Should Migrants Displaced By Climate Change Be Granted Asylum?

“A lot of times, people are coming for reasons that have to do with politics and conflict,” says Jeffrey Chase, a former immigration judge in the US.

“If you drill down deeper, the root cause of some of these issues actually results from climate change – fighting over land, or limited resources, or groups being punished by not getting aid after a natural disaster, or that sort of thing. And it won't be flagged, necessarily, as a climate change issue…What’s needed is a new way of thinking about “how climate change factors can fit into the standard asylum criteria,” says Chase.