This week’s readings shed light upon the process of escape and the current status of Syrian and Yazidi refugees. I found Patrick Kingsley’s The New Odyssey and Dunya Mikhail’s The Beekeeper: Rescuing the Stolen Women of Iraq to be stunning works of interview-based narrative non-fiction. These works use first-person accounts of refugee voyages to safety in order to outline the struggles and terror refugees face in their escape from mortal danger. Together, these pieces not only describe the resilience of refugees navigating the impossible choices that come with leaving one’s home country, but also discuss an often forgotten aspect of the refugee experience – how displacement continues to affect the daily lives of the refugees even after they reach safety.
Additionally, in reading news stories about the current status of Syrian refugees in Germany, I drew numerous parallels between the circumstances of relocated Syrian nationals in Germany and the U.S. This week I reported on the Trump Administration’s announcement that it would be terminating the Temporary Protected Status (TPS) of Syrian nationals residing in the U.S thirteen years after the status was first granted. As a part of this announcement, Syrian migrants in the U.S. have been given sixty days to either voluntarily leave the country, essentially self-deport, or be subject to arrest and deportation. In this announcement, Secretary of the Department of Homeland Security, Kristi Noem, stated that individuals who choose to self-deport will be provided with, “a complimentary plane ticket, a $1,000 exit bonus, and potential future opportunities for legal immigration.” This is similar to the idea propagated by German conservative lawmaker Jens Spahn, who suggested that the German government should charter planes to return resettled Syrians in Germany to Syria, as well as provide them with a “starting fund of 1,000 euros ($1,055),” as reported by The New Arab. These material rewards for leaving the country underscore the growing hostility towards migrants and refugees that have grown more present in both nations throughout recent years, as is emphasized by the rise of right-wing nationalist parties. It was surprising to me that these government entities think that cash rewards for leaving the country will be enough to spur people to return home to a potentially unsafe environment. As I noted in my news article, the U.S. Department of State and the United Nations have both recently released safety warnings for terrorist attacks in Syria. In the U.S., I think it is the fear of inhumane and dangerous detention practices, rather, that will be more influential in spurring voluntary deportations. In the coming months, I am interested in seeing whether these rewards for choosing to leave the country will influence migrants to self-deport and, further, if these rewards ever actually reach these migrants.
