Are fleeing to europe at this very moment. Can anyone tell me from what countries they are fleeing . Layton okay, syria any other countries test . Im sorry. Kosovo okay, sarah. Russia any other countries . Stephen eritrea thats correct, patricio. Denison and ukraine thats correct. Thank you. So they are traveling very long distances. To find refuge in europe and this map gives you an idea of the routes and the distances that they are traveling in order to reach safety. Some are traveling alone. Others are traveling as part of family units. Some are traveling in search of economic opportunity. Others are literally fleeing for their lives. To escape war devastation rape and force conscription into armies the vast majority of the refugees are syrian can anyone tell me why the syrians are fleeing . Okay. Thank you albert. Civil war absolutely, would anyone else like to then talk. Okay. Thank you meredith. All very violent and like people just need to kill the publicly and like and also the infrastructure whos having classes education. Systems like really know and that there was no sign of absolutely, correct, all of you. Thank you. So this country has been locked in a bloody civil war for the past four years that has internally displaced onethird of its population that 7 million out of 21 Million People. Some four Million People have been forced to Cross International borders mostly to neighboring countries like jordan and lebanon. They are fleeing enormous devastation. Last month the Obama Administration announced that it would increase the annual refugee quota over the next two years to assist with this humanitarian crisis. The annual quota which has been set at 70,000 to 80,000 for over a decade now will increase to a hundred thousand by the end of fiscal year 2017. Presumably to accommodate a greater share of Syrian Refugees. Within our immigration bureaucracy, there are several tracks for admission and over the course of the semester. Weve discussed some of those tracks of admission. Today we are going to discuss two additional tracks the refugee and asylum tracks. As you know from your class readings americans have used the word refugee. Throughout the 19th and 20th centuries to describe a wide range of migration experiences. During the mid19th century, for example americans referred to the germans fleeing the 1848 revolution in europe as refugees. In 1865 as part of the postcivil war reconstruction the federal government established an agency known as the bureau of refugees freedmen and abandoned lands more popularly known as the Freedmens Bureau to assist the newly freed slaves. And during the mexican revolution of 1910 to 1920 and estimated one Million People fled mexico and settled in the southwestern United States. American journalists and politicians commonly referred to these people as refugees, but there are many other historical examples that we could point to. We have used the term refugee over and over again throughout American Immigration history. However, today refugee has a very precise legal meaning. And that legal meaning has developed over the past 60 years as we will see in todays class. We dont see a distinct refugee policy until the end of world war ii. Two congressional acts are generally considered the origins of american refugee policy the 1948 displaced persons act. And the 1953 Refugee Relief act. Under these two programs the federal government allowed roughly 600,000 europeans to immigrate to the United States over and beyond the established immigration quotas because it was deemed in the National Interest. Can anyone tell me why the truman and the Eisenhower Administration would have deemed it in the National Interest to accommodate european refugees and displaced persons . Anyone want to venture a guess . Okay, sarah. Im trying to. Be like the better nation against the soviet union, right . So we are already locked in a cold war with the soviet union. Were battling for the hearts and minds of the developing world. This is a way of signaling to to the rest of the world our humanitarian commitment. Any other reasons why truman and eisenhowers test so they wanted european stability. That was an interest of the us economically. Absolutely. They wanted europeans stability. They wanted to assist in europes postwar economic recovery. Any other reasons that you can think of . Well, these are all very good answers at the end of the war. There were an estimated 10 Million People left homeless and in some cases stateless just in europe alone. Truman wanted to accommodate a greater share of the displaced persons in order to assist europes postwar recovery as tests pointed out. Financial aid to the wartorn nations was not enough. He said the United States had a moral obligation to accept a number of the displaced persons in europe. And yet congress resisted. Even after americans became more fully aware of the horrors of the nazi death camps congress resisted. Can anyone venture a guest or tell me why congress would have been so resistant at this time to accommodating displaced persons and refugees . You want to venture a guess . Well bear in mind that at this moment in time the National Origins quotas are still in place. And so admitting people outside of those National Origins quotas was a highly controversial idea. It was resisted on capitol hill. And when the displaced persons act finally passed it passed three years after the war had ended. Even though president truman had advocated on behalf of the displaced persons. He was tempted to veto this particular bill that came out of congress because he felt that it was quote wholly inconsistent with american sense of justice and quote. But in the end he signed the legislation because he wanted to be able to assist some segment of the displaced population even though it was not the the bill that he was looking for. So why did he consider this to be inconsistent wholly inconsistent with american sense of justice because the war the the bill that came out of congress put so many restrictions on who could be sponsored you had to be located in austria and germany for example, and you had to have been living there by 1945 and this excluded most of the jewish refugee population. The law was amended two years later in 19 in 1950. But by august of 1952 of the 415,000 europeans that were brought in as displaced persons only 80,000 of them were jewish refugees the majority of those who were granted visas to come to the United States were ethnic germans. President eisenhower also believed that much more had to be done to assist the countries of western Europe Countries that were still economically recovering from the war and now facing the additional burden of thousands of refugees that were fleeing the eastern black fleeing the newly emerging communist countries of the eastern bloc and moving into western europe. This Time Congress responded with the Refugee Relief act of 1953. And this act granted 214,000 visas over the next two years to quote refugees expellis and escapes. The law defined these terms and very particular ways. Expellies and escapees were defined as those who fled communist countries. While refugees were defined as those in danger of persecution anywhere in the world. However, because the vast majority of those who were admitted to the United States under the Refugee Relief act were fleeing communist countries the term refugee became synonymous with those who were flaying communism at least in this country. Refugee policy became a tool of cold war Foreign Policy was a you a way of assisting those who were fleeing communism. But because the people who were fleeing communism oh, well, lets just say there was a great deal of suspicion in the United States among americans about whether these individuals were truly democrat democracy loving freedomloving individuals. So those who came from communist countries tended to be heavily screened because of American Fears of sponsoring communist spies and saboteurs who would infiltrate the United States and to us harm cause harm to the United States. Now as the cold war developed the United States was forced to deal with a number of humanitarian crises and these responses helped to further develop our refugee policy. In 1956 for example socialist revolutionaries in hungary overthrew their prosoviet communist government. And this prompted a violent crackdown on the part of the soviet union. Within days of the soviet crackdown tens of thousands of hungarian refugees had fled into neighboring austria and yugoslavia some 200,000 hungarian refugees eventually took refuge in austria alone. And to accommodate these hungarian refugees the Eisenhower Administration used a littleknown codisal in the 1952 mccarron walter act known as the Parole Authority. Which allowed the attorney general to parole people into the United States without of visa and outside of immigration quotas if it was deemed in the National Interest. The immigrant parolees could stay in the United States, but they could not become permanent residents or citizens. Unless Congress Passed legislation that helped them normalize their status. Eisenhowers this Parole Authority to admit some 32,000 hungarian refugees into the United States just from austria and in additional 6,000 refugees were brought in under a variety of other visas. But because americans were concerned with sponsoring communist spies and saboteurs. The us refugees were brought to camp kilmer an old army base in new jersey where they were screened interviewed housed temporarily before they were released to their assigned american sponsor families. And on this photograph that you see here on the screen. We see Vice PresidentRichard Nixon meeting with hungarian refugee children around christmas time. The next humanitarian crisis came in cuba in 1959 fidel castro and his july 26th movement over through the government of fulgencio batista. And between 1959 and 1973 roughly half a million cubans were admitted to the United States the majority of them through the socalled freedom flights of the mid to late 1960s. In fact today this very day, december 1st marks the 50th anniversary of the very first of the first freedom flight from havana to Miami International airport. The Kennedy Administration created the Cuban Refugee Program to screen the refugees to find sponsors for them and to help them retool for life. In the United States by the time the Cuban Refugee Program was phased out in the mid1970s. The federal government had invested some 900 Million Dollars into a cuban Refugee Relief. Now as i mentioned earlier those paroled into the United States could not become permanent residents or citizens. Unless Congress Passed enabling legislation legislation that allowed them to normalize their status and this is what congress did. Congress passed the hungarian relief act of 1958 and the 1966 cuban adjustment act which allowed hungarians and cubans to become permanent residents of the United States after living just two years in the United States. So we begin to see the origins of the distinct refugee policy taking place in the 1950s and 1960s. Now members of congress became increasingly concerned that the white house was using the Parole Authority much too much as a back door to bring in people into the United States outside of the established immigration quotas. So consequently when Congress Passed the heart cellar act of 1965, which we discussed a couple of weeks ago. They inserted a quota of 10,000 refugees per year. And once again refugee was defined as someone who fled a communist communist dominated or communist occupied country. So we see that further association of the word refugee was someone who is flaying communism. This association of refugee with anticommunism continued through the 1970s. Those admitted under the heart cellar refugee quota, almost all of came from communist countries. And the executive branch continued to parole anticommunists outside of immigration quotas. And after the fall of saigon in 1975 some 130,000 refugees were admitted from vietnam cambodia and laos. And Congress Passed the indochina migration and refugee assistance act to provide resettlement assistance to those 130,000 refugees. Now the decision to admit refugees was always contested. Throughout the 1950s the 1960s and the 1970s Public Opinion polls showed that americans were generally sympathetic to those who were fleeing communism. But they didnt necessarily want them to come here. They didnt want them to come to the United States. They wanted them to go someplace else. Back in 1956 for example, the Eisenhower Administration had to enlist the assistance of Public Relations firms from madison avenue to help them sell the idea of hungarian refugees to a reluctant american population. And these Public Relations firms worked with specific journalists who published story after story and news magazines like time newsweek and life portraying the hungarians as hardworking freedomloving people the photograph that i showed earlier of Vice PresidentRichard Nixon meeting with the hungarian refugee children was part of that pr campaign to sell the idea of hungarian refugees to a reluctant american population. But Many Americans were still not convinced. And 20 years later americans were even more resistant to accommodating Southeast Asians who they viewed as two culturally different. To be properly assimilated to the United States the pain of the vietnam war also probably had a great deal to do with that with that reluctance to sponsor Southeast Asian refugees. Despite the news of squalid refugee camps in thailand and despite the news that hundreds of people were dying at sea to reach safety somewhere in the world less than one Public Opinion polls. Tell us that less than 1 3 of americans were in favor of sponsoring vietnamese or other Southeast Asian refugees on american soil. But despite this public opposition the white house always took the lead on refugee policy. They favored refugee admissions for humanitarian reasons, but also as a tool of cold war Foreign Policy. Refugees served an important symbolic function during the cold war they demonstrated the desirability of democracy over totalitarianism and they demonstrated the desirability of capitalism over communism. Refugees went to Great Lengths to escape a communist country as you see here on the photo. These photos are of people from east berlin trying to reach west berlin or so as you see in these photos refugees. Some refugees went to extraordinary lents. They went they built underground tunnels. They jumped over fences and walls in some cases. They built hot air balloons to fly them aCross International borders. They they demonstrated they symbolize the hunger on behalf of humans to to live in free societies or the argument went refugees were also the highly skilled of their societies or in many cases. They were the highly skilled of their societies. And in some cases they brought important intelligence that informed our military policies overseas refugee scientists like Albert Einstein, excuse me okay. Thank you. So refugee scientists like Albert Einstein and enrico ferdme played a key role in the development of Nuclear Physics in this country. And the United States also went to Great Lengths to bring in people that they considered the brightest into the United States. And as we discussed a couple of weeks ago the secretary of state even expunged the nazi records of people