Angry Planet - How America's Refugee Policy Hurts its War Effort

Episode Date: November 20, 2019

Refugees. People from countries in crisis fleeing oppression and death. America was once a beacon to the world’s tired, poor, huddled masses yearning to breathe free. But things have changed. In the last term of President Barack Obama the U.S. said it would accept 110,000 refugees. That number is now just 18,000. There’s a moral argument here, but also a compelling strategic one. The enemy of my enemy is my friend … but only if you let them be your friend.Here to help us sort this all out is Joe Coon. Coon did a tour of duty in Iraq as a Cavalry Scout for the U.S. Army National Guard. Now, he’s the Senior Vice President and co-founder of the Niskanen Center.You can listen to War College on iTunes, Stitcher, Google Play or follow our RSS directly. Our website is warcollegepodcast.com. You can reach us on our Facebook page: https://www.facebook.com/warcollegepodcast/; and on Twitter: @War_College.Support this show http://supporter.acast.com/warcollege. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Love this podcast. Support this show through the ACAST supporter feature. It's up to you how much you give, and there's no regular commitment. Just click the link in the show description to support now. If you became an interpreter in Iraq in the early 2000s, you probably had the hope that, and the expectation that you would be taken care of, that you would be protected, you wouldn't be left in the lurch. And for many people, that expectation was not delivered. You're listening to War College, a weekly podcast that brings you the stories from behind the front lines. Here are your hosts. Hello and welcome to War College. I am your host, Matthew Galt.

Refugees. People from countries in crisis, fleeing oppression and death. America was once a beacon to the world's tired, poor, and huddled masses yearting to breathe free. But things have changed. In his last term, President Barack Obama said the U.S. would accept 110,000 refugees. That number is now just 18,000. There's a moral argument here, sure. but also a compelling strategic one.

The enemy of my enemy is my friend, but only if you let them be your friend and you be a good friend to them. Here to help us sort all this out is Joe Kuhn. Kuhn did a tour of duty in Iraq as a cavalry scout and the U.S. Army National Guard. Now he's the senior vice president and co-founder of the Niscannon Center. Sir, thank you so much for joining us. Great to speak with you, Matthew. All right, so when we say refugee, what exactly are we talking about and how is it

legally distinct from other kinds of immigration? Sure. Well, obviously there are various paths for immigrants wishing to come to the United States. And some of those include refugees and asylees who are escaping violence or persecution. Sometimes they show up at our southern border, for example, from Central or South America, seeking asylum. Sometimes they are folks who we have worked with in areas of conflict like Iraq or Afghanistan. Some of those folks have worked with the U.S. coalition forces and are therefore in danger if they remain in their country of origin. There are various circumstances and original starting points and reasons why someone would want to come to the United States and what it is that they are trying to escape.

but it's typically people who are in some level of grave danger and are trying to seek a better life for themselves and their families. Okay. What exactly is the specific difference between an asylum seeker and a refugee? Well, a refugee is typically going through a long vetting process, typically almost exclusively outside of the United States. Asylees often turn up at the U.S. border and begin the process here. Sometimes they spend some time in detention. Sometimes they're detained briefly and their cases are sorted in courts of law. They are released pending further developments in their case while they await final judgments.

But oftentimes it is where the person begins the process that matters. Okay. So it's less about the specific. circumstances of what they're fleeing and more about kind of where they show up to start filing paperwork? Right. Okay. Now, this is a area that you've got personal experience with, correct?

You worked with a lot of people in Iraq that want to come over here now. Specifically, I'm thinking of Bandar. Sure, sure. I spent all of 2015 about 40 miles north of Baghdad. In my time, you work with lots of local nationals. They are sometimes contractors providing services, transporting goods. And sometimes, as in the case of Bandar, they're interpreters who are helping coalition forces directly. Sometimes, you know, that includes just working at the front gate as a translator.

In Bandar's case, and in the case of many of the folks I met, it meant going out on missions, going on patrols, raids, reconnaissance, intelligence gathering missions, these sorts of things, and sometimes operating very close to or sometimes even within the villages in which they were born. So these are dangerous circumstances for these folks, and that's how I came to know Bandar in 2005. He was assigned to my unit. One of our jobs as a cavalry troop was as a QRF, a quick reaction force, So sort of a, you know, a 911 for the base, investigating problems outside the base and in the surrounding villages. And I met Bandar on, you know, our first mission together. He was, I believe, 18 or 19 at the time, just an infectious smile, a very happy, upbeat person who it was really a joy to get to know.

And you said that was 2015? I'm sorry, that was 2005. Okay. That's what I thought. I was just making sure. So what happened to Bandar? Sure.

So, you know, as thankfully these things do, my one-year tour ended. On my way out, I had an opportunity to talk with Bandar and some of my other interpreters. It was sort of a difficult goodbye. didn't know what life had in store for me, certainly had more concerns for them, leaving them in a situation that was, you know, more or less as dangerous as when I'd arrived. And so I gave, you know,

Bandar my contact information, my phone number, my email address, and hoped that I would hear from him again. And some amount of time passed, but at some point in the following year, in 2006, he did call. And we would talk on the phone, you know, sporadically. every few weeks, every couple of months. Typically, we would talk about, you know, just about anything other than Iraq and the war. I mean, he was obviously living it. He was looking to get his mind off of his daily circumstances. I was, you know, doing my best to readjust to, you know, my regular life. But before long, probably in 2007, early 2007, that really changed. That really changed. a lot. The calls were not about, you know, our days and joking around and remembering, you know, funny incidences or this or that. It became clear to me that he was terrified, that things had changed for him. And what had happened was he had left the base. He was no longer working there. He had started to receive threats. His mother actually handed him a few notes that had been left at the house. And,

What she couldn't read, so she didn't know what they said, but when she gave them to Bandar, they, in all three letters, said something along the lines of, you are a traitor and were going to kill you. And I started getting more and more frequent calls from Bandar. He became more and more desperate, and he was looking to get out. And he was pleading with me to help him get out of Iraq. And those emails and calls, you know, last. lasted several months. And in that time, we, on our end, from Oregon, my family and I, with the help of a fantastic pro bono lawyer, a lawyer who was working pro bono named Teresa, began to sort of set the table for how we might get him out of there, how we might secure him a visa. And that was a long, multi-year process, beginning in about 2007. that took about two years.

He finally did arrive in 2009, and before then it was a series of increasingly terrified and desperate phone calls and emails. I admit that it was such a burdensome process. Not only had Bandar been very seriously vetted before being able to work with coalition forces in Iraq, you know, background checks, all of these sorts of things, But to get him out of the country, to secure him a special immigrant visa, which was the category that he would fall under for former interpreters and people that work with coalition forces, to secure that visa, there were incredible hoops that you had to jump through. He had to go to an Iraqi police station and get a background check without, of course, letting on what it was for, keeping it as secret as possible. He had to have a letter, essentially a letter of recommendation, vouching for him from a, you know, a general or flag officer.

Now, I was able and my lawyer and some other people on our network were able to help with these things, which was difficult enough for us. And we obviously had, you know, strong military connections. And it would have been impossible had he not had people with our connections helping him. And that's why a lot of people who were in Bandar's situation still are, and they're still over there. Luckily, we were able to get him out, and he arrived in Washington, D.C. in 2009, which was incredibly exciting and relieving. Okay, so we kind of, that's, you're really highlighting kind of what I would say are some of the moral arguments for this. These people are in danger. and they helped the American cause in the countries that we're in.

But there's also a strategic component to this. You know, Trump or U.S. President Trump has recently been bragging a lot about reducing the numbers of refugee admissions. He made a big show of this in September, I believe, in Minnesota. What are the consequences of going down the path that he's laid out? are the consequences of cutting our refugee intake numbers down to 18,000? Right. Well, you know, as you mentioned, there's the moral component, right? I mean,

when we're talking about people like Bandar in particular, these are people who quite literally risked their lives, helping American troops, allied troops, in very difficult and dangerous circumstances. I think it is pretty fair to say, and there's general agreement

on both sides of the aisle, and in regardless regardless of your political ideological persuasion, that we do have a responsibility to these folks. More generally, refugees are a source of – are a fantastic tool for U.S. security reasons. Not only do they come to this country, sometimes with Bandar's skill set as a linguist and work for the U.S. government or U.S. forces or other national security agencies, But they're often fleeing situations, fleeing our sort of antagonists and opponents in, you know, war-torn regions and in conflicted areas, and they have a tremendous amount of intelligence that they bring with them. Not only that, you know, some not insignificant number of them who do come here do end up going home when circumstances change. and that is and their returning home is an important sort of it is important it is an important

remedy to the propaganda that exists in these places to have someone you know who has spent time in the u.s who has absorbed some of you know the the american dream american ideals to return to their country of origin to have stories of the treatment they received the life they lived here to sort of counterbalance propaganda that exists at home, the recruiting tool that some of these groups use. In addition to that, the refugee resettlement program, UsRap, was sort of designed in part as a national security tool, right? We use the admissions of refugees here in the United States and our assistants relocating them to other friendly countries as a bargaining chip, as a point of leverage with countries that maybe border these sort of conflict areas. If you're going to talk to Turkey or Jordan or Libya and encourage them to set up refugee camps, which have their own problems, are dangerous and sometimes unstable in their own right, but are greatly preferable to the conditions within the conflicted country.

If you're going to go to these countries, it is often imperative that you be able to say, hey, look, I want you to stand up or maintain this camp. It's critical for regional stability. As you do this, we will sort of act as a release valve. We will not only take refugees into our country, but we will help relocate them elsewhere. these are important sort of bargaining concessions that we make in sort of international diplomacy. And without, if we are less inclined to take in refugees, we lose that bargaining chip. These other countries are less inclined to act in these regions to help stabilize very difficult

situations. And that's critical to regional stability and to U.S. security interests. This is something that's been studied pretty well by various colleges, various think tanks. Continue with your question, but I think we do want to jump into the fact that we have a record number of refugees today, and we should probably address why it's bad that we're cutting resettlement at a time where that's a historic problem. And one other thing to add about, you know, the problem of instability and the role that refugee camps and refugee resettlement plays is in the 15 largest refugee returns in the last few decades since 1990. One third of those resulted in a return to conflict and slaughter. And this is exactly what we're trying to avoid, not only for destabilization in those places.

and the surrounding areas. But because that destabilization, that bloodshed of innocence, these sorts of conflicts, often require U.S. military support and engagement. And that's something that we would obviously like to avoid if we can. And refugee resettlement is one tool among many in sort of solving that problem further from home

without having to dedicate U.S. resources, personnel, you know, blood and treasure to solving these very difficult and complex problems. So you make it sound like the way we're treating refugees is like taking a weapon out of the U.S. arsenal. Absolutely. And, you know, there are lots of people who believe this to be true, including the 27 generals and former retired generals and Adinels who signed a letter just last month, stating

exactly this. These are people who have obviously worked in the military under numerous administrations who got together to say this is not only a moral issue, and it is, but there is a strategic imperative in the U.S. refugee admissions program, and it would be short-sighted to American interests to reduce the numbers in the way that the Trump administration is proposing. And this is especially important right now because we are dealing with a record number of refugees, correct? Right. You know, historic highs globally, you know, 70 million displaced people around the world, an enormous refugee population of about 20 million, half of which are kids. again, this is, as we are seeing historic numbers of displaced people and refugees, we are also seeing, unfortunately, historically low numbers of resettlement within the United States.

The Trump administration's 2019 goal of 30,000, of resettling 30,000 refugees was, you know, the lowest in the history of the U.S. refugee admissions program. And there, as you know, and many have surely read, there is talk of bringing that much lower, even potentially to zero. This month, when we close out October in a few days, it is possible or even likely that there will have been zero refugees resettled in that month in the United States. I don't think that's happened before. And it's a big problem. Now, there are also domestic benefits to refugee resettlement, right? What are they in terms of economics and national security? Sure.

Well, interestingly, and you may have read about this too, the Trump administration had a study that reportedly Trump advisor, Stephen Miller and some others maybe sought to suppress. it did leak that found that there is a net economic benefit to refugee resettlement in the United States. Sure, there is an upfront sort of initial cost as these refugees initially settle and require certain services, both governmental services and certainly aid from non-governmental organizations. But in relative short order, they end up paying more in taxes than they do receiving and benefits. Now, that's a small thing, but it's an important counterpoint to what we often hear that, you know, people come to this country, bleed us dry, they take all these benefits at taxpayer expense and contribute nothing. And that's just not what even this administration finds. The literature does not bear that out. On top of that, they contribute billions of dollars a year to local and the national economy. refugees, so over the last decade, 80% of U.S. counties experience decline in their working age populations. Refugees help fill these labor shortages.

And importantly, they do it in key industries where you see this decline sometimes most often, for example, in meatpacking or manufacturing health care, these sorts of industries. On top of that, refugees as a group tend to have higher rates of entrepreneurship than even the native-born population. which is important, right? It's not just those high-profile cases that we see of, you know, big companies founded and created by refugees, your, you know, your Google, your WhatsApp or your PayPal. There are thousands of smaller businesses that are started by refugees. And that's also important for job growth. New businesses are sort of the, well, are in fact the lead driver of new job creation. So bringing these refugees in, not only do they pay more in taxes and they receive in benefits, but they start businesses that employ the native-born population and others, and they're critical to these local communities. On top of that, refugees often resettle in some of the most economically depressed areas of this country.

There are many places in the rest belt that have larger refugee populations, and they are critical to the economies of those regions. So there used to be a political consensus around this. It was, you know, post-World War II, a lot of our current, a lot of the way we treated refugees and treated resettlement programs, kind of up until a very recent history, was a bipartisan issue. How and why did this collapse and how do we rebuild it? What are the political solutions here? Right. You're absolutely right about the consensus. And I would point people to an excellent paper that was written by Professor Ideen Salian from the University of North Texas senior fellow here at Niskanin, in which he spoke with 15 key experts on refugee resettlement from a variety of government and non-government agencies who had worked in Republican and Democratic administrations to sort of get their thoughts on the consensus. what sort of happened to it and their thoughts about what is happening now. And the general view is shock and dismay about what is currently happening. But also, there's a lot of information in this

paper about that consensus and the fact that, you know, for 40 years, whether you were a Republican or a Democrat, you were largely very supportive of refugee resettlement. I mean, the numbers of refugees settled in any given year between a, Democratic administration and a Republican one, it didn't really very much. It was still in, you know, in about the 80,000s, right? So it didn't, it was a separate issue. Refugees were really a separate issue from what is often a more contentious issue of, you know, other avenues for legal and undocumented immigration, right? Refugee resettlement was considered a sort of different topic on which most people, despite political party, agreed. So that held, as I said, for 40 years, but that

really began to change with the crisis in Syria, and about 2014, 2015, especially, which created, you know, not just the United States, but sort of a global backlash, just sort of a populist, anti-immigrant, anti-Muslim backlash. And that really culminated in the terror attacks in Paris in 2015. So that is really when the refugee issue sort of flipped and morphed into becoming predominantly an issue of the threat of terrorism. And of course, then candidate Trump really latched on to that issue to sort of help drive a base of support.

And it really became about sort of convincing people that these folks, were an absolute threat. And that became not just a campaign platform. It became a drive for the Muslim ban, the travel ban, however you'd like to describe it. It really became sort of a defining characteristic of this administration and then candidate Trump, which really just changed the dynamic. And then support for refugees, for the, at least publicly, really did seem to kind of divide by, party line. And that's that's where we are now. Why were Cold War refugees different than today's refugees?

I'm sure there are lots of complicated reasons that was the case. Certainly some of it has to do with the threat that they were escaping in communism, right? The Republican Party, of course, was viewed communism as a grave threat, and the people who were fleeing it. The enemies of, you know, communist countries and communist leaders were, you know, quite clearly to them, our friends. It probably mattered that some of these places and the people escaping them seemed at least culturally closer to what people in the United States sort of knew. And, you know, those conflicts and the regions that are most affected shift over time. And we are now in a different world, right? Where it's typically folks in the Middle East, in Central and South America,

who are often in the gravest danger and are looking to escape. and circumstances have clearly changed and support for relocating these people is now an issue that is more divisive in this hyper-partisan politicized time. And does this make it harder to find defectors, you know, actually turning enemies into friends and gaining intel? Well, I'm sure that it does, right? if you became an interpreter in Iraq in the early 2000s, you probably had the hope that and the expectation that you would be taken care of, that you would be protected, you wouldn't be left in the lurch. And for many people, that expectation was not delivered, right?

It seems pretty clear to me that other folks would be more hesitant to putting themselves in a greater level of danger by working with us, you know, against a common enemy if their expectation of safety and protection is, is less, right? So that is definitely a problem. Do you, this is a weird question, but do you see many Iraqi refugees resettled anywhere? Like, do you have any in your neighborhood? Would you be comfortable with an Iraqi farmer is as, you know, a neighbor? Do you think they can, they can integrate into American society? Well, absolutely. My experience is obviously a little different. I had an Iraqi refugee living in the bedroom next to me for two years. But, you know, absolutely. There are

large populations of Iraqi refugees in some places in the Midwest. California, certainly around and near San Diego has a large population. These are our folks who come here and, you know, work hard. Bandar while he was living with me in Washington, D.C. His English was not was not obviously fluent. It wasn't excellent, but he held down two jobs at the same time. He's, you know, riding a bike through deep snow to get to these jobs. He has, since he moved to the United States,

gone to school, gone to community college. He has worked his way up in his career. He's started a family. He has deep roots in this country. And honestly, you would be hard-pressed to find a, you know, a native-born American who was more, who was more patriotic than he is. And this is not an exception. It really isn't. These are folks who are grateful for an opportunity to be here and make the most of it. What is the long-term strategic cost of not fixing this problem? Well, as we've briefly discussed, there's, first of all, I think, the moral issue, right? I mean, these bringing in people in danger from around the world, being a welcoming nation

is, you know, part of, maybe not always realized, but part of the American ideal as a country, you know, founded by immigrants and built by immigrants. ever since. It is not just part of our sort of an important part of our identity and how we view ourselves as a country and as a people, but how we want the rest of the world to view us and the leadership that we want to display to them. More specifically, we talked about the economic benefits. I mean, there really are substantial, you know, local and national benefits to bring in people who will want to realize the American dream, people who have often endured great hardship just to get here, who want to be fully functioning and contributing members of this country. And then, of course, as we've discussed, we've got the national security component,

not only in our ability to interact diplomatically with other countries, but our ability to draw talent, for example, the linguists like Bandar and others, here to help us in, you know, national security and intelligence gathering, but also as success stories of people who will return to their countries and help sort of counteract some of the propaganda and recruiting tools being used in their home countries. Joe Kuhn, thank you so much for coming on to War College and walking us through this complicated topic. Great to talk with you, Matthew. Thank you.

Thank you so much for tuning in War College listeners. War College is myself, Matthew Galt, and Kevin O'Dell. It was created by myself and Jason Fields. If you like the show, we've got tons of archives about five years worth, good Lord, available through pretty much anywhere fine pods are casted. If you like the show, please leave us a review and a star rating on iTunes. It does help other people find us. You can reach us on Twitter at War underscore College or at M.J.Galt or at KJK. Nodell.

We will be back next week. Please stay safe until then.