My guest, journalist Jeanne Carstensen uses one devastating 2015 shipwreck to illuminate the global refugee crisis affecting over 100 million displaced people worldwide.
In our conversation, she talks of refugees as a self-selecting population—educated professionals like Afghan bankers and Syrian artists who pay smugglers $25,000 to escape violence. Their shared dream: reaching safety and rebuilding lives with dignity. Carstensen argues we're witnessing only the beginning of massive global migration, driven by climate change, authoritarianism, and conflict. Contrary to anti-migrant sentiment portraying refugees as society's "dregs," many are middle-class families risking everything for survival. This single story represents countless others in our interconnected world of forced displacement.
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