Five Books That Can Help You Understand The Refugee Crisis
Why it matters that only 2% find new homes after fleeing horrors like war, tyranny, or sex slavery
My native New Brunswick, New Jersey, was once called “the most Hungarian city in America.”
Early in the 20th century, great waves of Magyars passed though the city, my paternal ancestors among them.
Nearby Camp Kilmer later welcomed tens of thousands of refugees from the Hungarian Revolution of 1956 as part of the humanitarian relief and resettlement program called Operation Safe Haven, also known as Operation Mercy.
I benefited immeasurably from all of it. My worldview is less America-centric because I heard the refugees’ language, went to school with descendants of the Freedom Fighters of 1956, and learned of hardships the immigrants had faced in the “old country.”
Today there is no mercy and no safe haven for millions worldwide who are trying to flee war, tyranny, persecution, and unfathomable terrors such as sex slavery.
Only 2% of refugees are able to settle in a new country or voluntarily return home, Serena Parekh writes in No Refuge: Ethics and the Global Refugee Crisis (Oxford, 2020). The rest often spend years in squalid refugee camps or other…
