Immigration Reform in Refugee and Asylum Policy: Disentangling Immigration from the National Security Discourse
After September 11, 2001, a large-scale overhaul of existing US immigration infrastructure fused immigration with the country’s national security apparatus. Enhanced national security efforts became characterized by increased immigration enforcement and were purportedly justified by government officials’ rhetoric portraying newcomers as a threat to public safety. The Trump Administration employed inflammatory anti-immigrant rhetoric to shore up popular support for harmful immigration policies, precluding the United States from fulfilling obligations to refugees and asylum-seekers under international law. This Note argues that the United States shares virtually none of the geopolitical challenges preventing certain countries from compliance with treaty obligations; however, rhetoric conflating immigration and national security results in immigration policy damaging to refugees and asylees seeking protection in the United States. This Note argues that the United States must work towards compliance with its international commitments by dismantling needlessly punitive immigration enforcement policies and abolishing xenophobic rhetoric, and by providing fair and full protection for the growing number of individuals displaced around the globe.
Recommended Citation: Rachel Chernov, Immigration Reform in Refugee and Asylum Policy: Disentangling Immigration from the National Security Discourse, 44 Fordham Int'l L.J. 1029 (2021).