David Miliband leads the International Rescue Committee and believes there are solutions to today’s devastating refugee crisis. More than 65 million people around the globe are either refugees, asylum seekers, or displaced within their own countries. It’s the largest number of people forced to flee their homes since World War II. “The work of rescue isn’t just about the people we’re helping. It’s actually about us,” he says, “It’s about what we in the Western world stand for. It’s about whether the values we write in our laws and constitutions mean anything.”
At the Aspen Ideas Festival, he told The Atlantic’s Steve Clemons that countries like Uganda have promising refugee programs. Others, he continued, have fallen short. A year ago, the United States agreed to accept 45,000 refugees. That’s the lowest number, Miliband says, in the history of America’s resettlement program. “This is bad for America, bad for the refugees, and bad for the global effort to bring security and dignity to people whose lives are convulsed by war and persecution.”
Discover more about the topics discussed in this episode.
- Trump learned the ‘worst lessons of history,’ says David Miliband, Washington Post
- There Is No Immigration Crisis, The Atlantic
- What the World Gets Wrong about Refugees, Aspen Ideas Festival
- Survivors of the Syrian War, Aspen Ideas to Go
- Refugee Economies: From Burden to Benefit, Aspen Ideas Festival
“Aspen Ideas to Go” is a weekly show featuring fascinating speakers who have presented at the Aspen Ideas Festival and other public programs offered by the Aspen Institute. For a curated listening experience, subscribe to the podcast on Apple Podcasts or find an archive of episodes here. The views and opinions of the speakers in the podcast do not necessarily reflect those of the Aspen Institute.
