The Olympic Price of Asylum

The 2024 Paris Summer Olympic and Paralympic Games saw unprecedented athletic achievement by refugee athletes, but this glory cannot mask the ongoing difficulties that continue to plague refugees and asylum-seekers across the globe.

[1]

The Refugee Olympic and Paralympic teams made history this summer at the Paris 2024 Summer Olympic Games, with Boxer Cindy Ngamba winning bronze in the women 75kg category and becoming the first Refugee Olympian to medal.[2] Other Refugee Olympians, including elite runners and canoe sprinters, also made personal bests and advanced to the final stages of their respective competitions.[3] The Refugee Olympic team represents more than 100 million forcibly displaced people and was made up of thirty-seven athletes across twelve sports at the 2024 Summer Olympics.[4] The refugee Olympians and Paralympians this year came from Syria, Afghanistan, Iran, Cameroon, Republic of the Congo, Ethiopia, South Sudan and more.[5] Even as the Refugee Olympic Team and Refugee Paralympic team earned their first medals, the podiums they stood upon were hard-won, as refugees worldwide continue to face anti-immigrant policies and practices.

These historic wins for refugee athletes came only weeks after a chaotic and controversial French snap election called for by President Macron.[6] In early June, after European Parliament results showed Marine Le Pen’s far right National Rally party securing more than twice the vote compared to Macron’s centrist party, President Macron dissolved the country’s Parliament and called for legislative elections at the end of June and in early July.[7] The decision could have put the far right, anti-immigrant National Rally (RN) party “in power less than three weeks before Paris hosts the Summer Olympics.”[8] Widespread protests and unprecedented voter turnout in June and July kept Macron in power, denying Le Pen and the RN any worldwide recognition as a part of French leadership.[9]

The Olympics, and other major sporting events such as the 2022 FIFA World Cup in Qatar and the Euro 2020 football matches in Hungary, have come under fire in recent years for ‘sportswashing’ – that is, using the cover of elite sports to direct attention away from the host country’s unethical conduct.[10] In Paris itself, French authorities worked for months to bus African migrants and homeless people to the fringes of the city with the promise of temporary housing in locales far from the Olympic press and cameras.[11]

For refugee Olympic and Paralympic athletes, qualifying for the Games is only one hurdle they face in attending. The team manager must then help athletes get visas to travel to the host country; this year, the team needed “laissez-passer” documents issued by the European Union (EU) to allow them to enter France.[12] For many, participation is worth fighting for – “[i]t is a moment in which people that have lost everything can gain back dignity [and] identity[,] . . . [the refugee athletes] are not objects of charity in a way, but are actors and the active participants in their communities,” says U.N. High Commissioner for Refugees Filippo Grandi.[13]

For the upcoming 2028 L.A. Summer Olympics, foreign athletes may choose between an O-1 visa or P visa to enter the United States. The O-1 visa is designed for individuals with extraordinary ability or achievement in the sciences, arts, education, business, entertainment, or athletics.[14] The O-1 allows for individuals who are integral to the actual events and possess critical skills and experience to accompany the athletes, while also allowing athletes to have ‘dual intent’, meaning that they can both hold an O-1 visa and simultaneously apply for permanent residency status through other means.[15] In contrast, a P-1A visa may be more appropriate for individual athletes who are not interested in permanent residency, since the P visa is more strictly tailored to permit athletes to only attend a specific event or competition.[16] In 2028, the members of the Refugee Olympic team may therefore have recourse to remain in the U.S. either through asylum or through the O-1 visa path.

There is no sign that the 2028 L.A. Games will face less controversy than the Paris Games, especially given the shift to ever-stricter immigration policies in the Trump and Biden administrations.[17] In June 2024, President Biden issued an executive order that prevents migrants at the U.S.-Mexico border from seeking asylum when the number of illegal crossings surge.[18] The order requires that migrants’ entry at the southern border be suspended and limited when Homeland Security determines that there has been seven consecutive days of more than 2,500 encounters with Border Patrol. Although issued as a temporary order, the New York Times reported in September 2024 that the Biden Administration is considering making these asylum restrictions “almost impossible to lift.”[19] In August 2024, Border Patrol reported over 58,000 encounters with migrants crossing the U.S.-Mexico border, well over the 2,500 ceiling set by the executive order.[20] With a future Trump presidency on the horizon, refugees and asylees will certainly face new challenges and obstacles in an already broken immigration system.[21]

At a time when refugee elite athletes are being celebrated globally, the reality for millions of refugees and asylum-seekers couldn’t be more disparate as they are forced to manage both their legal status and fast-changing immigration policies arising out of dangerous political rhetoric. On August 30, 2024, Zakia Khudadai became the first member of the Refugee Paralympic Team to win a medal, placing bronze in parataekwondo.[22] Khudadadi was born in Afghanistan and was evacuated in a secret international effort with the help of the French government after the Taliban took power in 2021.[23] While the success of the Refugee Olympic and Paralympic teams was indeed historic and undoubtedly worth celebrating, the reality for refugees in the countries hosting the Games becomes increasingly difficult to ignore after looking away from the podium. For the vast majority of refugees and asylees, the incredible personal, economic, and temporal cost of being admitted to a Western country is simply too high to pay.

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[1] Getty Images, Photograph of Olympic torch, in Shannon Cudd, Paris Olympics 2024: Did You Sleep Through the Flame-Lighting Ceremony? Here’s How You Can Rewatch It, Fast Co. (Apr. 16, 2024), https://www.fastcompany.com/91106799/paris-olympics-2024-flame-lighting-ceremony-greece-history-watch.

[2] Refugee Olympic Team Inspires as It Makes History, UNHCR.org (Aug. 12, 2024), https://www.unhcr.org/us/news/stories/refugee-olympic-team-inspires-it-makes-history#:~:text=The%20Refugee%20Olympic%20Team%20was,on%20the%20highest%20sporting%20stage.

[3] Id.

[4] Refugee Olympic Team, Olympic Refugee Found., https://olympics.com/en/olympic-refuge-foundation/refugee-team (last visited Nov. 16, 2024).

[5] Charlotte Engrave, How the Olympics Makes Room for Refugee Athletes and What it Means for them to Compete, NPR (July 30, 2024, 4:45 AM), https://www.ideastream.org/2024-07-30/how-the-olympics-makes-room-for-refugee-athletes-and-what-it-means-for-them-to-compete.

[6] Niamh Kennedy, Macron Gambles on Snap Election After Crushing Loss to French Far Right in EU Vote, CNN (June 9, 2024, 10:12 PM), https://www.cnn.com/2024/06/09/europe/macron-dissolves-french-parliament-europe-intl/index.html.

[7] Macron Calls Snap Election after EU Setback: What’s at Stake for France?, Al Jazeera (June 10, 2024), https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2024/6/10/macron-calls-snap-election-after-eu-setback-whats-at-stake-for-france.

[8] Dave Zirin & Jules Boykoff, France Avoids Disaster. Can the Olympics Do the Same?, Nation (July 8, 2024), https://www.thenation.com/article/world/olympics-paris-election/.

[9] Id.  

[10] Austin Irwin, Explainer: What is Sportswashing and Why Should We Care About It?, Australian Hum. Rts. Inst., https://www.humanrights.unsw.edu.au/students/blogs/what-is-sportswashing (last visited Nov. 21, 2024); see also Béla Szandelszky & Justin Spike, Hungary Signals it’s Serious About Sending Buses of Asylum Seekers to EU Headquarters, AP News (Sep. 6, 2024, 6:49 AM), https://apnews.com/article/hungary-bus-migrants-brussels-eu-ca5e81d72650a224b8c6e59f0c971ee2 (describing the Hungarian government’s plan to put asylum seekers on a one-way bus to Brussels, reminiscent of similar practices in the Southwest United States).

[11] Megan Janetsky, Migrants and Homeless People are Cleared out of Paris During the Olympics, AP News (July 25, 2024, 6:06 PM), https://apnews.com/article/olympics-2024-paris-migrant-camp-3ef2a08d8da1085148ed409dcb44d6f6; Sarah Hurtes & Ségolène Le Stradic, France is Busing Homeless Immigrants Out of Paris Before the Olympics, N.Y. Times (July 11, 2024), https://www.nytimes.com/2024/07/11/world/europe/france-is-busing-homeless-immigrants-out-of-paris-before-the-olympics.html (“Around the city over the past year, the police and courts have evicted roughly 5,000 people, most of them single men, according to Christophe Noël du Payrat, a senior government official in Paris.”)

[12] Charlotte Engrave, How the Olympics Makes Room for Refugee Athletes and What it Means for Them to Compete, NPR (July 30, 2024, 4:45 AM), https://www.ideastream.org/2024-07-30/how-the-olympics-makes-room-for-refugee-athletes-and-what-it-means-for-them-to-compete.

[13] Megan Janetsky, Refugee Athletes Want More of Them to Compete at the Olympics as Migration Takes a Global Focus, AP News (July 29, 2024), https://www.ap.org/news-highlights/spotlights/2024/refugee-athletes-want-more-of-them-to-compete-at-the-olympics-as-migration-takes-global-focus/.

[14] O-1 Visa: Individuals with Extraordinary Ability or Achievement, U.S. Citizenship & Immigr. Servs., https://www.uscis.gov/working-in-the-united-states/temporary-workers/o-1-visa-individuals-with-extraordinary-ability-or-achievement (last visited Nov. 16, 2024).

[15] O-1 Visa, Explained, Boundless Immigr., https://www.boundless.com/immigration-resources/o-1-visa-explained/ (last visited Nov. 16, 2024).

[16] P-1A visas may also be more appropriate for sports teams which can collectively apply for one P-1A, rather than dozens of O-1 visas or individual P-1A visas. P-1A Athlete, U.S. Citizenship & Immigr. Servs., https://www.uscis.gov/working-in-the-united-states/temporary-workers/p-1a-athlete (last visited Nov. 16, 2024).

[17] Bernd Debusmann Jr., How Joe Biden and Donald Trump’s Border Policies Compare, BBC News (June 4, 2024), https://www.bbc.com/news/world-us-canada-65574725 (comparing President Biden’s and President Trump’s border policies; Biden kept Trump’s controversial Title 42 in place for the majority of his presidency, allowing the U.S. to expel asylum seekers without any legal process).

[18] Hamed Aleaziz, How Biden’s Asylum Order Works, N.Y. Times (June 4, 2024), https://www.nytimes.com/2024/06/04/us/politics/biden-executive-order-border-asylum.html. See also Joseph R. Biden Jr., Presidential Actions: A Proclamation on Securing the Border, White House (June 4, 2024), https://www.whitehouse.gov/briefing-room/presidential-actions/2024/06/04/a-proclamation-on-securing-the-border/ (“The majority of all individuals encountered at the southwest land border from Fiscal Year 2021 to Fiscal Year 2023 were removed, returned, or expelled.”).

[19] Hamed Aleaziz, Biden’s Asylum Restrictions Were Meant to Be Temporary. That Could Change., N.Y. Times (Sep. 4, 2024), https://www.nytimes.com/2024/09/04/us/politics/biden-asylum-restrictions.html.

[20] John Gramlich, Migrant Encounters at U.S.-Mexico Border Have Fallen Sharply in 2024, Pew Rsch. Ctr. (Oct. 1, 2024), https://www.pewresearch.org/short-reads/2024/10/01/migrant-encounters-at-u-s-mexico-border-have-fallen-sharply-in-2024/ (noting that this is a 77% decline from the peak in December 2023, in which 249,741 encounters were recorded).

[21] On November 11, 2024, Trump announced that Tom Homan will serve as his “border czar” and Stephen Miller will act as his deputy chief of staff for policy. Homan and Miller designed the infamous family separation policies and the Muslim ban during Trump’s first presidency. See Brian Osgood, US Migrant Rights Advocates Raise Alarm over Trump Appointments, Al Jazeera (Nov. 12, 2024), https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2024/11/12/us-migrant-rights-advocates-raise-alarm-over-trump-appointments.

[22] Ewelina U. Ochab, Zakia-Afghan Woman Defying the Taliban to Win Bronze at the 2024 Paralympics, Forbes (Sep. 1, 2024, 10:36 AM), https://www.forbes.com/sites/ewelinaochab/2024/09/01/zakiaafghan-hazara-woman-defying-the-taliban-to-win-bronze-at-the-2024-paralympics/.

[23] Id.; Reuters, Zakia Khudadadi Becomes 2nd Afghan Woman to Compete at Paralympics After her Secret Evacuation, Econ. Times (Sep. 3, 2021, 9:00 AM), https://economictimes.indiatimes.com/magazines/panache/zakia-khudadadi-becomes-2nd-afghan-woman-to-compete-at-paralympics-after-her-secret-evacuation/articleshow/85887470.cms.