The last few months have been image after image of the catastrophe unfolding at the end of a 20 year experiment in nation building. I’m speaking of course of Afghanistan. Say what you will about whether we should have left, how we should have left, or if we should have considered staying, one thing we seem all able to agree on is we need to help get at risk people out.
Now there are hundreds of articles talking about how all of this happened, who we need to get out, how the refugees will be vetted, and which countries will help with hosting refugees while the US is vetting them. What was not seen much initially, was where the refugees were to be hosted once they made their way to the United States. In fact, September 10th, 2021 was the first time media was allowed onto a military base hosting Afghan Refugees.
In the initial days in late August, Dulles International Airport was the entry point for hundreds of Afghan Refugees and to say it was not coordinated well is a bit of an understatement. Initially some 200 refugees were bussed to Northern Virginia Community College (NOVA) where the Fairfax County Office of Emergency Management rounded up supplies and beds for the newcomers. However, the State Department later bussed these people back to the airport so that they could go to the Dulles Expo Center (a huge complex used for events like flea markets and conventions) instead.
This was just a stop on the road as well since another intermediary destination for these 200 refugees, as well as all incoming Afghan refugees will be various U.S. Military Basis, two of which are Fort Bliss, Texas, and Fort McCoy, Wisconsin. Other sources are saying that Fort Lee, Virginia will also be a potential host and Vox reported Fort Pickett, Virginia as another option. Issues such as the minor miscommunication above are everywhere, which is to be expected with the panic and rush of higher ups realizing that the Taliban really wasn’t going to slow down in their pursuits of power. A Reuters article details some pitfalls in the process that could cause hundreds of refugees years of immigration problems and bureaucratic hell.
Now I know we expect a lot of our military personnel. They’re expected to wage war, help with humanitarian crises such as ebola outbreaks, help fight forest fires and provide aid after hurricanes, act as a police force when a state Governor asks, and many many other things. I provided a few examples above but all you have to do is perform a quick Google Search and hundreds of other examples will show up.
Expecting military bases to host and care for immigrants and refugees still seemed like a step way past all of that. So I got curious. How often have U.S. military bases been used in this manner? What are the rights of the refugees? Can they leave? What is the role of the Army? Are they prison guards or aid workers? This article is an attempt to answer some of these questions.
How often have U.S. military bases been used in this manner?
According to the Congressional Research Service (CRS) bases have been used in this manner to this magnitude as far back as 1975 when the U.S. military evacuated refugees after the fall of Saigon which signaled the end of the Vietnam Civil War. In fact, the practice of using military bases as refugee processing centers actually goes back to 1956 after a failed Hungarian uprising against the Soviet Union. According to CRS, roughly every 5-10 years since 1975 there has been a refugee crisis severe enough that U.S. military bases, both overseas and on US soil, have been used to temporarily host them. This responsibility has been undertaken by the Army, Navy and Air Force over the years.
Already this practice is far more common than I was aware. So much so that it was happening this year before the Afghan refugees started pouring through Dulles. Early in 2021 it was determined that some “Unaccompanied Migrant Children” should be held at Joint Base San Antonio-Lackland and at El Paso’s Fort Bliss. As of June 30th, the detention center at Joint Base San Antonio-Lackland was closed. More children are headed for Camp Roberts, CA. In April 2021, there were roughly 18,000 children in Federal custody with numbers going slightly down in May and June.
Thousands of children continue to make their way to the US/Mexico boarder in the hopes of leaving behind various states of unrest, crime, and gang violence in their home countries. There have been concerns raised over the legitimacy of Army bases being used as children detention centers but it seems for the time being they will have to continue to host these children because the Customs Boarder Patrol (CPB) and Office of Refugee Resettlement is largely overwhelmed and shelter space is constrained with Covid-19 regulations.
To answer the rest of my questions I need to take you through a few pivotal refugee crisis starting with where the use of military bases as refugee centers began… the Cold War.
Hungry (1956) – Operation Mercy
According to the 41st Military Government Company, Operation Mercy was “the first time military Government units were used during peace time in a phase of their usual tactical operation.” According to their final report, the Army was the only institution that could handle the scope of the refugee crisis and administer support with both logistics, shelter, and medical care. Camp Kilmer, NJ was selected because of its size and location (it was one of the main stops for troops entering and exiting the European Theater during WWII).
Camp Kilmer hosted roughly 85% of the 30,000+ refugees that came to the US from Hungry after the failed revolution in 1956. President Eisenhower needed to break through fairly restrictive US immigration and refugee stipulations to allow that number of Hungarian refugees into the US. The Refugee Relief Act was the basis for accepting the Hungarians into the US but it required strict screening requirements. The Eisenhower administration granted each Hungarian a visa to get around the strictest refugee orders but required a centralized processing center: Camp Kilmer. There was a lot more legalese and laws cited to allow the massive flood of Hungarian refugees, but as this is not a law blog I will sum it up by saying the Eisenhower Administration set the precedence for all future mass refugee migrations to the United States during times of humanitarian crisis.
Vietnam and Cambodia 1975
“In March 1975, Communist forces in South Vietnam and Cambodia strengthened their military efforts. This led to the rapid collapse of government forces and a sudden flow of hundreds of thousands of refugees, many of whom ultimately sought rescue and safe haven in the United States.”
United States General Accounting Office (GAO): https://www.gao.gov/assets/id-75-71.pdf
In an almost shockingly similar situation to the one we are watching play out in Afghanistan, the US Government realized that the fall of Saigon and the collapse of the Cambodian government meant more than South Asian geopolitics had shifted, it meant refugees and responsibility. Saigon fell April 30th 1975, in March strategies and movement of people had started for how to get refugees out, and between April 15th and April 30th evacuations of Vietnamese and Americans out of Saigon occurred. More Cambodian and Vietnamese refugees emerged after April 30th by their own means, coining the wonderful and ignorant term of “Boat People.” President Ford created an Interagency Task Force to coordinate actions surrounding US efforts to evacuate refugees from Vietnam and Cambodia. The task force had to get the refugees out and resettle them. A review of that refugee processing program came out in June 1975 identifying two bottlenecks that had emerged: vetting refugees and getting hosting for them them outside of military bases (with church groups, families, host families etc.)
Cambodian and Vietnamese refugees were first evacuated to U.S. bases on Guam, the Philippines and Wake Island where they would be kept until it was time to move onto military bases within the US. Just to provide a little context according to the Pew Research Center only 37% of Americans were in favor of accepting any Vietnamese refugees. This callousness was not reserved only for South East Asians, only 33% of Americans approved of accepting Hungarian refugees from the 1956 revolution attempt – 55% disapproved. It has been argued that there was a soft spot in every administration during the Cold War to help people fleeing communism that may or may not have resonated with the American people.
Camp Pendleton, CA was the first to receive South Asian refugees, complete with field tents and latrines and capable of hosting some 20,000 people. Three other bases would be used to house refugees while three other Army bases provided care to almost 2,000 South East Asian orphans. By the end of 1976 roughly 144,000 refugees had passed through the US resettlement system – many of whom also passed through US military bases on their road to integration. (By 1992 more than one million South East Asian people had been allowed into the United States).
Just as it was in the case of the Hungarian refugees, there were many acts and authorities that allowed this massive refugee relocation plan to work: the Migration and Refugee Assistance Act, the Foreign Assistance Act, the Presidential Powers as commander-in-chief are just a few. Not to mention additional congressional funding of $455 million.
These processing centers did a lot. Each center had a “joint military-civilian task force” to provide security, screen the refugees coming in, provide medical examinations, providing Social Security Numbers, finding job prospects, sponsors, and housing opportunities. The Immigration and Naturalization Service (INS) did the security screening of refugees and the moment they touched down onto American soil it was the job of the military personnel to make sure they were all processed before being released.
“Refugees deplaning were placed under immediate control by the military command involved. Living quarters were assigned, with family groups remaining intact if possible… Refugees were transported to their quarters in the reception centers. From this point the military personnel were required to ensure that refugees began processing through INS.”
https://www.gao.gov/assets/id-75-71.pdf (Page 21)
The source used above was talking about operations as of May 23rd, 1975 so things probably changed over time but it still provides a snapshot in time of what conditions were like. Trying to balance national security and human rights can be a hard and murky line. From what I’ve gathered military bases were the best place to contain large groups of refugees so they could be processed to reduce the risk of enemy forces or extremists slipping through the cracks. There is always a risk that some of the people we work to help are seeking to perpetrate attacks on those providing aid.
On the other hand, many of these refugees had personally seen fighting in their country. The sight of military fatigues could mean safety or it could spark fear because of its connotation with fighting and warfare. Being held prisoner for even a limited duration could increase already existing traumas and trying to navigate through a maze of paperwork, interviews, and bureaucracy would make even the most well adjusted human want to scream.
There is also a risk of blunting just what the military is and should be used for. Where is the line? There is a wonderful book called “How Everything Became War and the Military Became Everything” by Rosa Brooks, which I am reading right now that talks about this phenomenon and others in much more detail. If nothing else it is an interesting conundrum that is worth pondering on a rainy day… or a sunny day for those of us less athletically inclined.
Cuba 1980 – Mariel Boatlift
In the case of Cuban and Haitian refugees things start to feel a little different. On April 20th, 1980 Fidel Castro allowed Cubans to leave and emigrate to the United State. Mariel was the port that they were allowed to leave from, thus the name “Mariel Boatlift.” Over 100,000 Cuban Refugees ended up on US shores being carried by some 1,700 boats. 27 people died trying to make the voyage to what they deemed to be a better life.
What makes this situation strikingly different than the other two is the reports that some of the refugees had been released from jails and mental health facilities. Pew Research found that 71% of Americans disapproved of the Cuban refugees being allowed to stay in the US and only 25% approved. The US was also in a recession at the time which further impacted public perception of the matter.
To say that the media focused on the small number of criminals and mentally disabled members of the Cuban refugees would be a bit of an understatement. From what I can tell it was a media storm. Further complicating the storm were insults thrown by Castro that the people who left Cuba were the, “dregs of society and counter-revolutionaries who needed to be purged because they could never prove productive to the nation.” In reality very few of these refugees had a criminal past, but there were a few thousand who were mentally or physically disabled, former sex workers, or part of the LGBT community – all of which carried stigma of their own at this time. To me, this stigma of Latin American and Central American migrants and refugees still stays with us today, and the policy of hosting massive amounts of refugees on military bases is arguably why we are seeing images of unaccompanied minors being held on bases instead of in other, possibly more appropriate facilities.
In April 1980 four military bases were used to host the oncoming refugees, with three of them closing by October 1980. Roughly 6,000 refugees were transferred to the fourth base: Fort Chaffee, AR, which did not close until February of 1982.
Other Examples
Haitian refugees were held on Guantanamo Bay, Cuba in the early 1990’s after the coup. Cuban refugees were sheltered there as well later in the decade because of a reversal in US policy surrounding Cuban refugees. Some argue that the use of Guantanamo Bay was a way to deter refugees from seeking asylum in the United States, with one writer going so far as to say, “Haitians and Cubans were held behind barbed wire and had few legal avenues or rights. Many of these migrants experienced the base as a jail.” Many Haitian refugees were sent back to their country while many Cubans were allowed entry into the US (the last tendrils of the Cold War and a deep rooted fear of communism has been thrown out there as a reason for this). I know I’m jumping off topic a bit but I have to mention that this is frustratingly similar to what is playing out now, except we are bypassing military bases as a central processing station – we are just denying hundreds of thousands of Haitians outright.
In 1999 Albanian refugees from Kosovo were sheltered at Fort Dix, New Jersey during the Kosovo War. Throughout the 2010’s “Unaccompanied Alien Children” were hosted on military bases repeatedly and the military has helped border control as caravans and refugees come to the U.S. boarder.
It seems my final question of “are military personnel who interact with refugees prison guards or aid workers?” might be contingent on the types of refugees being helped and the administration in charge at the time. President Trump arguably used military bases as a means of deterrence for Central American refugees, as was President Clinton’s policy in the 1990’s with the Haitian refugees. Vietnamese and Afghan refugees seem to have received a different set of standards and if you don’t believe me, just listen to these different headlines:
Record high migrant detentions at US-Mexico border where the author talks about Fort Bliss’s “detention center” this year and
US gives 1st public look inside base housing Afghans which is also in reference to Fort Bliss this year.
Now I’m not here to say that headlines equal attitude but it’s an interesting study that Fort Bliss has so many hats. U.S. bases are tools and how refugees are received into them is as strategic and political as anything else Washington comes up with. We should not for one second refuse Afghan refugees seeing asylum – in fact we should have done a lot more to help. But there is an interesting trend that has been playing out for decades where refugees are not treated equally and the “tools” used to process them are therefore not used equally.
Jumping back to a tantalizing segment earlier in this article, that of whether military bases and personnel should be used in this manner, I really do not have an answer for that. But it is an interesting problem that we as a country keep running into: what exactly is the military for? Are they an always ready source of man power that governments can direct wherever they choose? Or are they an elite fighting force that is suppose to protect the country from outside security threats. Are military bases “housing” refugees or “detaining” them. Maybe the answer really is always both.
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