Also on refugees, but not directly related to Myanmar, is a recent New York Times op-ed by Sonia Nazario. The central claim is that what the US faces on its southern border with Mexico is not an immigration crisis, as many in Congress and the media would have us believe, but rather a refugee crisis. Among much else, Nazario has this to say: “The United States expects other countries to take in hundreds of thousands of refugees on humanitarian grounds. Countries neighboring Syria have absorbed nearly 3 million people. Jordan has accepted in two days what the United States has received in an entire month during the height of this immigration flow – more than 9,000 children in May. The United States should also increase to pre-9/11 levels the number of refugees we accept to 90,000 from the current 70,000 per year and, unlike in recent years, actually admit that many.”

That’s a reasonable argument, indicating that Thailand deserves a fair hearing from international society as it reimposes a strict interpretation of the rules on its borderland refugee camps, and in the slightly longer term seeks global support in managing an unfolding endgame. Indeed, it seems almost certain that the US will have to be part of any final settlement. The limited data we have reveals that around 90 percent of refugees prefer either to stay in Thailand, or to be resettled. Only with US participation could a total of third-country slots running to several tens of thousands be reached.