President Joe Biden has just offered temporary “safe haven” to certain Hongkongers fleeing oppression by the government of the People’s Republic of China. It means that Hongkongers in the United States will have 18 extra months to remain safe in the U.S. under a program known as Deferred Enforced Departure.
That’s great. Now Biden should offer them asylum — because this is precisely what it exists for.
The main purpose of asylum, as opposed to regular immigration, is to take in and protect people who are specifically being persecuted by their own governments. For the most part, this is not applicable to the hundreds of thousands of border-crossers coming up from Central America. They exploit the asylum system, knowing that once they request it, they cannot be deported until the end of a lengthy process. This is the source of the asylum controversies spanning from the late Obama administration until today’s border crisis under Biden.
In contrast, many Chinese are genuinely at risk of political reprisals for merely having the wrong opinions. Ever since the regime of Xi Jinping abolished Hong Kong’s democracy, Hongkongers specifically have been subjected to political repression, imprisoned and punished for writing forbidden opinions, assembling in public, or endorsing the wrong candidates in elections. Many other citizens of China are being persecuted due to their ethnicity and religion, and on a scale that makes any sort of discrimination in the U.S. look like a walk in the park. But we are in a much better position to help out Hongkongers who need somewhere to flee to.
The U.S. is a natural fit for people fleeing oppression by the genocidal maniacs currently running the show in Beijing. We really should have done this for them long ago, and we really ought to do more now.
