SPECIAL FEATURE: What the Biden Admin Means for Climate & Migration

Gayatri Malhotra via UNSPLASH

President-elect Joe Biden's administration is expected to move quickly on climate and migration issues, including the “existential threat” of climate change as one of the four main policy areas in his transition plan.

The stakes could not have been higher going into election day. On migration, four years of the Trump administration were enough to cause serious damage to the immigration and asylum systems, as we highlighted in a SPOTLIGHT special feature back in July. Another four years would have been catastrophic. The country faced similarly dramatic crossroads on climate policy; scientists have been warning for some time now that the world is dangerously close to a point of no return in its fight to prevent catastrophic and irreversible impacts. 

While Biden’s promise to re-enter the Paris Climate Agreement and throw out the Trump administration’s Muslim ban on day one have made headlines around the world, there is so much more to keep an eye on with Inauguration Day just around the corner. 

Civil society groups, who have spent the last four years tracking - and generally criticizing - the Trump administration’s actions, have been vocal about the direction they hope the incoming administration will take.

Broadly speaking, the Biden administration has a chance to re-establish American leadership on the global stage, starting with repairing relations with the various organizations the US either officially exited or stopped funding during the last four years. For example, rejoining the UN Human Rights Council would allow greater coordination with other countries and civil society groups on climate and migration issues, among others. It would signal that the US cares about the human rights dimensions of its decisions, at home and abroad. Biden can also make the US a leader in protecting those seeking refuge, reverse discriminatory visa policies, recalibrate US funding commitments to the Green Climate Fund, and, perhaps most urgently, rejoin the World Health Organization and realign US policy on COVID. 

While the devil is always in the details, there is reason to believe that the incoming administration will mark a significant and positive shift away from the turmoil of the last four years, especially in the areas of climate and migration, both on immigration and asylum. 

Climate

While Biden’s promise to re-enter the Paris climate accord is notable, the administration is poised to pursue a much stronger climate agenda, stemming from recognition that climate change exacerbates existing crises and will require a much stronger US response. While it is true the Biden campaign has framed much of its climate policy in terms of investing in clean energy and making the US carbon neutral by 2050, it has also acknowledged the importance of environmental justice. For example, Biden’s plan calls for significant investment in communities disproportionately affected by climate change, which we already know tends to be communities of color and low-income communities. We do not yet know what such investment will entail, but it is certainly a step in the right direction, which could also see the US make progress on the broader issue of environmental racism and justice.

In a welcome change from the Trump administration’s neglect of entire government departments, there are signs that a Biden administration would harness the power of the federal government to combat climate change. Prior to the election, it was reported that then-candidate Biden was looking into creating a special White House office to coordinate climate policy across the various relevant departments and agencies. Potential candidates to lead such an office apparently include heavy-hitters like former Secretary of State John Kerry, who helped broker the Paris climate agreement and has shown years of deep concern over climate migrants and refugees, and Bill Clinton’s former chief of staff John Podesta, who has researched and written about climate policy for Brookings, specifically the climate crisis, migration and refugees. 

This whole-of-government approach would be an encouraging development in the fight against such a complex problem because it would send a clear signal that comprehensive climate action is a top priority of the incoming administration. The plan is not without its critics, including concerns it could alienate centrist Biden supporters who may not want an enlarged federal government. Despite this potential obstacle, we can generally expect that the Biden administration will try to use everything in its toolbox to get as much done as it can on climate, even without Congressional cooperation. 

Immigration

As NPR has reported, immigration policy shifts comprise several of Biden’s major legislative priorities. For one, the President-elect is calling for pathways to citizenship for some 11 million irregular migrants currently living in the US, a diverse group of people Donald Trump regularly demonized and used as a tool to whip up his base. Biden is also proposing a citizenship pathway for DREAMers as well as permanently institutionalizing the DACA program, something the Trump administration repeatedly tried to dismantle.

While some of Biden’s proposed immigration policies would require legislative action, the likelihood of which seems to hinge on runoff Senate elections in Georgia in January, there are several other substantive things the incoming President can accomplish. Biden’s plan to immediately rescind the current administration’s discriminatory travel ban imposed on Muslim-majority countries will likely be implemented on day one. But Biden says he will go even further, including a plan to prevent future such restrictions through legislation. This is notable in that it demonstrates a recognition that an extremist president should have much less ability to harm. 

The restrictions imposed these past four years on ‘legal’ immigration, including those on family reunification and employer-sponsored visas, can largely be dismantled through executive action alone, with positive effects on both the immigrants themselves and the US economy at large. One particular visa category that Biden is expected to address is the H-1B visa, the primary means by which highly-skilled immigrants come to the US. With the US facing potential brain drain and continued harm on international students, Biden will likely ensure that skyrocketing denial rates for H-1B visas under Trump - from 6% to nearly 30% - are rectified. 

Unfortunately, while Biden can shift considerable resources from enforcement to adjudication and processing at the US Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS) and the State Department, the task of addressing backlogs, both from Trump policies and from COVID-related slowdowns, is a daunting one Climate Refugees wrote about based on prior experience working in the US resettlement program. At the very least, there will undoubtedly be a major shift in tone starting January 20th, the impact of which should not be discounted.

After four years of demonizing immigrants and attempting to get the US as close to net-zero immigration as possible, according to Forbes reporter Stuart Anderson, the new Biden administration should follow a simple guiding rule:

“What would Stephen Miller and Donald Trump do? And do the opposite.” 

Asylum

While refugee and asylum policy is arguably a part of US immigration policy, Donald Trump’s relentless attacks on asylum in particular make it an area in which the Biden’s administration stands to make significant changes. 

One particularly extreme policy is Trump’s practice of separating migrant families at the southern border, an obviously cruel policy that was also poorly managed. In addition to immediately stopping separation of migrant families, Biden has promised a task force to reunite those already separated. This is an absolute must given that the parents of nearly 550 migrant children have still not been found as of late October.  

Echoing the calls of civil society, Biden’s plan in this regard will likely move quickly to end the Trump-era agreements with El Salvador and Honduras of strong arming these countries to accept returned non-citizen Central American asylum-seekers to seek asylum in their countries instead. He’s also likely to end the “safe third country” agreement with Guatemala, which forces non-Guatemala Central American asylum-seekers passing through en route to the US, to first seek asylum in Guatemala, even though Guatemala does not meet “safe third country” standards for asylum. 

Another policy the Biden administration has signaled it will end is “Remain in Mexico”, which forces Central American asylum-seekers to return to Mexico for an indefinite period of time to await their asylum claims processing. 

These agreements are clearly legal violations of US and international law, specifically the 1980 US Refugee Act and the 1951 Refugee Convention, both of which prohibit the forcible return of refugees, and by extension, asylum-seekers, to countries where their lives are threatened and are at risk of persecution. 

It is therefore no surprise that Biden’s victory was celebrated by asylum-seekers waiting in camps along the border, a fate that has affected more than 66,000 migrants. In related news, Biden’s reforms will likely also include an end to the Trump administration’s ‘metering’ of asylum cases, whereby entry of potential asylum-seekers was purposefully reduced, prompting some to risk their safety by crossing illegally.

With everything that has happened in the last four years, the Biden administration is also expected to reign in agencies that have been at the center of Trump’s attack on asylum. Stronger oversight of Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) and Customs and Border Protection (CBP) is crucial to prevent the kind of shocking treatment we have seen under the Trump administration. These include the persistent unsafe conditions, denial of PPE, deportations of COVID-positive asylum-seekers during a pandemic and more, which we detailed here and here, and the recent shocking reported hysterectomies performed on detained migrant women, seemingly unaware or without their full consent, which in addition to being a human rights violation, could also constitute a crime against humanity under international law. 

In addition to the many issues facing asylum-seekers within the US and along our borders, it is important to note that the incoming administration plans to significantly increase refugee resettlement, which reached historic lows under Trump. Rebuilding the resettlement program will require significant re-investment in agencies neglected by Trump-era budgets, especially with a backlog of over 120,000 cases, and many other obstructions we highlighted in a recent SPOTLIGHT.

This is certainly not an exhaustive list of policy shifts expected under President-elect Biden, and there will be a mind-numbing amount of work to do come January on climate and migration, not to mention the pressing issues of the COVID pandemic and the resultant economic crisis. With some arguing that Biden’s central challenge will be to unite a fractured America, we feel that there is reason to be hopeful when it comes to climate and migration under this new administration, starting with its very basic, yet very powerful shift in tone: “ensure that the US meets its responsibilities as both a nation of laws and a nation of immigrants.”  (Reuters, NPR, Bloomberg, Forbes, LA Times, CBS News, The Guardian)

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Biden Plans to Significantly Raise Refugee Admissions After Trump

Zaatari Refugee Camp by Amali Tower

As part of the President-elect’s plan to reassert America’s commitment to asylum-seekers and refugees, in his first year in office, Joe Biden plans to raise the annual refugee admissions cap to 125,000, slowly increasing it over time.

Upon taking office in 2017, the Trump White House slashed the refugee admissions number from the previous year’s 110,000 to 45,000, then the lowest in the US Refugee Admissions Program (USRAP), actually resettling only 22,491 refugees - almost 60% fewer refugees than the 53,716 refugees, (not accounting for Syrian refugees), resettled in the Obama administration’s last year.

In the next three years in office, the free fall in admissions caps continued, eventually reaching yet another historic low of 15,000 for fiscal year 2021.

Becca Heller from the International Refugee Assistance Project (IRAP) is correct in pointing out the time it will take to restart the heavily dismantled program in order to meet that ambitious target. Having worked many years in the USRAP, we can attest to the highly secure and contiguous series of security checks, medical clearances, inter-agency coordination and logistics it takes to make the entire vetted program work from overseas referral and processing to US arrival, resettlement and integration. The process is so thoroughly secure and vetted that the average refugee case process is well over two years.

Resettlement agencies that receive refugees in the US do so via cooperative agreements with the State Department. Their budgets are set according to the refugee admissions numbers. The lower admissions numbers then, meant lower budgets, causing many agencies to trim staff and operations or close entirely.

There is a huge backlog of cases - by now well over the 120,000 reported in September. This includes Iraqis who worked for the US military, who are at extreme risk, are qualified refugees, but have been denied assistance by this current administration. In 2020, of the 4,000 Special Immigrant Visas (SIVs), reserved for Iraqi refugees and included within the USRAP, only 123 Iraqis were resettled in the US.

Refugees are the most vetted group that arrives in the US. This backlog comprises of people who have passed every clearance required: interviews with UN agencies, US processing staff, official US government immigration and security officers, and a series of security checks, medical and more.

And yet, to further stymie processing, the Trump administration added “Extreme Vetting” to the process, doing nothing more than extremely slowing down the process. Worse yet, the new vetting rules were kept secret until legal action forced the government to disclose its details. (NPR)

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Typhoon Goni Exacerbates Pandemic Impact in Underprepared Philippines

The strongest storm the world has seen in four years made landfall in the Philippines on Sunday, devastating Catanduanes Island before moving on to Luzon, the nation’s most populous island. Evacuations may have helped to keep the death toll low, but are nearly 400,000, most of whom are now living in temporary storm shelters. This has raised serious concerns over the spread of COVID-19 in a country already experiencing one of the worst outbreaks in the Asia-Pacific region with cases now over 389,000. 

While the Philippines is no stranger to typhoons, reeling from two others in two weeks before Goni,  the combination of the pandemic and worsening storms due to climate change has created a very difficult situation for which the country was not adequately prepared. 

As the BBC reports, some local officials had already depleted their disaster relief funds trying to combat the pandemic, and evacuation efforts faced challenges in dealing with COVID patients. Indeed, the International Organization for Migration (IOM) warned that “the most vulnerable displaced populations have become even more vulnerable.” Close quarters at evacuation shelters and the closure of at least one region’s testing center due to storm damage does indeed leave many in a precarious situation, especially groups like women and girls, who’s safety in temporary shelter requires special attention from authorities. 

Even if the unfortunate situation facing some local governments’ emergency relief funds were not completely avoidable, Goni’s severity is yet another reminder that the Philippines is not adequately prepared for the impacts of climate change. As the Smithsonian Magazine reports, rising ocean temperatures will subject the Philippines to more frequent and stronger storms, with natural barriers like mangrove forests, dangerously deforested in recent years.

With an end to the global pandemic nowhere in sight, leaders in the Philippines face an urgent task. Adapting to the realities of climate change now must be a top priority for a country that is particularly vulnerable to severe weather, but policies must go beyond preparing for the next typhoon. Implementing better disaster warning systems and climate adaption such as improving infrastructure, and as it relates to evacuation, are two important strategies for limiting the impact of future storms. Unfortunately, Goni may be just the beginning of a destructive season for the Philippines and its neighbors. Humanitarian groups are rightly concerned about the onset of La Nina season, which is likely to bring higher than normal rainfall, with the potential for landslides and flooding, and even more displacement. (Smithsonian Magazine, BBC News, UN News)

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Gendered Impacts of Climate Change Demand a More Inclusive Lens

Photo of Mozambique by Sarah Nabil via UNSPLASH

In a report published by the Women’s Environment and Development Organization (WEDO) and the Sierra Club earlier this year, it was made clear that consideration of gender is essential to developing effective and just climate policy. That point has been emphasized by two recently published articles. 

In a piece for New Security Beat, Mara Dolan (WEDO) and Jessica Olson (Sierra Club) argue that “where the climate crisis affects people, it’s likely that gender inequity does, too.” Therefore, both issues must be addressed together. According to Dolan and Olson, two key stumbling blocks are the persistence of outdated notions of gender and a lack of intersectionality. All too often, ‘women’ in studies and reports actually refers to ‘females,’ failing to take into account the experiences of those across the gender spectrum. Beyond the obvious exclusion of non-binary experiences, this also perpetuates a gap in what we know about the experiences of men and boys, both points we raised in a May PERSPECTIVES feature:

“There is a tendency in humanitarian affairs - actually the entire international affairs field - to approach gender issues primarily as issues impacting women and girls...No discussion on gender is complete without examining climate displacement impacts on men and other groups as well...It bears noting that since cultural norms do grant more rights and mobility to men, anyone non-binary, or who society identifies as gender non-conforming, could be subject to the same oppression or limitations and vulnerability faced by women.” — Amali Tower, Climate Refugees

Similar issues are raised in a recent Carbon Brief article, which reminds us that climate change can have differing health impacts on men and women. In a review of 130 peer-reviewed studies, Carbon Brief found that women tend to be more affected in many areas, such as food insecurity, poor mental health and partner violence, following extreme weather events. Women are also more likely to die in heatwaves in France, China and India. However, men also face particular issues based on their gender. For example, they may be at higher risk for infectious diseases, likely to become more problematic with increasing temperatures and sea level rise, because they more frequently work outside. Men also comprise the majority of workers in sectors that are particularly vulnerable to climate change, such as energy production and construction. 

The importance of gender in discussions about climate change policy is not new, and it is something we have highlighted in previous SPOTLIGHT entries, such this one from March of this year. The gendered impacts of climate change are various. Carbon Brief’s piece focuses on health impacts, while the article from New Security Beat covers health, economy and labor, and representation in decision-making bodies. Beyond these important issues, it is also crucial to consider how gender impacts climate change-induced displacement, which requires an intersectional approach like the one called for in the WEDO-Sierra Club report.

The intersection of gender and class is just one example. Just as climate change exacerbates existing poverty for all, it also deepens existing gender inequalities. Traditional gender roles that see men as breadwinners may relegate women to positions in which they are less able to implement mitigation and adaptation strategies for their family, including whether to relocate either before or after a disaster. A lack of financial assets and/or freedom may make it impossible for women and those not perceived as men in particular to move, trapping them in areas where climate and disaster risk is high (known as hot spots, as we recently highlighted). 

These uneven impacts of climate change are not limited to ‘developing’ countries. For example, studies of multiple major hurricanes in the US found that while women are more likely than men to follow evacuation orders, they also tend to view temporary shelters as unsafe due to concerns about sexual violence. This is an issue that certainly impacts more than just biological females in the West though, even if remains understudied. So even when women want to relocate, they face particular issues in being able to do so safely. Concerns about financial ability are also relevant in the US. In cities where evacuation due to a major weather event is possible, women workers are less likely than men to be part of a car-owning household, an issue that is likely even worse for Black women. 

As policymakers are increasingly confronted with climate displacement, they must do more than simply keeping gender in mind. A CARE report published in July provides a useful starting place for addressing climate displacement in a “gender-transformative and human-rights based way.” Echoing a recommendation from the New Security Beat article, the report demands that women and girls are able to play meaningful roles in building resilience strategies and developing effective policies and programs. Increased funding to projects that particularly impact women and girls are also called for, as is a strengthening of institutional and legal frameworks in order to better protect women displaced as a result of climate change. 

But in all of this, we have to remember that while women are often disproportionately impacted by climate change and resultant displacement, that does not tell us the whole story. It is critical to maintain a gender-inclusive strategy that both acknowledges existing disparities and works towards equity without relying on an outdated binary lens. (New Security Beat, Carbon Brief)

In case you missed it: Climate Refugees’ Executive Director Amali Tower spoke on a Johns Hopkins panel on the Gendered Impacts of Climate Migration and the need for consideration of gender across the spectrum in a discussion hosted by SAIS Global Women in Leadership in August. Watch here.

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