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The U.S. Rejected 1000s of Jewish Refugees in the Holocaust. That’s Why We Have Asylum Laws.
Today’s asylum regulations were generally codified into International and US law after World War II. They are based on a series of treaties to prevent deadly inaction on refugees from ever happening again.
In the 1920s, 30s and 40s the US, Canada, Switzerland, Brazil and other countries turned away many Jewish refugees that were eventually murdered. One of the most famous examples, the MS St Louis, just marked the 80th anniversary of the tragedy. In it, 900 Jewish refugees fleeing the Nazi death camps were turned away by Cuba, the US and Canada, only to eventually return to Europe. Nearly 700 of them would ultimately be murdered by the Nazi regime. It’s a deeply unfortunate story, but one that would be repeated over and over again.
Stable western countries that could afford to absorb these migrants turned their backs on them, even though they understood that they were consigning them to die. They stood firm on laws (recently enacted to specifically keep out minorities) that required certain preconditions be met to claim asylum. This included — in the US — the need to have a visa prior to arrival, or to have an asylum case adjudicated in a third country. You can read more detail about it in this well-researched article about America’s inaction during the crisis.
