Issue 28: October 3, 2022
In this issue...
We're covering how climate change is fueling a crisis of health and economics across the horn of Africa, the critical role of the Za'atari Refugee Camp in Jordan for Syrian and other Middle Eastern refugees, and the causes and effects of persistent inequities in COVID-19 vaccine distribution. We're also highlighting the remarkable and tireless efforts of two individuals to provide substantial humanitarian aid for Ukrainians as they face dire conditions during the war with Russia.
US Immigration Policy Update
By Marin Theis
Afghanistan
In a major policy shift, President Biden announced on September 1st that Afghans will no longer be able to enter the U.S. via humanitarian parole. The U.S. will move its focus away from temporarily relocating more Afghans to the US and towards reuniting immediate families of Afghan United States residents and providing more permanent solutions to Afghan refugees living in the U.S. Humanitarian parole does not offer a path towards citizenship, while this new policy will focus on creating pathways towards permanent residency for Afghans already living in the United States and their immediate families.
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DACA
The Department of Homeland Security (DHS) has released a new regulation that preserves and reaffirms DACA. The new rule makes certain changes to DACA based on internal review of the policy and the over 16,000 comments that the DHS received during the public comment period on the reform of the policy.
However, the fundamental elements of DACA, as it was written in the 2012 Napolitano Memorandum, remain. The new regulation reasserts the current threshold criteria and process for requesting work authorization and also recognizes DACA recipients to be considered lawfully present in the United States. It also recognizes that Dreamers should not be a priority for deportation efforts, because they have lived almost their whole lives in the U.S.
The finalized regulation goes into effect Monday, October 31st. However, DHS cannot grant new DACA requests and employment authorization due to an injunction issued by a Texas judge. As a result, the new rule will only apply to DACA renewal requests.
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Constitution Day and Citizenship Day
In honor of Constitution Day and Citizenship Day on September 17th, USCIS held over 235 naturalization ceremonies. These ceremonies naturalized over 19,000 new citizens. The purpose of the celebration is to honor the connection between the constitution and citizenship and to reflect on what it means to be a U.S. citizen.
Part of the celebrations included encouraging new citizens to take advantage of their new civil rights such as registering to vote. September 17th was part of a larger celebration called Constitution Week, held from September 17-23. This week was chosen because the Constitution was signed on September 17th, 1787.
A Climate Emergency in the Horn of Africa Evolves into a Health and Economic Crisis
By Harrison Huang
The Horn of Africa is the easternmost part of the continent, consisting of four countries: Djibouti, Eritrea, Ethiopia, and Somalia. Its year-round hot and dry climate makes the 140 million people living there victims of frequent droughts. This year’s unprecedented heat waves have led to one of the worst climate-related emergencies of the past 40 years, according to a UNICEF report on the region. This year marks the fifth consecutive failed rainy season.
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Starting from 2020, at least 36.1 million people have been affected by the drought, including 24.1 million in Ethiopia and 7.8 million in Somalia. One of the greatest concerns of the crisis is food insecurity. An estimated 80 million East Africans face hunger in their day-to-day lives, and at least 20.5 million people wake up each day to severe food insecurity.
People living in the Horn of Africa depend on agriculture and livestock. The minimal levels of rain initiate a vicious cycle where the deaths of animals and crops lead to malnourishment in people, exacerbating an existing health crisis. Children without access to milk become immunocompromised and become easily infected with diseases.
Further worsening the situation in the Horn of Africa are skyrocketing prices due to limited supply internally and abroad. Countries of the region have so far relied on humanitarian food-aid provided by Russia and Ukraine wheat stocks. For example, 90 percent of Somalia’s wheat imports are from the two countries. However, the ongoing conflict between Russia and Ukraine disrupted the market and dramatically increased the risks of famine in countries of the Horn of Africa.
To mitigate the devastating effects of droughts in the region, the World Food Program (WFP) updated its previous response plan due to deteriorating humanitarian conditions and the increasing need for relief. Methods of intervention include aids in kind or cash, nutrition services for children and women, and reconstruction of retail networks that help build resilience among affected populations in the long term.
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Thus ongoing water crisis needs your support, and here are ways in which you can contribute:
As Ukraine War Continues, Anastasia Bard and Konstantin Sirotkin Spearhead Effort To Provide Critical, Grassroots-Funded Aid
By Xander Starobin
As the war in Ukraine rages on, millions are in desperate need of global support as they face grim violence. While complex political forces around the world wrestle with each other as they try to manage the problem, some individuals have sought to create systems of aid on their own. Two such individuals are Ukrainian-American former journalist Anastasia Bard and her husband, Konstantin Sirotkin.
Since the beginning of the war, Bard and Sirotkin have felt a duty to work to help the situation, and their efforts have been highly successful. Raising enormous sums of money and gathering extensive supplies for Ukrainians in need, Bard has developed a broad-reaching grassroots project for a struggling people thousands of miles away from her home.
Having both grown up in Ukraine, Bard and her husband still have connections with old friends who live in the country, and these relationships have been key points of connection for their aid efforts. During the initial weeks of the war, one such friend, whose daughter works in a hospital, urged that even simple materials for the hospital like medical gloves were extremely hard to come by through the chaos of daily bombings of their city. As Bard and her Sirotkin sought ways to help their homeland, they realized that providing even such straightforward assistance directly to contacts who need it could be substantially beneficial, so they started shipping medical gloves and other supplies the hospital needed. She comments, “the moment we figured out we could do specific things for people, we knew it felt like we had a purpose.”
As more of their contacts in Ukraine have struggled with extremely limited humanitarian and medical supplies, Bard and Sirotkin have coordinated large-scale initiatives to supplement this scarcity. In one of their biggest projects, after learning from staff at a cardiology clinic about frequent, dangerous power-outages during bombing raids, Bard and her husband raised roughly 9,000 dollars to purchase a generator to protect the patients receiving the critical care that the clinic provides. They also buy smaller-scale equipment like prenatal machines, surgical lamps, and uniforms as medical staff and soldiers describe a great need for particular items to Bard and Sirotkin directly or to one of their contacts.
Information about Bard’s and her husband’s efforts has spread completely by word of mouth and social media––no paid advertising or mainstream media has promoted these efforts. Nonetheless, individuals from around the country have purchased over 100,000 dollars worth of items off of an Amazon list of humanitarian supplies that Bard posted that will be shipped to Ukraine. In addition, the couple, despite currently living on the East Coast, has received direct supply donations from regions as far-flung as Texas and Nevada. Bard’s and Sirotkin's several small benefit concerts, cooking classes, yoga classes, and other fundraising initiatives have raised tens of thousands of dollars for direct aid to Ukraine.
Such a substantial undertaking has proved to be consuming and stressful at times, but Bard thinks that “somehow, [she and her husband] have been able to balance it.” She emphasizes that despite the hectic coordination efforts, she has read to her 12 year-old son almost every night since the war started. She added that she and her husband have "made a point to make sure we’re still there for each other.”
Upon the onset of the war, Bard recalls that her husband grew deeply angry––a feeling uncharacteristic for someone whom she describes as “the nicest, kindest person––someone who never insults others.” Seeing him so upset, she knew they needed to figure out a way to channel the emotion towards something meaningful. “When he started packing boxes, it became his way to stay sane,” Bard remarks, adding that “doing something for someone else is the best way to feel balanced and happier.”
Bard and Sirotkin continue to work tirelessly to support Ukrainians in need. If you are interested in contributing to these relief efforts or learning more about them, check out Anastasia Bard on facebook or @BardAnastasia on twitter.
As Instability Persists in Middle East, Za'atari Refugee Camp Continues to Be Critical Resource
By Nick Costantino
On July 28, 2012, 450 Syrian refugees crossed the border into Jordan and established what would become the Za’atari refugee camp. Within a year, the camp’s population soared to 120,000 people, with a peak of 150,000, making it the 4th largest city in Jordan at one point.
The camp has 32 schools, 58 community centers, and eight clinics; electricity is available 8 hours a day; there is a sewage and water network and asphalt roads with an internal transportation network that makes the camp feel like an actual city.
At first, the UNHCR only provided refugees with tents and rudimentary shelters. As the years have passed, the UNHCR has built thousands of metal structures, and in 2017, built a solar power plant to provide residents with clean energy for 8 hours a day. The Sham Elysees, a road lined with 1,800 shops, stretches almost three kilometers through the center of the camp, hosting everything from food markets to repair shops, all run by refugees.
By Nick Constantino
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Despite all the assistance that the camp provides, two-thirds of families in the Za’atari camp are in debt and only 4 percent hold work permits, which allow refugees to work in Jordan. 86 percent of Syrian refugees living outside the various camps in Jordan are below the poverty line and struggling to find work in post-pandemic Jordan.
32 UN agencies and NGOs work in the Za’atari camp, employing over 1,200 employees, providing protection, health care, cash assistance, shelter maintenance, and more, all in conjunction with the Jordanian government which relies on these organizations to help shoulder the burden of operating one of the biggest refugee camps in the world.
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The Jordanian ministry of education operates all the schools in the camp. Approximately 20,000 people have been born in the camp since its inception; all of them have only ever lived in the camp and do not know where they are from. Although the government and organizations in the camp try to provide all refugees with water, food and shelter, 30 percent of refugees still feel the water supply does not fulfill their needs.
There are also eight medical facilities that provide free health care in the Za’atari camp, providing 25,000 medical consultations each month and referring more serious cases to local hospitals. Despite the fact that everybody in the camp is provided for and nobody goes starving, life is still far from normal and most Syrian refugees still want to go home, especially those who have relatives still in Syria. As the Syrian civil war and other conflicts continue to rage on, many refugees are left stranded in camps like Za’atari, which, even though provide for as many people as possible, still pale in comparison to their earlier lives.
Corporate Interests, Political Struggles Lead to Continued Limited COVID-19 Vaccine Access in Developing Countries
By Jack Elworth
Just two years on from the beginning of the Covid-19 vaccine rollout across the Western world, non-profit Our World in Data reports that high income nations boast an average 87% vaccination rate; meanwhile, low income nations report a measly 22%. How did so many of the world’s poorest countries get left in the dust amidst the fastest vaccine development and rollout in world history, and what consequences does this inequity entail for those nations and the international community as a whole?
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Even as companies neared the end of the development phase and began clinical trials, wealthy world players such as the US, EU, and UK cut lucrative deals with Western drugmakers in order to receive the first nearly 4 billion vaccines. While many in both the medical and political spheres objected to this highest bidder approach in which wealth determined when a nation could vaccinate its people, a number of commentators pointed out that the alternative, an “equitable approach” would directly conflict with the responsibilities of the drugmakers.
Companies have a fiduciary duty to their shareholders, and many would consider giving away vaccines for free or at a discount when some nations would eagerly pay exorbitant prices as a breach of that duty. However, some believe that these companies have an additional responsibility during such a global calamity like the pandemic to serve the world equitably, and thus, in this case, make vaccines equitably accessible.
By Jack Elworth
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While some portray these responsibilities as a dichotomy between people and profit, other pundits argue that the ability to rake in profit is not greed but rather the primary force driving research and development of new medicines and therapies that better the world. Healthcare organizations have called on drugmakers like Pfizer, BioNTech, J&J, and Moderna to share their patented (and highly profitable) information with other companies in order to increase production for the developing world, but western governments resisted such ideas on the grounds that the protection of intellectual property is necessary for a successful nation.
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In the second stage of the vaccine rollout, during which wealthy nations had already vaccinated most of those who wanted to be, the developing world still lagged far behind. Some drugmakers blamed vaccine hesitancy for low vaccination numbers in developing nations, but the problem seems to be almost entirely on the supply side. Many poorer nations, some ravaged by war and instability, lack the infrastructure, coordination, and government reach to effectively vaccinate their citizens. A lack of adequate refrigeration, limited outposts with capacity to administer vaccines, and disjointed planning led to millions of doses spoiling before use. Rural areas with few to no established healthcare institutions as well as displaced people from conflict or disaster proved tough obstacles to overcome in drives to vaccinate populations.
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As a result of the gross lack of vaccination in the developing world, many commentators feared that COVID would run rampant and drive up the death toll in the most impoverished parts of the world. Additionally, some worried that large groups of unvaccinated people could give rise to new, more infectious variants that vaccines could not protect against.
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With some hindsight, albeit limited, this first fear of a disaster in parts of Africa and the Middle East seems overblown. Both cases and deaths stayed far lower throughout these regions, especially Africa, despite low vaccination numbers. Experts point to a young average age, a hot and humid climate, experience with previous infectious disease, and the swift and decisive action of African governments as factors in the astoundingly low numbers of developing African nations. The second fear––that of vaccine-flouting variants––did not come to pass either: despite new and more infectious variants, none seem to be able to universally circumvent the protection of vaccines.
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However, with limited testing and even more limited reporting, the true impact of Covid-19 in the developing world remains anyone’s guess. Ultimately, despite the fact that Covid-19’s toll on much of the developing world has been less severe than anticipated, it has still been destructive just as Covid-19 has been all around the world. That destruction could be greatly limited with greater vaccine access, but under current circumstances, costs and logistical obstacles greatly limit the potential for such access.