The Rights of Refugees

In August of 2010, a rusty and dangerously overcrowded ship departed from Indonesia and made a long passage across the Pacific Ocean to Canadian coastal waters off British Columbia, where it was intercepted by the Canadian Coast Guard. Its passengers, 492 Tamil-speaking people claiming to be Sri Lankan citizens, were processed by immigration authorities under Canadian law before being sent to temporary camps and then allowed to settle while awaiting hearings. They became the subject of immediate nationwide controversy, in part because they posed a classic question of conflict migration: why had they come?

The first answer, the one they all gave, is that they were refugees seeking asylum under the terms of the United Nations 1951 Refugee Convention, to which Canada is a signatory. That is to say, they were citizens who were in immediate danger of being killed by their own government. If such a claim is found to be true, any signatory country is obligated to accept...