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Do We Owe to Refugees?

      David Owen

      polity

      Copyright © David Owen 2020

      The right of David Owen to be identified as Author of this Work has been asserted in accordance with the UK Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988.

      First published in 2020 by Polity Press

      Polity Press

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      Cambridge CB2 1UR, UK

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      All rights reserved. Except for the quotation of short passages for the purpose of criticism and review, no part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system or transmitted, in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise, without the prior permission of the publisher.

      ISBN-13: 978–1-5095–3975-8

      A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library.

      Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

      Names: Owen, David, 1964- author.

      Title: What do we owe to refugees? / David Owen.

      Description: Cambridge, UK ; Medford, MA : Polity Press, 2020. | Series: Political theory today | Includes bibliographical references and index. | Summary: “Who are refugees? Who, if anyone, is responsible for protecting them? What forms should this protection take? In this engaging and concise book, David Owen provides a clear account of the responsibilities of refugee protection and the forms of international co-operation that will be required to discharge them”-- Provided by publisher.

      Identifiers: LCCN 2019025264 | ISBN 9781509539734 (hardback) | ISBN 9781509539741 (paperback) | ISBN 9781509539758 (epub)

      Subjects: LCSH: Refugees. | Emigration and immigration--International cooperation. | Emigration and immigration--Government policy.

      Classification: LCC HV640 .O89 2020 | DDC 325/.21--dc23

      LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2019025264

      The publisher has used its best endeavours to ensure that the URLs for external websites referred to in this book are correct and active at the time of going to press. However, the publisher has no responsibility for the websites and can make no guarantee that a site will remain live or that the content is or will remain appropriate.

      Every effort has been made to trace all copyright holders, but if any have been overlooked the publisher will be pleased to include any necessary credits in any subsequent reprint or edition.

      For further information on Polity, visit our website: politybooks.com

Dedication

      To Miranda

       With the hope that your generation will do better

Acknowledgements

      I have accumulated many debts over the years; the main ones are to Liza Schuster, who introduced me to the issue, to Matt Gibney, from whom I have learnt most (perhaps not enough), and to Joseph Carens and Rainer Bauböck, who have each critically supported my thinking about this topic. Others whose thinking and comments have helped me along the way include Alex Aleinikoff, Sarah Fine, David Miller, Kelly Oliver, Clara Sandelind, James Souter, Christine Straehle, Kerri Woods and Leah Zamore. Particular thanks are due to Chris Armstrong, Chris Bertram, Peter Niesen, Anne Phillips and Tracy Strong, for responses to the whole manuscript.

I was fortunate to have the political philosophy group at the University of Milan devote a workshop to the draft manuscript, and I am grateful to Corrado Fumagalli for organising it and to his colleagues for their critical insights. Special thanks are due to Gloria Zuccarelli and Laura Santi Amantini for detailed and helpful comments on the manuscript and to Valeria Ottonelli for raising an important point I had not adequately considered. I am also grateful to George Owers and Julia Davies at Polity, who have been exemplary throughout the process, and to two anonymous reviewers.

      Outside academic life I owe a debt to two friends – Jon Courtenay Grimwood and Simon Nicholson – who read the manuscript of this book as fellow writers, with an ear to its accessibility to the lay reader. My wife, Caroline Wintersgill, has offered her always steadfast love and support (even while trying to finish her PhD); and our children, Miranda and Arthur, sustain me in more ways than they know. Because I admire her passionate concern for justice, I dedicate this book to Miranda.

Prologue A Tale of Two Ships

      Let me begin with two stories.

The first is the tale of the German ocean liner MS St Louis, which departed from Hamburg on 13 May 1939 carrying 937 passengers; nearly all of them were Jews fleeing Nazi Germany. The passengers had, for the most part, already applied for US visas and had landing permits or transit visas for Cuba, where they intended to disembark and wait for visas to enter the United States. It was a two-week transatlantic voyage and the trip was pleasant, offering music, dance and Friday night prayers (during which the portrait of Adolf Hitler was removed from the dining room). Unknown to the passengers, their voyage had already attracted considerable media attention in Cuba: ‘Even before the ship sailed from Hamburg, right-wing Cuban newspapers deplored its impending arrival and demanded that the Cuban government cease admitting Jewish refugees.’¹ The director general of the Cuban Immigration Office was forced to resign over the illegal sale of landing permits, and in the week before the ship sailed the Cuban president issued a decree ‘that invalidated all recently issued landing certificates’.² Refugees from Europe were portrayed by right-wing populist movements as threatening Cubans’ economic security by taking scarce jobs away from natives.³ When the St Louis arrived at Havana on 27 May, only 28 passengers (22 of whom were Jewish) were held to have valid papers and allowed to disembark – alongside one other, who tried to commit suicide and was hospitalised in Havana.

      The fate of the passengers on the St Louis was now a major story in newspapers across Europe and the Americas. Appeals to the US government were made to no avail. The United States operated a quota system for immigration that was based on the size of existing US population groups; and the combined German Austrian quota of 27,370 for 1939 not only was filled, but left a long waiting list. Moreover, there was no political will to admit higher numbers:

A Fortune Magazine poll at the time indicated that 83 percent of Americans opposed relaxing restrictions on immigration. President Roosevelt could have issued an executive order to admit the St Louis refugees, but this general hostility to immigrants, the gains of isolationist Republicans in the Congressional elections of 1938, and Roosevelt’s consideration of running for an unprecedented third term as president were among the political considerations that militated against taking this extraordinary step in an unpopular cause.⁴

      With no other choice available, on 6 June the St Louis set sail to return to Europe. The worst fear of the passengers was a return to Germany, but the Jewish Joint Distribution Committee (alongside other Jewish organisations) was able to use its funds to arrange visas to four other European states: Great Britain (288), France (224), Belgium (214) and the Netherlands (181). The passengers admitted to Great Britain were the lucky ones, as only one was killed during the war in an air raid; of those trapped on the continent, 87 manged to leave Europe again before the German invasion in 1940,

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