Asylum System Research Articles

Bureaucratic configuration and discretion in asylum case processing: the case of the EUAA in Greece

This article takes an in-depth look at caseworkers at the European Union Asylum Agency in Greece. The agency’s increased role in asylum case processing and the emergence of the called “integrated European administration” is an unusual but nevertheless critical case to study for scholars of European asylum bureaucracies. Previous research into member state’s national migration authorities has shown that discretionary decision-making is widely deployed by asylum caseworkers. Generally, street-level bureaucrats tend to ‘reinterpret’ policy and creatively make use of the legal framework of the Common European Asylum System in order to make their day-to-day operations run more smoothly and resolve ethical dilemmas. However, this article finds that in the case of the European Union Asylum Agency, the compartmentalized institutional arrangement and short-term contracts removes both the incentive and ability for caseworkers to creatively reinterpret policy and deploy discretionary practices. It is therefore argued that scholars of asylum bureaucracy in Europe must pay increased attention to how the bureaucratic configuration of migration authorities.

Gandalf's mother and other stories: the dark side of forensic psychotherapy

This article attempts to develop Estela V. Welldon's (1988) theory regarding perverse action in women, where women act against their own bodies, or against their babies, when they are experienced as part-objects not individuated from themselves. I attempt to apply this theory to twentieth-century Irish national identity in which a state policy, underwritten by the Irish Catholic Church, idealised women, and in particular motherhood, with disastrous outcomes for some women. This policy took the form of the Magdalene Laundry Asylum system which was a "secret" hiding in plain sight from 1922 to 1996. I draw parallels between this historically abusive system and what I believe to be the toxic Public Law Outline (PLO) system used in the UK today. The PLO sets out the duties local authorities have when thinking about taking a child from its parents. It involves social workers taking a case to court in a procedure which is ironically enough named a "care order". Psychologists can be asked to provide expert testimony regarding the fitness or otherwise of parents caught up in the PLO system and thus be instrumental in breaking up families. We might call this the dark side of forensic psychotherapy. All identifying materials in this article have been anonymised and, in some cases, stories have been amalgamated to protect patients' identities.

Creating modern asylum system in Central European countries

Aim: The purpose of the study is to present the development of modern asylum administration in the four Visegrad countries in the decade after the regime change.Methodology: The study examines and evaluates the similarities and differences in the mentioned Central European countries by reviewing the available literature and legislation.Findings: The economic and social background of Czechoslovakia (and later Czech Republic and Slovak Republic), Poland and Hungary showed many similarities in the period under review: at the time of regime change, they all joined to the 1951 Refugee Convention and established their own refugee management system in accordance with Western expectations, which included a set of rules and institutional structures that met international criteria. However, due to their geographic location, they have faced very different challenges, which has led to a periodic disparity in the attitude towards refugees and the volume of foreigners they receive.Value: In addition to presenting an aspect of the recent history of migration, this publication also serves some supplementation to the current treatment of the forced migration crisis, which is the largest one in Europe since the Second World War. It expands the knowledge of the specialized literature on the subject.

Policy Entrepreneurs of European Disintegration? The Case of Austrian Asylum Governance After 2015

The re-establishment of border controls in the Schengen Area since 2015 and repeated contestation of the Common European Asylum System have made the policy sector of migration and asylum a topic of growing importance for European (dis)integration research. This article investigates differentiated disintegration and the factors that facilitate member states’ counter-projects to core-EU integration trajectories. Drawing on the concept of policy entrepreneurship and based on an analysis of policy documents, we use the case of Austria to examine how the government coalition, the Austrian People’s Party, and their chairman, Sebastian Kurz, have shaped European governance of asylum and borders in the aftermath of the 2015–2016 crisis. We first show how the Austrian government performed a shift towards bilateralism and multilateralism outside the EU framework by using transnational party alliances. Second, we outline a policy discourse that justified Schengen-internal bordering based on asylum politics, which eventually served to delegitimize Schengen’s enlargement in 2022. The article contributes conceptually to understanding differentiated disintegration in the sector of migration and asylum, and points to potential drivers of this development.

The Colonised Self: The Politics of UK Asylum Practices, and the Embodiment of Colonial Power in Lived Experience

This paper draws on empirical data generated in the ‘Everyday Bordering in the UK’ project, with a focus on the experiences of people seeking asylum and hoping to establish a safe life in the UK. Specifically, we show that during the process of claiming asylum, people’s experiences of waiting and displacement—practices inherent in UK immigration policies—work as time- and space-based dimensions of power that are imbued with colonial logic. Existing studies apply the lens of Foucault’s governmentality approach to politics regulating people seeking asylum. In particular, the international literature describes the policy of dispersal, and associated periods of waiting, as a dynamic of power used by governments to control and regulate behaviours. However, these time- and space-related experiences are often considered separately, focusing on the rationalities underpinning these politics. This paper, by contrast, develops Foucault’s theories by examining how these two characteristics interconnect in the lived realities of people waiting for an asylum decision in the UK to create racialised politics of power and privilege that reproduce the colonial origins of European migration governance. In doing so, we contribute by illustrating how practices within the UK asylum system can be embodied by people seeking asylum to create a subject that modifies behaviours in response to being positioned as ‘less deserving’ than UK citizens—the ‘colonised self’.

Who Cares About Data? Ambivalence, Translation, and Attentiveness in Asylum Casework

Scholars across Computer-Supported Cooperative Work (CSCW) increasingly focus on the topic of care when investigating data-driven technologies in contexts of re-humanizing technology design and usage. Previous studies have shown how care work eludes complex bureaucratic systems shaped by data, digitalization, and a restrictive political agenda. This research aims to understand how asylum stakeholders enact care as an aspect of asylum casework, while navigating what is largely acknowledged by NGOs, nation states, and the EU to be a broken asylum system (von der Leyen). We investigate care as a relational aspect of casework in which knowledge and technology of the implicated caseworker and asylum seeker are attuned to one another in a way that takes the unaccountable into account (following Mol 2010). We add to studies of care in CSCW by empirically expanding the research sites of care and data work. In this multi-sited ethnographically informed study, we conducted interviews (n = 19) and 160 h of observational studies amongst: 1) Danish Red Cross care workers; 2) Danish Refugee Council legal counsellors; and 3) Danish Immigration Service case officers. We contribute empirically grounded insights into the meanings of care in a datafied asylum context. We find that care is enacted by caseworkers in moments of ambivalence, translation, and attentiveness to “new substantial information” relevant for asylum decision-making. We find that these relational aspects of care in asylum casework impact the production of data about the asylum seeker. We end with a discussion of how a care perspective increases our sensitivity as CSCW researchers towards understanding the conditions for producing quality data and documentation in casework.

Protecting the Human Rights of Refugees in Camps in Thailand: The Complementary Role of International Law on Indigenous Peoples

This paper investigates whether and how International Law on Indigenous Peoples (ILIP) can complement protections granted under International Refugee Law (IRL) and International Human Rights Law (IHRL) to refugees in camps in Thailand. Presently, there are over 90,000 refugees from Myanmar in Thailand, confined to nine camps along the Thailand–Myanmar border. These refugees belong to different ethnic minority groups, but the vast majority are Karen—Indigenous Peoples from the Thailand–Myanmar border regions. They have fled to Thailand due to persecution by Myanmar authorities and segments of the Myanmar population. To date, Thailand has refused to become a party to the 1951 Refugee Convention or its 1967 Protocol. The country has failed to develop an asylum system and its laws continue to regard refugees as ‘illegal migrants’. These refugees have been surviving in conditions of profound rightlessness. I posit that ILIP has a critical role to play in addressing the protection gaps and limitations in IRL and IHRL. In particular, the ILIP system of collective rights is vital in recognising the specific needs of refugees who are indigenous peoples. ILIP therefore provides a potent tool to make IRL and IHRL more responsive to the protection needs of indigenous refugees.

The UK – a home for Ukrainians? An analysis of social security and housing policy

This commentary discusses the ways in which the welfare system has responded to the financial and housing needs of Ukrainian citizens coming to the UK since the Russian invasion of Ukraine on 24 February 2022. The focus is on two key areas of policy: social security and housing. The article considers the revised eligibility criteria for welfare benefits and two policies which can provide accommodation: the Ukraine Family Scheme, which allows applicants to join family members in the UK, and the Ukrainian Sponsorship Scheme (known as ‘Homes for Ukraine’) which allows Ukrainian nationals to come to the UK if they have a sponsor who can provide accommodation for at least six months. It provides a comparison of the provision for Ukrainian refugees and the standard asylum system in the UK. This article concludes that although the UK government quickly introduced emergency provisions for newly arrived Ukrainians which go beyond the scope of support for many other groups moving to the UK, significant areas of concern are evident, with risks that these will increase in future months and years. These concerns centre on discrepancies between the two policies which provide accommodation, risk of exploitation, homelessness caused by the breakdown in provision, and complexity in the welfare benefit system.

Implementation leeway in the Dublin system: evidence from Switzerland

ABSTRACT (Non-)implementation of rules is a key issue in the EU literature. During the European 'migration crisis' in 2015/16, several member states openly deviated from the clear rules the legal framework of Schengen and Dublin established. Although these controversies have attracted much attention, member states' authorities can also deviate from European rules in everyday decision making. Little is known about this leeway. For example, the Dublin system allows countries to send asylum seekers in an ‘outgoing procedure’ when they conclude that another Dublin state is responsible for the asylum application. This paper develops the argument that efficiency considerations lead national authorities to specialise in asylum seekers from countries from which they already have many residents. Asylum seekers from these countries are less likely to be sent in an outgoing procedure. The Dublin system does not intend this type of selection based on nationality. Using unique, high-quality register panel data from Switzerland, the statistical analysis of multilevel models shows that an outgoing procedure is indeed more likely for applicants from countries with a comparatively small number of residents. The findings of this analysis have broader implications for the Common European Asylum System.

Refugee Policy in Europe

This review article investigates the migration boom of 2015–2016 and highlights EU asylum vulnerabilities. Although it pursues centralisation, the planned Dublin IV raises questions. The use of human rights terminology by Frontex as a means of control shows informal externalisation. Migration restrictions take the stage in crisis management. Research conducted in collaboration reveals Europe's desire for a regulated refugee policy. Laws in Latin America differ from those in the EU in meaningful ways. Defying the Common European Asylum System (CEAS), Finland's crisis reaction demonstrates political and Europeanization tendencies that go beyond Zaun's theory. By highlighting the interaction of national viewpoints, politics, and Europeanization in forming refugee policy, the study advances knowledge of CEAS.

Post‐2015 refugees in Germany: “Culture of welcome”, solidarity or exclusion?

Post‐2015 refugees in Germany: “Culture of welcome”, solidarity or exclusion?

Legal Regulation of the External Dimension of the Common European Asylum System: current state and future perspectives

INTRODUCTION. The article provides a thorough analysis of the external dimension of the European Union’s (EU) migration and asylum policy and its main components. The primary object of the research is the external area of the EU’s activities in the field of forced migration. The aim of the article is to define political and legal contours of the external dimension of the Common European Asylum System (CEAS), trace its development from 2015 to 2022, and determine future directions of its evolvement.MATERIALS AND METHODS. The aforementioned objectives are achieved through deployment of the following methodological designs: descriptive, exploratory, historical and case study. The article gives a detailed overview of the programming documents of the EU, acts of the EU law concerning forced migration, and their implementation in the context of global and regional instabilities.RESEARCH RESULTS. Forced migration as an object of legal and political regulation on the part of the EU is subjected to “externalization” due to inconsistent internal practices and overall deviation of the EU members from the fundamental and internationally recognized burden-sharing principle in the field of refugee law. Such an approach should be perceived as an additional reason for potential deterioration of the migration situation in Europe, not to mention other possible implications on the human rights and economic dimensions.DISCUSSION AND CONCLUSIONS. The results of the analysis allow to draw significant conclusions: the external dimension of the CEAS became a top priority for the EU predominantly due to the inability of the European actors to reach consensus on the internal elements of the system; the external dimension of the CEAS may be characterized as a complex system consisting of political, legal and quasi-legal acts governing the EU’s external actions in the field of forced migration; the EU’s support became dependent on the willingness of its external partners to cooperate on migration-related issues; several external actors gained more bargaining power; external partnerships need to be readjusted in order to be efficient under current geopolitical circumstances.

Nationality Status Determination in Asylum Procedures under the CEAS and the Potential Impact of the ‘New Pact on Migration and Asylum’

Abstract The determination of asylum seekers’ nationality, or lack thereof, is a key component of assessments of applications for international protection, and can prove difficult when asylum seekers do not submit any valid identity or travel documents, or are stateless or at risk of statelessness. This article investigates how nationality status determination is relevant and how it is regulated in the Common European Asylum System (CEAS) and in the ‘New Pact on Migration and Asylum’ (the Pact), that is currently under negotiation in the European Union (EU). Under the CEAS, the determination of nationality is not only critical to assessing whether the applicant qualifies for international protection, but can also determine the type of procedure through which their application is examined, and accordingly the level of procedural guarantees to which they are entitled. Under the Pact, with the introduction of a pre-entry screening and the obligation to process asylum applications lodged by individuals from countries with low recognition rates through border procedures, the determination of the applicant’s nationality becomes even more critical. In fact, the Pact institutionalizes the channelling of asylum seekers into substandard procedures based on their nationality, a practice that has been widely used in ‘hotspots’ in Greece and Italy. This is even more problematic considering that the Pact, like the current CEAS, provides only very general rules relevant to establishing a claimant’s nationality status. This article sheds light on an overlooked aspect of asylum procedures, and calls for the development of specific guidance on nationality status determination in asylum procedures at the EU level.

Quelques éléments de l’histoire des premiers services ouverts en France

AimsIn France, the creation in Paris of Henri-Rousselle Hospital and its “open” psychiatric ward, not subject to the Law of June 30th 1838, one hundred years ago, traditionally marks the end of the asylum period. In the first quarter of the last century, however, several other experiments had been conducted with the same perspective of opening up psychiatry, in general hospitals and in some specialized establishments before and after the First World War. This work aims to clarify the meaning of some specialized terms then in use in the medical field and to compare the objectives and the means implemented by the authors of these various experiments. MethodsThe reports, publications, and scientific communications of the period studied are consulted, compared, and analyzed. ResultsThe primary objective of the services established within general hospitals (variously called wards for delirious patients, wards for psychic patients, isolation rooms, etc.) was to ensure the treatment of people suffering from organic pathologies with psychiatric expression: delirious, overexcited, and noisy persons. Emmanuel Régis in Bordeaux in 1902, or Gilbert Ballet at the Hôtel-Dieu in Paris in 1904 paved the way for other achievements. Some of these wares also have a triage function, from which, after a period of observation, the insane person is directed to an asylum. Public hospital services for nervous diseases offered to the person suffering from disorders called psychoneuroses and then neuroses, free cures for the poorest, while the wealthy classes frequented private establishments. As for the open psychiatric wards created within or as annexes to the asylums, they were also for the most part initially intended to respond to these same unmet needs, rather than to improve upon care of the insanes. At the Clinique d’Esquermes with Georges Raviart and at Fleury-les-Aubrais with James Rayneau, two extraordinary experiments were carried out, a source of inspiration for the reformist alienist current, the first in which all patients were placed under the law of 1838, the second in which some were subject to the common hospital regime. During the First World War, the military neuropsychiatric centers offered to asylum doctors enlisted a new field of practice with psychoneurotics and confused patients who were not usually encountered in asylums. DiscussionThe term open psychiatric ward refers to a wide variety of achievements, responding to specific needs, mainly full education for medical students and better care of organic neuropsychiatric pathologies and neurotic pathologies. The achievements aimed at improving the care of “alienated” patients placed in asylum would be a rarity and an afterthought. ConclusionIn the interwar period, the shortcomings of the asylum system finally led to several initiatives, including that of André Mahon in Mont-de-Marsan, which is very close to what would be generalized in the 1950s in psychiatric hospitals; as had previously been enacted in Fleury-les-Aubrais, patients hospitalized at their own request and those hospitalized against their will share the same premises: with Mahon, the ward is open to everyone. As for the achievement of Edouard Toulouse, which would mark its time, it inspired the significant Rucart Circular of 1937 and the Model Regulations of 1938, even though their practical application wouldn’t taken effect for another twenty years.

Telling ‘more complex stories’ of European integration: how a sociotechnical perspective can help explain administrative continuity in the Common European Asylum System

ABSTRACT This article tries to explain an apparent paradox in the Common European Asylum System (CEAS): despite political stalemate over CEAS legislative reform and lack of trust amongst MSs, administrative cooperation shows operational continuity. Drawing on the ‘Infrastructural Europeanism’ approach, we argue that a sociotechnical perspective allows detecting the material means that operationally provide continuity to administrative action, despite policy gaps. It reveals mediating agency exerted by less visible actors who are nevertheless crucial to the integration process. Through a sociotechnical lens, alleged integration failures – like in the post-2015 asylum crisis – can reveal operational cooperation not visible if only legislative outcomes are taken into account. Empirically, the article shows how the International Organization for Migration assumed a role in mediating relocations between MSs, overcoming an implementation gap in health data circulation, thanks to its data infrastructure able to prompt data production, harmonise administrative standardisation and build continuity in time.

The crisis of the Common European Asylum System: rethinking solidarity in light of Human Rights

In 2015, the unprecedented arrival of refugees and irregular migrants in the European Union (EU) put a strain on the Common European Asylum System (CEAS), thus exposing a number of deficiencies in EU external border, asylum and migration policy. The need to reform the system became urgent and the EU was presented with both a challenge and an opportunity to further advance towards a much-needed consensual and long-term solution for the harmonisation of the asylum system, standing on the basis of solidarity and responsibility-sharing. This paper argues that the new comprehensive approach to migration and asylum praised by the European Commission (EC) is still missing in the recent Pact on Migration and Asylum of 2020, which represents more a missed opportunity than the real reform that the CEAS needs. The chosen legislative path, the dualistic understanding concerning the approach to migrants, and the new solidarity mechanism envisioned in the Pact show how the lack of consensus among Member States, the tendency towards the creation of a “Fortress Europe”, and an asymmetric idea of inter-state solidarity prevail, preventing the development of a common European framework for migration management that is both effective and in line with the EU’s values and objectives. This paper further argues that, if the EU fails to shift the paradigm of solidarity, the system is at risk of remaining fractured and incapable of withstanding the future challenges of migration. A new framework must be grounded on the principle of solidarity, as defined in the Article 80 of the Treaty on the Functioning of the European Union (TFEU) which, in turn, needs to move from a state-centred approach to a concept of solidarity based on affected individuals, thus setting its foundations on a human rights basis. The EU needs, in fact, to strongly step up as a humanitarian actor and place protection and responsibility-sharing at the centre of its agenda: the protection of fundamental human rights in its territory and beyond is at stake.

From Ukraine to the Mediterranean: Italy and the governance of migration

ABSTRACT The Russian military invasion of Ukraine of late February 2022 caused the largest displacement of persons since the end of the Second World War, testing the European Union’s and its member states’ resilience. In an unprecedented move, the European Union adopted an exceptional measure, the Directive on Temporary Protection, a provision to cope with crises as old as the first massive inflow the EU had experienced back in 2001 during the Balkan wars. That measure has provided order to the reception of the millions of arrivals and set aside the usual controversies among member states, originating from an incomplete and unbalanced European migration and asylum system. While aligning with the position and the directions of the EU, and thanks to unprecedented bipartisan support for the reception of the Ukrainians displaced, Italy has taken the opportunity provided by the crisis to reiterate the urgency of a permanent and structured European system to cope with massive inflows. The Mediterranean stood in the background, where the resumption of inflows, partly triggered by the consequences of the conflict, challenged the renewed climate of bipartisanship. The objective of the article is to identify (dis)continuities in Italian migration policy under Mario Draghi as the Government reacted to the conflict in Ukraine, and the possible changes that could characterize the new government of Giorgia Meloni.

The best interests of the child in ECJ asylum and migration case law: Towards a safeguard principle for the genuine enjoyment of the substance of children’s rights?

This article discusses whether and how the best interests of the child, enshrined in Article 24(2) of the Charter of Fundamental Rights, became an instrument for increased protection of the rights of migrant children and their families in the European Union. First, an overview is presented of the temporal and substantive expansion of the case law of the European Court of Justice reflecting on the use of references to Article 24(2) of the Charter. Then, a range of issues is analysed concerning the interpretation of the legal instruments of the Common European Asylum System, the Family Reunification Directive, and the Return Directive. The ECJ decisions are grouped by sub-topics and presented in chronological order. This analysis allows for a reflection of the evolution of the Court’s interpretation of the best interests of the child in this field of Union law. It is observed that the primary consideration of the best interests of the child is gradually becoming, if not a general principle, at least a safeguard principle for the genuine enjoyment of the substance of children’s rights. Best Interests of the Child, Migration, Asylum, Family life, Safeguard Principle, Genuine Enjoyment of the Substance of the Rights

Critiques, ideals and blueprints in the historical geography of Scotland’s lunatic asylums, 1857–1872

ABSTRACT The historical geography of Scotland’s nineteenth-century lunatic asylums has only been lightly researched to date, and particularly under-studied is what might be termed Scotland’s ‘Asylum Age’ – c.1857 into the 1870s – when publicly-funded and purpose-built district asylums started to appear across the Scottish landscape. This was a period of therapeutic optimism about what these asylums could achieve, as curative institutions buttressed by medical and moral ideas about how lunacy should be treated. Using Annual Reports of the General Board of Commissioners in Lunacy for Scotland over a fifteen-year period, 1857–1872, this paper explores ‘expert’ criticisms directed at the perceived geographical failings of the pre-1857 establishments housing lunatics (royal asylums, private licensed houses and Poor Law facilities). Attending to the macro and micro-geographies discussed in these Reports, the Commissioners’ ideal for asylum location and architecture is reconstructed, noting how this became a geographical blueprint for the emerging district asylum system. Over the fifteen-year study period, ideas about the ideal site and building shifted once more as lunacy numbers increased and money dwindled, suggesting that the ideal was soon to be overtaken by a more pessimistic turn less sure about the curative benefits of rural sites or homely buildings.

Dismantling the reception of asylum seekers: Hungary’s illiberal asylum policies and EU responses

ABSTRACT Since 2015, the Hungarian government successfully securitised migration and profoundly changed the country’s asylum system. Through qualitative research and expert interviews, this article demonstrates how reception infrastructure was extra-territorialised, while reception standards were dissolved. This was accompanied by the criminalising of civil society and asylum seeker support groups. The ramifications of this externalisation impact asylum seekers’ rights to a dignified reception in EU member states, and contravene EU citizens’ freedoms. The article discusses these developments within European securitisation European human rights discourses, and Hungary’s illiberal governance. It also identifies weaknesses of common European reception standards in light of illiberal policymaking.