Difference and Distrust in Asylum Law: Haitian and Holocaust Refugee Narratives

Authors

Peter Margulies, St. Thomas University College of Law

First Page

135

Document Type

Article

Abstract

This Essay briefly examines three elements of Haitian and Holocaust refugee narratives which inspire disbelief. The first is the process of flight itself, along with its corollary, hiding. The second involves refugee denial of the threat of persecution, or of political involvement. The third concerns refugee deception at the time of entry into the United States. I argue that each of these categories creates a mismatch between refugee experience and the adversary system. The locus of disbelief of both Haitian and Holocaust refugees lies in the classic liberal tradition of negative rights, with its limited role for government, its rigid adherence to the adversarial model, and its elevation of abstraction over narrative. This tradition fosters a bureaucratic role morality which avoids responsibility for the plight of others. The failure to create a duty to rescue in Anglo-American public or private law is of a piece with our view of refugees as unwelcome impositions on our national hospitality.

Recommended Citation

Peter Margulies, Difference and Distrust in Asylum Law: Haitian and Holocaust Refugee Narratives, 6 St. Thomas L. Rev. 135 (1994).
Available at: https://scholarship.stu.edu/stlr/vol6/iss1/4