On June 20, 75 years ago, the United Nations adopted the Refugee Convention. Every year, we honor that occasion by celebrating World Refugee Day. This year, the Convention’s diamond anniversary may be marred by dire consequences for people seeking refuge. The United States Supreme Court is poised to rule on a case that could slam the door shut on asylum seekers who are lawfully seeking refuge at U.S. ports of entry, undermining our own laws and treaty obligations toward refugees.
It is bad enough that we have to contend with President Donald Trump’s extreme hostility to immigrants and refugees. This contrasts starkly with the views and actions of other U.S. presidents starting with George Washington, who asserted that “the bosom of America is open to receive not only the Opulent and the respectable stranger, but the oppressed and persecuted of all Nations and Religions."
Indeed, while other presidents have issued proclamations celebrating World Refugee Day, Trump has attacked refugees relentlessly, gutting humanitarian relief, accelerating deportations of people seeking asylum, and moving to admit only White Afrikaners as refugees. Through these actions, Trump shows utter disdain for the Refugee Convention and for the Refugee Act of 1980, which created the first comprehensive statutory framework for the admission and resettlement of refugees to and in the U.S., with no place for bigotry or racism.
The government’s arguments in the Supreme Court case of Mullin v. Al Otro Lado are based on the Trump administration’s warped and improper claim that our laws empower it to turn away those seeking asylum right before they reach our borders. This is a distortion of the law, and a display of callous indifference to the tragedies that moved Congress to pass the Refugee Act.
On June 6, 1939, the St. Louis, a ship filled with 907 Jewish refugees fleeing Nazi Germany, came to our shores. Although it was within U.S. territorial waters, just five
