I did a data visualization project on refugees and asylum seekers last year (I will not display it here because the visualization aspect was not great), and in the process I learned that I had a lot of misconceptions about what those terms mean and how the system operates. I've been thinking about it a lot recently, since immigration is obviously in the news.  On the off chance that others might have similar misconceptions, I thought I'd detail some of what I learned here.

1-The 1951 Convention on the Status of Refugees: This is the main guiding document that shapes the UN's apparatus for dealing with refugees (all the definitions I'm about to cite come from it)--it was created, obviously, to address the refugee crisis that was created by World War II. One hundred and forty-five countries signed this convention, and the US was one of those countries. This is important, as you'll see below.

2-Asylum Seekers and Refugees: this has been really downplayed in the US media discourse, but the two are not the same. A refugee, according to the Convention, is "a person who is outside his or her country of nationality or habitual residence; has a well-founded fear of being persecuted because of his or her race, religion, nationality, membership of a particular social group or political opinion; and is unable or unwilling to avail him— or herself of the protection of that country, or to return there, for fear of persecution." An asylum seeker is someone who is waiting for courts to determine whether he or is is in fact a refugee--meaning, whether he or she has a well-founded fear of being persecuted at home. Usually this happens at what's called the asylum seeker's country of first refuge--meaning the first safe place they reach where they're able to ask for asylum. That's why most asylum seekers in the US come from Latin America, not from Syria. People who come here from Syria already have had their refugee status determined somewhere else.

3-Who we are talking about when we talk about refugees: This is an important point-most of the time when we talk about refugees coming to the US, you'll hear people talk about Syrians or others from the Middle East. What's important to keep in mind in these cases is that they ARE refugees--meaning, it's already been determined that they can't go home. The process of determining that is long, arduous, and complicated. By the time they get here, they've been heavily vetted by the UN, their country of first refuge, and US immigration officials. If they are from countries where there are terrorists, lots of people have already jointly determined that these refugees are running away from them. In contrast--when people on the news talk about the "refugee crisis" in Europe, they are largely actually referring to asylum seekers. Meaning, a lot of people from other countries are coming in, the vast majority of them because they probably will turn out to be refugees, but no one's made that determination yet. Those people are in the process of being vetted. They also have rights, as I will explain in a second. However. For people like Donald Trump who are like, look at Europe, people can just come in,, they're all terrorists, it's important to recognize that they are comparing taking in refugees to having a lot of asylum seekers come in. Both groups have rights, as I said, but the processes and levels of vetting are not the analogous.

4-Who we are talking about when we talk about "illegal immigrants:" A lot of the people from Latin America who Republicans like to refer to as "illegals" are in fact asylum seekers. And this is a point on which the 1951 Convention is crystal clear--an asylum seeker is never ever an illegal immigrant, even if he or she has crossed the border illegally or overstayed a visa. Read that again. Never. The people who wrote the Convention understood that when you are running for your life, you do not always have the option of doing things in what the Republicans might refer to as "the right way." And no, if you are seeking asylum you cannot often just go back to where you came from or stay where you are. It is marginally possible (although fairly unlikely) that someone might try to claim they need asylum if they actually do not. But until that determination is made, those people are still asylum seekers, and the countries which signed the Convention have agreed to treat them all as potential refugees, although often they do not (we do not, clearly). Again. Lots of "illegal immigrants" are not actually illegal, because they are asylum seekers.The mothers and kids who Trump is now talking about separating? Asylum seekers. They are not coming because it's easy. In most cases, they're coming because they have no choice--and we as a country have signed on to a Convention that makes it their right to seek asylum.

5-Asylum seekers have rights. The most important of these are a-the right to non-refoulement. This means a right not to be sent back to their country of origin unless it has been conclusively proven that the danger they ran from no longer exist. b-freedom of movement. Contrary to the way Trump and his minions are painting the idea of letting mothers and children go free until their hearings as some kind of undeserved luxury, this is actually a right under the 1951 Convention. Countries often break it, but that does not make it any less of a legal right--and it is a right because an asylum seeker has not done anything either illegal or wrong. c-right to liberty and security of the person. This means, again, that asylum seekers should not be put in jail, held in tent camps like the ones in Texas, dumped over the border, or any of the wide number of "solutions" that Americans think are somehow OK. Again, countries do those things, but they are not legal. d-the right to family life. Trump would love to, of course, but it's illegal to separate families by giving one person asylum and not others. If someone is given refugee status, their dependents (or sometimes other family members) should eventually get refugee status through them. (this, incidentally, is the origin of the legal term "anchor relative"--as in "anchor baby"--it really just means the person who got refugee status initially and thereby gives it to other people in the family).

I know there are a lot of people who say that it's not a good idea to conceptually separate legal and illegal immigration, as though it were OK to assault the rights of either category, and I think that's fair--but I think it's also important for people to get what's involved here. Every year, the UN puts out a report on "problem areas" of the world (which are experiencing violence, civil war, etc), where lots of refugees and asylum seekers can be expected to come from. Every year, Latin American countries are on that list. Many of the people Trump's people are rounding up or kicking out came for that reason. Congress, by the way, is not unaware of this--because they get a report from the State Department about it too. Every year. Maybe they don't read it, I don't know. But the idea that this whole thing is an effort to punish people who broke the law, even just by crossing illegally, is broadly inaccurate even if you want to look at it in those terms.