bridle at the Convention, and by 1965 the US had amended its Immigration and Nationality Act to grant Convention status to almost anyone coming from a communist country. In the absence of Cold War imperatives, the liberal adherence of Western signatories to the terms of the Convention is, with some exceptions, waning fast. In its place are ‘temporary protection’, exceptional leave to remain, ‘humanitarian’ leave, ‘de facto refugee’ status, ‘Duldung’ (or ‘tolerated status’) and other forms of halfway house. There is less international political advantage nowadays in accommodating refugees. Far fewer of the people who wish to claim asylum are anticommunists in any useful sense, even if they come from the remains of the Eastern bloc or China. As for domestic political advantage, there is none. Many asylum seekers, if they could get in, would be black; a proportion coming from the east into Western Europe are Roma. Most electorates in the rich world have set their hearts against that kind of influx.
