SCRAP THE ASYLUM SYSTEM -- AND BUILD SOMETHING BETTER / THE ECONOMIST

It is not working

Scrap the asylum system—and build something better

Rich countries need to separate asylum from labour migration

Migrants and asylum seekers cross the Suchiate River attempting to get to the United States /Photograph: Alejandro Cegarra

THE RUles for refugees arose haphazardly. 

The UN Refugee Convention of 1951 applied only to Europe, and aimed to stop fugitives from Stalin being sent back to face his fury. 

It declared that anyone forced to flee by a “well-founded fear” of persecution must have sanctuary, and must not be returned to face peril (the principle of “non-refoulement”). 

In 1967 the treaty was extended to the rest of the world.

Most countries have signed it. 

Yet dwindling numbers honour it. 

China admits fewer refugees than tiny Lesotho and sends North Koreans home to face the gulag. 

President Donald Trump has ended asylum in America for nearly everyone except white South Africans, and plans to spend more on deporting irregular migrants than other countries spend on defence. 

Western attitudes are hardening. 

In Europe the views of social democrats and right-wing populists are converging.

The system is not working. Designed for post-war Europe, it cannot cope with a world of proliferating conflict, cheap travel and huge wage disparities. 

Roughly 900m people would like to migrate permanently. 

Since it is almost impossible for a citizen of a poor country to move legally to a rich one, many move without permission. 

In the past two decades many have discovered that asylum offers a back door. 

Instead of crossing a border stealthily, as in the past, they walk up to a border guard and request asylum, knowing that the claim will take years to adjudicate and, in the meantime, they can melt into the shadows and find work.

Voters are right to think the system has been gamed. 

Most asylum claims in the European Union are now rejected outright. 

Fear of border chaos has fuelled the rise of populism, from Brexit to Donald Trump, and poisoned the debate about legal migration. 

To create a system that offers safety for those who need it but also a reasonable flow of labour migration, policymakers need to separate one from the other.

Around 123m people have been displaced by conflict, disaster or persecution, three times more than in 2010, partly because wars are lasting longer. 

All these people have a right to seek safety. 

But “safety” need not mean access to a rich country’s labour market. 

Indeed, resettlement in rich countries will never be more than a tiny part of the solution. 

In 2023 OECD countries received 2.7m claims for asylum—a record number, but a pinprick compared with the size of the problem.

The most pragmatic approach would be to offer more refugees sanctuary close to home. 

Typically, this means in the first safe country or regional bloc where they set foot. 

Refugees who travel shorter distances are more likely one day to return home. 

They are also more likely to be welcomed by their hosts, who tend to be culturally close to them and to be aware that they are seeking the first available refuge from a calamity. 

This is why Europeans have largely welcomed Ukrainians, Turks have been generous to Syrians and Chadians to Sudanese.

Looking after refugees closer to home is often much cheaper. 

The UN refugee agency spends less than $1 a day on each refugee in Chad. 

Given limited budgets, rich countries would help far more people by funding refugee agencies properly—which they currently do not—than by housing refugees in first-world hostels or paying armies of lawyers to argue over their cases. 

They should also assist the host countries generously, and encourage them to let refugees support themselves by working, as an increasing number do.

Compassionate Westerners may feel an urge to help the refugees they see arriving on their shores. 

But if the journey is long, arduous and costly, the ones who complete it will usually not be the most desperate, but male, healthy and relatively well-off. 

Fugitives from Syria’s war who made it to next-door Turkey were a broad cross-section of Syrians; those who reached Europe were 15 times more likely to have college degrees. 

When Germany opened its doors to Syrians in 2015-16, it inspired 1m refugees who had already found safety in Turkey to move to Europe in pursuit of higher wages. 

Many went on to lead productive lives, but it is not obvious why they deserved priority over the legions of other, sometimes better-qualified people who would have relished the same opportunity.

Voters have made clear they want to choose whom to let in—and this does not mean everyone who shows up and claims asylum. 

If rich countries want to stem such arrivals, they need to change the incentives. 

Migrants who trek from a safe country to a richer one should not be considered for asylum. 

Those who arrive should be sent to a third country for processing. 

If governments want to host refugees from far-off places, they can select them at source, where the UN already registers them as they flee from war zones.

Some courts will say this violates the principle of non-refoulement. 

But it need not if the third country is safe. 

Giorgia Meloni, Italy’s prime minister, wants to send asylum-seekers to have their cases heard in Albania, which qualifies. 

South Sudan, where Mr Trump wants to dump illicit migrants, does not. 

Deals can be done to win the co-operation of third-country governments, especially if rich countries act together, as the EU is starting to. 

Once it becomes clear that arriving uninvited confers no advantage, the numbers doing so will plummet.

The politics of the possible

That should restore order at the frontier, and so create political space for a calmer discussion of labour migration. 

Rich countries would benefit from more foreign brains. 

Many also want young hands to work on farms and in care homes, as Ms Meloni proposes. 

An orderly influx of talent would make both host countries and the migrants themselves more prosperous.

Dealing with the backlog of previous irregular arrivals would still be hard. 

Mr Trump’s policy of mass deportation is both cruel and expensive. 

Far better to let those who have put down roots stay, while securing the border and changing the incentives for future arrivals. 

If liberals do not build a better system, populists will build a worse one.