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I would just not allow asylum except from select European countries.
It's meant to help friends, not enemies.
Only allowing asylum from countries we're friends with doesn't really make much sense. How could we be a European country's friends if, at the same time, we were recognizing that they were persecuting their own citizens, and taking the persecuted citizens' side? I agree that asylum should generally not be applied to people who are themselves our enemies individually, but the obvious use-case is defectors from enemy nations - it's Muslim apostates, it's politically-dissident Chinese. Granting asylum to the denizens of an ally only makes sense in the case of a Ukraine-style war and I don't think that's the central case for an asylum-seeker, those are black-swan events.
You have successfully divined the point. I don't want to help the vast majority of current asylum claimants. A tyrannical dictator or a massive catastrophe are rare, valid events that I want to help. Living standards in Pashtun being shit (because of all the Pashtuns) or interminable ethnoreligious sand wars (a product of the backwards people and religions there) are not.
I do not want to help Africans or Arabs or Bomalians or Gomalians. Not in any way that involves bringing them here, at least.
By "the central case for an asylum-seeker" I didn't mean "the median person seeking asylum today" - who, to be clear, I agree should not be claiming asylum - I meant "the central case for the platonic ideal of asylum". That is, I think asylum should typically apply to individuals, not broad demographics. A catastrophe or war that leaves tens of thousands of people needing help, I think that's very abnormal, and specific decrees can be made when the situation arises. The archetypal asylum-seeker should be some anti-establishment journalist facing purging or assassination in Russia or China; some prominent Muslim-born thinker who gets a fatwa declared against him; etc. People, in other words, whose personal commitment to western-style values puts them at risk in hostile illiberal nations.
I would be willing to offer a reasonable asylum hearing to Europeans being threatened by their governments for proscribed speech.
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Wasn't that the aftermath of WW2, where German jews were displaced across Europe, into culturally similar countries? As in, this was why asylum treaties exist.
Shithole sand wars should not provide a golden ticket for illiterate goat herders to come and leech off of Western states' largesse. Shithole sand wars happen constantly, all the time. It's the default state of the area.
I don't understand why you harp on about the shithole sand wars when I keep saying that my model of asylum wouldn't cover them.
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Well, no. The problem asylum laws try to solve was "they tried to escape before the camps began, and were turned away". (Of course, they're not necessarily the central example of an asylum-seeker at that point, now are they?)
Hence the posture of the laws being that permissive, but they were ultimately meant for Never Again.
What they ended up being actually used for was... well, not that.
And if the faction in the West who wants them imported actually cared, they'd send some military advisors and some weapons with which to defend themselves. Or simply volunteer themselves. Just like they did at every other point in the 20th century (Israel and Ireland being the two best examples), and are still doing in the 21st with Ukraine.
Of course, that faction also conveniently hides behind an identity of "we're not cultural imperialists, that's our outgroup's job" despite the fact they do literally nothing else at home. So they only care inasmuch they can make their domestic enemy pay for it.
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Even then I think it needs to be tighter. Im firmly in favor of “first safe harbor” as a legal principle here. If you’re in danger, you are free to go to the nearest safe country to seek asylum. If you’re a Palestinian fleeing Gaza, you can go to Syria, Lebanon, Jordan, or Egypt. You are not getting in to Europe or North America on an asylum claim because at that point you’ve crossed over half the globe in search of a rich country to live in. It’s crazy to me.
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