WOMEN OF COLOR ADVANCING PEACE, SECURITY, AND CONFLICT TRANSFORMATION
The Intersection of Climate Change and Immigration: A Humane Approach to Climate Displacement Neda M. Shaheen, Esq. Persons impacted by climate change do not fit within the standard definition of a “refugee,” as provided in the Refugee Convention, and there is disagreement on whether they should be titled climate or environmental refugees, migrants or displaced persons.1 The international community's disagreement on how to define climate-displaced persons highlights issues regarding the legal and political mechanisms used to address those impacted. 2 The International Organization for Migration has explained that the term “climate refugee” is still used, “in part, for lack of a good alternative.”3 However, the term “refugee” specifically refers to the Refugee Convention’s definition of individuals with a “well-founded fear of being persecuted for reasons of race, religion, nationality, membership in a particular social group or political opinion.” 4 The categorization of refugees also relies on crossing an international border, while most climate-displaced persons are internally displaced and do not cross international borders at all. 5 For example, in 2005, Hurricane Katrina destroyed the Gulf Coast of the United States and displaced over a million people, leaving almost two million Americans homeless.6 However, evacuees did not seek refuge in Mexico but with family and friends around the country. 7 To incorporate climate-displaced persons into the existing refugee definition would be extremely difficult; and so a globally uniform terminology must be created along with new legislation to address climate-displaced persons worldwide. Climate change and immigration safeguards have been severely undermined by the Trump Administration. Trump and his team pushed a false narrative denying scientific fact, despite the reality that the United States will have to face the human cost of how climate change and immigration policies interact. Climate change will inevitably cause population movements, as Elizabeth Keyes, “Environmental Refugees? Rethinking What’s in a Name,” North Carolina Journal of International Law 44 no. 3 (2019): 461 and 465; Brittan J. Bush, “Redefining Environmental Refugees,” Georgetown Immigration Law Journal 27 no. 3 (2013): 553, 563-66; Kara K. Moberg, “Extending Refugee Definitions to Cover Environmentally Displaced Persons Displaces Necessary Protection,” Iowa Law Review 94 no. 3 (2009): 1107, 1113-1117. 2 Hossein Ayazi and Elsadig Elsheikh, Climate Refugees: The Climate Crises and Rights Denied, Othering & Belonging Institute, University of California Berkeley, December 2019, https://belonging.berkeley.edu/climaterefugees. 3 Oli Brown, Migration and Climate Change, International Organization for Migration (IOM), April 2008, https://olibrown.org/wp-content/uploads/2019/01/2008-Migration-and-Climate-Change-IOM.pdf. 4 United Nations Office of the High Commissioner Human Rights, “Protocol Relating to the Status of Refugees,” art. 1, Jan. 31, 1967, 19 U.S.T. 6223, 606 U.N.T.S. 267; Convention Relating to the Status of Refugees art. 1(A)(2), July 28, 1951, 189 U.N.T.S. 137, 152. 5 Barney Thompson, “Climate Change & Displacement,” United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees, October 15, 2019, https://www.unhcr.org/en-us/news/stories/2019/10/5da5e18c4/climate-change-and-displacement.html. (“Even when people are displaced solely by the effects of climate-related disasters and natural hazards and cross international borders, they do not generally become refugees under the definition of the 1951 Refugee Convention”); Oli Brown, Migration and Climate Change, pg. 14. 6 Oli Brown, Migration and Climate Change, 12, 18. 7 Ibid, 23. 1
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