Inhospitable
The Washington Post: “Yogurt Billionaire’s Solution to World Refugee Crisis: Hire Them”
Hamdi Ulukaya, the Turkish immigrant who founded Chobani, the best-selling yogurt brand in the United States, argues that the best way to help refugees is to provide them employment. “The number one thing is hiring, a job,” he said in an interview in Bogota, where he met with business leaders and migrants to discuss the humanitarian and economic crisis in Venezuela that has led to millions of refugees fleeing their home country. “For a refugee, it’s day and night. That’s the point at which they find their life can continue.”
The UN Refugee Agency estimates that the total number of forcibly displaced individuals, including refugees and other migrants, has risen nearly seventy percent over the past ten years to approximately 71 million. Ulukaya, whose net worth is estimated at $1.34 billion, employs refugees at his US plants and has pledged a large portion of his fortune to the charity he founded, Tent Partnership for Refugees. He encourages other business leaders to help solve the global refugee crisis. “It’s good for the companies to be a part of this,” he said in the Washington Post. “Because people five years or 10 years from now are going to question ‘What did you do about this? Why were you not part of this?’”
Decision to Leave
U.S. Department of Homeland Security: DHS and DOJ Issue Third-Country Asylum Rule
The Department of Homeland Security (DHS) and the Department of Justice (DOJ) announced stricter eligibility qualifications for asylum seekers on July 15, 2019, according to a statement released by the DHS. The joint Interim Final Rule (IFR), published in the Federal Register as of July 16, 2019, denies asylum to any applicants who passed through a third country in transit to the United States but did not formally seek asylum in that country, with only a few exceptions.
Read moreNot Much of a Voice
The Essence of Patriotism
Fundamentally Important
Human Flow
Over 65 million people around the world have been displaced from their homes due to famine, climate change, violence, and war—the greatest displacement of people since World War II. Human Flow, a documentary by famed international artist and activist Ai Weiwei, demonstrates the scale of the refugee crisis and provides a glimpse into the devastating conditions and heartbreak that many of these refugees face.
Read moreThe Washington Post: “’They just took them?’ Frantic parents separated from their kids fill courts on the border”
Under the Trump administration’s “zero-tolerance” policy, federal courts across Texas have become flooded with undocumented immigrant mothers and fathers that have been separated from their children and criminally charged for illegally crossing the US border. This new policy shift has become an increasingly popular tactic amongst border patrol officials as a way to stop undocumented immigrants and their families from entering the US. “If you’re smuggling a child, then we’re going to prosecute you, and that child will be separated from you,” Attorney General Jeff Sessions says. “If you don’t want your child to be separated, then don’t bring him across the border illegally.”
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