Category: Latin America

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.