RACHEL MARTIN, HOST:
There is a global refugee crisis. And the U.N. High Commissioner for Refugees Filippo Grandi has been in Washington, D.C., delivering this message.
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FILIPPO GRANDI: We need U.S. leadership.
MARTIN: Grandi says the Trump administration's decision to reduce the number of refugees that are allowed to settle in the U.S. sends a worrying signal. He hopes the administration will admit more once it sees the screening process is stringent enough. I asked Commissioner Grandi about his recent visit with Rohingya Muslims who have fled from Myanmar to Bangladesh, nearly 600,000 in two months.
GRANDI: These people come with every possible need you can imagine - material needs, for shelter, for medicines, for food - but also deeper needs. These are people that have gone through trauma of unprecedented extent. I've met women who were wounded by soldiers because they refused - they resisted rape. Or I've seen children whose parents had been killed before their eyes. So this trauma, which they carry with them, will be probably the longest consequence of this crisis to heal.
MARTIN: Where can the U.S. be instrumental in this particular crisis? And does this country bear some kind of responsibility toward the Rohingya?
GRANDI: Well, you know, what the Refugee Convention says in its needs preamble? - that refugees are a collective, international responsibility. So we all do bear part of that responsibility. But in more practical terms, I would say that, first of all, it's the resource issue. And the U.S. has been one of the first rapid and substantive donors to this response. And I hope that that level of contribution will continue because we need resources for quite some time. And second, we need political clout, especially in negotiating with both Bangladesh and Myanmar, the two concerned countries. And we will count, as I've said to the administration, on U.S. leadership, as in many other situations.
MARTIN: The administration has suggested slashing the foreign aid budget. How concerned are you that the U.S. will withdraw from its leadership role?
GRANDI: Well, all of us in the humanitarian community are concerned, of course - would be very concerned if foreign aid was reduced. But I have to say that, especially in my bipartisan conversations in Congress, I've heard a lot of support across the aisle for foreign aid.
MARTIN: When you look at all the different crises - the internally displaced people in war zones and the population shifts that we're seeing, people fleeing because of civil war or climate change - how do you take stock of the scope and scale of the challenges?
GRANDI: It's daunting. And increasingly, the causes of flight are all intertwined. Conflict gets linked up with poverty because conflict produces poverty. And poverty produces conflict. So there is a very clear link...
MARTIN: Although it's worth pointing out, that's often differentiated in policy debates. People, governments will say, oh, refugees are OK. They are fleeing war. But someone who's a, quote, unquote, "economic migrant who just wants a better life," that person - no. That person can't come in.
GRANDI: Sure. And I actually agree with that distinction. And I think it is important to distinguish the different sets of protection measures that apply to different categories of people. What I'm saying is that people that flee conflict often are also very poor people. And then you have climatic factor. Think of northern Nigeria. This is a very clear example in which the combination of poverty, lack of education, underdevelopment, plus climatic factor has favored the birth of a terrorist movement, which has been the direct cause of the displacement of millions of people. But you should not lose sight of the interlinkages between the causes. And this is why for all these aspects of crises, we need a concerted action of the international community.
MARTIN: Filippo Grandi is UN High Commissioner for Refugees. Thank you so much for talking with us, sir.
GRANDI: Thank you. Thank you. Transcript provided by NPR, Copyright NPR.