Asylum Policy Research Articles

Can’t be held responsible: Weak norms and refugee protection evasion

States have increasingly moved away from refugee protection, intensifying the vulnerability of refugees and asylum-seekers. Drawing on theories of norm dynamics within International Relations (IR), this article argues that departures from refugee protection can be partly explained by the weakness of the normative principles governing the treatment of individuals fleeing persecution. Ambiguities, diverging interpretations, and varying levels of codification complicate efforts to hold states accountable to a complex bundle of human rights standards surrounding refugee and asylum protection. These weaknesses in the international refugee regime bolster norm-evading behavior wherein governments deliberately minimize their obligations while claiming technical compliance. Drawing on an analysis of US refugee and asylum policies under the Trump administration, the article reveals how norm evasion and accountability challenges emerge in the context of ambiguous standards vis-à-vis non-refoulement, non-detention, non-penalization, non-discrimination, and refugee responsibility-sharing.

‘Keeping busy with purpose’: How meaningful occupation can shape the experience of forced migration

Abstract Forced migration creates multiple barriers to everyday life, including individual’s access to dignified and meaningful daily occupations. Without the activities that form family life, self-care, work, leisure, and community participation, individuals can find themselves struggling to fill the hours in their days and feeling they exist on the margins of society. This article reflects the findings of a small-scale phenomenological study exploring the meaning of everyday occupations to people seeking asylum in the UK. A series of in-depth interviews, conducted with 10 people, explored the role of daily occupation in their country of origin and in the UK. The study found that restrictions on daily activities had a significant impact on their well-being and sense of self-worth. They highlighted how limited their opportunities were and acknowledged the value of meaningful daily occupations as a means to ‘keep busy with purpose’. There is growing evidence that occupation has the potential to be of benefit to people during the post-migratory period: maintaining health, preserving key skills, retaining a sense of self, and increasing integration. This study shows the multiple gains associated with purposeful activity, including how the right kind of occupation can promote self-worth at a time when people often feel devalued. The article encourages the reader to consider how increased access to activity can promote well-being and to consider challenging the occupational injustices behind asylum policy.

A Game Changer in EU-Turkey Relations: The Opportunities and Pitfalls of Migration Policy

ABSTRACTThe mass migration from Syria has been a major turning point and an important ‘game changer’ in EU-Turkey relations, as it marks a watershed in immigration and asylum between two periods: from 1999 to 2011 and from 2011 to the present. During the first period, the EU was one of the driving forces of change in Turkey’s immigration and asylum policy, along with significant migration movements from the Middle East. Although EU demands were largely implemented due to the country’s changing migration profile, there was also ongoing resistance and reluctance towards the EU, thus a certain degree of conditionality. With the Syrian mass migration in 2011, however, and in particular the so-called ‘European refugee crisis’ in 2015, Turkey started to use migration as a foreign policy tool with which to oppose EU conditionality.

The implementation of Italian asylum policy and the recognition of protection in times of crisis: between external and internal constraints

ABSTRACTStarting from the analysis of data on asylum applications between 2011 and 2017, this article seeks to identify the actors and processes that influenced the implementation of Italian asylum policy, and rates of success of asylum applications, during the refugee crisis. The article contends that the outcome of applications was determined by a complex interplay of external and internal-level variables: the evolution of the crisis and EU policies of crisis management in the former case; the approaches of governmental actors and the role of ‘street-level bureaucrats’, in the latter. Data derived from official documents, from EUROSTAT, from the UNHCR and from the Italian Ministry of the Interior were supplemented by interviews with Italian and EASO officials on the ground.

From Insecurity to Secondary Migration: “Bounded Mobilities” of Syrian and Eritrean Refugees in Europe

This paper seeks to analyse Syrian and Eritrean refugees' mobility experience across European borders, in a framework of mobility and insecurity. Drawing on the conflict model of migration, the paper focuses on the effects of migration and asylum policies when these are not in line with refugees’ needs and aspirations. We argue that when the asylum system does not meet with those expectations, insecurity brings into play secondary movements, which occur in a framework of irregularity. The considerations behind this article are motivated by the empirical evidence that both Syrian and Eritrean refugees undertake irregular secondary migration, whilst being within a protection system that most of the times satisfies their asylum claims. This paper is the result of a qualitative research conducted in 2017 through observation, in-depth interviews with Syrian and Eritrean refugees, and consultations with experts and practitioners in Italy, Greece, Germany and Lebanon.

Stosunek rządu Australii do nielegalnej migracji w latach 1996–2018

Australian Governments’ Stance on Illegal Immigration in 1996–2018
 Australia is well known for its strict immigration policy. It results from the country’s constant struggle with the flow of illegal migrants, brought to Australian shores through human smuggling. The author analyses immigration policies of five Prime Ministers representing two major Australian parties: the Liberal Party of Australia and the Australian Labor Party. Starting with the premiership of John Howard (1996–2007), and ending with Malcolm Turnbull’s era (2015– –2018), the author examines the situation of illegal immigrants in Australia and changes in immigration and asylum policies.

Opening the ‘Black Box’ of asylum governance: decision-making and the politics of asylum policy-making

AbstractComplementing and challenging the existing literature on the Italian asylum crisis, this article develops an actor-centred approach to open the ‘black box’ of asylum governance, showing the constitutive effects of governance on the asylum issue. It then applies this approach to the case of the Veneto region in Italy during the recent ‘refugee crisis’. By doing so, the article, first, investigates the cognitive mechanisms that shape key actors’ asylum policy decisions. Drawing concepts and ideas from framing and sensemaking theories, it shows that, while there is certainly a strategic element that shapes actors' policy preferences, there is also a meaningful cognitive component in asylum governance. Indeed, it argues that actors' strategies are shaped, more than by anti-immigration public attitudes per se (as often assumed), by how political actors make sense of these attitudes. The article then applies SNA to examine how actors' understandings are located within and depend upon network relations and investigate actors' agency, power and interactions. It ultimately shows that local asylum policy outcomes are deeply influenced by the ‘politics of policy-making’, that is by power dynamics and how powerful actors position themselves, behave and mobilize their understandings. Finally, by examining the impact of policy outputs on cognitive micro-level mechanisms, the article sheds light on the interplay between the ‘regulatory’ and the ‘public reaction’ dimensions of the Italian asylum crisis, illustrating the relationship between public attitudes on migration, frame emergence, asylum policy-making, politics and public mobilizations in the active constitution of the Italian asylum crisis.

II.3. La fuite des Juifs de France en Suisse à l’époque de la « Solution finale »

For Jews fleeing persecution, Switzerland represented a place of hope. Up until recently, however, researchers have not explored the reasons, circumstances, and complications surrounding their flight to the Swiss border, which lasted from 1942 until the Liberation.Jews began traveling en masse to the French-Swiss border in the summer of 1942 in reaction to the “Final Solution”, which was being implemented in the Netherlands, Belgium, and France. This migration in turn shaped a large portion of Switzerland’s asylum and closed-border policies. The country adopted a more restrictive approach to immigration, but also implemented more pragmatic emergency measures that proved to be more tolerant towards certain fugitives. This two-tiered strategy had a shocking consequence : attempting to reach Switzerland illegally become a safer bet than requesting a visa.The study of the experiences of refugees as they waited for asylum reveals the central role of the unofficial organisations that facilitated the process by exploiting loopholes in the system, whether for financial gain or in support of the resistance.In Switzerland, the responsibilities of the various stakeholders involved in the country’s asylum policy are indisputable. The Swiss response to the crisis was not monolithic. Rather, it was wracked by tension and internal conflict, especially between the army, which opposed refugees, and the country’s civilian authorities, who supported a more humanitarian mission. By its very existence, Switzerland, which remained free and neutral, passively rescued Jewish refugees.An in-depth statistical analysis of data on the number of refugees welcomed and turned away at the border finally became possible thanks to the vast number of archival documents that were preserved.

An Overview and Critique of US Immigration and Asylum Policies in the Trump Era

Executive Summary This article provides an overview and critique of US immigration and asylum policies from the perspective of the author’s 46 years as a public servant. The article offers a taxonomy of the US immigration system by positing different categories of membership: full members of the “club” (US citizens), associate members (lawful permanent residents, refugees, and “asylees”), friends (nonimmigrants and holders of temporary status), and persons outside the club (the undocumented). It describes the legal framework that applies to these distinct populations and recent developments in federal law and policy that relate to them. It also identifies a series of cross-cutting issues that affect these populations, including immigrant detention, immigration court backlogs, state and local immigration policies, and constitutional rights that extend to noncitizens. It ends with a series of recommendations for reform of the US asylum system, and a short conclusion.

The European Union and the Racialization of Immigration, 1985-2006

Over the past two decades, the European Union (EU) has played an increasingly influential role in the construction of a de facto common immigration and asylum policy, providing a forum for policy-formulation beyond the scrutiny of national parliaments. The guiding principles of this policy include linking the immigration portfolio to security rather than justice; reaffirming the importance of political, conceptual and organizational borders; and attempting to transfer policing and processing functions to non-EU countries. The most important element, I argue, is the structural racialization of immigration that occurs across the various processes and which escapes the focus of much academic scrutiny. Exploring this phenomenon through the concept of the “racial state,” I examine ways to understand the operations of immigration policy-making at the inter-governmental level, giving particular attention to the ways in which asylum-seekers emerge as a newly racialized group who are both stripped of their rights in the global context and deployed as Others in the construction of national narratives.

Homonationalist/Orientalist Negotiations: The UK Approach to Queer Asylum Claims

By bringing together the theoretical lenses of homonationalism and orientalism, this paper is intended to help the understanding of how tensions were negotiated between representations of the UK as a protector of LGBTI rights and its policies on (queer) asylum. Through a discourse analysis of the Supreme Court decision on HJ (Iran) and HT (Cameroon) v. Secretary of State for the Home Department (2010) and subsequent sexuality-based asylum tribunal decisions, I unveil the discursive work performed by these interventions. I argue that the judgment put forward homonationalist/orientalist discourses representing non-Western societies as homophobic, fundamentalist, traditional and backwards, while Western countries were repositioned as their mirror: secular, progressive and modern—founded on the principles of sexual liberation and tolerance. Whilst such representations are not a novelty, I contend that this homonationalist/orientalist framing was instrumental in performing a double work of simultaneous inclusion/exclusion, whereby the narrative of the UK as a homonational benevolent state could be regenerated. It addressed a long-standing controversial element of the UK asylum policy on sexuality-based claims by asserting that the UK would no longer require queer asylum seekers to go back to their countries and ‘repress’ their sexuality. However, whilst the decision presumably includes sexual others who fit into a predetermined Western homonormative narrative, at the same time, it projects ‘repression’ onto racialised queer bodies, thus effectively recreating a reasoning to legitimately exclude them from the refugee entitlement. Although nearly a decade has passed since this seminal ruling, its Othering effects have endured and continue to embed asylum decisions in dangerously harmful ways. This is illustrated by the ways in which some queer asylum seekers have their cases overturned based on arguments that depict them as sexually repressed, discreet and family oriented, as opposed to Western ‘liberated gays’—marked by specific norms of visibility, individualism and consumption practices.

Patterns of permissive and restrictive asylum policies in the German Länder

Die Asylpolitiken der deutschen Bundesländer sind durch große Unterschiede gekennzeichnet. Im verbundföderalen System der Bundesrepublik Deutschland nutzen die Länder ihre Verwaltungshoheit für eigene Akzente bei der Umsetzung der bundeseinheitlichen Regelungen. Der Beitrag verfolgt das Ziel, entsprechende Unterschiede in den Asylpolitiken der Länder systematisch zu erfassen und einzuordnen. Die zentralen Fragen lauten: In welchem Ausmaß unterscheiden sich die Politiken in den Ländern? Und: Lassen sich Muster einer eher „restriktiven“ oder „permissiven“ Asylpolitik erkennen? In der Tat finden wir in der Anwendung des Asylbewerberleistungsgesetzes, den Rückführungspraxen und der (Nicht-) Einrichtung von Ankerzentren länderspezifische Muster einer eher „permissiven“, d. h. den Zugang von Geflüchteten zum sozialen und öffentlichen Leben erleichternden, oder eher „restriktiven“, d. h. Zugang hemmenden, Asylpolitik. Mit dieser systematisierenden Darstellung der Unterschiede in der Policy-Anwendung leisten wir einen Beitrag zur vergleichenden policyanalytischen Untersuchung der Asylpolitiken der Bundesländer und liefern die Grundlage für weitere, kausalanalytische Untersuchungen.

The Politics of Compassion: Immigration and Asylum Policy (Global Migration and Social Change). By Ala Sirriyeh

<i>The Politics of Compassion: Immigration and Asylum Policy</i> (<i>Global Migration and Social Change</i>). By Ala Sirriyeh

How Radical Right-Wing Populism Has Shaped Recent Migration Policy in Austria and Germany

At the outset of the 2015 refugee crisis, Germany pursued an accepting asylum policy, potentially to mitigate its declining population. Austria, facing the same demographic challenges, closed itself to refugees. Differences in radical right-wing populism (RRP) in the two countries provide the basis for understanding their asylum policies. After the Second World War, Germany’s collective memory stigmatized far-right parties, while Austria’s did not. The radicalization spiral reproduces these differences today, allowing Austria’s Freedom Party to influence migration policy by pulling voters and mainstream parties to the right, while Germany’s RRP parties were unable to do the same before the crisis.

Facing the Refugee Challenge in Europe: A Litmus Test for the European Union

Abstract According to mainstream discourse, the EU is facing a ‘refugee crisis’ due to a mass influx of asylum seekers, which is putting the Common European Asylum System (CEAS) under pressure. Although this article acknowledges that the CEAS is currently under pressure, it aims to take a different view from the assumption that the—admittedly significant—arrival of asylum seekers constitutes in itself a problem for the EU. It suggests that the problems encountered by the CEAS are rather symptomatic of a deeper gridlock resulting from this system’s lack of compliance with two main EU’s fundamental values, the respect of which constitutes the ‘fundamental premise’ of EU integration, namely solidarity and human rights. From both an historical and a legal perspective, the EU is indeed founded on a set of values comprising the respect of human rights and solidarity. The treaties further require their respect internally (i.e. Articles 2 and 6 TEU), but also vis-à-vis the rest of the world (i.e. Articles 3(5) and 21 TEU). However, the current responses to the arrival of asylum-seekers are, in several respects, in contradiction with these founding values. On the one hand, the internal management of the influx of refugees reveals a lack of solidarity and results in breaches of asylum-seekers’ fundamental rights. On the other, the EU’s asylum policy does not meet the requirement according to which the Union shall, in its relations with the wider world, uphold and promote these values. These observations lead us to believe that facing the refugee challenge constitutes, from a normative perspective at least, a litmus test for the EU at large. Indeed, the EU’s difficulties in dealing with the arrival of the asylum seekers—which have already been the subject of extensive research—appear to be the evidence of an identity crisis. The way the EU, hand in hand with its Member States, responds to this challenge thus amounts to a ‘decisively indicative test’ for its normative foundations that are a prerequisite for the viability of the entire undertaking, and, notably, of the principle of mutual trust.

Inter‐organizational Contestation and the EU: Its Ambivalent Profile in Human Rights Protection

AbstractThis article examines how the EU interacts with other international organizations (IOs) with regard to human rights protection. Although studies on relations between IOs, namely inter‐organizational relations (IOR), have attempted to overcome a state‐centric tendency, existing IOR approaches are not suitable for analyzing human rights issues due to their indifference to law. To overcome this flaw, this article introduces the notion of ‘inter‐organizational contestation’ to account for the human rights implications of EU policies. This concept is applied to two contrasting cases: first, the EU's asylum policy, over which the EU is contested by other IOs; second, the implementation of targeted sanctions, over which the EU contests another IO. The article thus highlights the EU's ambivalent profile in human rights protection and contributes to the IOR literature.

Obstructing lives: local borders and their structural violence in the asylum field of post-2015 Europe

ABSTRACT This article contributes to the literature debate on local-level as a crucial arena of migration government in Europe, after the so-called ‘refugees crisis’ in 2015 and the attempt to limit migration movements towards Europe by restricting asylum rights. Drawing on 13 months of ethnographic research in Milan (Italy) between the years 2017 and 2018, we argue that the urban space can be turned into a setting of enforcing internal borders. The study focuses on implicit and informal ‘obstructions’ deployed by police immigration office (Questura) to hinder the attribution of legal status to prospect asylum-seekers or to block the renewal of refugees’ documents. In line with the national and European political orientation towards migration, such restrictive asylum policies have been deployed in Milan since 2016. Instead of placing the migrants in a ‘state of exception’, we argue that these praxes represent additional layers of control mechanisms. Refugees’ lives are directly affected by the obfuscation of their legal status produced by these obstructive praxes, which push recipients into the shadow of the law and are bearers of feelings of dependency and uncertainty. We ultimately argue that such indirect and informal bureaucratic obstructive practices can be interpreted as forms of structural violence.

Can the Welfare State Justify Restrictive Asylum Policies? A Critical Approach

Liberal egalitarians tend to be committed both to generous asylum policies and generous, universal welfare states. Yet there may be political, social and economic reasons why there is a conflict in realising both. Asylum seekers may create economic pressures to the welfare state, or undermine national solidarity supposedly necessary to support redistribution. In this paper, I discuss how political theorists should approach these empirical concerns. I take issue with the view that theorists can simply move between ‘realism’ and ‘idealism’ by accepting more or less of reality. Instead, political theorists should seek to offer a critical description of the conflict, which can reveal structures of power that ought to be subject to normative scrutiny. To this end, I discuss two accounts of how the welfare state may justify asylum restrictions in relation to the case of Sweden, a universal welfare state that has recently introduced restrictions on asylum to protect the welfare state. I argue along these accounts that the welfare state is both an important source of political and social order and a foundation of the personal moral experience. Yet a critical analysis also illustrates how these claims weaken as underlying methodological nationalism and bias towards existing power structures are brought to light. Asylum restrictions cannot be justified if they contribute to perpetuating these power structures, which cause some of the conflict with the welfare state in the first place.

The uses and abuses of "vulnerability" in EU asylum and refugee protection: Protecting women or reducing autonomy?

El concepto de vulnerabilidad se ha convertido en el centro de la legislación y la política europeas de asilo y refugio en los últimos años. La adopción de medidas especiales diseñadas para ofrecer una mayor protección a los solicitantes de asilo vulnerables puede considerarse un paso positivo. Ahora bien, la forma en que se ha definido la vulnerabilidad es cuestionable. Con demasiada frecuencia, la vulnerabilidad se reduce a una categorización simplista y esencializada, que también es altamente generizada y racializada. Las mujeres son clasificadas como "vulnerables" a priori, sin una consideración real de las causas estructurales y contextuales de esta vulnerabilidad. Si bien ser clasificado como "vulnerable" puede aumentar las posibilidades de protección dentro de los sistemas de asilo y refugio de la UE, los impactos en quienes son clasificados como vulnerables pueden ser sentidos como formas de violencia simbólica que reducen la agencia y la autonomía. En base a entrevistas con solicitantes de asilo y refugiados, así como en un análisis de las recientes directivas de asilo de la UE, este artículo propone repensar los usos de la vulnerabilidad en las políticas de asilo de la UE para proporcionar una mejor protección al tiempo que reconozcan la agencia y la autonomía de los solicitantes de asilo y de los refugiados.

Party identification, local context, and Australian attitudes toward immigration and asylum policy

The acceptance of newcomers as either immigrants or asylum seekers has been a recurring issue in Australian politics. Both the size of Australia's intake of economic migrants and the resettlement of asylum seekers held offshore have been contentious political issues. Research in other immigrant-receiving countries has identified numerous factors shaping attitudes toward immigration and asylum policy. These include political factors (such as party identification) and local demographic context – both immigrant concentration and change in immigrant concentration over time. Still, few studies of Australia have considered the effects of genuinely local demographic context, or how local context moderates the effects of political factors on attitudes toward immigration and asylum policy. Drawing on survey data from the Australian Election Study (2010–2016) and local-level census data, this article advances an explanation of Australians' attitudes toward immigration and asylum policy centring on the roles of party identification, local demographic context, and their interaction.