Modern efforts to protect refugees

We now turn to refugees, who, as mentioned in the first chapter, hold a special position when we consider who to admit. This position is a privileged one, based on the widely shared view that refugees have a stronger moral claim to admission than immigrants. This chapter explores modern efforts to protect refugees, beginning with the establishment of various international guidelines and organizations after World War II. It also discusses how refugee protection policies are often intertwined with foreign policy goals, which means that we are more generous in helping in some cases than in others. One way of protecting refugees is to grant them asylum, and this policy has been especially controversial in many OECD countries because of the issue of asylum abuse.