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A great upheaval is coming. Climate-driven movement of people is adding to a massive migration already under way to the worlds cities. The number of migrants has doubled globally over the past decade, and the issue of what to do about rapidly increasing populations of displaced people will only become greater and more urgent. To survive climate breakdown will require a planned and deliberate migration of a kind humanity has never before undertaken.

The world already sees twice as many days where temperatures exceed 50C than 30 years ago this level of heat is deadly for humans, and also hugely problematic for buildings, roads and power stations. It makes an area unliveable. This explosive planetary drama demands a dynamic human response. We need to help people to move from danger and poverty to safety and comfort to build a more resilient global society for everyones benefit.

Large populations will need to migrate, and not simply to the nearest city, but also across continents. Those living in regions with more tolerable conditions, especially nations in northern latitudes, will need to accommodate millions of migrants while themselves adapting to the demands of the climate crisis. We will need to create entirely new cities near the planets cooler poles, in land that is rapidly becoming ice-free. Parts of Siberia, for example, are already experiencing temperatures of 30C for months at a time.

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Arctic areas are burning, with mega-blazes devouring Siberia, Greenland and Alaska. Even in January, peat fires were burning in the Siberian cryosphere, despite temperatures below 50C. These zombie fires smoulder year round in the peat below ground, in and around the Arctic Circle, only to burst into huge blazes that rage across the boreal forests of Siberia, Alaska and Canada.

In 2019, colossal fires destroyed more than 4m hectares of Siberian taiga forest, blazing for more than three months, and producing a cloud of soot and ash as large as the countries that make up the entire European Union. Models predict that fires in the boreal forests and Arctic tundra will increase by up to four times by 2100.

Wherever you live now, migration will affect you and the lives of your children. It is predictable that Bangladesh, a country where one-third of the population lives along a sinking, low-lying coast, is becoming uninhabitable. (More than 13 million Bangladeshis nearly 10% of the population are expected to have left the country by 2050.) But in the coming decades wealthy nations will be severely affected, too.

This upheaval occurs not only at a time of unprecedented climate change but also of human demographic change. Global population will continue to rise in the coming decades, peaking at perhaps 10 billion in the 2060s. Most of this increase will be in the tropical regions that are worst hit by climate catastrophe, causing people there to flee northwards. The global north faces the opposite problem a top-heavy demographic crisis, in which a large elderly population is supported by a too-small workforce. North America and Europe have 300 million people above the traditional retirement age (65+), and by 2050, the economic old-age dependency ratio there is projected to be at 43 elderly persons per 100 working persons aged 2064. Cities from Munich to Buffalo will begin competing with each other to attract migrants.

The coming migration will involve the worlds poorest fleeing deadly heatwaves and failed crops. It will also include the educated, the middle class, people who can no longer live where they planned because its impossible to get a mortgage or property insurance; because employment has moved elsewhere. The climate crisis has already uprooted millions in the US in 2018, 1.2 million were displaced by extreme conditions, fire, storms and flooding; by 2020, the annual toll had risen to 1.7 million people. The US now averages a $1bn disaster every 18 days.

More than half of the western US is facing extreme drought conditions, and farmers in Oregons Klamath Basin talk about illegally using force to open dam gates for irrigation. At the other extreme, fatal floods have stranded thousands of people from Death Valley to Kentucky. By 2050, half a million existing US homes will be on land that floods at least once a year, according to data from Climate Central, a partnership of scientists and journalists. Louisianas Isle de Jean Charles has already been allocated $48m of federal tax dollars to move the entire community due to coastal erosion and rising sea levels; in Britain, the Welsh villagers of Fairbourne have been told their homes should be abandoned to the encroaching sea as the entire village is to be decommissioned in 2045. Larger coastal cities are at risk, too. Consider that the Welsh capital, Cardiff, is projected to be two-thirds underwater by 2050.

The UN International Organization for Migration estimates that there could be as many as 1.5 billion environmental migrants in the next 30 years. After 2050, that figure is expected to soar as the world heats further and the global population rises to its predicted peak in the mid 2060s.

The question for humanity becomes: what does a sustainable world look like? We will need to develop an entirely new way of feeding, fuelling and maintaining our lifestyles, while also reducing atmospheric carbon levels. We will need to live in denser concentrations in fewer cities, while reducing the associated risks of crowded populations, including power outages, sanitation problems, overheating, pollution and infectious disease.

At least as challenging, though, will be the task of overcoming the idea that we belong to a particular land and that it belongs to us. We will need to assimilate into globally diverse societies, living in new, polar cities. We will need to be ready to move again when necessary. With every degree of temperature increase, roughly 1 billion people will be pushed outside the zone in which humans have lived for thousands of years. We are running out of time to manage the coming upheaval before it becomes overwhelming and deadly.

Migration is not the problem; it is the solution.

How we manage this global crisis, and how humanely we treat each other as we migrate, will be key to whether this century of upheaval proceeds smoothly or with violent conflict and unnecessary deaths. Managed right, this upheaval could lead to a new global commonwealth of humanity. Migration is our way out of this crisis.

Migration, whether from disaster to safety, or for a new land of opportunity, is deeply interwoven with cooperation it is only through our extensive collaborations that we are able to migrate, and its our migrations that forged todays global society. Migration made us. It is our national identities and borders that are the anomaly.

The idea of keeping foreign people out using borders is relatively recent. States used to be far more concerned about stopping people from leaving than preventing their arrival. They needed their labour and taxes.

Some may think that its flags, anthems and an army to guard your territory thats needed to develop a sense of nationhood. But in fact, the credit should go to a successful bureaucracy. Greater government intervention in peoples lives and the creation of a broad systemic bureaucracy were needed to run a complex industrial society and these also forged national identity in its citizens. For instance, Prussia began paying unemployment benefit in the 1880s, which was issued initially in a workers home village, where people and their circumstances were known. But it was also paid to people where they migrated for work, which meant a new layer of bureaucracy to establish who was Prussian and therefore entitled to benefits. This resulted in citizenship papers and controlled borders. As governments exerted greater control, people got more state benefits from their taxes, and more rights, such as voting, which engendered a feeling of ownership over the state. It became their nation.

Nation states are an artificial social structure predicated on the mythology that the world is made of distinct, homogenous groups that occupy separate portions of the globe, and claim most peoples primary allegiance. The reality is far messier. Most people speak the languages of multiple groups, and ethnic and cultural pluralism is the norm. The idea that a persons identity and wellbeing is primarily tied to that of one invented national group is far-fetched, even if this is presupposed by many governments. The political scientist Benedict Anderson famously described nation states as imagined communities.

It is hardly surprising that the nation-state model so often fails there have been about 200 civil wars since 1960. However, there are plenty of examples of nation states that work well despite being made up of different groups, such as Singapore, Malaysia and Tanzania, or nations created from global migrants like Australia, Canada and the US. To some degree, all nation states have been formed from a mixture of groups. When nation states falter or fail, the problem is not diversity itself, but not enough official inclusiveness equity in the eyes of the state, regardless of which other groups a person belongs to. An insecure government allied to a specific group, which it favours over others, breeds discontent and pitches one group against others this results in people falling back on trusted alliances based on kinship, rather.

A democracy with a mandate of official inclusiveness from its people is generally more stable but it needs underpinning by a complex bureaucracy. Nations have navigated this in various ways, for example, devolving power to local communities, giving them voice and agency over their own affairs within the nation state (as is the case in Canada, or Switzerlands cantons). By embracing multiple groups, languages and cultures as equally legitimate, a country like Tanzania can function as a national mosaic of at least 100 different ethnic groups and languages. In Singapore, which has consciously pursued an integrated multi-ethnic population, at least one-fifth of marriages are interracial. Unjust hierarchies between groups make this harder, particularly when imposed on a majority by a minority.

In April 2021, Governor Kristi Noem tweeted: South Dakota wont be taking any illegal immigrants that the Biden administration wants to relocate. My message to illegal immigrants call me when youre an American.

Consider that South Dakota only exists because thousands of undocumented immigrants from Europe used the Homestead Act from 1860 to 1920 to steal land from Native Americans without compensation or reparations. This kind of exclusive attitude from a leader weakens the sense of shared citizenship among all, creating divisions between residents who are deemed to belong and those who are not.

Official inclusion by the national bureaucracy is a starting point for building national identity in all citizens, particularly with a large influx of migrants, but the legacy of decades or centuries of injustice persists socially, economically and politically.

The frontline in Europes war against migrants is the Mediterranean Sea, patrolled by Italian warships tasked with intercepting small EU-bound vessels and forcing them instead to ports in Libya on the north African coast. One such warship, the Caprera, was singled out for praise by Italys anti-migrant interior minister for defending our security, after it intercepted more than 80 migrant boats, carrying more than 7,000 people. Honour! he tweeted, posting a photo of himself with the crew in 2018.

However, during an inspection of the Caprera that same year, police discovered more than 700,000 contraband cigarettes and large numbers of other smuggled goods imported by the crew from Libya to be sold for profit in Italy. On further investigation, the smuggling enterprise turned out to involve several other military ships. I felt like Dante descending into the inferno, said Lt Col Gabriele Gargano, the police officer who led the investigation.

The case highlights a central absurdity around todays attitude to migration. Immigration controls are regarded as essential but for people, not stuff. Huge effort goes into enabling the cross-border migration of goods, services and money. Every year more than 11bn tonnes of stuff is shipped around the world the equivalent of 1.5 tonnes per person a year whereas humans, who are key to all this economic activity, are unable to move freely. Industrialised nations with big demographic challenges and important labour shortages are blocked from employing migrants who are desperate for jobs.

Currently, there is no global body or organisation overseeing the movement of people worldwide. Governments belong to the International Organization for Migration, but this is an independent, related organisation of the UN, rather than an actual UN agency: it is not subject to the direct oversight of the general assembly and cannot set common policy that would enable countries to capitalise on the opportunities immigrants offer. Migrants are usually managed by each individual nations foreign ministry, rather than the labour ministry, so decisions are made without the information or coordinated policies to match people with job markets. We need a new mechanism to manage global labour mobility far more effectively and efficiently it is our biggest economic resource, after all.

The conversation about migration has become stuck on what ought to be allowed, rather than planning for what will occur. Nations need to move on from the idea of controlling to managing migration. At the very least, we need new mechanisms for lawful economic labour migration and mobility, and far better protection for those fleeing danger.

Within days of Russias invasion of Ukraine in February, EU leaders enacted an open-border policy for refugees fleeing the conflict, giving them the right to live and work across the bloc for three years, and helping with housing, education, transport and other needs. The policy undoubtedly saved lives but additionally, by not requiring millions of people to go through protracted asylum processes, the refugees were able to disperse to places where they could better help themselves and be helped by local communities. Across the EU, people came together in their communities, on social media, and through institutions to organise ways of hosting refugees.

They offered rooms in their homes, collected donations of clothes and toys, set up language camps and mental health support all of which was legal because of the open-border policy. This reduced the burden for central government, host towns and refugees alike.

Migration requires funds, contacts and courage. It usually involves a degree of hardship, at least initially, as people are wrenched from their families, familiar surroundings and language. Some countries make it almost impossible to move for work, and in others, parents are forced to leave behind children who they may never see grow up. An entire generation of Chinese children has reached adulthood seeing their parents only for a week or so once a year, during spring festival.

In China, hundreds of millions of people are caught in limbo between the village and cities, unable to fully transition due to archaic land laws and the lack of social housing, childcare, schools or other public facilities in the cities. The villages are sustained through remittances from absent workers, who cannot sell their farms for fear of losing their land, which is their only social security. Left-behind, isolated children then become primary caregivers for their ageing relatives. Migrant workers cannot afford to buy homes in the city and so return to the village on retirement, restarting the cycle.

In other cases, migrants pay huge fees to people traffickers for urban or foreign work, only to find themselves in indentured positions that are little better than slavery, working out their contracts until they can get their passports back and return home. What little money they do earn will be sent home. These include Asian construction workers and domestic workers in the Middle East and Europe, who have little protection and may end up in forced labour in the sex industry or in inhumane conditions in food processing or garment factories. Most migrants are trying to improve their lives, as we all do, by moving. Some are migrating to save their lives.

Ive visited people in refugee camps in different countries across four continents, where millions of people live in limbo, sometimes for generations. Around the world, whether the refugee camps were filled with Sudanese, Tibetans, Palestinians, Syrians, Salvadorans or Iraqis, the issue was the same: people want dignity. And that means being able to provide for their families being allowed to work, to move around, and to make a life for themselves in safety. Currently, too many nations make this wish though it is very simple and mutually beneficial impossible for those most in need of it. As our environment changes, millions more risk ending up in these nowhere places. Globally, this system of sealed borders and hostile migration policy is dysfunctional. It doesnt work for anyones benefit.

We are witnessing the highest levels of human displacement on record, and it will only increase. In 2020, refugees around the world exceeded 100 million, tripling since 2010, and half were children. This means one in every 78 people on earth has been forced to flee. Registered refugees represent only a fraction of those forced to leave their homes due to war or disaster.

In addition to these, 350 million people are undocumented worldwide, an astonishing 22 million in the US alone, the UN High Commissioner for Refugees estimates. These include informal workers and those who move along ancient routes crossing national borders these are the people who increasingly find themselves without legal recognition, living on the margins, unable to benefit from social support systems.

As long as 4.2 billion people live in poverty and the income gap between the global north and south continues to grow, people will have to move and those living in climate-impacted regions will be disproportionately affected. Nations have an obligation to offer asylum to refugees, but under the legal definition of the refugee, written in the 1951 Refugee Convention, this does not include those who have to leave their home because of climate crisis.

Things are beginning to shift, though. In a landmark judgment, in 2020, the UN Human Rights Committee ruled that climate refugees cannot be sent home, meaning that a state would be in breach of its human rights obligations if it returns someone to a country where due to the climate crisis their life is in danger. However, the rulings of the committee are not internationally binding.

Today, the 50 million climate-displaced people already outnumber those fleeing political persecution. The distinction between refugees and economic migrants is rarely a straightforward one, and further complicated by the climate crisis. While the dramatic devastation of a hurricane erasing whole villages can make refugees of people overnight, more often the impacts of climate breakdown on peoples lives are gradual another poor harvest or another season of unbearable heat, which becomes the catalyst/crisis that pushes people to seek better locations.

This should give the world time to adapt to the mass migrations to come that ultimate climate adaptation. But instead, as environments grow ever more deadly, the worlds wealthiest countries spend more on militarising their borders creating a climate wall than they do on the climate emergency. The growth in offshore detention and processing centres for asylum seekers not only adds to the death toll, but is among the most repugnant features of the rich worlds failure to ease the impact of the climate crisis on the poorest regions. We must be alert to climate nationalists who want to reinforce the unequal allocation of our planets safer lands.

The planetary scale crisis demands a global climate migration pact, but in the meantime, regional free movement agreements of the kind EU member states enjoy would help. Such agreements have helped residents of disaster-hit Caribbean islands find refuge in safer ones.

Climate change is in most cases survivable; it is our border policies that will kill people. Human movement on a scale never before seen will dominate this century. It could be a catastrophe or, managed well, it could be our salvation.

This article was amended on 19 August 2022 to remove the suggestion that there were arboreal forests in Greenland.

This is an edited extract from Nomad Century: How to Survive the Climate Upheaval by Gaia Vince, published by Allen Lane on 25 August. To order a copy, go to guardianbookshop.com

Follow the Long Read on Twitter at @gdnlongread, listen to our podcasts here and sign up to the long read weekly email here.

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The century of climate migration: why we need to plan for the great upheaval - The Guardian

The Biden administration quietly ended the Remain in Mexico migrant protocol for those seeking to enter the U.S. illegally.

This controversial policy was one of several tools that the Trump administration used to manage illegal crossings at the U.S. southern border and to discourage illegal immigration entirely.

People from around the world got the message that they should not attempt to illegally enter our southern border because the government would not let them in. The actions of the Biden administration have since reversed this message.

The end of the Remain-in-Mexico policy comes at a time when illegal border crossings at the southern border are set to surpass a record-breaking 2 million crossings by the end of this fiscal year.

Illegal immigration is at crisis levels. Instead of prioritizing national security, public safety, human rights, and public resources, they are undermining our immigration system and encouraging the migrants and cartels to exploit our vulnerable southern border.

Recently, the Department of Homeland Security announced that it was ending the Migrant Protection Protocols (MPP)also known as Remain in Mexicoquickly. This followed the U.S. District Judge Matthew Kacsmaryk lifting his injunction that blocked Biden officials from ending the MPP. The Supreme Court ruled in the Biden administrations favor, finding that it had the authority to end the MPP.

DHS noted that although MPP was ending they could still turn away migrants under the Title 42 health measure.

President Biden weakened Remain in Mexico before ultimately killing it off. One of his earliest actions in office was to end the program which was started in January 2019. Legal challenges aside, the Biden administration neglected to use the protocol to keep people from crossing. Between December 2021 and June 2022, only 5,800 asylum seekers were sent back to Mexico as they awaited a U.S. court date to hear their asylum claim. Compare that to the nearly 70,000 people the Trump administration returned to Mexico after starting the program.

Activists have lauded the end of MPP. They claim that migrants have been exposed to violent crimes such as assaults and kidnappings while staying in Mexican border towns. Its sad that this vulnerable population has become the target of crime. Still, the reality is that many placed themselves in the situation by attempting to cross the border illegally and claiming asylum.

Lets also be clear that most asylum claims will be denied. Its very likely that many of these migrants are fleeing harsh economic conditions or crime-ridden neighborhoods or they simply want a shot at the American dream. These are understandable motivations, but they do not rise to the level of asylum status.

Smugglers are exploiting desperation among would-be migrants to spread the word through social media apps such as WhatsApp and Facebook that those who reached the border could stay. Migrants will pay whatever they can to try their chances.

Then, migrants are coached to claim asylum to gain entrance into the U.S. and a court date. Because so many people are claiming asylum, immigration courts are backlogged with 1.6 million cases. The current wait time for an asylum case is on average 1,621 days or nearly four and a half years.

In the meantime, those migrants can live and work in the U.S. Effectively, asylum abuse has become a backdoor entrance policy for migrants. Cartels and traffickers exploit this system.

The Remain-in-Mexico policy at least reduced the incentive to come to the U.S. by weeding out those who did not want to wait out the time it might take before their case would be heard in a Mexican border town.

President Biden has eliminated the disincentive to abuse the asylum system. It should be no surprise that about 1.82 million migrants have been arrested at the southern border so far this federal fiscal year. These numbers beat last fiscal years record of 1.66 million apprehensions and are on track to eclipse 2 million apprehensions.

There are clear public policy implications for ignoring illegal immigration at the southern border: fentanyl being smuggled in, human trafficking becoming a $1 billion business, sexual assaults of women and children on the rise, terrorists and MS-13 gang members seeking entry, and the burden on public resources in cities and states that migrants settle in.

Bottom Line

The end of the Remain-in-Mexico policy removes an immigration tool that was effective in addressing and discouraging illegal immigration. As we approach a historic two million border apprehensions, the federal government has few good answers to the quandary of how it will slow illegal immigration and address the problems that come with it.

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Quiet End to Remain in Mexico Wont Silence the Crisis at the Southern Border - Independent Women's Forum

DUBAI: Even before the economic collapse in Lebanon, Syrian and Palestinian refugees living there were struggling to get by. Many chose to uproot themselves once again and set out in search of greater security overseas, often turning to people smugglers for help.

Now, the situation looks so hopeless that a growing number of Lebanese citizens who lack the means to pay for safe and legal passage abroad are also risking the same dangerous, illegal sea crossings to Europe.

In early June, the Lebanese military apprehended 64 people in the north of the country who were attempting to board a smuggling vessel bound for Cyprus. Among them were several Lebanese citizens, driven to desperation by severe economic hardship.

I cannot feed my family. I feel like less of a man every day, Abu Abdullah, a 57-year-old delivery worker from Tripoli, the poorest city in the country, told Arab News. I would rather risk my life at sea than hear the cries of my children when they grow hungry.

Inflation, unemployment, shortages of food, fuel and medicine, a crumbling healthcare system, and dysfunctional governance have created a perfect storm of poverty and hopelessness.

Shortage of grain as a result of the war in Ukraine has compounded Lebanons economic woes, with the prices of staples skyrocketing. Queues for bread are a common sight in many towns while public-sector workers have often gone on strike demanding better pay.

The nations currency has lost about 95 percent of its value since 2019. As of July, the minimum monthly wage was worth the equivalent of $23 based on the black market exchange rate of 29,500 Lebanese pounds to the dollar. Before the financial collapse, it was worth $444.

About half of the population now lives below the poverty line.

My salary barely lasts a few weeks and the tips I get amount to nothing, said Abu Abdullah. One of my sons roams around the neighborhood dumpster diving, looking for tins and plastic to sell. It breaks my heart having to see him do this. But in order to eat we dont have another choice.

Since 2019, Lebanon has been in the throes of its worst-ever financial crisis. The effects have been compounded by the economic strain of the COVID-19 pandemic and the nations political paralysis.

For many Lebanese, the final straw was the devastating explosion at Beiruts port on Aug. 4, 2020. At least 218 people were killed and 7,000 injured by the blast, which caused at least $15 billion in property damage and left an estimated 300,000 people homeless.

These concurrent crises have sent thousands of young Lebanese abroad in search of greater security and more opportunities, including many of the countrys top medical professionals and educators.

For those who remain and feel they no longer have anything left to lose, the thought of paying people smugglers to illegally ferry them across the Mediterranean to an EU country has become increasingly appealing, despite the obvious dangers.

In April, a boat carrying 84 people capsized off Lebanons coast near Tripoli after it was intercepted by the navy. Only 45 of the people on board were rescued. Six are known to have drowned, including a baby. The rest are officially classified as missing.

A relative of mine lost her husband and toddler at sea around two years ago, said Abu Abdullah. The tragedy still haunts the family. And yet, here I am mulling and entertaining the thought that I should get on the next boat.

The situation is perhaps even tougher for the millions of Syrian and Palestinian refugees living in Lebanon. Long treated as an underclass and denied access to several forms of employment and welfare, many of them now face a similar dilemma of whether to stay put or attempt a risky journey.

I escaped the war in Syria and lived in Lebanon for three years, Islam Mejel, a 23-year-old Syrian Palestinian, told Arab News from his new home in Greece.

I tried time and time again and applied for visas to travel legally by land but who would give a Syrian Palestinian man a visa? I fled from Lebanon I had to. I am the eldest and have to take care of the family I left back in Lebanon.

Mejel described the terrifying ordeal he experienced while crossing the sea to Greece.

INNUMBERS

* 22% of Lebanese households now considered food insecure.

* 1.3m Syrian refugees in Lebanon categorized as food insecure.

(Source: World Food Program)

We were a group of 50, he said. They split us between two small boats. The boats couldnt handle the passengers. The second boat sank. Some survived and the rest were lost at sea.

When we finally made it to a Greek island, the captain scuttled the boat and radioed for organizations to come and help us. Then he left. I knew the chances of me dying were high but I had to try.

The extreme risks that refugees are willing to take to find security and economic opportunity abroad, often after having been displaced several times, speak volumes about the severity of Lebanons socio-economic collapse.

For Palestinian refugees in Lebanon, there were already multiple layers of vulnerabilities they were exposed to prior to the crisis, such as the prohibition on owning houses or property and prohibitions on working in liberal professions, alongside limited social and political rights, a researcher of Palestinian refugee issues in Lebanon, who asked not to be named, told Arab News.

Whats happening now is an accumulation of crises built over time COVID-19, the economic collapse that have built upon pre-existing vulnerabilities the Palestinian refugee community previously faced in Lebanon.

The researcher said the rate of illegal immigration, according to some sources, has increased in recent months, particularly among the youth.

One well-known trafficker is said to charge more than $5,000 to get a person out of Lebanon by plane, transiting through three airports before arriving in Europe where the migrants tear up their identity papers and apply for refugee status. For those without the financial means for this air route, the option of traveling by sea is less expensive but much more risky.

However, some sources the researcher spoke to said the rate of illegal emigration is currently in decline owing to the astronomical sums charged by smugglers even for the cheaper options. Such is the desperate state of personal finances in Lebanon that even a potentially deadly sea crossing is now beyond the means of many.

This is why some are reportedly opting to apply for a program called Talent Beyond Boundaries, which offers work visas for Palestinian youths seeking employment in other countries.

Lebanon was regarded by its citizens and foreign investors as a land of promise after the end of the civil war when the buzz of reconstruction replaced the rhetoric of sectarian slogans.

But these days, its citizens, as well as the people from neighboring states who found refugee in Lebanon, are looking abroad for opportunity and economic security. As a result the country is being deprived of the skilled young workers it will need to recover from the current crisis.

The general consensus is that until Lebanons political paralysis can be overcome and long-delayed economic reforms are implemented, the human tide is unlikely to stop.It was a humiliation, day in, day out in Lebanon, said Mejel. I couldnt take it anymore.

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Why Lebanese citizens are joining the migrant tide out of the Middle East - Arab News

M. Felix has taken in at least seven refugee families since Texas Governor Greg Abbott started busing migrants to the U.S. Capitol in the spring. The Washington, D.C., resident, who chose to remain partially anonymous, part of the volunteer response to the citys recent influx of people apprehended on Americas southern border, says they have helped mothers who arrived after being assaulted in front of their children, fathers with broken ribs, families that had been dumped on the side of the road in front of Union Stationsometimes in the middle of the night. Felix has slept on their couch while a family of seven sheltered in their home. They have accompanied migrants to medical appointments. They have helped arrivals to D.C. arrange travel to their final destinations.

Felix has been happy to do it; they fled to the United States from the Philippines in the 1970s, they say, and want these new refugees to be similarly welcomed. We need to provide that to them, Felix says. If we dont, we just push the responsibility elsewhere. But the work has also taken a toll on Felix and other volunteer responders, who say the local and federal government have treated the situation as a political hot potato while abdicating their responsibility to address the issue, leaving a network of overworked mutual aid volunteers and small, overwhelmed organizations on their own to assist the nearly 5,000 migrants that have arrived in the city since the busing programs began in April.

There is just no support, says Bianca Vazquez, a leader in the mutual aid response. Were crowdfunding a resettlement effort.

The busing program is part of Abbotts controversial Operation Lone Star border mission, which is reportedly under investigation by the Department of Justice for potential civil rights violations. It was implemented in April as a kind of protest against what the Texas governor called the Biden border disaster. Its a volunteer policymigrants processed by the Department of Homeland Security must choose to board the busesbut some migrants have reported they were promised there would be support and resources waiting for them in Washington, and D.C. Mayor Muriel Bowser suggested in July that some migrants had been tricked into participating. (Abbott and Arizona Gov. Doug Ducey, who instituted a similar program in May, have denied misleading asylum-seekers.) In any case, the GOP governors are exploiting migrants to make a political point about federal immigration policy under President Joe Biden, shifting a humanitarian crisis at the border to the nations capital.

Local organizers have been frustrated for months at what they say is a vacuum of leadership among officials in D.C. as about 4,700 migrants and 153 buses have arrived from Texas and Arizona as of the end of July, according to the mutual aid network. But their outrage escalated last week when Bowser called for the National Guard to help bring the situation under control, which aid volunteers condemned as a militarized response to a humanitarian crisis that could further traumatize vulnerable migrants. When you are met with the military, Vazquez recalls one migrant telling her last week, you are treated as militants.

Bowser has aligned herself with Governor Abbott, Vazquez says, warning that activating the National Guard could be used as justification for the hardline immigration policies of the right-wing governors. It really, to me, emboldens and cosigns the cruelty of Governor Abbott and Governor Ducey, Vazquez tells me. We could prove that a community response is possible. This is an opportunity to show what welcome looks like and what it is to be a sanctuary city.

Immigrant rights advocates decried the policy when it was announced in spring, as did the White House: I think its pretty clear this is a publicity stunt, thenPress Secretary Jen Psaki told reporters at the time.

But the program has continued, with what has appeared to be little formal government action amid the influx, aside from Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) grants that have helped support SAMU First Response, one of the nonprofits that is helping the arriving asylum-seekers. But the current FEMA grants are not nearly enough to help the humanitarian group, which can only respond to a small fraction of the buses arriving, and it has not received meaningful support from the District government, according to D.C. Councilmember Brianne K. Nadeau. Cities across the borderlands have shown real leadership in ways to provide local responses to migrants, Nadeau, chair of the councils human services committee, cowrote in a letter on July 14 to Bowser. Now that the border has come to D.C., it is our responsibility to meet the moment.

Bowser responded to the letter by saying in a news conference that D.C. wont be able to bear the responsibility for the arriving migrants and that it is a federal issue that demands a federal response. But Amy Fischer, a core organizer with the mutual aid network and a volunteer with Sanctuary DMV, says the mayor is sitting on hundreds of millions of dollars, including in federal funds, that could be used to provide a more humane reception to the arriving migrants.

Bowsers office did not respond to Vanity Fairs request for comment.

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GOP Governors Have Successfully Created a Migrant Crisis in Washington, D.C. - Vanity Fair

August 5, 2022 | Austin, Texas | Press Release

Governor Greg Abbott, the Texas Department of Public Safety (DPS), and the Texas National Guard are continuing to work together to secure the border, stop the smuggling of drugs, weapons, and people into Texas, and prevent, detect, and interdict transnational criminal behavior between ports of entry.

Since the launch of Operation Lone Star, the multi-agency effort has led to more than 290,700 migrant apprehensions and more than 18,000 criminal arrests, with more than 15,400 felony charges reported. In the fight against fentanyl, DPS has seized over 325.9 million lethal doses throughout the state. Texas has also transported over 6,500 migrants to the nation's capital--and now New York City--since beginning the busing mission in April to provide much-needed relief to our overwhelmed border communities.

Operation Lone Star continues to fill the dangerous gaps left by the Biden Administration's refusal to secure the border. Every individual who is apprehended or arrested and every ounce of drugs seized would have otherwise made their way into communities across Texas and the nation due to President Biden's open border policies.

RECENT HIGHLIGHTS FROM OPERATION LONE STAR:

Governor Abbott Announces First Bus Of Migrants Arrives In New York City

Governor Abbott today announced the arrival of the first group of migrants bused to New York City from Texas. New York City will now be a drop-off location with Washington, D.C. for the busing strategy as part of the Governor's response to the Biden Administration's open border policies that are overwhelming Texas communities.

"In addition to Washington, D.C., New York City is the ideal destination for these migrants, who can receive the abundance of city services and housing that Mayor Eric Adams has boasted about within the sanctuary city, said Governor Abbott. I hope he follows through on his promise of welcoming all migrants with open arms so that our overrun and overwhelmed border towns can find relief."

Read the Governor's announcement.

Governor Abbott Invites Mayors of NYC, D.C. To Texas Border

On Monday, Governor Abbott sent a letter to New York City Mayor Eric Adams and Washington, D.C. Mayor Muriel Bowser, inviting the mayors to visit Texas southern border to see the humanitarian crisis firsthand. With President Bidens open border policies continuing to invite record-high numbers of illegal immigrants and transnational criminal activity into Texas communities, the Governors migrant busing mission has provided much-needed relief to overwhelmed local communities along the border.

"As Governor, I invite you to visit our border region to see firsthand the dire situation that only grows more urgent with each passing day, and to meet with the local officials, who like yourselves, realize this matter deserves immediate federal action, reads the letter.

Read the full letter.

WATCH: Governor Abbott Discusses Democrat Mayors Reaction To Texas' Busing Strategy

In an interview with Fox News Sean Hannity, Governor Abbott pointed out the hypocrisy of the New York City and Washington, D.C. mayors, who were unconcerned about the influx of illegal immigrants when it only affected southern border states like Texas. With buses of migrants arriving in her city, D.C. Mayor Bowser last week requested assistance from the National Guard in managing newly arrived migrants into her city.

As soon as they have to deal with the real consequences of the crisis, they are up in arms calling for the National Guard when they are only dealing with a faction of what we have to deal with every single day, Governor Abbott said. Were going to keep sending those buses up there until they fully understand, and most importantly, until the Biden Administration does its job to enforce the laws concerning the border."

WATCH: Governor Abbott Stresses Need For Federal Response To Border Crisis

This week, Governor Abbott joined Maria Bartiromo for Fox Nations Broken Border Crisis Summit to discuss how President Bidens open border policies have led to chaos at the southern border. With the Biden Administration undoing President Trumps major border security initiatives, Texas is left responding to the crisis by busing migrants to the nations capital--and New York City. The Governor notes that more than 6,000 people have been bused to Washington, D.C. since the April launch of the mission, but thousands more illegally cross the border each day.

If we could educate more leaders across this country about the chaos caused by the Biden Administration, that would compel the Administration to step up and do its job under the Constitution and enforce the immigration laws that have been passed by Congress, said Governor Abbott.

WATCH: Governor Abbott Rebukes D.C., NYC Mayors' Claims Illegal Immigration Is Texas' Problem

Governor Abbott discussed with Fox News host Jesse Watters the ongoing border crisis and how it affects national security for the entire nation, not just Texas and other southern border states. Following New York City Mayor Adams' claims that Texas bears responsibility for the thousands of illegal immigrants crossing the border each day, the Governor invited Mayor Adams and D.C. Mayor Bowser to visit the southern border and see firsthand the magnitude of the chaos created by President Biden's open border policies.

"They're up in arms about a few thousand people coming into their communities over the past few months. In any one sector in the State of Texas, we have more than 5,000 people coming into that sector every single day," said Governor Abbott. "Our communities are overrun."

WATCH: DPS Lt. Olivarez Gives Fox Nation Tour Of DPS Drug Warehouse, Describes Coordinated Smuggling Effort

DPS Lt. Chris Olivarez participated in Maria Bartiromos Broken Border Crisis Summit and gave a tour of the DPS drug warehouse in McAllen, where bundles of illegal drugs seized by Operation Lone Star are processed by DPS personnel. With dangerous cartels running multibillion-dollar smuggling businesses, Lt. Olivarez explains that once the bundles of packaged drugs are carried across the border they are broken up at stash houses and smuggled further into the country.

What were seeing thats unique from previous years is luring younger, juvenile Americans into criminal activity like human smuggling and drug smuggling because its being advertised through social media platforms, said Lt. Olivarez. Theres a lower prosecution risk for these juveniles, so theyre exploiting that."

Texas National Guard Employ Advanced Assets To Stop Illegal Activities Along Border

The Texas National Guard use an array of assets to prevent, deter, and interdict transnational criminal activity in Texas border region, including advanced optic systems for detecting illegal crossings. The Tactical Response Units (TRU) employ boats to patrol the Rio Grande and respond to criminal activity and illegal crossings. The boat assets are used on water and land, while TRU soldiers communicate with multiple law enforcement agencies. Through tracking tools and radios, the cross-agency communications is crucial to the mission.

We call in our teams and law enforcement to see if they have any suspected traffic coming across and then move up or down river to try to meet the rafts and people, a member of the TRU boat crew explained.

WATCH: DPS Lt. Olivarez Shares Update On Border Crisis As Bused Migrants Continue To Arrive In D.C.

DPS Lt. Chris Olivarez told Fox News that the communities along the border are completely overwhelmed with the relentless surge of illegal immigrants. He explained how Governor Abbott listened to the concerns of local officials with the migrant busing mission.

I think its a great idea what Governor Abbott has done with inviting these mayors to Texas to see firsthand what were dealing with every day, said Lt. Olivarez. Some of these border communities have a population or 15,000 or 20,000 and theyre seeing 2,000 to 3,000 immigrants who are crossing every single day."

VIDEO: Texas National Guard Soldiers Take Pride In Operation Lone Star Mission

Texas Military soldiers describe their pride in contributing to the Operation Lone Star mission by keeping Texans across the state safe from transnational criminal activity.

This mission is important, because I am out here on the frontlines. We have stopped sex offenders and gang members from coming into our borders, said Senior Airman Gabriel Figueroa. We are protecting our communities in Texas by minimizing the flow of drugs through our borders.

VIDEO: Smuggler Leads DPS Troopers On High-Speed Pursuit In Cloned Work Truck

A smuggler driving a cloned work truck led DPS troopers on a high-speed chase in the Mission area. The smuggler and several illegal immigrants eventually bailed out and ran toward a residence. With the assistance of a U.S. Customs Aircraft Division, the smuggler and seven illegal immigrants were apprehended.

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Operation Lone Star Ramps Up Busing Of Migrants To NYC, D.C. To Provide Relief To Border Communities - Office of the Texas Governor