Why don't refugees just get in line and enter a particular destination country legally? Well, as David Fitzgerald (University of California, San Diego) argues in his latest book 'Refuge Beyond Reach: How Rich Democracies Repel Asylum Seekers', many of the richest democracies in the world have made it all but impossible for refugees to do so. Countries like Australia, Canada, the US, and many European countries have erected a global system of remote control that stretches far beyond their own borders to repel asylum seekers from ever reaching their destination. And many of these systems were actually designed to deter Jews from fleeing persecution from the Nazis and their allies.

For more information, see www.stukroodvlees.nl/srv-podcast-episode-47-how-rich-democracies-repel-asylum-seekers-with-david-fitzgerald

Music: Dexter Britain (CC BY-NC-SA 3.0), www.dexterbritain.com