Since the early 1980s Iran has been host to one of the largest refugee population in the world. The overwhelming majority of refugees in Iran are Afghans who despite their religious and linguistic affinity with Iranians, experience multiple obstacles on their path toward integration. For the most part various dimensions of their plight have been addressed by anthropologists, sociologists, medical scientists, and students of religious studies (see for example, Iranian Studies, special issue on Afghans, 40:2, 2007). Systematic governmental policy studies however, have been far and few in-between (Rajaee, MEJ, 54:1, 2000). This paper attempts to address this imbalance by focusing on the approach of the Iranian government towards refugees. Iran has been frequently lauded for its leadership in hosting refugees. The latest accolade came from the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees in Tehran. (See the daily Independent, 16 March 2017). However, and despite the constancy of the refugee challenge, the Iranian government has yet to formulate a stable and clear policy towards its Afghan refugees. The Islamic Republic’s refugee approach has historically fluctuated from open-door to closed borders, and from integration to repatriation. This paper identifies three factors consisting of ideological, structural, and strategic, as the central determinants of Iranian governmental approach to its refugee problem, and argues that the relative prominence of each of them has been the function of domestic, regional, and international changing circumstances, causing the fluctuations in policy towards the refugees. Ideological factors were more prominent at the beginning of the life of the post-revolutionary state while structural (economics) and strategic factors assumed prominence as time passed. The paper also argues that ideological factors were the primary determinant of the open-door policy while structural (economic) and strategic (security) factors, each to a differing degree, were the propellers of a stricter approach. The conclusion of the paper is that domestic, regional, and international trajectories are such that the trend toward stricter refugee policy will likely continue for the foreseeable future.

Following the 2015 “open door policy” toward refugees fleeing war torn societies in Africa and the Middle East, European countries have experienced a dramatic increase in the number of asylum seekers. The policy, which since then has been ended, overwhelmingly affected Italy, whose geographic proximity to the coast of Africa, make the country the first port of entry for many refugees. The Italian government, torn between its international and European obligations, on one side, and national political and social pressures, on the other, has complained about isolation and has accused the European Union of failing to comply with a “burden sharing agreement” proposed by the European Commission in 2016. Over the years, facing insurmountable challenges and lacking an effective and concerted effort of the European community, the Italian government has changed considerably the political rhetoric about refugees. Seen as a threat to the economy and security of the country, political leaders have been framing the “refugee problem” as a matter of “national security”, exploiting citizens’ fears about the social and economic stability of the country. Local and national elections have been the perfect fora for political candidates to blame prior governments and antagonizing political opponents. Amid internal political pressures the Italian government reached two very controversial agreements with Libya, de facto outsourcing the refugee problem, asking and supporting Libya in intercepting, blocking and returning refugees to North Africa. The consequences of these agreements have been devastating. Refugees refouled to Libya face horrific conditions. Many human rights organizations have accused Italy of fostering crimes against humanity and be complicit in the torture, killing, and mistreatment of many refugees at the hands of the Libyan government. This paper examines the motives behind the policies of the Italian government toward refugees and the political justifications given in support of the agreements with Libya. The theory indicates that the framing of the refugee crisis through the rhetoric of “national security”, primarily determined by the need for political gains, has created a major “human security” crisis unfolding, not only in the waters of the Mediterranean, but also in Libya, with the acquiescence of the Italian government and the European Union.

Despite the relatively small number of refugees from the Middle East coming to America, images of asylum seekers in Europe in 2016 loomed large in the American imagination. The story of refugees in Europe played a central role in framing the Syrian civil war to the American public. But the stories of mass migration and human suffering were overshadowed by the 2016 U.S. election season that yielded unusually sensational headlines of the Democratic and Republican primaries. During this time, the figure of the refugee had a principal role at the electoral-political level, factoring into debates on national security, immigration, and humanitarianism. Drawing on the political theorist Anne Norton’s discussion of the “Muslim Question’ (2013), I show how the refugee question prompted responses and discourses that reveal he limits of America's relationship with its foundational principles. For Donald Trump, the refugee question became the rationale for ‘America First’, while for Clinton and Sanders it became an opportunity to personalize the current crisis with migration narratives from the turn of the century. But the political fault lines produced by the figure of the refugee were not exclusive to the campaign stage; its tensions were mirrored by the increasingly polarized electorate at the time. The insights in this paper draw on 172 interviews with residents of San Antonio. I examine how Americans from diverse political, ethnic, and religious backgrounds evoked refugees in discussions we held during the 2016 presidential election. Prior research in media studies suggests that audiences have responded to images of refugees with a combination of empathy and suspicion (Gross et al., 2012; Nyers, 1999). Media research on news images suggests that images of migration and suffering evoke strong emotional responses and produce feelings of responsibility (Chouliaraki, 2006). This paper claims that these feelings of responsibility became mobilized in the social and political life of American citizens. Drawing on theories of discourse analysis (Fairclough, 2003) and contemporary political theories of Islam in the liberal secular age (Norton 2013; Asad 2003), I analyze how the rhetoric surrounding refugees elicits what seem to be competing nativist and pluralist claims about American nationalism. In this regard, I argue the narrative of refugees, specifically refugees from Syria, was a factor in the outcome of the presidential election.

Border Studies emphasizes that bordering takes place not only at the physical frontiers of nation-states but beyond as well as within those frontiers (Balibar 1998; De Genova 2005, Vaughan-Williams 2008). This paper examines the variety of borderings that occur at, beyond and within Europe’s formal frontiers in an effort to control migration from the Middle East. The study analyzes (mostly) current policies of the European Union as well as Italy, Spain, the United Kingdom, Germany, France, and the Netherlands. In addition to spending billions of euros to fortify their formal frontiers, European governments have also increasingly made international development aid to Middle Eastern countries (for example, Libya, Tunisia and Turkey) conditional on stricter emigration measures. The measures, such as the establishment of sophisticated detection systems, detention centers, refugee camps, and visa-processing bureaux (some of which are operated by private companies) amount to the erection of de facto European borders within the Middle East, or what border scholars term “the externalization” or the “off-shoring” of border control (Frelick, Kysel and Podkul 2016: 197; Vaughan-Williams 2008: 67). And yet, neither these nor the formal borders of Middle Eastern countries prevent millions of refugees and migrants from annually reaching European lands (with or without proper documentation). To draw attention to the (mostly informal) bordering that transpires within Europe, the paper employs the theory of “inclusive exclusion” (Agamben 1998: 7).The theory hypothesizes the widespread toleration and even facilitation of the entry and residence of both documented and undocumented migrants (inclusion) simultaneously combined with their marginalization and exploitation (exclusion). The paper concludes that the popular preoccupation with formal frontiers (walls, fences, etc.) common in the media provides a woefully inadequate understanding of the myriad borders that migrants and refugees from the Middle East confront.