No Longer Welcome

Abstract

The implications of the new regime of harsher migration and refugee policies are explored and viewed in historical context. Fear of terrorism is cited as the reason for current proposals for exclusion of migrants from Muslim-majority countries, but this fear is tainted by political manipulation and exaggeration. Social workers face a number of challenges raised by the new policies. Roles for social work include advocacy at all levels from direct service provision to national policy advocacy, the responsibility to advocate for truth and combat demagoguery, and most importantly, to uphold ethical codes that prohibit the violation of migrants’ confidentiality.

As I began to plan this brief commentary, I was intending to contrast two images. One was a beautiful banner I saw on Madrid’s city hall in the fall of 2015 that said simply “refugees welcome.” The other was a public announcement by the then Governor of Indiana in the United States that he was blocking the settlement of a Syrian refugee family in his state. This action was noteworthy, as the “refusing governor” is now the Vice President of the United States. It was also later deemed illegal by a federal appeals court, as governors do not have the authority to bar particular groups of refugees under the federally managed refugee program.

These two images now seem irrelevant. Spain has settled only 1,100 refugees instead of the 17,000 it promised to take (Protesters in Barcelona, 2017). In the United States, conditions for refugees seeking to enter the United States and undocumented immigrants in the country have worsened since January 2017 to a degree unimaginable just a few short months ago. In rapid succession, the new administration issued a total 90-day ban on all entries from 7 predominantly Muslim nations with a longer ban on Syrians, stepped up deportations of undocumented migrants, is considering slashing the number of refugee admissions by more than half and is threatening action against cities and universities that attempt to provide sanctuary for immigrants. However these actions turn out after protests and court challenges, the next few years promise to be challenging for immigrants and also for social workers. How can social workers understand and cope with these developments?

Knowledge of the history of migration policy in the United States can put current events into perspective. It is important to recognize that fear of selected groups of foreigners has been a cause of ebbs and flows in immigration policy. In 1882, the U.S. Congress passed the Chinese Exclusion Act (Wang, 2015). This law, stemming from concerns that Chinese immigrants were threatening American jobs, prohibited all Chinese immigration and barred Chinese already in the United States from becoming citizens. Before its final repeal in 1943, it was extended several times and expanded to almost all Asians, including the Muslim world. Other antiforeigner events now remembered as shameful included the internment of immigrants and citizens of Japanese origin during World War II (WW II) and the return to Europe of Jews seeking refuge from Nazi terror. These dark events are counterbalanced by many periods of welcoming large numbers of refugees including over 800,000 fleeing war and genocide in Southeast Asia and of reforming migration policies to remove discriminatory aspects of immigrant policy. The long-standing policy of citizenship by birth, a policy that prevents multigenerational social exclusion, has survived attempts to repeal it to date.

Support for current policy proposals stems partly from fear of terrorism, but real fear is tainted by political manipulation and exaggeration, leading to labeling all refugees and Muslims as potential terrorists. The irrationality of the proposed ban on travelers from seven countries is further underscored by the fact that there have been no terrorist attacks in the United States committed by nationals of any of the countries included in the ban. Fear of the “other” is intertwined with fear of terrorism. Some of the most serious terrorist attacks have been committed by “homegrown” citizens; in 1995, two White American men bombed the Federal Building in Oklahoma City, killing 168 people including children in a day care center and injuring more than 650; in 2011, a White Norwegian carried out the worst terror attack in that country by detonating a bomb that killed 8 in Oslo and then shooting 69 young people attending a summer camp. Yet, there was no outcry in either country to detain or ban all White young men. Danger is generalized to all members of a minority or foreign group but accepted as an exception when a crime is committed by a member of the more privileged majority.

In protesting the manipulation of fear, social workers cannot discount the effectiveness of terror as a destabilizing force in Western democracies and other countries. Although the chances of being directly affected by a terrorist attack are minimal compared to numerous other risks of daily living, the fear created far outstrips that of the more mundane risks such as traffic accidents. The profession cannot ignore terrorism or its impacts if it is to be credible. It is imperative that social work recognizes this fear while working to mitigate the impacts of fear on policy. Social workers must also be sensitive to those individuals who feel that their world is vanishing, including older unemployed men from former industrial areas. They may be particularly likely to support exclusionary policies. Sensitivity does not mean to accept racism but to understand the complexities in the situation of those who feel pushed aside and left behind by globalization. Many of these individuals also look to social work for assistance.

Social Work Roles and Obligations

There are a number of actions that social workers can take. The first is to advocate for truth and fairness and combat demagoguery. Through social media posts, letters to newspapers, communications with public officials, and speaking up in public fora and in personal interactions, social workers can combat the unjust labeling of whole groups of people.

Social workers can be important advocates for refugees at all levels from local points of service, such as schools and health-care settings, to legislative and regulative levels at state and national levels. Global advocacy is also needed. No major migrant receiving country has ratified the International Convention on the Protection of the Rights of Migrant Workers and Their Families (United Nations Office of the High Commissioner on Human Rights, 2005). It is also important to promote initiatives for social inclusion—projects that bring immigrants and refugees into participatory efforts with their neighbors. Such projects diminish fear and build toward an inclusive society.

Most importantly, social workers must be true to their professional ethical codes. Professionals are likely to be seriously tested during this period, as attacks spread beyond immigrants to those who are in helping roles. There will be demands to report the undocumented and to open records to enforcement officials. In prioritizing ethical principles, Loewenberg, Dolgoff, and Harrington (2000) put protection of life as the first priority, followed by equality, client autonomy, least harm, quality of life, and privacy/confidentiality. All supersede the responsibility to abide by agency rules or unjust laws and strongly suggest that social workers must resist any demands to violate migrants’ confidentiality even in face of government mandates. It is not ethical for social workers to report immigration status nor it is necessary to achieve the goals of social work. Lorenz (1994) and others have written about the shameful cooperation of some social workers with the Nazi regime in Germany in labeling persons as defective, firing Jewish colleagues from schools of social work, violating the privacy and information of individuals and families, and in other ways supporting the regime. In the United States, the profession offered very little criticism of the internment of Japanese immigrants and citizens of Japanese origin during WW II (Park, 2008). The lessons learned must be recounted to avoid repetition. Social workers should be ready for civil disobedience if and when it is needed. Social work ethics do not allow us to claim that we were just following agency directives if these directly contradict higher ethical principles of protecting our service users from harm.

If there are positives, they can be found in the number of people who are protesting the migration restrictions in diverse ways, from marches, to speak outs, boycotts, calls and letters to policy makers, outreach to refugee serving agencies, and more. University presidents have taken steps to try to protect international students and faculty with ties to other countries. Some city mayors and governors are vowing to resist orders to support arrests and deportations of immigrants in their locales. Lawyers went to airports to offer free legal advice to those caught up in the sudden changes. Social workers are among those who are protesting, but more must be done.

I have focused my comments on the current situation in the United States. However, few if any countries are hanging out a refugees welcome banner today. The challenge of promoting fair, humane and welcoming refugee and immigration policies is a global one for the profession of social work.