Arrival Of Asylum Seekers Research Articles

Governance and obstacles in the reception and social and labour integration of asylum seekers in Spain

Changes in migratory flows have transformed Spain from a country of emigration to one of the main destinations for international migration. And it has also become one of the most important European countries in the reception of asylum seekers and refugees in the last decade. With an unprepared reception system, the State has faced this challenge by decentralising socio-labour integration responsibilities to third sector entities. This article aims to analyse the institutional approach to the management and integration of asylum seekers, studying changes in the management of the reception and integration system for this group. Through documentary analysis and descriptive statistics, we observe a greater streamlining of certain processes, particularly after the arrival of asylum seekers from Ukraine in 2022. However, structural deficiencies remain, hindering the processes of matching labour supply and demand.

Protecting National Sovereignty: The ‘Australian Model’ and the Exclusion of Asylum Seekers

Increasingly, the ‘Australian model’ of offshore detention is promoted to restrict asylum seeker migration and preserve national sovereignty. This article analyses metaphor usage within press coverage of immigration to examine the origins of this discourse. Focusing on two high points of asylum seeker arrivals (2001–2002, 2012–2013), I demonstrate how negative metaphor use constructed asylum seekers as racialized, illegitimate, illegal Others, who breached Australian sovereignty. I argue that this was a response to a crisis of settler-colonial legitimacy, exacerbated by calls for Indigenous sovereignty, with anti-asylum discourse utilized as a tool to negate and neutralize Indigenous sovereignty claims and legitimate settler-colonial state power. I further argue that sovereignty claims were employed to reinforce Australia’s positioning within regional hierarchies of power, through the enactment of offshore processing agreements with less powerful, ostensibly ‘sovereign’ nations, thereby reaffirming and legitimating a racialized, neo-colonial ordering of the world.

Shaping a Climate of Arrival: National and Local Media Representations of Refugees’ Arrival Infrastructures in the Netherlands

AbstractNegative media representations such as framing refugees as criminals may increase concerns among the general audience about the arrival of asylum seekers. At the same time, these media representations may also create anxiety among the refugees themselves and negatively impact on their sense of belonging. In this article, we explicitly focus on media representations of arrival infrastructures for refugees and how these representations shape their climate of arrival. We zoom in on the regulatory-administrative dimension consisting of all formal structures involved in the arrival of refugees, the everyday practical dimension that refers to infrastructuring practices outside the regulatory-administrative framework related to refugees, as well as the normative-discursive dimension that consists of ideas and debates around arrival and arrival infrastructures. By taking arrival infrastructures as our centre of attention, we move beyond a refugee-centred approach. This allows us to uncover the different layers of the climate of arrival brought to light by national and local media representations as well as to nuance the rather uniform and dominant image of refugees in the media. Our findings show the responsibility of media to represent a more diverse image of refugees as well as the need for migration and media scholars to move beyond a sole focus on how refugees are represented in the media.

The economic and fiscal effects on the United States from reduced numbers of refugees and asylum seekers

AbstractInternational migrants who seek protection also participate in the economy. Thus the policy of the United States to drastically reduce refugee and asylum-seeker arrivals from 2017 to 2020 might have substantial and ongoing economic consequences. This paper places conservative bounds on those effects by critically reviewing the research literature. It goes beyond prior estimates by including ripple effects beyond the wages earned or taxes paid directly by migrants. The sharp reduction in US refugee admissions starting in 2017 costs the overall US economy today over $9.1 billion per year ($30,962 per missing refugee per year, on average) and costs public coffers at all levels of government over $2.0 billion per year ($6,844 per missing refugee per year, on average) net of public expenses. Large reductions in the presence of asylum seekers during the same period likewise carry ongoing costs in the billions of dollars per year. These estimates imply that barriers to migrants seeking protection, beyond humanitarian policy concerns, carry substantial economic costs.

Detecting and describing heterogeneity in health care cost trajectories among asylum seekers

BackgroundThe mechanism underlying the health care cost trajectories among asylum seekers is not well understood. In the canton of Vaud in Switzerland, a nurse-led health care and medical Network for Migrant Health (“Réseau santé et migration” RESAMI) has established a health care model focusing on the first year after arrival of asylum seekers, called the “community health phase”. This model aims to provide tailored care and facilitate integration into the Swiss health care system. The aim of this study is to explore different health care cost trajectories among asylum seekers during this phase and identify the associated factors.MethodsWe detected different patterns of health care cost trajectories using time-series clustering of longitudinal data of asylum seekers in the canton of Vaud in Switzerland. These data included all adult asylum seekers and recipients of emergency aid who entered the canton between 2012 and 2015 and were followed until 2018. The different clusters of health care cost trajectories were then described using a multinomial logistic regression model.ResultsWe identified a concave, an upward trending, and a downward trending cluster of health care cost trajectories with different characteristics being associated with each cluster. The likelihood of being in the concave cluster is positively associated with coming from the Eastern Mediterranean region or Africa rather than Europe and with a higher share of consultations with an interpreter. The likelihood of being in the upward trending cluster, which accrued the highest costs, is positively associated with 20–24-year-olds rather than older individuals, coming from Europe than any other region and having a mental disorder. In contrast to the other two clusters, the likelihood of being in the downward trending cluster is positively associated with having contacted the RESAMI network within the first month after arrival, which might indicate the potential of early intervention. It is also positively associated with older age and living in a group lodge.ConclusionsAsylum seekers are heterogeneous in terms of health care cost trajectories. Exploring these differences can help point to possible ways to improve the care and supporting services provided to asylum seekers. Our findings could indicate that early and patient-centered interventions might be well-suited to this aim.

Reactivating underpopulated areas through participatory architecture in southern Italy by creating a home for newcomers

Crossing Cultures is a university-based research initiative that is part of London Metropolitan’s Centre for Urban and Built Ecologies (CUBE) which aims to develop a new pedagogical model. The focus is to provide an inclusive learning environment that facilitates intercultural relationships and group learning, equipping students with essential skills for a globally connected world beyond the subject of architecture. We have paired the design studio activities in London with a field experience of live engagement in southern Italy, in a region suffering from depopulation, while simultaneously experiencing the arrival of asylum seekers. The confluence of these opposing developments creates a need to rebuild local communities and presents an exceptional opportunity for our students to become agents of change. The article outlines how, through the creation of an additional teaching and learning platform for multi-disciplinary research outside the boundaries of the university campus, this teaching practice is raising social capital by attracting and integrating students and asylum seekers alike, adding to population and economic growth. The article concludes by highlighting the unique opportunity to scale up this hybrid studio/field study model, which has arisen because of the COVID-19 pandemic. What is proposed is that now, as universities are developing blended learning delivery models, our observations could feed into a new, expansive model for studying architecture as a student-in-residence mode of study.

Managing Refugee Protection Crises: Policy Lessons from Economics and Political Science

We review and interpret research on the economic and political effects of receiving asylum seekers and refugees in developed countries, with a particular focus on the 2015 European refugee protection crisis and its aftermath. In the first part of the paper, we examine the consequences of receiving asylum seekers and refugees and identify two main findings. First, the reception of refugees is unlikely to generate large direct economic effects. Both labor market and fiscal consequences for host countries are likely to be relatively modest. Second, however, the broader political processes accompanying the reception and integration of refugees may give rise to indirect yet larger economic effects. Specifically, a growing body of work suggests that the arrival of asylum seekers and refugees can fuel the rise of anti-immigrant populist parties, which may lead to the adoption of economically and politically isolationist policies. Yet, these political effects are not inevitable and occur only under certain conditions. In the second part of the paper, we discuss the conditions under which these effects are less likely to occur. We argue that refugees’ effective integration along relevant linguistic, economic, and legal dimensions, an allocation of asylum seekers that is perceived as ‘fair’ by the host society, and meaningful contact between locals and newly arrived refugees have the potential to mitigate the political and indirect economic risks.

Managing Refugee Protection Crises: Policy Lessons from Economics and Political Science

We review and interpret research on the economic and political effects of receiving asylum seekers and refugees in developed
 countries, with a particular focus on the 2015 European refugee protection crisis and its aftermath. In the first part
 of the paper, we examine the consequences of receiving asylum seekers and refugees and identify two main findings. First,
 the reception of refugees is unlikely to generate large direct economic effects. Both labor market and fiscal consequences
 for host countries are likely to be relatively modest. Second, however, the broader political processes accompanying the
 reception and integration of refugees may give rise to indirect yet larger economic effects. Specifically, a growing body of
 work suggests that the arrival of asylum seekers and refugees can fuel the rise of anti-immigrant populist parties, which
 may lead to the adoption of economically and politically isolationist policies. Yet, these political effects are not inevitable
 and occur only under certain conditions. In the second part of the paper, we discuss the conditions under which these
 effects are less likely to occur. We argue that refugees’ effective integration along relevant linguistic, economic, and legal
 dimensions, an allocation of asylum seekers that is perceived as ‘fair’ by the host society, and meaningful contact between
 locals and newly arrived refugees have the potential to mitigate the political and indirect economic risks.

Reflection of the European Union's non-Solidaristic and Security Centered Asylum Policy on the Transit States: The Case of Indirect Refoulement

The paper argues that the European Union’s (EU) policy of externalising migration management to transit states contradicts its founding values enshrined under Article 2 of the Treaty Establishing the EU. The values are intentionally interpreted in such a way to evade humanitarian responsibility arising from the arrival of asylum seekers. The paper examines the changing meanings of the principle of solidarity and argues that solidarity has been interpreted in all possible meanings expect as a humanitarian norm to keep an emphasis on the return of asylum seekers and to minimise responsibility. This encourages the transit states to evade international responsibility by constructing their asylum/migration control policies in line with the EU securitisation approach. The paper examines the influence of the EU securitisation approach on the development of the Turkish asylum policy. The paper concludes by arguing that the EU securitisation approach has become the main reason for falling humanitarian standards in the Mediterranean region.

Jumping the queue? The queue-jumping metaphor in Australian press discourse on asylum seekers

The article examines the use of the queue-jumping metaphor within the Australian press at three key points of asylum seeker arrivals. As a diachronic study, it investigates the development of the metaphor and its utilisation. The article finds that while the metaphor developed at the intersection of political and news discourse, its usage was far from straightforward, often acting as a focus for arguments opposing government policies and rhetoric. Yet the success of the metaphor in shaping the narrative around asylum seekers can be understood through its structuring of a deserving/undeserving dichotomy, aligned with quintessential Australian values, which led to both pro- and anti-government positions being articulated through the context of queue-jumping.

Who Wants to Talk About Refugees and Why? Foreign Interventions in German Elections

We use this the crisis set off by the arrival of asylum-seekers in Germany to test a theory of the use of propaganda as a strategy by a non-democratic state against a democratic state. We argue that a non-democracy on a collision course with a democracy will use propaganda discourse to punish recalcitrant elite, and will do so especially near elections while promoting frames that weaken the opponent’s institutions. We test these propositions on a corpus of half a million publications, covering Kremlin-backed media channels broadcasting in German, and German media. We find that Kremlin-backed channels are more likely to publish refugee stories near elections in Germany and that they push conspiracy theories at the expense of discussing economic or crime-related aspects of immigration. Our work has implications for the rise of propaganda discourse in Europe and beyond, and for democratic politics under foreign autocratic pressure.

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.

Taxation as a Means of Migration Control: The Case of Hungary

This article shows that different types of interactions can arise between taxation and migration policies. Migration leads to tax consequences and, at the same time, taxation can influence migration. An analysis of Hungary's special immigration tax seems to suggest that it is the latest example of a broader policy shift to control migration. Taxation is being used as a means to deal with the aftermath of the so-called ‘European migration crisis’ of 2015, during which EU Member States struggled to provide a coordinated and efficient response to a sharp increase in the arrival of asylum seekers. Although taxation can be a policy instrument to achieve regulatory objectives, the use of taxation to regulate migration is questionable and may lead to violations of human rights.

External Border Control and Asylum Management As EU Common Goods. A Budgetary Perspective

The removal of internal border controls across most of the European Union (EU) has increased the interdependencies between the Member States, triggering the emergence of many different EU common goods. In the fields of external border controls, asylum and migration, Article 80 of the Treaty on the Functioning of the European Union (TFEU) implicitly recognizes the existence of such common goods and the challenges related to their effective provision, by establishing solidarity and fair sharing of responsibility between the Member States as governing principle for relevant common policies. An analysis of negotiations on the EU's Multiannual Financial Frameworks since 1993 and of data on budgetary implementation since 2000 show that pooling of financial resources at EU level and the establishment of common structures have advanced slowly, despite efforts from the European Parliament and the European Commission to gain momentum. Both specific features of the EU budgetary provisions and institutional characteristics of these sensitive policy areas have contributed to the slow progress. Against this backdrop, the 2015-2016 surge in arrivals of asylum-seekers has led to an emergency-driven increase in joint financial efforts, which nevertheless remain limited as compared to national expenditure in the policy areas. Scattered data suggest that the latter is unevenly distributed across the Union. These questions acquire renewed salience in the context of the negotiations on the post-2020 Multiannual Financial Framework. While pooling of financial resources at EU level cannot alone ensure fair sharing of responsibility, a series of possible developments in this domain have the potential to strengthen the contribution of the EU budget to the implementation of the principle that is to govern the common policies on external borders, asylum and migration according to the Treaty of Lisbon.

Not in My Backyard: Do Increases in Immigration Cause Political Violence?

While far-right parties profit electorally from rising immigration, we know very little about how increases in immigration mobilize opposition outside the electoral arena. Using fine-grained, classified data from the Federal Criminal Office in Germany, we estimate the causal effect of a sizable increase in asylum-seekers in a community on the probability of xenophobic hate crimes. Exploiting county-level quota regimes governing the allocation of asylum-seekers in Germany, we find that when immigration levels rise nationally, an increase in asylum-seeker arrivals in a community causes an increase in xenophobic hate crimes. We also document that these crimes are directed against asylum-seekers and not other non-natives, which suggests that they are instrumental actions intended to dispel and deter asylum-seekers from local communities.

The Asylum Seeker Integrated Healthcare Pathway: a collaborative approach to improving access to primary health care in South Eastern Melbourne, Victoria, Australia.

It is important to address the health needs of asylum seekers within the early stages of their arrival in Australia, as this impacts all aspects of their resettlement. However, asylum seekers face a range of barriers to accessing timely and appropriate health care in the community. In 2012, the increasing number of asylum seekers in Australia placed additional demand on health and social services in high-settlement regions. Health providers experienced a substantial increase in Medicare ineligible clients and avoidable presentations to Emergency Departments, and the health needs of new asylum seeker arrivals were not being fully addressed. In response, South Eastern Melbourne Medicare Local, Monash Health, the Australian Red Cross and local settlement support agencies collaborated to develop an integrated healthcare pathway in South Eastern Melbourne to facilitate healthcare access for asylum seekers released from detention. From September 2012 to December 2014, a total of 951 asylum seekers transitioned through the pathway. Seventy-eight percent required primary healthcare assistance, and were provided with a service appointment within 3 weeks of their arrival in Melbourne. This initiative has demonstrated the value of partnership and collaboration when responding to emergent asylum seeker health needs.

Interculturality in a different light: Modesty towards democracy in education?

This article problematizes interculturality in relation to how the notion of democracy is constructed, especially in education. Discourses of democracy have become more central in “interculturalspeak” (a somewhat uncritical approach to intercultural matters), especially after the mass arrival of asylum seekers and the spread of terrorism around the world. The authors challenge the often Western-centric considerations of the Other’s democracy, through a close reading of a Chinese textbook. China seems to represent the Other par excellence when democracy is discussed. The article does not decide “subjectively” which country is better than others at “doing” democracy, especially in education. Neither do the authors wish to accuse anyone of “doing” it wrongly. What is demonstrated is that the topic of “democracy” is indeed found in China’s secondary school textbooks. The following questions are asked: Which topics are covered? How is democracy problematized explicitly/implicitly? What potential similarities are to be found with the “Western” understanding of democracy? This rare insight into discourses of democracy (the changing self; relations between self-other; citizenship, rights, duties in the textbooks) from China proposes to rethink how we see self-other in intercultural terms, to develop more intercultural modesty and to learn with each other rather than against or merely from the other.

Reworking Student Understanding of Tourism Mobility: Experiences of Migration and Exchange on a Field Trip

ABSTRACTThis paper examines experiences of tourism students engaged in a learning activity based on a visit to a migrant centre on the outskirts of Valetta, the capital of the Mediterranean island of Malta. This exercise aims to problematise students’ understanding of mobility and exchange in the tourism context. Malta has been subject to proportionally significant numbers of arrivals of asylum seekers since accession in 2004. Student reflections are examined through a focus group methodology and material from reflective journals, reporting discomfort but valuable learning outcomes, particularly in the degree of caring about others forced into alternative forms of mobility. Whilst an uncomfortable visit for many students, we have found this a useful discussion exercise against a backdrop of increasing migration controls, and an important contrast in relation to unfettered tourist mobility. We also highlight the importance of exchanges between students, teachers, hosts and others in alternative economic and educational discourse.

New neighbours in a time of change: local pragmatics and the perception of asylum centres in rural Denmark

ABSTRACTAsylum centres in rural areas are an increasingly common mode of managing asylum seekers in Denmark. These centres’ arrival occurs in a context of protracted rural crisis, as demographic and economic changes reshape local communities. Yet research on these processes remains scarce, issues concerning asylum and the rural being seldom conceived together. At the same time, majority population attitudes towards refugees are often depicted through the opposed poles of xenophobia and humanitarianism. Based on ethnographic research, this article examines the meanings and consequences of asylum centres for rural Danish communities. Drawing on anthropological theory on the mutuality of social life we argue that asylum centres become embedded in pre-existing relations within local communities and between them and the centralising Danish welfare state. Local communities sometimes were initially sceptical about asylum centres, but they generally developed a collective, pragmatic approach towards them in contrast to the divided, ideological cast of national debates on asylum. By shifting focus from the national to the local, from the urban to the rural, and from the migrants to the neighbouring communities, a less polarising and more everyday mode of relating to the arrival of asylum seekers becomes visible.

T133. MENTAL HEALTH OF ASYLUM SEEKERS AT THE HUMANITARIAN CAMP IN PARIS

BackgroundAsylum seeker status is associated to higher prevalence of psychiatric disorders due to not only pre-migration events but also to the trajectory of migration and post- migration adversities. Mental problems and need of care may vary according to these different stages. In France, after the cleaning of the “Calais jungle” in October 2016, most asylum seekers moved to Paris, where they live as homeless. An asylum seeker center (CPA- Centre Premier accueil) was then created a few weeks later, to allow rapid access to asylum seeker procedure, shelter, and medical care (including mental health).MethodsWe will analyze 1- year data (socio-demographic characteristics, migration history, psychiatric symptoms, hospital admissions and medical prescriptions) of about 1000 recently arrived asylum seekers who consulted for psychiatric examination in the refugee camp (CPA). Prevalence and bivariate analyses will be done. Factors associated with mental health problems will be identified using multivariate analyses.ResultsFindings will be discussed in the light of the French/European immigration policy and the organization of the public mental health system.DiscussionThe results of our study will contribute to the identification of mental health problems and correlates at the arrival of asylum seekers in France, in the aim to develop adequate service planning, prevention and support.