Escaping Atlantis: The Human Rights Approach (VI)

This article is Part VI of an investigative series about climate migration. For Part V of Escaping Atlantis, click here.

Close The Border.

These three words pollute U.S. politics. The flagrant demonization of migrants as “stone-cold killers,” “animals,” and “rapists.” The baseless accusations of undocumented migrants interfering in our elections. The cruel, overreaching ICE seizures and expulsions of non-criminals without probable cause. The for-profit detention centers financially incentivized to prolong and disregard due process. The white-collared war cries for mass deportation behind white-picket fences – all while huddled masses cram into underfunded, unsanitary prisons and asylum camps.

The implication? Our realm bears the superior good. Those outsiders cannot enter our realm without compromising our good. The security and purity of our realm is not sanctified by neighborhood watches or Raising Canes’ sauce. We must secure the existence of our people and a future for white our children.

‘Close The Border’ was the theme of my college’s debate in October 2024. Participants were tasked with endorsing or disavowing the three-word claim. Amidst the xenophobic blue-skying of the Trump-Harris election, immigration was a poignant talking point worth discussing with credibility and tact. Offer people some real food for thought unlike the dogs in Ohio.

The debate was a circle jerk of cookie-cutter commentary.

We can’t let these illegal aliens steal our jobs and buy our homes.

But isn’t America a melting pot of all races, nationalities, and creeds?

Imagine your family members murdered by a mob of criminal migrants.

Everyone should have a shot at the American Dream.

At what point will we stop accepting every boat that invades our shoreline?

We should not deport these innocent people – they should simply acquire legal citizenship.

With no fact-checker present (I asked; the request was denied), the dialogue was navigated on cliché and vibe. Speakers from both sides of the aisle would parrot the usual belabored buzzwords that dumb down discussion into a roundtable of campaign slogans and confirmation bias. The audience was compelled to nod along with whatever was preached at the pulpit.

The most striking pattern of the debate was the gradual withering of confidence. Polarized viewpoints, once sharper than barbed-wire fences, slowly drifted to the center. I attribute this development – not to informed conversation or open-minded revelation – but to the intimidation of fielding questions on a topic of great ignorance. Anyone can waffle their way through sugarcoated platitudes, but addressing the trigger-happy tongues of peers tends to dull the edges of dogmatic dialogue.

The debate championed this centrist conversational shift as a bridge to common ground. I view this as empirical evidence that the average American does not understand the plight of immigrants.

They have not cringed at the word “alien.” They have not been turned away at ports of entry. They have not wagered their immigration on an archaic lottery system. They have not been erroneously labeled as "gang members" and "drug lords." They have not prepared their families to hide from ICE. And they have not realized the agonizingly drawn-out period for obtaining American citizenship. News flash, debate-speakers, but it ain’t two months!

My friend bludgeoned their seminar of smoke and mirrors. As co-president of the college’s Hispanic cultural organization, his testimony sobered up the crowd. He shared stories about what he had researched about local Hispanic gangs. The room learned about drug cartels as a national security threat and a push factor to immigration. Most crucially, my friend injected real humanity into this corpse of a discussion. From stories from his community to critiques against administrative immigrant policy, my friend breathed life into the struggles of immigrants.

I was honored to follow his stellar speech. In my five minutes, I wanted to press beyond my research. I would certainly express how our fossil-fueled consumer culture forces waves of migrants to escape eviscerated environments. I would spotlight the muted chaos of Kiribati and the Niger Delta. I would frame human rights as an unreliable safety net that is too strict and confined to address transboundary climate change.

But more than my research, I needed to talk about how climate migration affected me.

In April 1815, Mount Tambora in present-day Indonesia erupted, killing roughly 100,000 people. Later deemed the largest volcanic eruption in recorded history, the climatic shock propagated crop failure, tsunamis, and ashfall throughout Oceania. To escape these conditions, my Indonesian ancestors fled by ship. The Philippines welcomed these climate refugees with their trademarked hospitality.

I would not be Filipino (much less a naturalized Filipino-American) without their voyage. I would not have my friends, my teachers, my luxuries and privileges. I may not be even alive without their sacrifice.

Once my time expired, the Q&A began. Most questions volleyed toward me asked how I would properly reform our immigration system. One person asked about illegal aliens. But the most pertinent question that persistently jostles my mind was:

You claimed cities like Miami and New Orleans may sink by 2100.

You claimed wildfires will continue to rage across the West Coast.

You claimed 1 in every 45 people could be a climate migrant by 2050.

At what point should the displacement of U.S. citizens be prioritized over the displacement of incoming migrants?

I don’t know.

I mean, we could push for binding climate legislation and net-zero emissions policies to reduce climate migration. We could view the acceleration of environmental harm as an opportunity for innovation, adaptation, and sustainable development. We could use the influx of migrants to placate demographic transition, labor shortages, and small business foreclosures. Perhaps even accept climate change as an active threat to all nations, urging us to assist and preserve today to build a better tomorrow.

But more likely than not, we will have to play God with the lives of migrants and our neighbors. As we've done on Angel Island. And at Manzanar. And at Home Depots across Los Angeles.

So I don't know.

I really don't know.

Of course, that was not my answer to any of those questions in real time (I was not as well-versed in disputing the “illegal alien” argument as I am now). As everyone else had, I waffled through a bunch of gilded optimism, wishing for protection, empathy, and humanity for everyone. Eventually, I had to cave into saying that the government should prioritize its citizens. My heart screamed for the asylum seekers who worked so hard just to touch American soil.

I am lucky to be a part of a proud immigrant family. So damn lucky.

It would be so easy to throw away that pride when the system relentlessly perpetuates how much you don’t belong here. How dirty you make the country. To be villainized for existing.

For anyone out there enduring the plights of an immigrant, I hope you hold onto your pride – it’s one of the only things they can’t take away from us. And if your pride is too much weight for you to carry, I will unabashedly be proud and vocal for you.

For we are worth fighting for.

In 1982, the great Norwegian founder of the academic discipline of refugee law – Atle Grahl-Madsen – proclaimed these salient words:

Our humanitarian ideals must also be pursued, or else the future will become much more perilous. The humanitarian spirit is a most necessary corrective to the destructive and separatist forces which generate refugee crises.

As constituents, consumers, and communities, we have the pressing obligation to summon and resurrect our humanitarian spirit for the security, preservation, and decency of the human race. Because right now, the natural and divine spirits of our realm will gladly satiate our unquenching thirst by drowning us in our own delusions.

Atlantis, here we come.

I have highlighted charities associated with migration and/or climate change. My research found these organizations to be reputable and impactful. Please conduct your own research before making a donation.

• For the advocacy of the rights and opportunities of low-income U.S. immigrants, consider the National Immigration Law Center
• For the strategy and investment of building a welcoming society and a just international immigration system, consider Unbound Philanthropy
• For the education, awareness, and de-stigmatization of migration, consider Migration Matters
• For the support of the interests and needs of Pacific Islands regarding climate change, consider the Pacific Islands Climate Action Network
• For the assistance of Niger Delta communities impacted by the oil and gas industry, consider the Stakeholder Democracy Network

To view this investigative series with complete academic citations and references, visit my academic paper here.

For Part I of Escaping Atlantis, click here.