Asylum in a Warming World: Conditions for the US and India to Avoid a Climate Refugee Humanitarian Crisis

Abstract

As climate change wreaks havoc on various countries throughout the world, environmental conditions will cause many to become displaced, thus becoming climate refugees. Given the importance of the US and India as receiver countries for immigration, and especially for climate refugees given their size and proximity to regions hit hard by climate change, there immigration and refugee systems were analyzed to investigate potential scenarios that could develop in regards to their treatment of this new refugee crisis.

Climate refugee outcomes in the US depend on a wide variety of factors, including which party will be in power, how economic and crime conditions will shape public opinion on immigration, how the crisis is covered in the media, and the popularity of the president. If all these factors align, a strong system could be created which allows for smooth transitions into the US for those most in need. However, the opposite could also be true, leading to a likely humanitarian crisis at the border with inhumane conditions in camps, families being separated, and people being forced away back into dangerous situations.

Climate refugee outcomes in India, due to the lack of a formal asylum system, depend strongly on the whim of the powerfully entrenched BJP and its leader, Narendra Modi. Given this party’s nativist and Islamophobic ideology, and the fact that many of the refugees will be coming from majority-Muslim countries like Bangladesh, this means climate refugees will likely not be welcomed. But due to India’s more vulnerable borders, this likely means that many will still enter but just in a poorly coordinated way, leading to a further stretch of resources in India’s impoverished and overcrowded cities and poor outcomes for the refugees, who will face poverty, exploitation, and discrimination.