DEFENDING DEMOCRACY IN EXILE Policy Responses to Transnational Repression Nowhere left to run People fleeing repression and persecution often find immediate refuge in countries that either border their homelands or have few barriers to legal entry. Individuals from Central Asia and Belarus, for example, relocate to Russia or the other former republics of the Soviet Union, where they do not need visas to enter. Those hoping to escape Cambodia, Laos, Myanmar, and Vietnam cross the border into Thailand. Rwandans often head to South Africa. Uyghurs look to Turkey or Egypt. These countries become default havens of relative safety for their respective regions or kindred communities, but they also tend to be authoritarian states themselves or otherwise lacking in strong protections for exiles and refugees. They cannot provide long-term security so long as they remain vulnerable to, or even complicit in, transnational repression. As long as democracies work to divert asylum seekers to more dangerous third countries, dissidents, activists, and members of targeted ethnic or religious groups will remain extremely vulnerable to transnational repression. Direct physical acts of transnational repression are rarer in robust democracies, where protections for human rights in general are stronger, but such countries are difficult to access for the majority of the world’s vulnerable people. The United States, European Union (EU) member states, and other democratic countries—which are often already geographically distant from repressive countries—have invested resources in building additional physical and legal barriers around their territories. Many of these barriers have effectively trapped people in places where they are at a higher risk of experiencing transnational repression. In 2016, the EU signed a statement of cooperation with Turkey that was designed to stop asylum seekers from reaching Greece and making their way to the rest of Europe. More than five years later, Turkey hosts the largest population 8 @FreedomHouse of refugees in the world.36 Some, including Egyptians, Iranians, Tajikistanis, Azerbaijanis, Uzbekistanis, and Russians, have experienced digital and physical transnational repression while in Turkey. President Erdoğan’s government has actively aided the targeting of Uyghurs and Turkmenistanis. The EU has also sought to externalize its borders by making deals with governments in North Africa to prevent people from crossing the Mediterranean to Europe. Some of these countries, particularly Libya, have extremely poor human rights records and a history of state participation in transnational repression.37 The United States too has made it more difficult for those seeking refuge to enter its territory. Under the administrations of both Barack Obama and Donald Trump, resources were diverted within the immigration system from adjudicating asylum cases and resettling refugees to processing expedited removals.38 The invocation of Title 42,39 a public health measure that allows the immediate removal of migrants and asylum seekers attempting to cross into the country, in response to the COVID-19 pandemic beginning in 2020 made entry into the United States extremely difficult, and the rule continued to be enforced under President Joseph Biden after he took office in 2021. Moreover, despite the Biden administration’s attempts to reverse President Trump’s sharp reductions in refugee resettlement, the United States admitted a historically low number of refugees during the 2021 fiscal year, with just 11,411 people accepted.40 As the spread of global authoritarianism diminishes access to political rights and civil liberties around the world, it puts more people in the crosshairs of repression. Democracies that raise indiscriminate obstacles to the process of making asylum claims are excluding people who have been persecuted for exercising or espousing democratic values like freedom of expression, religious freedom, and the rule of law. And by denying people fleeing repression a safe haven from which to continue their advocacy or simply live a life free from systematic human rights violations, democratic governments are aiding the global erosion of democratic norms. The incomplete refuge provided by countries like Turkey, Rwanda, or Thailand is not a substitute for the protections of a robust democracy. As long as democracies work to divert asylum seekers to more dangerous third countries, dissidents, activists, and members of targeted ethnic or religious groups will remain extremely vulnerable to transnational repression. #TransnationalRepression