Tide of humanity engulfing host nations.

• Position: International refugee problem

The number of people crossing international borders each year to escape violence or persecution has increased nineteenfold in the past two decades and is climbing steeply, according to United Nations statistics cited by the Worldwatch Institute, Washington, D.C. The situation is not confined to a few "hot spots," but has become a pervasive global problem. Twenty-one countries have become willing or unwilling hosts to refugee populations of 250,000 or more each, with some providing asylum for 1,000,000 of more.

The UN count of "official" refugees, defined as those who have crossed an international border in search of haven, vastly understates the situation. An even larger number--over 25,000,000--have been driven from their homes by violence or the fear of it, but remain in their own nations. The UN does not classify these "internally displaced" as refugees, but many eventually could seek asylum in other countries. About 47,000,000 individuals are dispossessed in the world today.

This refugee explosion has been set off by the spread of civil disorder, Causes include the destabilization of Third World governments following the withdrawal of Cold War patrons, the rise of tribal and ethnic conflicts, and turmoil triggered by competition for declining economic resources.

Refugee flows are an ancient phenomenon, but those of the past few years differ from earlier movements in two important ways--they are far larger and, as a result, increasingly are unwelcome. In many cases, countries that readily offered asylum to small amounts of people a few years ago now find the influx too large to assimilate, or too disruptive to their own struggling economies. Densely populated Malawi, for instance, hosts 1,000,000 refugees from war-torn Mozambique, equivalent to 10% of its own population.

Public opinion, once sympathetic, has turned against refugees in many places. One reason is that they often are confused with other immigrants--people who are seeking better economic opportunities, but have not been forced to leave their homelands. In the U.S., Canada, Germany, Britain, and elsewhere, this has caused indiscriminate backlash against all forms of immigration.

The refugee flood has prompted concern among governments and human...