Week 7
As I work on wrapping up my project this summer, I have been reflecting on my findings and on the ongoing difficulties that Afghan refugees face. After the fall of Kabul in 2021, it was hard to ignore the plight of Afghan nationals and their need for safe pathways out of the country. However, as evacuation operations were completed and other news captured international attention, the focus on the Afghan refugee crisis waned, though the situation remains dire. As of December 2021, 3.5 million Afghans are internally displaced in Afghanistan, and 2.3 million Afghan refugees and asylum-seekers are stuck in third countries with no safe option to return to Afghanistan and no path to permanent residence in another country.
Through my research, I witnessed how many roadblocks exist for Afghan refugees seeking onward movement and resettlement. Asylum laws require refugees to be in the country to apply for asylum, yet there are very few visa options that give refugees a pathway to enter the country to apply for asylum. Even when countries do have this visa option, like France, they are granted very infrequently and are sometimes only available at limited embassy locations which pose their own problems in getting to.
Aside from basic asylum laws, regulations exist to further block Afghan refugees' pathway to safety. For example, the Dublin Regulation is a huge roadblock for refugees in the EU. The stated purpose of this Regulation is to determine which EU State is responsible for an asylum application Typically, this is the State where the asylum seeker first entered the EU. For Afghan refugees, that would be EU States located on the external eastern border of the EU, such as Greece. The Dublin system puts a great deal of pressure on these external border states by making them responsible for a larger number of refugee applications. This continues to reinforce negative attitudes towards accepting refugees. Additionally, sending refugees back to “the state most responsible” often means sending them back to countries with less favorable asylum laws. For example, an applicant who enters the EU through Bulgaria and applies for asylum in Germany will be sent back to Bulgaria where they will be subject to the Bulgarian asylum system, which is much less favorable for Afghan refugees than the German asylum system.
The safe third country concept is another example of a roadblock Afghan refugees face. Using the safe third country concept, an EU state can deem an asylum application inadmissible if the refugee arrived from a safe third country. Each EU state has its own list of what countries are safe third countries, meaning there is no uniform standard for a safe third country. This principle is often utilized by countries on EU’s external borders in response to refugee crises to protect themselves from bearing the burden that the Dublin regulation puts on them. For example, shortly after the Taliban takeover of Kabul, Greece designated Turkey as a safe third country in anticipation of the large number of Afghan refugees that would likely be entering Greece from Turkey. This is a problem because these “safe third countries” are often not safe or reliable places for refugees to seek asylum. In Turkey, Afghans face discrimination, uncertain pathways to protection, and even deportation to Taliban-controlled Afghanistan.
During my research, I also noted how different the response to Ukrainian refugees was from the response to Afghan refugees. Refugees' difficulties when seeking asylum in Europe have often been attributed to the EU’s lack of ability to agree on uniform asylum policies. However, the response to the Ukrainian refugee crisis shows that the EU is entirely capable of reaching such agreements. After the Russian invasion, the EU quickly and unanimously enacted the Temporary Protection Directive (TPD) to offer Ukrainian refugees EU-wide temporary protection and access to asylum. The EU created The Temporary Protection Directive in 2001 to keep asylum systems from being overwhelmed and serve the best interests of refugees in the event of a mass influx of displaced people in the EU.
The official EU council implementing decision reasoned that temporary protection was the most appropriate tool to address the “extraordinary and exceptional situation” caused by the Russian invasion of Ukraine and the displacement of Ukrainian nationals. The decision also reasoned that TPD was an appropriate tool in this situation as nationals of Ukraine do not need a visa when crossing the external borders of EU Member States. With the large number of Ukrainian refugees displaced by the Russian invasion, the EU’s asylum systems would likely become overwhelmed with Ukrainian refugees. This would harm the efficient operation of asylum systems and the interest of refugees. TPD eliminates this problem by limiting the need for displaced persons to immediately access the asylum systems since they have temporary protection. As visa-free travelers, Ukrainians can choose which member state in which they want to enjoy the rights attached to TPD; this facilitates a balance of efforts between member states and reduces the pressure on national reception systems.
The TPD was introduced in 2001 but has never been used before now. TPD was not offered during the 2015 refugee crisis even though a large influx of displaced refugees from several countries sought asylum in the EU. It was argued that TPD was only designed for an influx of refugees from one country, so since the refugees in 2015 were coming from several countries throughout the Middle East, Southeastern Europe, and Africa, it did not apply.
TPD was discussed as a potential possibility for Afghan refugees but never pushed forward due to a lack of support even though Afghan refugees were also displaced in large numbers by an extraordinary and exceptional situation that should have earned the same condemnation towards the Taliban and resolute support for the displaced Afghans. Furthermore, unlike the 2015 refugee crisis, the Afghan refugee crisis involved just one country.
I found this to be a bit frustrating, as it seems like TPD would have been a perfect solution to the Afghan refugee crisis. While regulations like the Dublin Regulation and the safe third country principle keep Afghan refugees from “pouring” into the EU, those that can make it into the EU and apply for asylum are often concentrated in EU border countries, overwhelming asylum systems there, which affects the EU asylum system as a whole. TPD could rectify this. The TPD dictates that member states shall provide the necessary visas (including transit visas) for those protected under TPD and that formalities will be reduced to a minimum to keep from overwhelming the national reception system. With this, Afghan refugees could apply for visas and choose where to travel without being forced to the EU States on the external border by the Dublin regulation. This would then balance the number of refugees throughout the EU and reduce pressure on border states.
Additionally, even though it could be argued that Afghan refugees did not constitute a “mass influx” of refugees in the same way that the Ukrainian refugee crisis did, the TPD also allows for its implementation when there is an imminent mass influx of refugees. Following the 2021 Taliban takeover, there was concern among EU member states about the potential imminent mass influx of Afghan refugees overwhelming the asylum system. TPD was the perfect response to this.
Furthermore, “mass “influx” is simply defined in the 2001 TPD directive as a “large number” of displaced persons arriving in the EU (including by evacuation). It is left up to the Council to decide what a large number of refugees means; thus, they can expand or limit the application of TPD as they wish. As of November 2021, 123,000 Afghan asylum-seekers had arrived in Europe; this could certainly be considered a “large number” of Afghan refugees, especially in light of the extraordinary situation that Afghan refugees faced.
Whether the lack of support for offering TPD to Afghans was because Afghan refugees have less chance of overwhelming the asylum system as non-visa holders, or whether there was some prejudicial treatment involved, the outcome is unfortunate. Where both the Afghan and Ukrainian refugees were displaced in large numbers by an extraordinary situation, and where both groups of refugees put asylum systems at risk of being overwhelmed, they both should have been offered TPD. Now that the EU has shown its capability to agree on a uniform, functioning refugee policy that equally distributes the number of refugees, it should be interesting to see how the EU handles future refugee crises. Hopefully, the EU continues the practice of offering speedy, unanimous, and functioning solutions to all refugees in the future.