The 30th Camden Conference once again showed the uncanny knack conference organizers have for selecting a topic, a year in advance, that turns out to be front and center in global consciousness by the time we all get to Camden.
The conference opened with the testimony of two Maine refugees: Layla Mohamed of Ethiopia and Ali Al-Mshakheel of Iraq. By far the largest single group of recent refugees in the more than 20 million refugees documented by the United Nations come from Syria. Yet the United States allows few of these people to enter. For all of President Donald Trump’s comments about the need for “extreme vetting,” the U.S. receives a trickle of refugees from the Middle East, less than 40,000 in 2016. Many of these refugees who did get to the U.S. waited at least two years while others often waited five to 10 years in refugee camps. All have been thoroughly vetted, according to conference participants who work with refugees. These people on the ground do not believe that terrorist infiltration from refugee resettlement is an issue for the United States.
Our problem in the U.S. is not from the refugee crisis but the number of undocumented immigrants in this country. By most counts, there are more than 11 million undocumented immigrants in the United States. Most of these people have been living here for years. America’s southern border is already well-sealed by the accounts of those at the conference. One panelist noted that last year more immigrants returned to Mexico than entered the United States.
Since the George W. Bush administration, we have attempted to deal with the problem of illegal immigration. Since 2001 several bipartisan attempts have failed, principally owing to the intransigence of the Republican-dominated U.S. House of Representatives. In 2013, the latest attempt at immigration reform passed the U.S. Senate with 68 votes, a level of agreement seldom seen in the Obama years. But the measure moved to the House where House Speaker John Boehner refused to allow a vote on the legislation because he believed a majority of his caucus did not support it.
On these issues of U.S. immigration policy, the conference was fortunate to have the perspectives of Muzaffar Chisti, the director of the Migration Policy Institute of the New York University School of Law. Chisti believes that an eventual solution must include legal status for those long-term undocumented immigrants in the country and a path to citizenship. He points out that whatever a revised Trump policy on immigration may say, it will be impossible, physically and administratively, to deport 11 million people.
The European problem, the focus of much of our discussion in Camden, is more intractable. The European Union is in crisis over the flow of refugees. The crisis has given rise to right-wing nationalist parties in many European countries.
Europe appears to be figuring this out, with the lead of Germany and the cooperation of Turkey, the country that holds the majority of the recent refugees. On the situation in Europe, the conference was fortunate to have two speakers. Gerald Knaus, the chairman of the European Stability Initiative, is doing important work in illuminating what is working and not working in European efforts. Knaus was the voice of the thoughtful man in the trenches. Knaus is cautiously optimistic that the recent E.U.-Turkey agreement can work. The other speaker of note on these issues was Bruno Stagno, the deputy executive director of Human Rights Watch. He is a former foreign minister of Costa Rica and its former ambassador to the United States.
Also noteworthy at this year’s conference was a new moderator, Jeanne Bourgault. Bourgault was excellent in leading and focusing the Q-and-A sessions that are the heart of the “Camden approach.” She is a seasoned veteran of international work and, an added bonus, hails from Blue Hill. In that same vein, Kelly Clements, who provided valuable insights in her capacity as United Nations deputy high commissioner for refugees, is a product of Old Town High School.
Given the difficult, if not to say, intractable nature of global refugee issues, the last question for the panel of participants was how they handled the stress and disappointments. Several mentioned being sustained by small triumphs, the support of dedicated colleagues, and even their experience at Camden. In fact, Stagno suggested that the conference go on the road to take this approach across the country. Now there is an endorsement to cherish.
Ron Bancroft is a businessman from the Portland area, and he is a member of Educate Maine, a business-education partnership. He is also a longtime attendee of the Camden Conference.