Refugees and the Asylum Dilemma in the West

Extract

In recent years, political asylum and refugees have become acute issues in public debate in Western Europe and North America. The debate has become especially heated since 1989 and the breaching of barriers between Eastern and Western Europe, with East Germans, Albanians, Romanians, and Yugoslavs all trying to move west. Most asylum-seekers continue to come from the Third World. Those who manage to enter the West face growing hostility, poverty, and even violent attacks. In France immigration has already shifted political discourse sharply to the right, testing the nation's tolerance toward foreigners and shaking its liberal foundations. Xenophobia and brutal physical attacks on foreigners by skinheads and extreme right-wingers throughout Germany have caused politicians in Bonn to reconsider their country's asylum provisions. Governments everywhere appear reluctant to open their doors when they are not sure how many will benefit from their hospitality and for how long. To many industrialized countries, asylum-seekers are perceived mostly as economic migrants in search of a better life. Actual migratory pressures from the South and perceived threats of exodus from the East have only served to reinforce this restrictive attitude to asylum. The refugee problem has reached such a critical point that the very institution of asylum is being threatened.