- This year marks the seventh anniversary of the Syrian conflict, and the new edition of Forced Migration Review focuses on displaced Syrians. This article from the issue, by Margarite Helena Zoetewij-Turhan, examines changes to Turkey’s asylum laws that are leaving the country’s Syrian refugee community in legal uncertainty.
- The exodus of Rohingya from Myanmar into neighbouring Bangladesh continues, six months after it began, with satellite imagery released this week showing dozens of bulldozed Rohingya villages. In The Guardian, Farah Kabir argues that Rohingya refugees need some international guarantee of safety before their voluntary return can begin – just as the UN warns it is unable to protect all Rohingya in Bangladesh from the coming monsoon.
- The Human Rights Law Centre has highlighted the gulf between Australia’s actions and words in its first address as a member of the UN Human Rights Council, particularly regarding this country’s immigration detention practices on Manus Island and Nauru.
- The United States Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS) is making changes to its mission statement, removing references to America as “a nation of immigrants”. However, former USCIS director León Rodríguez is optimistic that, regardless of the Trump administration’s rhetoric, the US will remain a nation which welcomes immigration. Meanwhile, a New York Times report looks at the children and families left behind during the recent spate of aggressive deportations.
- Despite the headlines-grabbing European refugee crisis, 84% of the world’s refugees are in low- or middle-income countries. Tanzania’s recent withdrawal from the Comprehensive Refugee Response Framework (CRRF), and refusal to borrow money from the World Bank to support that UN program, serves as “a warning to the West” of the need to find ways to assist host countries through “systematic improvement to the refugee system”.
- In Tel Aviv, more than 20,000 people have come out to protest the government’s policy of either deporting or imprisoning African asylum seekers who refuse voluntary resettlement (reportedly in either Rwanda or Uganda) or repatriation.
