New Asylum Video Blogs

I wanted to post more information on asylum, so I recently created three video blogs. Below are links and descriptions:

• Basics of Asylum Law. In this video, I look at the legal definitions of “Refugee” and “Asylee”. It is important to understand that just being from a country with political unrest, general violence, and/or instability is not enough to meet the definition. A person must be specifically targeted for certain reasons to meet the definitions.
• A History of Asylum and Refugee Law. In this video, I discuss the origins of asylum law and its trajectory. World War II and the refugee crisis during and following the war gave rise to modern asylum law. Following the war, the U.S. government passed many targeted, asylum related laws in what I call “Cold War Asylum Policy”, namely, laws that helped people flee communist countries like Cuba.
• Changing Countries of Origin for Asylees and Refugees from 2005 to 2022. In this video, I show you where to find good government data on asylum and refugee demographics. I also show that the large number of asylum seekers form Latin America was not always the case, but more of a trend over the last decade.