Where we gonna go?

U.S. law about refugees and a right of asylum is a snarled tangle of temporary branches, feeble novel shoots, and confused and blocked dead ends. Much of this has become semi-permanent by custom and usage. Republicans are straightforward nowadays in wishing to exclude all newcomers (except maybe white Europeans) while Democrats may mean well, but have not had the legislative power and courage to fix this cruel mess.

And unless we are somehow touched personally by the experiences of refugees and immigrants, most of us don't have to know what a shit show this non-system has become. So we don't know, while those ensnared within it fumble and push their way forward, seeking safety in unwelcoming lands.

Erudite Partner has taken a swing in Nowhere to Run at untangling some the elements of refugee law and practice; the history of how we got to this mess; where global refugees and migrants come from; where they end up; and the forces of war and climate degradation that promise to make these human surges even larger in the coming century. She begins:

Back in 1968, my father announced that, if Richard Nixon were elected president that November, he was going to move us all to Canada. ...

Didn't happen. But the impulse -- and often the necessity --  to move on is part of our interconnected lives. This article is a solid pre-primer.