Immigration Article of the Day: The Price of the Fence: Climate Migration in the 21st Century by Gerald Torres & Al Brady

The Price of the Fence: Climate Migration in the 21st Century by Gerald Torres & Al Brady

Abstract
Climate change is already displacing millions, yet international migration law offers little protection to those forced to move because of environmental collapse. Most climate-displaced people are excluded from the legal category of refugee with its attendant protections. Instead, they are treated as "economic" or "voluntary" migrants, descriptions that, while not formal legal categories, mask the forced nature of their flight and have historically functioned to deny the poor legal protection and erase the structural causes of movement. Rather than pursuing a narrowly tailored gap-filling solution confined to climate-induced or environmental migration, this article advocates a broader reimagining of migration law that (1) affirms that the universal right to leave is incomplete without a corresponding right to enter and settle elsewhere; (2) links responsibility for climate harm to obligations towards those displaced by it; and (3) recognizes that climate migration cannot be addressed without dismantling the false distinction between forced and economically driven movement.