represent millions of people, each of whom has a face, a story, and many who have a genuine need for asylum. Their stories are based on real cases that CSW has worked on over the last decade. Why don’t they come ‘here’ legally? Seeking asylum is not illegal – it is a human right and includes the inherent acknowledgement that those fleeing persecution are generally obliged to cross borders using irregular means.
There are currently 37.9 million refugees and 8 million asylum seekers worldwide. An international asylum system set up to address the aftermath of the Second World War is no longer able to facilitate this right for those genuinely fleeing persecution who seek to relocate and live somewhere safe. And as the world becomes increasingly unstable causing the numbers seeking refuge to grow, not only are there insufficient offers of resettlement; many signatories to the Convention are also taking steps to make it as difficult as possible to do so.
By CSW’s Head of Advocacy Anna Lee Stangl
- Humanitarian parole is a two -year temporary status and President Biden announced in Autumn 2024 that those who have received it must apply for a different legal status or risk deportation, as humanitarian parole will not be renewed. President Trump has vowed to eliminate the programme altogether should he be re-elected. ↩︎
Excellent.