Media coverage of migration and migrants can exert considerable influence on the public’s understanding of and attitudes towards migration. During the peak of what has been called ‘the refugee crisis’ in 2015, heated discussions about immigration and its possible impact filled the media landscape. This study focuses specifically on the news framing of insecurities regarding immigration, exploring what we have termed ‘uncertainty frames’ in the coverage of refugees, asylum seekers and immigrants. This study will thus lend empirical (...) support to a novel attempt to combine the concepts of uncertainty, risk, and framing. These frames were analyzed within French and Austrian media from 2015 to 2016. Drawing on a content analysis of tabloid and broadsheet articles, different types of uncertainty frames (economy, values, society, etc.) as well as different types of solution frames (the kind of solutions provided for the issue of immigration) were examined. Results suggest that even though all frames decrease in salience over time, important variations in different types of uncertainty frames do appear. It is argued that frames related to abstract issues seem to stay more salient throughout time in both countries. (shrink)

A significant number of asylum seekers who largely survived torture live in the United States. Asylum seekers have complex social and medical problems with significant barriers to health care access. When evaluating and providing care for survivors, health providers face important challenges regarding medical ethics and professional codes. We review ethical concerns in regard to accountability, the patient–physician relationship, and moral responsibilities to offer health care irrespective of patient legal status; competing professional responsibility toward society and (...) the judiciary system; concerns about the consistency of asylum seekers’ claims; ethical concerns surrounding involving trainees and researching within the evaluation setting; and the implication of broader societal views towards rights and social justice. We discuss contributing factors, including inadequate and insufficient provider training, varying and inadequate institutional commitment, asylum seekers’ significant medical and social problems, and the broader health and social system issues. We review existing resources to address these concerns and offer suggestions. (shrink)

Responses to COVID-19 have been characterized by rapid border closures that have transformed the pandemic from a crisis of health to a crisis of mobility. While Canada was quick to implement border restrictions for non-citizens like refugees and asylum seekers, exemptions were made for some migrant groups like temporary workers. The pandemic marked a departure from who is considered worthy of admission to Canada. In fact, the border through restricted and securitized measures has filtered desirable versus non-desirable (...) migrants, creating a hierarchy among migrants within Canada’s immigration system by categorizing groups into those deserving versus non-deserving of admission. Deeply embedded societal discrimination and structural inequalities means that COVID-19 has exacerbated the vulnerabilities of migrant groups more than others. COVID-19 has placed an uneven burden on refugees who face increased border restrictions, significant health and safety risks, and limitations in accessing human rights. This paper documents the challenges, social and economic impacts, and exacerbated vulnerabilities border closures have imposed on refugees, asylum seekers and temporary migrants. We assess the many challenges that COVID-19 has created at the intersection of border studies, security resilience and human rights. We employ the conceptual frame of security resilience to critically analyse the dynamics of how and why border strategies have restricted migrant groups in times of crisis and amounted to an unjustified weakening of refugee rights. Finally, we argue that social resilience, which is rooted in rights-based strategies, not only ensures that societies are prepared to meet external shocks and disruptions, but that policy responses mitigate societal discrimination and inequalities. We highlight these strategies as effective mechanisms for reconciling both public health concerns and the rights of migrants to create more cohesive societies in times of crisis. (shrink)

An increase in global violence has forced the displacement of more than 70 million people, including 26 million refugees and 3.5 asylum seekers. Refugees and asylum seekers face serious socioeconomic and healthcare barriers and are therefore particularly vulnerable to physical and mental health risks, which are sometimes exacerbated by immigration policies and local social discriminations. Calls for a strong evidence base for humanitarian action have encouraged conducting research to address the barriers and needs of (...) refugees and asylum seekers. Given the role of epigenetics factors to mediate the effect of psychological and environmental exposures, epigenetic modifications have been used as biomarkers for life adversity and disease states. Therefore, epigenetic research can be potentially beneficial to address some of the issues associated with refugees and asylum seekers. Here, we review the value of previous and ongoing epigenetic studies with traumatized populations, explore some of the ethical challenges associated with epigenetic research with refugees and asylees and offer suggestions to address or mitigate some of these challenges. Researchers have an ethical responsibility to implement strategies to minimize the harms and maximize the short and long-term benefits to refugee and asylee participants. (shrink)

Refugees and asylum seekers may experience challenges related to pre-arrival experiences, structural disadvantage after migration and during resettlement requiring the need for special protection when participating in research. The aim was to review if and how people with refugee and asylum seeker backgrounds have had their need for special protection addressed in national and international research ethics guidelines. A systematic search of grey literature was undertaken. The search yielded 2187 documents of which fourteen met the inclusion (...) criteria. Few guidelines addressed specific ethical considerations for vulnerable groups much less people with refugee and asylum seeker backgrounds. One guideline explicitly addressed vulnerability for refugees and asylums seekers. To ensure members of ethics committees and researchers consider the potential challenges of conducting research with these groups, guidelines may need to be supplemented with a refugee and asylum seeker specific research ethics framework. Such a framework may be necessary to optimally protect people with refugee and asylum seeker backgrounds in research. (shrink)

Australia has one of the harshest regimes for the processing of asylum seekers, people who have applied for refugee status but are still awaiting an answer. It has received sharp rebuke for its policies from international human rights bodies but continues to exercise its resolve to protect its borders from those seeking protection. One means of doing so is the detention of asylum seekers who arrive in Australia by boat. Health care providers who care for (...) class='Hi'>asylum seekers in these conditions experience a conflict of “dual loyalty,” whereby their role in preserving and maintaining the health of patients can run counter to their employment in detention facilities. Many psychiatrists who have worked in the detention setting engage in forms of political activism in order to change the process of seeking refuge. (shrink)

In this paper, I investigate intergroup relations between natives and asylum seekers during the European refugee crisis, and contribute to the reemerging methodological debate on the measurement of stereotypes and prejudices as individual and collective constructs. Drawing on data from the Norwegian Citizen Panel, I examined how Norwegians stereotyped asylum seekers at the height of the refugee crisis and the emotional prejudices asylum seekers as a group elicited. By experimentally manipulating the survey question format, (...) I examined whether and how stereotypes and emotional prejudices toward asylum-seekers differed depending on their measurement as individual or collective constructs. A subset of respondents had reception centers for asylum-seekers established in their local community during the crisis. These participants reported their behaviors toward the asylum seekers in their neighborhood. In this subsample, I investigated how individual facilitating and harming intergroup behavior was related to individual and collective conceptualizations of stereotypes and prejudices. The results showed that both low warmth and low competence stereotypes, as well as negative emotions toward asylum seekers, were rated as stronger when measured as collective as compared to individual-level constructs. In the individual condition, respondents reported feeling more admiration and sympathy than respondents in the collective condition attributed to others. Individual stereotypes and prejudices correlated systematically with individual facilitating and harming intergroup behaviors. The perception that others hold more negative stereotypes of asylum seekers, and the perceived anger and fear of others, did correlated with individual harming behaviors. Perceptions of others’ anxiety correlated negatively with facilitating behaviors. Implications and future directions for the conceptualization and measurement of stereotypes and emotional prejudices are discussed. (shrink)

To mark International Women’s Day the Research Group for Law, Gender and Sexuality at Westminster Law School held an evening conversation on 10 March 2016 on Women and Asylum. Speakers working in different areas of the asylum system shared their insights and experiences with an audience of staff, students, activists and other visitors. Harriet Samuels chaired the conversation and the speakers were Princess Chine Onyeukwu, Debora Singer, Priya Solanki and Zoe Harper. This article is an edited extract from (...) the transcript of the presentations and wide-ranging discussion, including the question and answer session. The discussion focused on the different steps in the refugee determination process and considered, in particular, the gendering of credibility and how women’s perceived lack of credibility has a significant impact on determinations and processes. (shrink)

The ‘refugee crisis’ in Europe has drawn attention to the reasons why people risk desperate journeys to seek safety. However, less research has focussed on what happens to those on the move once th...

Street-level bureaucracy literature ascertains that policies get made not only in the offices of legislatures or politicians but through the discretion bureaucrats employ in their day-to-day interactions with citizens in government agencies. The discretion bureaucrats use to grant access to public benefits or impose sanctions adds up to what the public ultimately experience as the government and its policies. This perspective, however, overlooks policy-making that gets done in the back offices of government, where there might not be direct interaction with (...) citizens. Furthermore, it treats discretion as inherently anthropogenic and ignores that it is exercised in relation to sociotechnical arrangements of which bureaucrats are a part. In this paper, based on extensive ethnography at national statistical institutes and international statistical meetings across Europe, I make two arguments. The first is that, statisticians emerge as back-office policy-makers as they are compelled to take multiple methodological decisions when operationalizing abstract statistical guidelines and definitions, thus effectively making rather than merely implementing policies. This is the “discretion” they employ, even when they may not interact with citizens. The second argument is that the exercise of discretion is sociotechnical, that is, it happens in relation to the constraints and affordances of technologies and the decisions of other bureaucrats in their institutions and others. (shrink)

Thanks to Axel Honneth, recognition theory has become a prominent fixture of critical social theory. In recent years, he has deployed his recognition theory in diagnosing pathologies and injustices that afflict institutional practices. Some of these institutional practices revolve around specifically juridical institutions, such as human rights and democratic citizenship, that directly impact the lives of the most desperate migrants. Hence it is worthwhile asking what recognition theory can add to a critical theory of migration. In this paper, I argue (...) that, although its contribution to a critical theory of migration is limited, it nonetheless carves out a unique body of ethical insights related to diagnosing the interpretative and epistemic pathologies and injustices associated with the legal processing of migrants’ claims for asylum. Going beyond discourse ethics, which mainly highlights procedural violations of legislative and judicial deliberation, it trains our gaze on the institutional biases that lead migrants to be misrecognized or under-recognized as credible witnesses to their own refugee status. (shrink)

The question of detention of asylum seekers is specific due to the special situation of detainees (persons who have experienced human rights violations and apply for asylum in receiving country) and due to peculiarities of detention itself (persons have not committed crimes, but come or stay illegally because they have been forced to do so by fleeing from human rights violations). Therefore, lately it raises many discussions at the European level. Sooner or later, discussions influence national laws, (...) as after adopting the EU directives their provisions must be properly transposed into national laws. This article describes the recent documents: the study in Lithuania, the UNHCR guidelines, the EU developments, the Lithuania judicial practice. The authors of the article discuss the latest amendments of the Law on the Legal Status of Aliens (entering into force on 1 February 2012) related to detention of asylum seekers after the transposition of the provisions of the Return Directive. The practice of the Supreme Administrative Court of Lithuania when applying the new detention-related provisions is also reviewed in the article. The authors do not agree with the position of the Supreme Administrative Court of Lithuania that the provisions of the Return Directive are applicable to asylum seekers. The authors pay attention to the case-law of the European Court of Justice, the preamble of the Return Directive and its legal relations with the EU asylum directives. At the end, the conclusions are drawn as to the way that the provisions of the Law on the Legal Status of Aliens should be interpreted in the light of the purposes and provisions of the European Union directives. In order to avoid contradictory practice and at the same time ensure the interests of public order in Lithuania, Article 113(7) of the Law on the Legal Status of Aliens could be applied. (shrink)

Most studies on refugee populations are organized around trauma-related issues and focus on explaining pathological factors. Few studies are anchored in general developmental psychology with the aim of exploring normal age-specific developmental tasks and how the special circumstances associated with forced migration can influence how developmental tasks are negotiated. This study is part of a larger mixed method study seeking to identify resilience-promoting and resilience-inhibiting factors, on individual and contextual levels, among asylum seekers and refugees on the (...) move and settled in reception centers in Norway. A strategic sample of 20 adolescent and young adult refugees/asylum seekers during flight in Serbia and after arrival in Norway was chosen from a sample of 178 refugees interviewed in depth in Serbia and at receptions centers in Norway. The sample reflects the focus of this paper, which is to explore adolescent and young adult refugees/asylum seekers’ psychological and social needs and resources during flight to and after arrival in the host country, including how developmental tasks are negotiated. Through qualitative analysis, experiences associated with the developmental changes the participants experienced before, during, and after flight are contextualized. Their sense of self, their relationships with their families and their perceptions of their situation as adolescents or young adults in a highly unpredictable situation are presented in the light of relevant theory and findings from similar refugee studies. All the participants have fled from dangerous and intolerable situations in their home countries. They describe extreme dangers during flight in contexts that are unpredictable and where they feel lonely and unsupported. Most have unmet psychosocial needs and have received little support or help for their mental health issues during flight or after arrival in Norway. Suggestions for interventions and resilience-promoting actions are given based on the findings of the study. (shrink)

ABSTRACTThis article analyzes the outcomes of the first medical interpreter vocational training course for Eritrean asylum seekers in Israel. Our study draws on the work of Phyllis Butow et al. on medical interpreters’ perceptions of their role, including the challenges they face; on Elena Ragazzi’s call for a flexible evaluation of vocational training outcomes; and on Pierre Bourdieu’s concept of “cultural capital” as an empowering tool for change. The course was initiated in 2013 in response to difficulties experienced (...) by medical personnel and Eritrean asylum seekers regarding the provision of health services for refugees. The outcomes of the course led to four main conclusions: it was a positive learning endeavor that led graduates to better jobs; it was an empowering experience that enabled graduates to better care for themselves and their loved ones, and enhanced their understanding of their rights as asylum seekers; it was perceived as a project of inclusion that created a safe and reassuring environment within the otherwise hostile reality of state-orchestrated exclusion, yet it also induced a sense of frustration in that it had no impact on the unjust social structure in which the asylum seekers live; and the course was helpful in developing the graduates’ understanding of their complex role as medical interpreters. (shrink)

Even though the Convention for the Protection of Human Rights and Fundamental Freedoms (ECHR) does not explicitly address the rights of asylum seekers and refugees, the case law of the European Human Rights Court (ECtHR) confirms that their rights can be successfully defended under this mechanism. In parallel, in its evolving jurisprudence on asylum the Court of Justice of the European Union (CJEU) refers to the Strasbourg case law, where there is a certain interrelationship between these (...) two jurisdictions, in particular given the recent ECtHR pronouncement on “EU Dublin transfers”. The article aims at evaluating protection available for asylum seekers and refugees under the ECHR, while comparing it with protection of asylum relevant fundamental rights under the EU legal order and the most recent jurisprudence of the CJEU in asylum cases. The authors also analyze which of the two systems is more favourable and what are their limitations. Thus, the article offers to students and practitioners a detailed analysis of ECtHR and CJEU jurisprudence in asylum cases through a comparative perspective, as well as the key problematic aspects arising in both jurisdictions and their junction. The jurisprudence of the ECtHR reveals that despite the most developed protection from expulsion under Article 3 of the ECHR, it does not sufficiently secure status for the concerned persons. Effective remedy requirements under the ECHR allow for filling the gaps of national asylum procedures, while recognition of vulnerability and special status of asylum seekers by the ECtHR assist in addressing still commonly prevailing detention problems of asylum seekers in Europe. In the context of family protection, the recognition of positive obligations by states to reunite the refugee families is still rudimentary, thus, clearly Article 3 protection in expulsion cases takes over Article 8. At the same time, the jurisprudence of the CJEU in asylum cases is still inconsistent, as the court sometimes takes decisions without including human rights into its’ analysis (Kadzoev, Arslan, K.), while in other cases refers to the Charter (MA and others), verifies if its’ own decision is in line with the ECtHR jurisprudence (Elgafaji) or shapes secondary legislation in line with Strasbourg arguments and findings (N.S.). Quite likely, the ECtHR practice will have an important influence on the developments of subsidiary protection in the EU, at least in the context of Articles 2 and 3 of the ECHR, and serve as an important reference for interpretation of various concepts under the EU Qualification and Procedures Directives. The comparative analysis of pros and cons of the two mechanisms demonstrates that the main advantage of the ECtHR is individual justice possibility, which is not yet accessible under CJEU preliminary judgement procedure and its input in developing asylum law concepts, such as non-state agents of persecution, internal protection or even subsidiary protection regime under EU asylum law. Thanks to the ECtHR, the realistic possibility to question the application of certain EU norms has emerged (Dublin Regulation). While the ECtHR does not have such a specific competence over asylum issues as the CJEU and is clearly a slow and seriously overburdened mechanism, the pilot judgement procedure seems to be increasingly capable of providing guidelines to the states concerning systematic problems in their asylum procedures. Thus, both jurisdictions in their own ways contribute to strengthening asylum seekers’ protection while forming a common oasis for these individuals in Europe. (shrink)

Despite a strong historical record of resettling and providing care for refugee populations, the Australian Federal Government has increasingly implemented harsh and restrictive policies regarding the treatment and management of asylum seekers. Most controversial of these has been the mandatory detention of asylum seekers, a policy applied indiscriminately and without discretion where individual cases have not been subject to judicial review or time constraints. From the outset health professionals have raised concerns about the possible adverse mental (...) health impacts of prolonged detention. In contrast, government representatives have characterized conditions in detention as benign and comfortable, and have consistently contested criticism of detention, often citing a lack of scientific evidence as tacit support for the continuation of the policy. Nevertheless, requests for access to the detention centres to undertake rigorous scientific investigations have gone unheeded. In this context we argue that the Australian Government has failed to uphold its commitment to good governance by allowing transparency, openness and a willingness to have the impact of its policies scrutinized by scientists. The manifest conflict of interest in the government position leads to a breach in the normal social contract between mental health researchers and those responsible for the policy of detention. There is, we argue, a legitimate moral imperative in such situations for clinical researchers to breach the walls of enforced silence and give a voice to those who are afflicted. This imperative, however, must be carefully balanced against the risks that may face detainees agreeing to participate in such research. (shrink)

This article, using methods from corpus linguistics and critical discourse analysis, reports the findings of a research project that aimed to explore the representations of Syrian asylum seekers in the Turkish press from March 2011, when the first Syrians arrived in Turkey, to December 2015, when the project ended. Using a corpus of 2321 texts collected from five Turkish daily newspapers, concordances of the words Syrian, refugee and asylum seeker were examined and grouped along patterns through which (...) discourses on and around Syrian asylum seekers were uncovered. We found differing discourses that framed asylum seekers as ‘our brothers’, ‘victims’, ‘needy people’ and/or ‘threat’, ‘criminals’ and so on. Newspapers maintained one or a combination of these discourses to construct their own reality about the refugee crisis in Turkey. The analysis also reveals that Turkish newspapers use pertinent terms interchangeably, leading to an ambiguity which reflects the political as well as daily usage of the terms. (shrink)

While in the recent years violations of asylum-seeker rights have been increasingly documented in EU Member States, the crisis at the EU-Belarus border has opened up a whole new chapter in this area. In response to the perceived migrant instrumentalisation by the Belarusian regime, several Member States—Latvia, Lithuania and Poland—have openly introduced long-term, far-reaching and blanket legislative measures that severely restricted the right to seek asylum and formalised pushbacks—contrary to their obligations under EU law and international refugee and (...) human rights law. This paper approaches the topic from a comparative socio-legal perspective. Apart from a legal analysis of the Latvian, Lithuanian and Polish domestic measures, it is based on interviews with non-EU nationals affected, as well as NGO representatives, volunteers and legal practitioners who have been providing legal and humanitarian assistance to people crossing from Belarus. The paper, first, offers an overview of Latvian, Lithuanian and Polish responses to the events at the border and looks at how the relevant measures affect the non-EU nationals involved. Second, it engages with the migrant instrumentalisation paradigm, relied on by the governments to derogate from EU and international legal framework, and explores the EU-level response to the crisis. This study argues that EU’s border with Belarus has de facto become an exclusion zone where protection seekers are deprived of their right to claim asylum and continuously exposed to various types of inhuman and degrading treatment. It also demonstrates that the migrant instrumentalisation concept is problematic on multiple levels and does not correspond to the realities on the ground. (shrink)

When denial of medical treatment is being used as a lever to move people out of the country, ethicists and healthcare professionals should speak out.An ugly feature of political life throughout the Western world, and beyond, is the suspicion towards, and maltreatment of, migrants from poor to rich countries. People who would otherwise be horrified at being labelled racist nevertheless find it acceptable to support practices which can range from stigmatisation to confinement in brutalising conditions in “reception” and “removal” centres.1–5An (...) hour spent searching through government and NGO websites concerned with the treatment of asylum seekers and refugees in developed world countries is an hour well spent – but profoundly depressing. This is not only because of the frankly Orwellian language used by the governments of the UK and Australia , or because of the conditions and treatment meted out, but also because of the apparent support these practices have among the voting public. In the pointedly optimistic reports of Her Majesty’s Inspector of Prisons, for example, one can find praise for the fact …. (shrink)

In 2011 there are 76 countries of the world still criminalising same-sex sexual acts between consenting adults. In seven of those countries homosexual acts are punishable with death penalty (i.e., Mauritania, Sudan, the northern states of Nigeria, the southern parts of Somalia, Iran, Saudi Arabia, Yemen). Homophobic (transphobic) attitudes are also frequent in many societies. However, the LGBT asylum seekers are frequently left outside the refugee definition due to many refugee qualification problems in LGBT cases. Therefore, in this (...) article the author aims to describe the main refugee qualification problems in LGBT asylum cases (i.e., criminalisation; state protection against non-state persecution; concealment of sexual or gender identity; internal protection) and propose their solutions. Council Directive 2004/83/EC of 29 April 2004 has several important provisions including LGBT asylum seekers into otherwise gender-neutral refugee definition. Today these provisions need to be correctly interpreted and transposed into practice of the Member States. (shrink)

One of the stated aims of the “2008 Policy Plan on Asylum” by the European Commission is increased ‘responsibility sharing’ between Member States with respect to asylum seekers. Luc Bovens and Günperi Sisman assess the extent to which UNHCR outcome data reflect these aims between 2006 and 2011 – from the end of the first phase of the Common European Asylum System until the latest available data. They find that Greece, Portugal and Spain take on very (...) low responsibility for asylum seekers per capita and per unit of GDP. Eastern European states do poorly per capita, but do much better per unit of GDP. There is also an overall trend towards greater responsibility sharing for acceptances and stocks per unit of GDP. (shrink)

Criticisms have been made against international laws and conventions on asylum and refugees, arguing that these have been based on a male model of definition, which have ignored women’s persecutions. This article will argue that recent developments in European asylum policy have the potential to deepen this discrimination and to further reduce the rights of female asylum seekers. Although there have been some positive developments in jurisprudence that have recognised that gender-specific persecution may be the (...) basis for granting asylum, these advances remain relatively sporadic and are undermined by the operation of random and discretionary exercises of power by bureaucrats and decision makers in many cases. Further, although new developments in asylum policy are in theory “gender neutral,” differences in the material circumstances of men and women who arrive to seek asylum may mean in effect that the implications of these policies are deeply gendered. (shrink)

Despite marked improvements in rights for LGBTQ persons around the world, significant problems remain.  In many countries, LGBTQ persons face significant discrimination, lack of protection from harm by non-state actors, and persecution from their own governments. This article examines when and why protection under the UN Refugee Convention should be granted to those seeking asylum or refugee status because of maltreatment related to their LGBTQ status. To this end, Part II shows how LGBTQ asylum seekers straightforwardly fit (...) into the definition of a “refugee” set out in the UN Refugee Convention. Subsequent Parts address how to overcome some potential complications arising out of the sorts of harms faced by LGBTQ applicants without significant modifications to the standard refugee definition.  The article then turns to two further areas of practical difficulty for LGBTQ asylum seekers and suggest approaches and reforms to deal with these problems. The first issue involves the interaction between considerations around the family and refugee and asylum law. While the legal protections of the rights of LGBTQ families have improved in many countries, difficulties remain, and even in cases where these rights have been granted by a state, there are often special difficulties faced by LGBTQ asylum seekers.  The article therefore proposes and justifies certain reforms in this area. Finally, the article address questions and concerns about the type of evidence that may be demanded by those adjudicating asylum and refugee cases involving LGBTQ applicants. (shrink)

ABSTRACTOn 4 September 2015 asylum seekers who got stranded in Budapest’s Keleti train station began a march to cross the Austrian border. Their aim was to reach Germany and Sweden where they believed their asylum claims would be better received. In this article, I argue that the march should be characterized as an act of civil disobedience. This claim may seem to contradict common convictions regarding acts of civil disobedience as well as asylum seekers. The (...) most common justifications are given with reference to moral rights of citizens and concerns for enhancing justice or democracy within states. Asylum seekers are not members of the European public. How can they be entitled to break the law? I first show that the march displays features of a paradigm case of civil disobedience. Then, I identify moral reasons for asylum seekers to carry out the march acceptable from both strong and weak cosmopolitan perspectives. After that, I point out its corrective, stabilizing and democracy-enhancing roles in the European political landscape. I conclude by emphasizing that conceptualizing the march as an act of civil disobedience is significant in recognizing asylum seekers as political agents making claims within an evolving framework of refugee protection. (shrink)

It seems that more often than not, refugees and asylum seekers are associated with the notion of ‘limbo’. This terminology is used to illustrate situations in which people are unable to access systems that would alleviate their ‘standstill’ lives. In other words, when it is said that people are in limbo, it is understood they have a sense of hopelessness. Specifically, in the media, at least three examples of ‘limbo’ are often used: limbo as a physical space, (...) limbo as a type of legal conflict or legal irreconcilability and metaphysical limbo or the type of limbo that exists in one’s mind. Unfortunately, the refugee experience is so commonly associated with the idea of limbo that it appears to be the central space that refugees ‘belong’—presumably, due to the inaccessible or unpreventable nature of their predicament, they are unable to escape their life in limbo. However, it is important to understand that limbo does not simply ‘exist’. It is something that is created. In the case of Australia, refugee limbos appear as certain types due to the restrictive nature of the Government’s laws and policies. This article explores the usage of the term ‘limbo’ in the media in order to draw attention to its overwhelming presence and map specific types of discourse and ideologies. Further, it is shown that limbo should not be considered something which is out of our control or something inherent in the refugee experience but instead, is a tool used by governments to restrict refugee access to the border and systems of protection. (shrink)

Asylum has become a highly charged political issue across developed countries, raising a host of difficult ethical and political questions. What responsibilities do the world's richest countries have to refugees arriving at their borders? Are states justified in implementing measures to prevent the arrival of economic migrants if they also block entry for refugees? Is it legitimate to curtail the rights of asylum seekers to maximize the number of refugees receiving protection overall? This book (...) draws upon political and ethical theory and an examination of the experiences of the United States, Germany, the United Kingdom and Australia to consider how to respond to the challenges of asylum. In addition to explaining why asylum has emerged as such a key political issue in recent years, it provides a compelling account of how states could move towards implementing morally defensible responses to refugees. (shrink)

In 2012 there are 76 countries of the world still criminalising same-sex sexual acts between consenting adults. In seven of those countries homosexual acts are punishable with death penalty (i. e., Mauritania, Sudan, the northern states of Nigeria, the southern parts of Somalia, Iran, Saudi Arabia and Yemen). Homophobic (transphobic) attitudes are also frequent in many societies. However, the LGBT asylum seekers are frequently left outside the refugee definition due to many refugee qualification and procedural problems in LGBT (...) cases. Criminalisation, state protection against non-state persecution, concealment of sexual or gender identity, internal protection were discussed in the previous article ‘The Refugee Qualification Problems in LGBT Asylum Cases’ by Laurynas Biekša2. In this article the authors aim to describe the main procedural problems in LGBT asylum cases (i. e., credibility assessment, late disclosure, country of origin information and reception) and propose their solutions. Guiding European and international standards are laid down in the Reception Directive3, Qualification Directive4, Procedures Directive5 and UNHCR Guidance Note6. Today these standards should serve as a starting point for identifying the problems LGBT asylum seekers may have during their asylum procedures and for finding possible solutions. (shrink)

This article presents some of the findings from the original research carried out with asylum seeking and refugee women in Ireland who were pregnant or who had recently given birth. The explosion in numbers in Ireland from 1998 onwards has been such that this group now comprises more than one in five of every birth in the country's three major maternity hospitals, all based in Dublin. The article explores the background reasons for the major increase in recent years of (...) this group of women. It discusses the difficult circumstances encountered by women who must engage with a system of maternity care unused to such complex needs, amidst a general policy climate of uncertainty and even hostility towards asylum seekers. The research findings contribute to the feminist literature on maternity and challenge us to examine the way in which globalization is impacting on women as mothers and the need for challenging Western states anew on the development of a more coherent model of maternity care in response to the needs of such women. (shrink)

Frontier Justice is a gripping, eye-opening exploration of the world-wide refugee crisis. Combining reporting, history and political philosophy, Andy Lamey sets out to explain the story behind the radical increase in the global number of asylum-seekers, and the effects of North America and Europe’s increasing unwillingness to admit them. He follows the extraordinary efforts of a set of Yale law students who sued the U.S. government on behalf of a group of refugees imprisoned at Guantánamo Bay; he (...) recounts one refugee family’s harrowing journey from Saddam Hussein’s Iraq to contemporary Australia via the world’s most dangerous ocean crossing; and he explores the fascinating case of Ahmed Ressam, the so-called Millennium bomber who filed a refugee claim in Canada before attempting to blow up the Los Angeles airport. Lamey casts new light on a host of broader subjects, from the reasons why terrorists who pose as refugees have an overwhelming failure rate to the hidden benefits of multiculturalism. Throughout Lamey’s account, he focuses on the rights of people in search of asylum, and how those rights are routinely violated. But Frontier Justice does not merely point out problems. This book offers a bold case for an original solution to the international asylum crisis, one which draws upon Canada’s unique approach to asylum-seekers. At the centre of the book is a new blueprint for how the rights of refugees might be enforced, and a vision of human rights that is ultimately optimistic and deeply affirmative. (shrink)

In this paper I argue that we should not frame the debate over whether or not we have duties to help refugees in terms of duties of rescue. This way of framing the issue, where Western states are depicted as rescuing refugees from harms unconnected to them, does not adequately represent the reality experienced by refugees in the 21 st century. I suggest that we need a framework that includes the secondary harms experienced by refugees as (...) they try to seek refuge in camps, urban spaces and via asylum. These secondary harms constitute serious violations of human rights and prevent refugees from accessing the minimum conditions of human dignity. As a result, the rescue metaphor is inappropriate and, perhaps more importantly, prevents us from having a proper debate about the obligations of states in general, and Western states in particular, to refugees. (shrink)

The VIDAS data set presents data from 200 participants from different countries and language backgrounds. They completed an oral expression and interaction test in the context of a Spanish certification exam for adult migrants. The aim of the VIDAS data set is to provide researchers in psycholinguistics and second language acquisition with a Spanish spoken corpus of traditionally marginalized and underrepresented learners, providing a compelling data set of oral interactions by migrants and refugees. The corpus contains more than 29 (...) h of recordings of the oral interactions of the participants with trained interviewers, as well as background information about the participants. It furthermore contains the scores obtained by the participants in the oral expression and interaction exam. The VIDAS corpus allows for the development of studies on L2 spoken language comprehension and processing, as well as for comparative analyses of language acquisition between different L1 groups at different linguistic levels. (shrink)

Asylum seekers are rarely treated with respect. This is perhaps especially true of institutions that adjudicate the extension of refugee status. In asylum interviews, those seeking refuge are sometimes asked to reveal deeply upsetting stories of their persecution while facing hostility and distrust from their interviewers. I argue that this arises from a failure to properly balance respect with fairness. A maximally fair scheme may not promote respect because ‘fairness-first’ systems require extensive information to make their judgements. (...) A maximally respectful system might be unfair: without any questioning, some may free-ride on the trust of others. This article argues that we often place too much emphasis on fairness to the detriment of respect, with a particular focus on the asylum interview. First, I outline the limited discussion of asylum interviews in political philosophy. Second, I consider striking a ‘dynamic balance’ between fairness and respect, as set out by Jonathan Wolff. Third, I argue that a highly idealised version of contemporary asylum interviews puts fairness first at the cost of respect. This fairness-first model leads to respect deficits in how asylum seekers are treated. Finally, I consider what a respectful asylum determination system might look like, offering three possible routes: civility, humility, and abolition. (shrink)

Asylum-seeking and refugee women (ASRW) are population groups characterized by diverse social, economic and legal backgrounds as well as diverse needs. Their backgrounds of forced migration have a profound impact on their overall health, including their sexual and reproductive health (SRH). In Europe, the SRH needs of ASRW are usually more pressing than those of the host country population. In the context of refugee health, it is important to distinguish between asylum seekers and statutory refugees, as (...) asylum seekers have distinct needs and often limited rights in their host country. Yet both groups face many barriers in accessing national health services. This article addresses the issue of entitlements to health services for asylum-seeking women in Europe, and highlights the wide range of difficulties of both asylum-seeking and refugee women in accessing (sexual and reproductive) health services. (shrink)

Malaysia hosts a significant number of refugees, asylum-seekers and migrant workers. Healthcare access for these individuals has always proved a challenge: language barriers, financial constraints and mobility restrictions are some of the frequently cited hurdles. The COVID-19 pandemic has exacerbated these existing inequalities, with migrants and refugees bearing the brunt of chronic systemic injustices. Providing equitable healthcare access for all, regardless of their citizenship and social status remains an ethical challenge for healthcare providers, particularly within the (...) framework of a resource-limited healthcare system. Inclusive healthcare and socio-economic policies are necessary to ensure every individual’s equal opportunity to attain good health. The collective experiences of refugees and migrants in the pursuit of healthcare, as highlighted by the two cases described, showcases the importance of equity in healthcare access and the detrimental implications of non-inclusive healthcare and socio-economic policies. (shrink)

Although the Refugee Convention 1951 generally provided that contracting states should recognise those who came within its definition as refugees, it did not prescribe how contracting states should determine this in order to enable them to balance this obligation with their national interests. However, evidence from the background and drafting of the Refugee Convention 1951 suggests that the provisions that a contracting states would implement in order to protect its interests would be commensurate with the human rights spirit of (...) the treaty. This implied that contracting states would act fairly in balancing the competing interests in devising status determination policies and would take into account decent considerations. But, from a theoretical viewpoint, it is arguable that some recent asylum determination policies have been based on the threats posed by asylum seekers. Asylum seekers have come to be blamed for contributing to the national issues that some contracting states face and as such, some contracting states have adopted draconian measures as a result. (shrink)

A comprehensive and timely examination of the history and current status of immigrants and refugees--their stories, the events that led to their movement, and the place of these movements in contemporary history and politics. Immigration and Asylum: From 1900 to the Present is an accessible and up-to-date introduction to the key concepts, terms, personalities, and real-world issues associated with the surge of immigration from the beginning of the 20th century to the present. It focuses on the United States, (...) but is also the first encyclopedic work on the subject that reflects a truly global perspective. With contributions from the world's foremost authorities on the subject, Immigration and Asylum offers nearly 200 entries organized around four themes: immigration and asylum; the major migrating groups around the world; expulsions and other forced population movements; and the politics of migration. In addition to basic entries, the work includes in-depth essays on important trends, events, and current conditions. There is no better resource for exploring just how profoundly the voluntary and forced movement of asylum seekers and refugees has transformed the world--and what that transformation means to us today. Nearly 200 A-Z entries on immigration and asylum around the world 150+ contributors, including leading immigration scholars from around the globe such as Nathan Glazer, Saskia Sassen, Ari Zolberg, James Hollifield, Desmond King, and Stephen Castles A separate volume of primary source documents, including legislation, treaties, speeches, and United Nations documents A chronology of major movements of migrants and asylum seekers. (shrink)

We are, as of May 2019, witnessing yet another “caravan” of people fleeing violence in Latin America, bonding together to reach the territory of safer states in the North. Similarly, in the fall of 2015, Europe experienced the movement of many refugees fleeing war, persecution, and grave human rights violations in Syria. These new waves of people on the move have raised anew important questions about asylum and refuge: who should be able to claim asylum? Should the (...) fear of persecution be sufficient, or do asylum seekers need to show that they have actually suffered it? And maybe most controversially, how should asylum‐granting states respond to the plight of those asking for asylum on their territory?The moral principles guiding asylum and refuge are different from the rules usually regulating immigration, which are based on the principle of territorial sovereignty that allows nation‐states to discriminate and select among those who hope to immigrate. Asylum and refuge instead call upon nation‐states to provide refugees with a new home, protect human rights, and over time, provide access to the social, political and civic rights that characterize membership. Included in the list of human rights, I will argue, is the provision of the means for individual physical and psychological well‐being. (shrink)

States are increasingly paying other states to host refugees. For example, in 2010 the EU paid Libya € 50 million to continue hosting the refugees within its borders, and five years later Australia offered Cambodia $31.16 million to accept asylum seekers living in Naru. These exchanges, which I call ‘refugees markets,’ have faced criticism by philosophers. Some philosophers claim the markets fail to ensure true protection, and are demeaning, expressing just how much refugees are (...) unwanted. In response, some have defended refugee markets, claiming they can ensure refugees have protection and are not demeaned. I argue that many markets do demean refugees, and therefore have moral costs, but can still be all-things-considered preferable to alternative schemes if they protect refugees more than these alternative schemes. (shrink)

One of the justifications offered by European imperial powers for the violent conquest, subjection, and, often, slaughter of indigenous peoples in past centuries was those peoples’ violation of a duty of hospitality. Today, many of these same powers—including European Union member states and former settler colonies such as the United States and Australia—take increasingly extreme measures to avoid granting hospitality to refugees and asylum seekers. Put plainly, whereas the powerful once demanded hospitality from the vulnerable, they now (...) deny it to them. This essay examines this hypocritical inhospitality of former centers of empire and former settler colonies and concludes that, given that certain states accrued vast wealth and territory from the European colonial project, which they justified in part by appeals to a duty of hospitality, these states are bound now to extend hospitality to vulnerable outsiders not simply as a matter of charity, but as justice and restitution for grave historical wrongs. (shrink)

We construct novel measures to assess (i) the extent to which European Union member states are using common standards in recognizing asylum seekers and (ii) the extent to which the responsibilities for asylum applications, acceptances and refugee populations are equally shared among the member states, taking into account population size, gross domestic product (GDP) and GDP expressed in purchasing power parity (GDP-PPP). We track the progression of these measures since the implementation of the Treaty of Amsterdam (1999). (...) These measures display divergent trends and we try to provide an interpretation of the dynamics that are constitutive of these trends. (shrink)

Poland has faced two waves of migration: the first was of irregular asylum seekers, which led to the humanitarian crisis on the eastern EU–Belarusian border since 2021; the second was of Ukrainians fleeing the Russian invasion. Although there are noticeable differences between these situations, and between the different reactions of the Polish authorities, it is possible to juxtapose them in terms of the right to health. The normative content of refugee and human rights law is the starting point (...) for reconstructing the meaning of the terms ‘refugee’ and ‘right to health’. A refugee is a person who needs international protection because of a well-founded fear of harm, which is not limited to persecution as defined by the Refugee Convention but also includes situations of international and non-international armed conflict. The right to health, which includes, inter alia, entitlements to a ‘system of health protection’ and ‘underlying determinations of health’, is reconstructed on the basis of human rights law and refugee and migration law. There are no legal and moral grounds to grant the right to health differentially to different groups of refugees. Nondiscriminatory health policy requires that refugees have the same access to health care as nationals, although their specific health needs resulting from past experiences and refugee situation require special treatment, that is, an appropriate refugee health policy. The broad understanding of the underlying determinants of health demonstrates the importance of overall migration policy for refugees’ health, which can jeopardise the fragile good of refugee health. (shrink)

The extent to which EU countries take on their ‘fair share’ of asylum seekers is a contentious issue. Luc Bovens and Jane von Rabenau write on concern within Germany that the country is taking on a higher burden than other EU states. They argue that when compared on a per capita basis with similar EU countries, Germany performs relatively poorly in terms of acceptances for new refugees. Where Germany performs better is with respect to the size of (...) the existing refugee population within the country, however this may be a reflection of the difficulty refugees experience in gaining German citizenship. (shrink)

This article addresses the question of how ‘Country of Origin Information’ reports—that is, research developed and used to support decision-making in the asylum process—can be published in an ethical manner. The article focuses on the risk that published COI reports could be misused and thereby harm the subjects of the reports and/or those involved in their development. It supports a situational approach to assessing data ethics when publishing COI reports, whereby COI service providers must weigh up the benefits and (...) harms of publication based, inter alia, on the foreseeability and probability of harm due to potential misuse of the research, the public good nature of the research, and the need to balance the rights and duties of the various actors in the asylum process, including asylum seekers themselves. Although this article focuses on the specific question of ‘how to publish COI reports in an ethical manner’, it also intends to promote further research on data ethics in the asylum process, particularly in relation to refugees, where more foundational issues should be considered. (shrink)

In recent years there has been a great deal of activity and discussion on the appropriate treatment of refugees and asylum-seekers. The increasing number of asylum-seekers in Western Europe, which peaked in Germany with more than 438,000 requests in 1992 alone, has been at the root of the political debate. The administrations involved seem to be unable to cope adequately with such increases, a fact which in its turn has given rise to a variety of (...) humanitarian and juridical problems .It is not my intention here to discuss the many technical facets of this social issue . I prefer, rather, to offer a socio-ethical reflection on one particular and fundamental aspect of our attitude toward refugees, namely, the apparently unavoidable fact that they are set against the background issues of migration and social integration. In their host countries refugees have in fact been perceived primarily as immigrants and foreigners, not as refugees.It is also not my intention to make an a priori judgment on the question. Instead, I would like to begin by inquiring into the historical and structural factors which have defined our perception of the issue. It will become clear that we can only achieve an ethically adequate treatment of refugees if we are prepared to rectify the much broader problem of our attitude to foreigners as such. (shrink)

Background Several ethical issues are associated with providing living organ transplantation services, and there is limited information on these issues faced by the teams providing service to refugees or asylum seekers. Aim To determine the challenges healthcare professionals face in organ transplant centers providing services to Syrians under temporary protection status and discern whether these difficulties align with ethical issues in living organ transplantation. Research design This study employed a qualitative design and conducted individual semi-structured, in-depth interviews (...) with 18 transplant team members in Istanbul between September and November 2022. Data analysis was based on Braun and Clarke’s thematic analysis. Participants and research context The participants comprised 18 healthcare professionals, including 6 physicians and 12 nurses working in organ transplant teams in Istanbul. Ethical considerations The University’s Ethics Committee provided approval. Participants were informed regarding confidentiality and signed an informed consent form. Results Three themes emerged from the data on ethical issues faced by organ transplantation services to Syrians: (a) beneficence or double equipoise, (b) autonomy, and (c) justice. Transplant teams experience problems related to preserving double equipoise in the provision of living donor organ transplantation because of language barriers, poor socioeconomic conditions, and cultural factors, which increases transplant teams’ individual and indirect social burden. Although problems arise from the language barrier when obtaining informed consent in the autonomy theme, institutional and national policies in preventing donor abuse have a comforting effect. Health workers had the least problems with the justice theme, wherein national health policies are determined. Conclusion Fewer issues related to autonomy and justice were reported in providing organ transplantation services to Syrians, with the most intense reported issues being maintaining double equipoise. The results revealed the need to develop institutional, national, and international policies with individual solutions to prevent difficulties healthcare professionals face in this process. (shrink)

Drawing from extensive, eye-opening first-person accounts, No Refuge puts a spotlight on the millions of refugees worldwide who have to leave home but find nowhere to resettle. As political philosopher Serena Parekh argues, this is not just a problem for politicians. Citizens also have a moral duty to help resolve the global refugee crisis and to end the suffering and denial of human rights that refugee are forced to endure, often for years. While the media usually focus on the (...) challenges that Western states have with the arrival of large numbers of asylum seekers and refugees, the real problem is that millions are stuck in inhumane conditions in refugee camps and urban centers, with little chance of finding a more permanent solution. Grounded in powerful testimony from refugees and meticulous research on the conditions in which so many suffer worldwide, No Refuge shows why, as states but also as citizens, we cannot afford to wait any longer to end this crisis. (shrink)

In the aftermath of the “Arab Spring” and of crumbling state structures, an exodus of unknown proportion from the Near East and from Northern Africa has set in and was further exacerbated by civil war and ISIS terror rule over large territories in the Near East. As a consequence, thousands of refugees came to Europe. Many of them fulfilled the conditions for non-refoulement according to Article 33 of the Geneva Convention on the Law of Refugees of 1951 or (...) were at least entitled for temporary protection according to the Common European Asylum System. These instruments did not, however, take into consideration situations of mass influx and neither is there an efficient mechanism for burden sharing within the EU in place. Some countries where overwhelmed by these migration flows. In this contribution, particular attention will be given to the reactions to these developments by the Austrian government. In Austria, as a consequence of mounting pressure by considerable parts of the population demanding a halt to this migration, the government adopted or announced a series of measures that, if implemented, will constitute a blatant violation of international law. This holds true, in particular, for the so-called upper limit for asylum seekers. Legal academia in Austria in part was silent as to these events, in part sustained it after having been engaged for a legal. It is contended here that unilateralism may be effective in a short-time perspective, but the long-term consequences should not be overlooked. It would be better to work on a genuine international burden-sharing mechanism even though this approach is more difficult to sell to national constituencies. (shrink)

The figure of the refugee and asylum seeker, hidden from the masses, de-humanised, deprived of existence and rights, are in sharp contrast with their representation in the Hungarian mass media and in visual and textual materials of the Hungarian Governmental Information, which constructs a manipulated, extremist and xenophobic, ideologically biased reality. In this sense, the discourse on the refugee crisis has an actual and an untimely form. The first chapter of the paper is an ideology-criticism analysis, aiming at the (...) deconstruction of the ideological subject-construct of the contemporary refugee existence. This analysis focuses on the Hungarian political language used to refer to the European refugee crisis since 2015, primarily the political questionnaire entitled National Consultation on Immigration and Terrorism and the text and poster campaign of the Governmental Information related to it, with references to the later, 2017 Let’s Stop Brussels campaign, 2016 Hungarian Migrant quota referendum, 2017 Soros-plan Consultation, and materials of the information campaign Wirtschaft Zusammen Integrationsinitiativen der Deutschen Wirtschaft in Germany. In the second part, this contemporary constructed form of refugee and asylum seeker existence is paralleled with its untimely discourse. (shrink)

Many contributions to the philosophical debate about conceptual and normative issues raised by the refugee crisis fail to take properly account of the difference between ideal and nonideal theory. This makes several otherwise interesting and apparently plausible contributions to the philosophy of the refugee crisis problematic. They are problematic in the sense that they mix up ideal and nonideal aspirations and assumptions in an incoherent way undermining the proposed views. Two examples of this problem are discussed. The first example is (...) David Miller’s contribution to the conceptual debate about how we should understand refugeehood. The second example is a common argument from the normative debate about how states should discharge their duties to help refugees, namely the claim that states should help in neighboring countries rather than by taking in more asylum seekers. Both are examples of arguments about how we should understand or respond to the refugee crisis, which appear to offer coherent principles for the moral guidance of political actors but which are actually incoherent as principles of practical reasoning for the context they aim to address. (shrink)