Session 13.1

BIO

Daniel Salazar is the refugee and protection policy advisor for Global Refuge, a national refugee resettlement agency and international NGO based in the United States. He conducts policy and advocacy work on climate displacement, the U.S. refugee admissions program, and Afghan and Ukrainian resettlement. This work includes Congressional advocacy, administrative advocacy, multilateral engagement, policy research and analysis, coalition building, and strategic communications. He led Refugee Council USA’s Climate Displacement working group from December 2022 to January 2025 and advised the reintroduction of the Climate Displaced Persons Act in the 118th Congress in 2023. He has a Master of Science in Foreign Service from Georgetown University and a Bachelor of Arts in Political Science and Journalism from Texas Christian University.

ABSTRACT

In October 2021, the Biden Administration White House published a report on the impacts of climate change on migration. The groundbreaking publication was the most high-profile review conducted by the U.S. government on the human mobility and immobility trends in a changing climate. It declared that the United States had a “compelling national interest in strengthening global protection for individuals and groups displaced by the impacts of climate change,” including through “creating a new legal pathway for individualized humanitarian protection in the United States for individuals who establish that they are fleeing serious, credible threats to their life or physical integrity, including as a result of the direct or indirect impacts of climate change.”

Four years later, the issue of climate-related displacement has once again been banished as a federal priority. The second Trump administration immediately signaled its intent to withdraw from the Paris agreement. Climate resilience and adaptation programming was quickly frozen and shuttered as out of line with American interests in the dismantling of USAID and the retrenchment of U.S. foreign aid. The Administration has also frozen or rolled back many humanitarian pathways and protections for vulnerable populations, such as U.S. refugee admissions, humanitarian parole, or Temporary Protected Status.

This presentation will provide an overview of the state of U.S. federal legislative and administrative advocacy to support climate-displaced individuals to the United States. It will discuss the benefits of the Climate Displaced Persons Act (CDPA), a bill from Sen. Markey of Massachusetts that has served as the primary legislative proposal in the space to create a new climate-based humanitarian pathway in U.S. law. In the context of the CDPA’s many obstacles to becoming law, the presentation will cover discrete steps to enhance protection for climate-displaced or climate-affected individuals in current law and policy that can be pursued or protected in this administration and the next.

As one of the nation’s largest and oldest faith-based nonprofits serving refugees and immigrants in the United States, Global Refuge brings a unique perspective to discussions on climate-related displacement. The organization—previously known as Lutheran Immigration and Refugee Service (LIRS)—was among the first to endorse the first version of the CDPA in 2019. LIRS also released a July 2021 report on protections and pathways in U.S. immigration law for climate migrants – a report that preceded the White House report that fall. This Climate Migration Symposium presentation will provide insights and excerpts from a forthcoming version of Global Refuge’s updated version of its original 2021 report on protections for climate-displaced individuals.

The speaker, Daniel Salazar, led Refugee Council USA’s Climate Displacement Working Group from December 2022 to January 2025, serving as a leader in the U.S. refugee resettlement space on climate displacement. He currently leads Interaction's Forced Displacement Working Group. He served as the moderator of the last two Congressional staff briefings on the CDPA and climate resilience hosted by Sen. Markey’s office in November 2023 and November 2024. He has also contributed to field research on climate-related displacement trends among asylum seekers on the United States Mexico border, and led field research last year on the role of refugee led organizations in the Uganda refugee response.

BIO

Felipe Navarro is a Colombian lawyer with extensive experience in human rights, specializing in migration and refugee policy. As the Associate Director of Policy & Advocacy at the Center for Gender & Refugee Studies, a premier research, legal advocacy, and training institute, he spearheads human mobility-related policy initiatives and advocacy efforts across the Americas, including on climate displacement. His work encompasses research, advocacy before international bodies, and federal advocacy, and he is a frequent speaker on topics related to regional migration, climate displacement, and U.S. border policies. Felipe has contributed to foundational advocacy materials exploring avenues for the protection of climate-displaced individuals, including leading an amicus brief to the Inter-American Court of Human Rights. He received a master’s degree from the Fletcher School of Law & Diplomacy at Tufts University and an L.L.B. from Universidad de los Andes (Bogotá, Colombia).

ABSTRACT

Around the world, climate change and disasters are forcing millions of people from their homes. Droughts, floods, hurricanes, and rising seas are pushing families into increasingly dangerous situations. While many move within their own country, others must cross borders in search of safety. Yet when they arrive, they are often told: “The law does not cover you.”

This is not true. Existing international and regional law already provides important protections for people displaced in the context of climate change. The problem is not the absence of law, but the persistence of myths that discourage action and block people from accessing the rights they are entitled to.

The Practical Toolkit on International Protection in the Context of Climate Change and Disasters was created to tackle these myths directly. Written by leading refugee law experts with the support of UNHCR and in consultation with decision-makers, academics, and practitioners from across the globe, it explains how people displaced by climate impacts may be protected under existing refugee and human rights law. Crucially, it serves as a reminder that states are not without tools to respond to cross-border displacement caused or worsened by the effects of climate change and disasters.

What Myths Does the Toolkit Dispel?

• Myth 1: “There are no legal protections for people displaced by climate change.”In fact, international and regional refugee and human rights law apply just as much here as in other situations. Claims by people fleeing climate impacts should be considered like any other.

• Myth 2: “Disasters are natural, so the law does not apply.”Disasters are not “natural.” They become life-threatening when governments fail to prepare, when aid is distributed unequally, or when marginalized groups are left behind. These human-made factors are exactly what the law is designed to address.

• Myth 3: “Climate impacts affect everyone the same way.”As the Inter-American Court of Human Rights has clarified, climate change does not strike all groups equally. Women, children, Indigenous and Afro-descendant communities are often disproportionately affected because discrimination and exclusion leave them more exposed and less protected. The Toolkit explains that protection analysis must look at how hazards combine with these vulnerabilities and not just at the hazard in isolation.

• Myth 4: “The risk must be immediate to qualify for protection.”People do not have to wait until their lives are already in danger to deserve protection. International law requires decision-makers to consider risks over time, including foreseeable harm from slow-onset processes such as sea-level rise or prolonged drought.

Why Now?

The Toolkit builds on a growing body of jurisprudence in which domestic courts, regional systems, and international bodies have recognized protection needs in climate-related cases. It draws from cases where the protection needs of people displaced across borders by climate change and disasters have been considered.

Since the Toolkit’s release, this trend has accelerated. Landmark advisory opinions by the Inter-American Court of Human Rights and the International Court of Justice have confirmed that states have binding human rights obligations when responding to climate-related displacement, and that they are prohibited from returning individuals to situations where they would face a serious risk of foreseeable harm due to the effects of climate change and disasters.

At the same time, protection for people displaced across borders remains difficult in some contexts, particularly in the United States under the current administration. Yet the broader international picture is one of progress. As some states close their doors, the global trajectory is toward recognizing climate-related displacement as a matter of law and obligation. This makes continued dialogue and advocacy not only urgent but essential.

How the Toolkit Can Be Used

The Toolkit is a legal resource, but its value goes beyond lawyers. It can support dialogue, help challenge common myths, and provide practical guidance for decision-makers, advocates, and policymakers. By showing how international law applies in situations of climate and disaster-related displacement, it can also strengthen policy advocacy and promote more consistent protection across different contexts.

Importantly, the Toolkit is adaptable. The Center for Gender and Refugee Studies (CGRS) has already developed a version tailored to United States law and practice, and similar adaptations can be made in other jurisdictions. This flexibility means the Toolkit can both guide individual protection decisions and support policy advocacy in contexts where understanding of the law is still developing. By serving these dual purposes, it helps bridge the gap between international standards and national implementation.

BIO

Alex Aleinikoff is the Executive Dean of The New School for Social Research. He has written widely in the areas of immigration and refugee law and policy, transnational law, citizenship, race, and constitutional law. His recent books include New Narratives on the Peopling of America, (Johns Hopkins University Press 2024, co-edited with Alexandra Delano) and The Arc of Protection: Reforming the International Refugee Regime (Stanford University Press 2019, co-authored by Leah Zamore). From 2017-2024, he served as Director of the Zolberg Institute on Migration and Mobility. Aleinikoff served as United Nations Deputy High Commissioner for Refugees from 2010-2015. He was Dean, Executive Vice President for Law Center Affairs, and a faculty member at Georgetown University Law Center, and was a faculty member at the University of Michigan Law School. He received a JD from Yale Law School and a BA and honorary Doctorate of Laws from Swarthmore College. He was inducted into the American Academy of Arts and Sciences in 2014.

ABSTRACT

Climate-Induced Displacement and the International Protection of Forced Migrants In coming years, scores of millions of people will be forced from their homes because of the effects of the climate crisis and other environmental events. While there is general recognition that those displaced by climate events merit assistance and protection, the existing international refugee regime does not provide an adequate framework for action. This article proposes an approach that focuses on the fact of displacement due to the climate crisis and embraces a right not to be displaced. It thus centers questions of accountability and root causes and embeds claims to climate justice in discussions of regime reform. Climate displacement provides an opportunity—indeed, the necessity—for a fundamental rethinking of the prevailing protection paradigm.