About ten years ago, I was upset to see that Paul Weis, noted refugee expert, holocaust survivor, and co-author of the 1951 Refugee Convention did not have an Wikipedia page. In fact, the only drafters of the Convention who had made the cut on Wikipedia were Eleanor Roosevelt and American…

A lot has been written about the international response for displaced Ukrainians, which consists of a hodgepodge of ad-hoc and temporary laws and measures, including the EU’s famous Temporary Protection Directive. Less discussed is the fact that few Ukrainians have received refugee status. While the media freely uses the term…

By ignoring the human side of citizenship, the government promotes the idea that being Canadian is only about paperwork and money. Citizenship is an important part of all our identities and a fundamental right, yet for governments, citizenship is increasingly a tool of control. Nowhere is this better shown than…

A lot of reviewers have written positively about “Mo,” the new comedy about the life and times of a stateless, Palestinian man trying to make it in Houston, but few have noted the very important ways it is different from other immigrant stories, or stories about undocumented people, Muslim-Americans or…

Many refugee advocates and policy experts have shown support for Canada, the UK, and the USA’s use of temporary visas for Ukrainians, calling for these forms of temporary status to be extended to other groups, including Afghans, who face long waits for refugee resettlement. The narrative has become that temporary…

Why more people should embrace gender-neutral ID The US State Department will begin issuing passports with an X in place of gender upon request. This raises the important question of why gender is needed on passports at all? In some countries, gender is very important to citizenship. Many don’t allow…

“Fortress Europe” is a place surrounded by so many barriers, it is completely inaccessible to most people. Though Europe is not surrounded by an actual wall, it’s surrounded by an invisible wall of police, military, paperwork, navy boats and FRONTEX. Blessed with the most powerful passport in the world, however…

Go to jail or go to Canada. Canadians who think the end of Roe has nothing to do with them are in for a surprise. If anti-abortion laws are to have teeth in the US, examples will have to be made. Americans will have to go to jail. Or they…

Last week, members of the US Congress wrote a letter to themselves, asking themselves to cut back on the red tape of the US refugee system that they, themselves, created. Apparently still shocked by the byzantine system of fees, applications, processing times, pointless health procedures and background checks, Congress seems…