The United States was a near global outlier Monday at the United Nations General Assembly in rejecting a framework to bolster international cooperation on refugees.
Only Hungary—headed by far-right Prime Minister Viktor Orban, whose administration has been accused of carrying out “a full-frontal assault on migrants and refugees”—joined the U.S. in voting “no” on the Global Compact on Refugees (pdf). One hundred eighty-one nations voted to approve it, while three—the Dominican Republic, Eritrea, and Libya—abstained.
“The U.S. said recently that it backed most of the refugee pact, but not the part aimed at limiting detentions of asylum seekers,” Agence France-Presse reported. The international agreement states: “The development of non-custodial and community-based alternatives to detention, particularly for children, will also be supported.”
As the Washington, D.C.-based advocacy organization Refugees International explains of the non-binding agreement:
According to U.N. High Commissioner for Refugees Filippo Grandi, the compact “provides long overdue recognition that countries hosting large numbers of refugees provide a huge service to our shared humanity and sets out ways through which the rest of the world can help share the load.”
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