It struck many people as heartless in early March when U.S. border officials turned away Ukrainian families seeking to enter this country at the border with Mexico.
These are war refugees, after all.
Reporters flocked to Tijuana to tell their story, and days later officials let the Ukrainian families cross into San Diego. Now, special treatment for Ukrainians is enshrined in policy.
The Biden administration gave Ukrainians already in the United States temporary protected status, shielding them from deportation, and emphasized that border officers can exempt Ukrainians from the COVID-19 policy known as Title 42, allowing them into the United States. In Europe, too, the 3.2 million Ukrainian refugees who have fled Ukraine after Russiaβs latest invasion have been welcomed warmly.
This special treatment may seem justified by the sudden violence and destruction of the war in Ukraine, but in reality, these migrants are not too different from the many waves of refugees who have come to Europe and to the U.S.-Mexico border before. We have not always welcomed them so warmly β in fact, weβve judged migrants and asylum seekers from other countries by an unjustifiable double-standard.
What makes the Ukrainian exodus seem different from others is the suddenness and extreme violence of Russiaβs invasion. But the fact that theyβre white-skinned Europeans from a Christian culture undoubtedly makes a difference in public perception as well.
Contrast the welcome Ukrainans have received, for example, with the treatment of Syrian refugees. Syrians began fleeing their country after the outbreak of civil war in 2011. The exodus accelerated through subsequent years, as Russia joined the Syrian governmentβs attacks in 2015, destroying cities to quash rebellion.
βWhen the Russian army flattened Syria, it created a similar amount of displacement as when the Russian army flattened Mariupol or other Ukrainian cities,β said Aaron Reichlin-Melnick, policy counsel for the American Immigration Council.
By this year, about 6 million people had fled Syria, a huge number but of a similar scale and at a slower pace than the Ukrainian flight.
In general, Europe did not welcome the Syrians warmly. Hungary put up razor wire on the border, treating refugees cruelly and blocking passage through the country. Germany was the biggest exception β it accepted about 700,000 Syrian refugees.
Even under President Obama, the United States accepted just 12,587 Syrian refugees in its biggest year, 2016. When Donald Trump took office in 2017, he stopped all resettlement of Syrians at the same time he banned travel from seven majority Muslim countries. Hundreds of Syrians were allowed in later.
Olive-skinned Muslims fleeing attacks by Russians were treated with suspicion and hostility.
The Russian army isnβt in Mexico, but refugees from some parts of Mexico are escaping similar circumstances. Residents of Mexican states such as MichoacΓ‘n and Guerrero have long suffered what is essentially a state of war between heavily armed criminal groups, displacing whole towns, wome of them fleeing to our border.
Nobody told border officers to waive Title 42 for them.
So, Ukrainians arenβt that different from other war refugees, but arenβt they at least coming from a more developed European economy?
Nope.
The World Bank put Ukraineβs GDP per capita at $3,725 β about the same as El Salvador, below Guatemala, and well below Mexico. A recent International Monetary Fund ranking places Ukraine between Armenia and Namibia in GDP per capita, slightly above Guatemala, but well below Mexico, Brazil and other countries that regularly send migrants to the United States.
Between independence in 1991 and this yearβs Russian invasion, about 2.5 million Ukrainian migrants had left the country for economic opportunities elsewhere, according to a European Union report. About half of them went to EU countries, especially after Russiaβs first invasion in 2014.
Remittances β money sent back to the country by migrant laborers β have made up as much as 10% of Ukraineβs GDP in recent years, the World Bank reports.
Sound familiar? Remittances make up about 4% of Mexicoβs GDP, and about 15% of Guatemalaβs. In all cases, weβre talking about countries where migrant workers sending money home are an important part of the economy.
Ukrainians are similar to other migrants who have arrived at the U.S.-Mexico border in that theyβre both economically disadvantaged and are fleeing political crises and violence. In that sense, theyβre not so different from Hondurans, who came to the United States in surges during the Obama and Trump presidencies, but were often accused of simply being economic migrants.
A military coup in 2009 started Hondurasβ recent problems, with migration accelerating after President Juan Orlando HernΓ‘ndez took office in 2013. Violence surged, political repression increased and Hondurans fled to Mexico, then the United States. Now HernΓ‘ndez, whom the United States supported, is facing extradition to the United States for drug trafficking.
Somewhat similarly in Ukraine, one revolution occurred in 2004, and another revolution against the Russian-backed government occurred in 2014 leading to the first Russian invasion. That 2014 invasion of Crimea and eastern Ukraine is what sent the most recent surge of migrants to EU countries.
When Ukrainians fled their hometowns, though, many stayed within their country, displaced domestically, while others stopped in neighboring countries like Poland, and others went to distant places. This, too, is a pattern showing up among Ukrainians that previously has been evident among Syrians, Guatemalans and other migrant nationalities.
βThe reason Ukrainians are going to Italy or the UK or other place further away is they also have family there,β Reichlin-Melnick said. βSimilarly, the Ukrainians whoβve showed up at the border here all have family and friends in the United States.β
The factors that seem to distinguish Ukrainians from other refugees, asylum seekers and migrants really arenβt all that different from what we routinely see at the U.S.-Mexico border.
If treating them with compassion seems like the right choice, then we ought to question why we are treating others differently.
