Introduction
illegal aliens, terrorists, hardened criminals, cockroaches, gang members, “very bad people” swarms of migrants, an invasion, threats to our national security“our military is waiting for you”
These are the words that surround what the world has deemed a global “migrant crisis.” These words are as dehumanizing as they are fear-inducing. They place blame squarely on the shoulders of migrants: It is the migrant causing this crisis. It is the migrant that is to be feared.
Today there are 79 million people displaced around the world (The UNHCR, (2020) –more than the size of the United Kingdom. This is the largest number of displaced people in recorded history. But rather than call this a “migrant crisis,” it should be called a crisis of humanity. It is a crisis rooted in geopolitics, not random, isolated incidents. The global response has lacked selfreflection, empathy, and sustainable solutions. Instead, it has focused on walls, borders, and ways of keeping people out.
During the fall of 2018, I had the privilege of taking a group of undergraduate students to Europe to study how the continent was responding to the millions of Syrians, but also Afghanis, Iraqis, Somalis, and others, who fled their countries for Europe after war erupted in Syria in 2011. We also studied how the U.S. was responding to the thousands of Central Americans who are and continue to be seeking refuge in the United States– fleeing countries that are riddled with gang violence, drug wars, and corruption. Instead of looking at these crises as a global issue that desperately needs conversation, collaboration and forward thinking– the western world is responding with knee-jerk, defensive measures like building higher walls and detention centers that resemble prisons, Brexiting from the EU, and supporting the rise of populist anti-immigrant parties and leaders across Europe, Australia and the United States. The response by the west has been dominated by fear. In this paper, I will discuss why the crisis is occurring and what can be done to re-instill humanity to the situation.