Category: Uncategorized (Page 9 of 14)

The course began by introducing David Miliband’s concept of an “Age of Impunity.” At first, the concept evokes authoritarian states and military juntas exercising virtually unchecked power and committing human rights violations without meaningful consequences. Yet the NYT articles complicate that conception by showing that democracies, including the U.S., are not immune from the dynamics of impunity. This raises a broader question: how can the U.S. credibly condemn other governments for violations of international humanitarian law while engaging in conduct that can also result in civilian harm? What becomes challenging is when impunity can coexist with democratic institutions, international law, and the language of accountability itself.

The quotation that “the fog of war can lead to decisions that tragically result in civilian harm” is particularly striking (NYT). Uncertainty is inherent in warfare, but one of the central purposes of intelligence collection, targeting procedures, and precision weapons is precisely to reduce uncertainty and minimize the risk to civilians. This makes me wonder what is at the core of this rhetoric. Is “the fog of war” being used to describe an unavoidable limitation of military operations, or can it also function rhetorically to explain away miscalculations that should actually generate scrutiny and accountability? If powerful states expect other governments to exercise restraint despite uncertainty, what happens to that expectation when they invoke uncertainty to justify their own failures?

The situation involving Germany and Afghanistan problematizes political legitimacy and human rights. The German government has maintained that it does not recognize the Taliban as Afghanistan’s legitimate government, while simultaneously engaging in technical discussions with the Taliban’s de facto authorities in order to facilitate deportations. In Aug. 2026, the German government explicitly described these contacts as necessary to address removals while maintaining that recognizing the Afghan state is distinct from recognizing the Taliban as its legitimate government. However, the policy creates a difficult human rights question. UN reporting has documented ongoing human-rights violations under the Taliban and more recent UN reporting continues to monitor violations by the de facto authorities. This makes me wonder whether cooperation with the Taliban for the purpose of managing migration can remain narrowly transactional, or whether repeated cooperation gradually normalizes engagement with a regime that Germany officially does not recognize as legitimate. The EU Jun. 2026 meeting with Taliban officials over return procedures illustrates this tension at the broader European regional level.

This also raises a question about the consequences for Afghans who remain in Germany. If migration policy becomes increasingly centered on deterrence and deportation, what happens to Afghan refugees who are legally permitted to stay, but must continue building their lives amid growing political pressure over migration? Germany’s debate over migration has become increasingly contentious, with the AfD advocating significantly tougher migration policies. The push for regulating the continuing refugee flow has taken center stage in political candidacy and the future of Germany. A question that has stayed with me is how growing political pressure around migration interacts with Germany’s human-rights commitments and with the social integration of Afghans, alongside other migrants, who remain in the country.

Money sent home by migrants to low- and middle-income countries nearly doubled in dollar terms between 2016 and 2025, according to a new United Nations report, though the increase is smaller after accounting for inflation. 

The report, which was released on September 14 by the International Fund for Agricultural Development, found that the transfers, known as remittances, reached a value of $728.6 billion in 2025, an increase of about 94% from $375.6 billion in 2016. An inflation adjustment using the U.S. Consumer Price Index puts the increase at about 45%.

“This is a huge number, but it isn’t surprising,” wrote Samuel Huckstep, a research analyst at the Center for Global Development, in response to a request for comment. “The numbers have been gradually growing year on year: even during Covid-19 remittance flows were quite robust to the shock.”

Families receiving remittances spend that money on a variety of critical needs, from consumer goods to long-term investments, noted Gaurav Khanna, an economist at the University of California San Diego. The benefits can even spill over: A study he co-authored, published in April, found that increased earning power for migrant workers from the Philippines resulted in long-term gains in income and education for entire communities. 

“What we’re trying to argue is that if the migrants are sending the money back home, then the gains can actually be spread much more widely than just their families,” said Khanna.

These latest findings also come at a time when some leading destination countries for international migrants are tightening immigration rules and enforcement. Immigration judges in the United States, for instance, have ordered the removal of more than 440,000 people seeking asylum in President Donald Trump’s first 19 months back in office, according to an analysis by The Washington Post. Germany, another popular destination for migrants, recently extended immigration controls at its land borders until March 2027. 

“In response, we have not seen a major reduction in remittance flows,” said the report’s lead author, Pedro de Vasconcelos, at a press conference, referring to restrictive migration policies. “There’s always a delay, also, that you need to take into account.” The report does not include data from 2026. 

Despite these headwinds against immigration, remittances are likely here to stay, said Patricia Fernández-Kelly, a sociologist at Princeton who studies global migration. 

“I’m pretty sure that remittances will continue to be a very important source of revenue in some of these countries,” she said.

Some researchers also say that governments can improve the economic impact of remittances through better migration policies.

“I would emphasise that countries of destination have the opportunity to foster huge positive externalities via their migration policy, and that they should proactively try to maximise those externalities,” wrote Huckstep. “Currently this isn’t even a factor, but the potential is massive.”

The landscape for Afghan asylees is changing drastically worldwide; in particular, the pieces by Reuters and Politico draw parallels between migration landscapes in the US and Germany.

Beginning in October 2022, Germany’s admission program for Afghans helped resettle those persecuted based on political activism, gender, religion or sexual orientation. Hoping to welcome more than 1,000 refugees monthly, with more than 17,000 still in the early stages of selection and stranded in bordering countries like Pakistan, it has fallen short of all expectations.

Non-Refoulement is a pillar of asylum and refugee protection in international law; it stops states from obliging a person to return to territories where they are exposed to persecution. As such, protection from forcible return applies both within a state’s territory and, most interestingly, to rejection at its borders. For the EU, a territory that functions “without internal frontiers”, this is particularly interesting: how can one restrict mobility both within the EU and on its shared external border?

Turns out there’s more than one catch.

Back in March, the European Parliament made a historic decision: any EU nation is now allowed to deport migrants to facilities settled outside the 27-nation bloc. Most recently, Denmark, Germany, the Netherlands, Austria and Greece have negotiated an agreement for “return hubs”.  In June, European lawmakers voted to allow EU members to set up centres outside the EU to send rejected asylum seekers, instead of back to their home countries. While media centers on the Global North as refugee resettlers, this reminds us to look back at the Global South. Most notably, Iran and Pakistan hold the largest number of Afghan refugees, with 4.4 and 1.6 million, respectively. Reuters reports that Pakistan is intensifying efforts to forcibly return Afghans, which becomes even scarier in this context. A figure noteworthy: Pakistan and Iran pressured the return of or deported more than 280,000 Afghans only in April. For its part, the U.S. has also resorted to externalised border enforcement, suspended refugee admissions to the U.S., leaving thousands of Afghans stranded who awaited processing in Pakistan.

The Euronews piece reminds us that deportation to risk areas is prohibited under this principle, except if the person is convicted of criminal charges. This sounds reasonable, especially when followed by: “Officials said all deportees had criminal records and were required by law to leave.” But one must be careful to account for what it actually means to be convicted of “criminal charges”. In U.S. immigration law, for example, mandatory deportation, denial of reentry and ineligibility for other forms of relief are stipulated for those convicted of “aggravated felonies”. Aggravated felonies, however, are only a legal placeholder for offences Congress sees fit to label as such: they don’t have to be aggravated or classified as felonies in state and federal criminal law. Today, even failing to appear in court is an “aggravated felony.”

Increased use of surveillance technologies is also racialised and highly susceptible to bias, as Azmat Khan’s piece reminds us:

“Whoever analyzed the surveillance footage interpreted the normal activity of the household through an incriminating lens”.

In proposed plans for the EU’s shifting border control policy, biometrics and “European return orders”— a document in which member states cite reasons for the return decision of refugees— have been recently introduced, leaving those whose claims were denied perpetually singled out and marked: you are not worthy of resettlement here.

Recent state elections in Germany have shown a rise in popularity of Germany’s AfD, a far-right party who push for mass deportations and a firmer emphasis on the nuclear family model. The AfD have had their success in the eastern side of Saxony-Anhalt, which according to a recent CNN article, is the closest a far-right party has been to gaining power in the German state since World War II. They may have fallen short of the majority this time, but AfD’s anti-immigrant sentiments are being echoed in schools across the country. Germany has been accommodating for Ukrainians, but many wonder how much longer this will last.

Kamila Isaieva, 21, fled Ukraine in 2022 as Russian forces began to seize eastern areas of the country. The swimming pools had closed down, and seeking elsewhere to train, Isaieva fled with the National Swim Team who moved from Hungary to Italy, Romania to Germany and Germany to Scandinavia. The team saw European countries and hosts welcome them and unwelcome them for around a year – then Isaieva secured a visa to study at Princeton and moved to the U.S. Now, with the rise of the far-right across the globe, and graduation drawing near, she grows uncertain about what home will look like next year.

Isaieva, a senior in Princeton’s politics department, regularly communicates with her mother and younger sister, who have taken residence in Lower Saxony, Germany, under the Temporary Protection Status. Isaieva’s sister, Dana, has increasingly experienced bullying in school by German students.

“I cannot believe the way she’s treated in school. They are saying things like you f*ing dirty Ukrainian girl, go back home, go back to war in your country,” Isaieva said. According to Isaieva, the rise of Germany’s AfD has worsened Dana’s experience in school. “If they’re saying something in school, it means that it has been discussed in the family,” she added.

Joseph Vogl, a Professor at Princeton’s German department since 1996 is reassured about the safety of Ukrainians in Germany because of their importance for the economy. “I think at the moment, Ukrainians are not endangered. They work in a lot of professions which are important in the country, and they have a strong community.” Vogl, 68, is more concerned about Afghans and Syrians who are “the most endangered group.”

“The question for the AfD is how to Germanize culture,” Vogl said, when discussing a cultural battle which places art, museums, monuments and theaters at risk of indoctrination. Vogl said that the AfD wants to privatise public schools, making them more religious and reinforcing family structures. Vogl also spoke about the misconceptions surrounding the AfD, “Most people have the impression that the AfD are protestors against the elites, against a certain mainstream politics. I have the impression that people know what they are voting for, and that is racist politics.”

Oksana Nesterenko, a Ukrainian public policy analyst, and anti-corruption activist who works in Princeton’s SPIA (School of Public and International Affairs) department, also fears the consequences if the AfD were to win the majority vote. “The consequences would be more serious than the deportation of all Ukrainians back to Ukraine,” Nesterenko said.

Nesterenko, who packed up her entire life, and fled with her six year old son from Kharkiv to Western Ukraine after missiles were being dropped near her home, believes that “Ukrainians are very practical and pragmatic people, they used to travel around Europe a lot even before the war, so they are flexible when migrating now.”

Nesterenko foresees the worst case scenario with the AfD, “They could stop providing military support to Ukraine, Germany could leave the EU and there would be a big war in Europe,” Nesterenko said.

With the future being uncertain, Isaieva considers life post-graduation, although she’d like to continue living in the U.S. she is afraid her major would not be specific enough to facilitate a visa. “I would love to stay in America for at least a year, which is impossible. I’m not a STEM major,” she said. However, finding a place to live elsewhere is too – complicated. “I cannot work in Europe because I don’t have an EU citizenship, and I don’t want to go back to Ukraine,” she said. Isaieva is looking into Graduate schools as an option, potentially London, and endeavours to make plans soon.

I thought that Azmat Khan’s two-part series was a remarkable effort of reporting — I’d previously read it for an OSINT class, but I’d forgotten just how long she spent doing a combination of document analysis and on-the-ground reporting (and even obtaining the documents was extraordinarily difficult and something that would be completely out of reach of most people, even though FOIA is supposed to be a tool for citizens to hold the U.S. government accountable and transparent). I think Khan’s reporting on the chat logs accompanying military assessments of strikes in the air wars was particularly interesting, as it demonstrated how soldiers, many of whom are presumably young, could treat the taking of human lives as a video game. It reminded me of reports a couple years ago that the U.S. military was using video games to market the armed forces to teens — there’s a pattern here of the gamification of war, as well as interesting signs of the layers of detachment that technology facilitates. In a similar vein, I thought it was interesting how Khan framed the aerial approach (vs. a boots-on-the-ground approach) as a decision that resulted in less public opposition and less scrutiny from journalists. A country may only have incentives to be accountable for mistakes when the bodies of their own citizens are at stake. Finally on these pieces, I thought it was terrifying, though unsurprising, that the military seemed to have no plans for self-correction or review throughout the course of the campaign.

The Euronews article about German officials deporting people who they said had criminal records was also interesting. I think the difference in the treatment of migrants vs. native populations when it comes to crimes is worth examining further. The native population can be fined or imprisoned (and often the aim is, at least nominally, rehabilitation), whereas with migrant populations, there doesn’t even seem to be a pretense of trying to integrate people into that country’s society — instead, governments often would rather foist that problem onto another country, a displacement that creates brand new cycles of instability and violence.

I thought from the readings it was generally shocking how haphazard some of the government decisions are. There seems to be a really wide margin of error acceptable to immigration authorities, which is quite alarming considering the scope of the lives at stake, as evidenced in the Reuters piece about Afghan refugees in Pakistan. I was particularly struck by a quote in the piece from a legal advisor who characterized the decision-making process as “simply about luck, good or bad.” Still, when governments cannot be counted upon, unexpected private individuals step up, like Martens in the piece in The Times. That he was “nuanced but conservative” on migration did not stop him from offering sanctuary to refugees. Still, individual efforts to make change in some way are unlikely to supplement real governmental policy, I think, pointing to a significant lapse in governance. 

All four of these articles cover about the same years, with two covering thhe same city, yet they do not sound like they are describing the same place. February, Ukraine and Germany sign a declaration at the Munich Security Conference to open a “Unity Hub” in Berlin — education, careers, help for people who want to go home — on top of the €20 billion Germany’s already spent and the 200,000 Ukrainians who found work through Jobturbo. Two months later Berlin’s own numbers come out: 77 assaults on asylum seekers and refugee housing in 2024, roughly double the year before, 34 people hospitalized, 16 of them women. Nationally, 218 politically motivated attacks on refugee shelters. Same city, same calendar year, two completely different welcomes that reflect the rising anti-migrant sentiment we touched on last class.

One thing I keep getting stuck on is the part of that gap that never produces a number. Berlin can count 34 hospitalizations because when someone is hospitalized that generates paperwork—a police report, a suspect, medical records. However this is only the floor not the ceiling.  This is partly influencing what I could choose for my final topic. Reading the German statistics they all seem to be built around events violent enough to be official, but if far-right violence is up 17 percent, what about the ordinary, unrecorded stuff underneath it? I don’t know how I would source that, but that was something going through my mind during these readings.

Professor’s Amos’s piece hit me differently. The detail that resonated the most with me was the commitment by  the judges, in their chambers during the day then a twelve-hour night shift on the Dnipro with a machine gun that, as Anton says, is “older than my grandma, but they still work.” I found it funny the Constitutional judge is the one with the power to mandate the others go home.  But at least they are getting paid for it now, up to $2,400 a month. That’s not heroism language, that’s HR language. Three and a half years in, shooting down drones has become a second job with a pay scale. Meanwhile the Reuters episode is off in the other direction entirely — swarms, fiberoptic drones, Ukraine as “a testing ground for the next generation of weaponry.” So you’ve got 1940s guns pointed at the most advanced weapons anyone’s built, and both things are true at the same moment on the same river. It is absolutely insane that in the early years of the war, I remember seeing videos of trench warfare with Russian waves close enough for bayonet combat. Now, videos of the drone warfare is showing a more human side: conscripts and criminals not even attempting to defend themselves against a Ukrainian drone.

It seems that the drone warfare switch is giving Ukraine an edge they did not have before. With Russian military now resorting to reporting false victories on the front-line, sometimes 10 to 15 to even 20 kilometers into proven Ukrainian territory. Just like with Germany, Russian state elections are influencing the politics on the ground. Cheapness is a major factor in allowing Ukrainian defense to go on indefinitely — and the longer it goes on, the longer Ukrainians stay in Berlin, and the more that second set of Berlin numbers matters. I’d like to know whether anyone at the Unity Hub is thinking on that timeline, or still treating this as temporary.

Written by Leila Leibert

Reading this week’s passages provided a glimpse into the social fabric of the Ukrainian refugee and migrant crisis, which has been experiencing a transformation of its own. From emergence to permanence, the 1.3 million Ukrainians under temporary protection, have become a defining part of Germany’s social fabric. What struck me most was the circular return of many of these migrants, traveling back to Ukraine to care for their loved ones, and returning to Berlin. The Kyiv Independent’s report on the planned “unity hub” in Berlin also reflects this shift as it is intentionally built to help refugees build careers and community in Germany. The war also has shaped literature and the bookshelves reach for. The New York Times piece on Ukrainian children’s books describes titles that help not only children but families grapple with the separation, exile, and death in a language children can understand. Providing children with words to describe the challenges their families have faced as well as to the wider audience of kids who may know someone affected, that be a neighbor, classmate, or friend. 

With much of the vocabulary coming from the battlefield, I could not help but think about how even the war itself has been shaped by mass-produced AI drone technology. Listening to the Reuters podcast “Drone Wars” I began to learn how war is often fought in a way that whoever gains air superiority first holds the ultimate advantage. The podcast largely frames Ukraine as being a testing ground for the next generation of weapons. I also began to wonder as artificial intelligence becomes more and more integrated into military technology, how can political leaders hold these machines accountable especially as the decision making process becomes more autonomous. From a social media perspective, the visibility of these drone attacks has also shaped the content of the war and literature representing it, so representing it in a way that is digestible to the minds of young readers is something I find fascinating. 

Beyond the technological advances, ordinary life in Berlin has been shaped by the active presence of the war in the foreground. Those living in Germany are learning to cope with a war they have escaped whilst also being reminded of the ever presence of it ripping apart the very place they call home. While the emergency may be deemed over, the war is not. This being felt in Berlin which has reported a marked increase in attacks on refugee shelters amidst the far right political movements. Anti-migrant rhetoric coupled with the hardening of German migration policy has made these populations a target and settling into Berlin a challenge in this current political climate. Moving forward, I hope to pay closer attention to how their religion and culture will be shaped by communities in Berlin as their lives become more deeply rooted in Germany. Watching the documentary Faith Under Siege made me also wonder how religious unity and faith is becoming a coping mechanism to the refugees trying to stay connected across borders.

In the Reuters podcast, Christian Lowe describes a night of Russian drone attacks on Kyiv, listening to the whine and waiting for it to fade. “If it doesn’t, then you need to be worried.” In a WWII air-raid bunker in Berlin, visitors to the new Ukraine Museum get a few seconds of that feeling, “targeted” by a Russian drone camera as they enter.  This contrast made me consider who stays in Ukraine and experiences the real-life version.

The Ukrainians who stay in these readings are largely men. Deb’s article profiles civilian volunteers, “judges by day and drone killers by night,” manning antiquated machine guns. One of them, Andrian, explains why he’s there: “We have children. We have a family.” The refugees in the Berlin readings appear mostly as statistics, and according to the UN, most people who fled Ukraine were women and children – as high as 90% in the first months of the war.

This could be read as courage versus flight, but it seems that the main sorting factor is the law. Under martial law, until August of last year, most Ukrainian men between 18 and 60 were barred from leaving the country. This gave me a new perspective on Deb’s piece. The volunteers she profiles are brave, but most couldn’t leave even if they wanted to. The law decided that they must stay, and they chose what to do about it.

The law changed in August 2025, when Kyiv raised the lower end of the age bracket to 23. In Germany, weekly registrations of male Ukrainian refugees aged 18-22 skyrocketed. In response, German Chancellor Friedrich Merz asked Ukrainian President Zelensky to “ensure that young men… do not come to Germany in ever-increasing numbers, but rather serve in their own country.”

Merz’s quote sent me back to the Kyiv Independent piece from earlier that year, when Ukraine and Germany agreed to open a “Unity Hub” in Berlin. It promised Ukrainians education and career opportunities and help for “those who want to return.” By then, Germany had spent more than 20 billion euros on Ukrainian refugees. This support was built around the people that Ukraine’s exit ban had let out, mostly women and children. But when young men started arriving, the chancellor asked Ukraine to keep them. I’m left wondering who exactly Germany’s welcome was for.

External sources:

https://www.dw.com/en/ukraine-russia-war-germany-refugees-young-men-protection/a-74562374

https://www.france24.com/en/europe/20251113-merz-asks-zelensky-to-ensure-fewer-young-ukrainian-men-come-to-germany

https://www.unwomen.org/en/digital-library/publications/2022/05/rapid-gender-analysis-of-ukraine

I was taken aback by the Guardian article detailing the rise of attacks on refugees in Berlin. The sharp increase attacks on refugees and asylum seekers by 133% from 2023 to 2024 and the introduction of deliberate residential damage to the homes of refugees, including 34 refugee hospitalizations, demonstrates in stark ways how the Berliners are quickly growing impatient with refugees living in their city (Guardian).

The coinciding rise of German rightwing extremist crime rising by 17% and the growing popularity of the Alternative für Deutschland (AfD) party are worrying.

Meanwhile, more specifically towards Ukrainians, their exemption from German asylum requirements make them a specific scapegoat for German targeting. Germany took in over 1 million Ukrainian refugees since the onset of the Russian invasion into Ukraine, and has spent tens of billions of euros on the integration of Ukrainian refugees.

In hosting the refugees, there are special exhibits that are touching. These include the air-raid bunker exhibition in Berlin and the ‘Unity Hub’ offered for Ukrainian refugees. Still, I can’t help but think whether or not these offerings to Ukrainians are ultimately resulting in a feedback loop of violence against them.

The Unity Hub, for instance, comes with it a sense of normalcy with educational and career opportunities (Kyiv Independent). For a people who has sought refuge in masses in a country frustrated with non-native-borns coexisting with them, I fear that offering those sorts of educational opportunities within Berlin may result in greater distasteful feelings of resources going towards refugees.

That said, the Ukrainians have survived worse than the German far-right when in Ukraine under invasion. Descriptions of Ukrainians no longer scared of the bomb sirens, and playing a twisted game of “Russian” roulette with bomb locations, potentially sacrificing their lives for the sake of a few more hours of ‘rest’ demonstrate the pain and fear the Ukrainian people have become accustomed to (Deb’s Substack). Therefore, I imagine Ukrainians, like many refugees, are willing to take that ‘risk’ of growing far right extremism within Berlin, to avoid the death and mass casualty that comes with remaining in their homes. Joy, remembrance, and opportunity become even more sacred in diaspora, even if carrying risk of antagonizing the AfD.

REFLECTION

I didn’t expect the weapons and ammunition in Professor Amos’s article to be so old. Anton, one of the volunteers she interviewed, said the “dates of production stamped on the barrels of the machine gun [ … ] are older than my grandma.” These guns are being pointed at Russian drones guided by modern computers. The volunteers watch the drone come in on a small tablet and then try to hit it with a gun from 1930. I guess one side is failing to learn from the past. The people firing them surprised me like Andrian, a judge who does twelve hour shifts next to the Dinpro River in a unit of nearly all judges. i.e. the Supreme Court and from the Constitutional Court. This is interesting though since Judges technically can’t be mobilized because Ukraine needs the courts to keep functioning so as a solution the moonlight as air defense. Professor Amos thinks this isn’t unusual and mentions other units with professors, opera singers, and other professionals.

I figured the military handled all of this, since this is generally what happens in the united states, but there are thousands of these Ukrainian volunteer groups throughout the country. Ukraine is now thinking about paying civilians as much as $2,400+ a month to track and destroy drones. Prior to getting accepted to Princeton in 2025 but after my service eneded in the united states military, I traveled to Europe with the intention of joining the Ukrainian war as a civilian. I was in Amsterdam when I was notified of my acceptance to Princeton and obviously chose that option. In reality i was running from my own problems and this seemed like a viable option for self-pity and adventure. I am curious how many of the ex-pat civilians who volunteer are actually passionate about fighting or simply looking for self-aggrandisement.

Its been more than three years now since the war started and the government is basically putting these people on payroll. There’s an app that shows the threat level, hotels broadcast warnings, and sirens go off outside too. None of these cautionary measures tells you if the drone is actually headed for your building though. Reading that from Princeton I thought, obviously I’d go to the shelter but I’ve never had to decide that every night for three consecutive years, so I don’t really know what I would do if this were my daily life. I think the Ukrainian persistence to fight back with weapons from the past is a great example that fighting for survival is a timeless pursuit.

– Ellis Speagle