Climate Refugees Are Here Advocacy Options for Immigration Practitioners

• Publication year: 2021

Christine E. Popp^*

Abstract: The Climate Crisis has forced millions from their homes, and extreme weather will continue to exacerbate this displacement. "Climate Refugees" from Central America and other parts of the globe have arrived at the United States' shores and need protection. This article addresses how immigration practitioners can advocate for these refugees and advocate for expansions through executive and legislative actions. While an international framework would be best, advocates need not wring their hands waiting for such action. In the Immigration and Nationality Act exist legal options that can provide needed protections now.

Introduction

Isabel¹ is a member of an indigenous tribe in Central America. For the past decade, her tribe has felt pressure from corrupt government officials who are trying to appropriate the tribe's land and natural resources. As a leader and activist in her tribe, Isabel's life, as well as the lives of her family, have been under threat. Her son and her brother were nearly killed before she was kidnapped, beaten, and raped with the intention of forcing her to sign over her tribe's land. After Isabel escaped, her young daughter and many other tribal members were killed in a massacre.

Through one lens, Isabel's case might seem to be a typical asylum case, one involving the persecution of an indigenous minority or activist by government officials. But viewed through another lens, Isabel's situation is emblematic of the pressures on vulnerable populations susceptible to climate change impacts around the world. The pressures on Isabel's tribe are exacerbated by environmental changes her nation is facing, including worsening droughts and stronger hurricanes. The struggling government and powerful interests in her home country want her tribe's land and resources, and the same dilemma is playing out over and over all around the world.

For the past two decades, many climate and human rights activists have been sounding the alarm about the looming climate refugee crisis. No longer, however, can we talk about when or if climate refugees will come to the United States. They are here. They are fleeing the poverty from climate-induced droughts and floods that have ruined their subsistence farms. They are fleeing the pressures caused by millions of rural dwellers flocking to urban areas as they run out of water. They are fleeing the crime exacerbated by these migrations. And they are fleeing the corporate, private, and governmental interests that are appropriating (or stealing by force) land and natural resources.

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Instead of planning for a future in which the United States will need to accommodate refugees, advocates must examine what options are currently available and where additional advocacy is necessary for expanded reforms.

This article has three goals. First, the article will briefly discuss the drivers of climate flight. Second, the article will address immigration options under current law for climate refugees, with some recommendations at the administrative or executive level. Finally, the article will provide avenues for advocacy to compassionately assist climate refugees. Given that climate refugees are no longer a theoretical possibility but rather a present-day reality, our role as advocates is to help those climate refugees who have already arrived at our borders.

Drivers of Climate Flight

Scientists have warned for decades that we have a short window until our earth faces climate catastrophe. That window is closing. The projections, even the optimistic ones, are not pretty. And many places are already facing that catastrophe. Currently, 1 percent of the earth's surface is uninhabitable because of heat. By 2070, that uninhabitable zone will expand to cover the areas where one-third of the world lives.² By 2100, temperatures could be so hot in many areas, including Eastern China and India, that death will come within a few hours, even for the most fit and healthy people.³

Heat is not the only harm the world faces. The climate crisis is causing other dramatic changes, with an especially great impact on agriculture and water availability. An estimated 5 billion people could suffer food insecurity by 2050.⁴ That is about half of the projected world population. The same number will experience water stress.⁵ An estimated 200 million people could be forced to migrate because of climate change by 2050.⁶

Every year since 2008, around 26 million people have been forcibly displaced because of climate disruption.⁷ Islands in the Pacific, such as Kiribati and Tuvalu, are losing their habitable land area and fresh water supplies at a fast rate. Those nations are now actively planning for mass relocation of their populations.⁸ An estimated 8 million people have already left Southeast Asia for the Middle East and China because the increasingly extreme monsoon rains have made farming impossible.⁹

Most climate refugees in the United States come from Latin America and, specifically, Central America. Climate change has wrought massive changes in the Northern Triangle of Central America (Guatemala, Honduras, and El Salvador), and these changes have driven migrants out of their countryside and, eventually, to U.S. borders.

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The prevailing explanation of Central American migration centers on gang violence, poverty, and government corruption or ineptitude.¹⁰ This explanation, however, does not provide a full picture of what pushes Central Americans to the United States.¹¹ One of the main drivers is climate related, in that frequent droughts, flooding, and wildly fluctuating weather patterns have made it nearly impossible for small farmers to survive. Likewise, government officials, powerful corporations, and even local gangs want land (for water, timber, or minerals) that farmers, ethnic minorities, or indigenous groups live on, resulting in violent confrontations. Violence drives these landowners to migrate to urban areas in their own countries, and ultimately to the United States.¹²

In 2016, for example, an extreme drought in Central America forced thousands off of their land. Between 50 percent and 90 percent of the crop harvest was lost, and the United Nations Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) estimated that around 3.5 million people were in need of humanitarian assistance.¹³ This drought occurred in an area known as the "Dry Corridor," which stretches from Panama to Southern Mexico. Guatemala, El Salvador, Honduras, and Nicaragua are the hardest hit regions in this corridor.¹⁴ Because the countries are also located between the Pacific Ocean and the Caribbean and are mountainous, they are also at risk of hurricanes and landslides.¹⁵ The United States Agency for International Development (USAID) has noted that Guatemala is one of the "top ten countries most affected by weather extremes."¹⁶

A project run jointly with USAID¹⁷ and several nongovernmental organizations, including the Rainforest Alliance, World Wildlife Fund, and the Nature Conservancy (among others), called "Climate, Nature, and Communities in Guatemala," found that the western highlands region of Guatemala was particularly vulnerable to climate change.¹⁸ Droughts, frost, and excessive rain, as well as the unpredictability of these fluctuations, meant that farmers could not produce enough food to feed their families. Unsurprisingly, this drove migration to the United States.¹⁹ "Of the ninety-four thousand immigrants deported to Guatemala from the U.S. and Mexico" in 2018, about half came from the western highlands region.²⁰

Climate change has also exacerbated political conflicts. It is known as a "threat multiplier,"²¹ because it exacerbates poverty, disease, and conflict.²² One study found that the Syrian War was affected by a severe drought from 2007 to 2010, which sent millions of rural dwellers into cities.²³ Of course, a major civil war like the one in Syria did not have one single cause, but the effects of climate change have been attributed as a cause in many conflicts.

As the climate crisis worsens, the pressure on indigenous, small landowners, and other vulnerable groups also increases. These groups are on the front lines defending and protecting their own lands from degradation, which, in turn, also is a fight against global climate change. Many of these conflicts aim to prevent forest degradation, such as in the Amazon rainforest, which is a key to stopping climate change. These defenders are also fighting against mining and resource extraction by foreign corporations and governments, as well as criminal elements such as gangs. The statistics are staggering:

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- In 2017, the organization Front Line Defenders found that 67 percent of human rights defenders who were killed were working to defend "land, environmental and indigenous peoples' rights," mostly in the face of mega projects, industry, and big business. They were killed either directly by state security forces or by others who acted with impunity.²⁴
- In 2019, Global Witness found that more than 212 land and environmental defenders were killed worldwide, which equates to more than four people each week.²⁵ Many more were jailed.²⁶
- Two-thirds of defenders' killings occurred in Latin America.²⁷
- Forty percent of defenders who were killed were indigenous.²⁸
- Honduras is now the most dangerous country per capita for land and environmental defenders.²⁹

What is particularly striking is not merely the number of people who have been killed for defending their land and environment, but how governments are also using the power of the law (and their own corruption) to criminalize activists and defenders. "In a brutally savage irony, killers of land and environmental defenders generally escape punishment while the activists themselves are branded as criminals."³⁰ Indigenous and environmental activists face powerful families and government officials, and even monied investors and major development banks.³¹ A great deal of money can...