Hidden Contamination Beyond Flint

The coronavirus crisis has exposed a disturbing truth: America’s marginalized communities are often hit hardest by public health problems and unable to access vital assistance.

Just a few years ago, Flint’s drinking water crisis highlighted this troubling pattern. After the city made a series of costly missteps, its water supply was contaminated with toxic lead levels. State and federal assistance arrived too late. Other neglected cities—from Newark, NJ to Jackson, MS—have experienced the same problem.

But this isn’t only an urban problem. This past Fall, I researched the dangerous deterioration of drinking water systems in rural communities. Some are as poor, marginalized, and insolvent as Flint—but they are battling severe water contamination in silence. The Environmental Law Institute featured my research in the April issue of their law journal and I spoke about it on their podcast.

A Victory

I recently wrote a blog post for the Harvard Immigration and Refugee Clinic (HIRC), about our recent victory on behalf of a young Salvadoran asylum-seeker.

“Antonio” fought for seven years to secure his right to seek asylum in the United States. I represented him before an immigration judge who denies approximately two in three asylum cases—a rate in line with our soaring national denial rate.

Antonio’s judge treated him fairly. But far too many asylum-seekers are deported to danger, despite the strong merits of their cases. Antonio’s story highlights the systematic defects in our immigration system—even for the lucky few with access to legal assistance.

To Seek Refuge in Texas

In law school casebooks, every point has its counterpoint. One judicial opinion establishes a particular doctrine. The next case rests on a diametrically opposed rule.

The lesson: every rule is open to interpretation, limitations, exceptions, and points of distinction. Lawyers are trained to find the counterargument. There is always space to advocate for the other side. Or so we are taught.

This Spring I spent a week offering pro bono legal help to asylum-seekers near the Mexican border. And I can only reach one conclusion: Trump’s attempt to extinguish the right to asylum is indefensible. There can be no legal, moral, or practical argument to support it.

Keeping that view (and my audience of fellow law students) in mind, I shared reflections on my trip on Harvard’s blog. You can read it here.

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Two Years

Two years ago this month, I traveled around Venezuela to cover the economic and political crisis. At that time, it was difficult to fathom the unraveling of Venezuela, a country once so drenched in oil wealth that the Concorde flew direct between Paris and Caracas. 

I wrote an article for Forbes about Venezuelan entrepreneurs, many of whom had lost their formal jobs and had little choice but to start a business. They used ingenious strategies to get by, often exploiting the low cost of labor and the plummeting black market exchange rates.

I shadowed a Venezuelan motivational speaker and published piece in Quartz about that industry. Along the way, I learned that an utter void of functioning institutions can, to some, look like opportunity. I also made some people at Chevron PR unhappy. An excerpt:

“To stay in Venezuela is not the same as failure. To leave Venezuela is not the same as success.” Stephan Kaiser’s voice echoes between two walls of soaring, mirrored glass. The gangly young man’s gleaming teeth, white-blonde hair and tailored suit lend him a television-ready sheen that set him apart from his audience.

In front of him, a group of twenty Chevron administrators bob their assent and straighten in their chairs. They are gathered in the atrium of an enormous mansion reserved for executive events in Puerto la Cruz, Venezuela. Chevron has hired Kaiser to motivate them ...

... “Ironically, the crisis has gone really well for us,” Kaiser shrugs on the drive to the Chevron venue. Tens of thousands have attended his motivational seminars this year; 6,000 Amway sales representatives, another 1,000 from Tupperware. He is fully booked in the weeks leading up to the election, despite tripling his speaking fees (in real terms). “Well,” he concludes, “we are selling the solutions.”

In 2015, this quantity of bolivares was worth $2.00 USD. A week's trip required a separate suitcase for money. Two years later, the same stack is worth under $0.02.

In 2015, this quantity of bolivares was worth $2.00 USD. A week's trip required a separate suitcase for money. Two years later, the same stack is worth under $0.02.

Today, things are undoubtedly more difficult in Venezuela. Hospital shortages, a lack of policing and political violence have made the country an even deadlier place.

But it's still one where ingenuity and hope are found. An award-winning anti-violence program transforms neighborhoods. Coders boost their meager wages through remote work. If Venezuela's crisis feels endless, then so do its resilience and invention. 

Lost Boys: Asif

In 2016, over 30,000 child refugees crossed the Mediterranean alone. These are unaccompanied minors. The great majority are boys escaping war and terrorism.

In Europe, they are adrift in countries with no infrastructure for aiding refugee children. Many are detained by in prisons for lack of space in orphanages. The less fortunate try their chances with smugglers. Over the last two years, European newspapers have reported the deaths, suicides, and sex trafficking of these children on a near-weekly basis.

While freelancing in Greece, I spent time in over 30 refugee camps. The first few hours of reporting in a new place always felt clumsy. Inevitably, young boys were the first to be friendly. Often, they were unaccompanied children. And so these boys became my translators, tour guides, and friends.

I shot and edited this footage of Afghan refugee children orphaned by a cruel system. The narrator was a guide and translator to me, and a stand-in father to a younger boy. 

As always when no guardians can provide consent, I was careful to conceal the kids' faces. One hopes they will one day cease to be refugees, and these shameful circumstances we've created won't follow them.

How the UN Enriched Itself while Refugees Suffered

It took five years to uncover the full extent of the Red Cross's fraud and abuse following the 2010 Haiti earthquake. All told, billions in donations from rich countries were wasted by multinational NGOs, while more than one million Haitians suffered from illness, injury and homelessness. 

We haven't learned much. The 2016 Greek refugee crisis, led by the United Nations Refugee Agency (UNHCR), now stands as humanity's most expensive failed disaster response yet.

On average, around $14,000 USD has been spent on every man, woman and child refugee in Greece. The average apartment in Greece costs less than $300 per month. The refugees live in places like this:

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How did this happen? The essentials:

1. In March 2016, the Balkan states to Greece’s north shut their borders. Tens of thousands of refugees fleeing war and traveling toward northern Europe were suddenly stuck in Greece.

2. In response, the United Nations Refugee Agency (UNHCR) drew up a joint funding appeal asking for half a billion dollars on behalf of three dozen NGOs working in state-run refugee camps. 

3. UNHCR awarded itself the majority of this funding, which came mostly from the European Union. By mid-August 2016, of €301 million donated, only 8% went to Greek organizations, while 54% went to UNHCR and the rest to international NGOs. 

4. As winter approached, UNHCR had achieved little to weatherize the camps, besides distributing of thin blankets and flimsy tents (most of which had already been purchased). No one knows what happened to the tens of millions the UN had been granted specifically for winterization. The UN gets around this by implying that results achieved by the Greek government and and other NGOs are its own (see "achievements" on p. 46 here). One official has estimated that 70% of aid to refugees in Greece is wasted.

5. People who had narrowly escaped bombings at home continued to die from the cold, hunger and lack of medical attention.  

6. The European Union has awarded the Greek government hundreds of millions more, with untold amounts squandered by abject corruption and incompetence. In the Serres camp, a local politician awarded his daughter the role of camp manager and himself the catering contract. At Softex, where a no-bid contract enriched friends of the government, the police stood by while children were raped and people died. At Skaramagas, Greek Minister of Migration Mouzalas admitted the camp coordinator he appointed was involved in a trafficking ring. 

Epilogue: in early 2017, UNHCR asked for $525 million in new funding. It plans to keep half for itself. As the head of a Greek refugee camp once told me, "everyone is getting a cut but the refugees." 

The situation in Greece for refugee families is dire. Doctors without Borders has a great track record in Greece and turns down funds it can't use efficiently. Tiny grassroots organizations like Together for Better Days are moving mountains on a shoestring budget. They deserve our support.

Yazidi Refugees

Blind in both eyes, her bones sharply folded across a thin mat, Zarif sits in a quiet corner of the refugee camp of Serres, Greece. Zarif is a Yazidi elder. Her family says she is 116. 

Ask anyone at Serres camp the date they were driven from their homes, and you will receive the same answer: August 3, 2014. That's when ISIS launched its genocidal assault on Mt. Sinjar, murdering and enslaving tens of thousands of Iraqi Yazidis. Zarif's family carried her up the mountain, where they camped until it was safe to escape through Turkey.

Zarif has dreamed of resettlement in Europe since that day. But now, her strength withering, she may not live to achieve it.

"All our lives, we haven't known a month without problems," said Barakat, 43, Zarif's grandson. Illness, a snake infestation and a lack of medical support in Serres have compounded the family's distress. 

Barakat's 11-year-old daughter suffers from severe insomnia, he said. "Some of her friends were taken as slaves. We saw other children murdered before our eyes on Mount Sinjar. It's one thing to hear these things, but it's another to see them."

Zarif says she owes her long life to her supportive Yazidi community. Today, thousands of Yazidis are struggling to survive in precarious refugee camps while countries hesitate to accept them.

Band-e-Amir National Park

Three hours from the city of Bamyan, the earth's crust splits, and a jewel box of glittering blue appears amid the dust. This is Band-e-Amir, Afghanistan's first national park.  

Visiting there on a summer weekend, I found myself in the company of a few thousand Afghans dressed in their best silks to hike around the remote, high desert landscape, rent swan boats and swim in crystalline pools purported to possess healing powers. 

Click and drag inside the below video for a 360-degree view of the park:

Development groups and local officials hope that the park will attract tourists to Bamyan province. This is Afghanistan's most peaceful region. But unfortunately, visits are throttled by security issues for the moment. Taliban fighters rove the mountain roads leading into Bamyan on three sides.