Asylum legislation and asylum applications: a geographical analysis of Belgian asylum policy by country of origin (1992-2003)

In many European countries a traditional policy and legal response to an undesirable increase of asylum applications has been the change of asylum law and procedures. By making it more difficult to obtain asylum and refugee status, the attractiveness as a possible country of asylum is believed to diminish. In the period from 1992 to 2003 three major revisions of the Belgian asylum procedure were enacted. When speaking in absolute figures these changes resulted in a certain decrease in the number of asylum applications filed. However, upon a closer examination of the number of asylum applications per country of origin, the effects appeared to be quite differential. Hence, factors other than geographical ones, such as the location of the country of origin or distance, must be decisive for the effect of a change in legislation on the number of asylum claimants coming from one particular country. Nevertheless, it has been possible to distinguish seven clusters of countries of origin where similar developments in patterns of asylum applications and shifts therein, depending on changes in asylum law, can be seen

Integration and onward migration of refugees in Scotland: preliminary evidence from the SUNRISE database

Despite the operation of UK dispersal policy for nearly a decade, there has been little examination of the resulting impacts upon refugee mobility and integration. Implemented under the 1999 Immigration and Asylum Act, the rationale behind UK dispersal was to 'spread the burden' (Robinson et al. 2003). The housing of asylum seekers to various locations across the UK was employed to discourage settlement in the South East (and particularly London) and distribute costs amongst UK local authorities. The main aim was to relieve housing and social pressures in South East England, where the majority of new arrivals spontaneously concentrated. By instituting a policy of compulsory dispersal, UK asylum policy has removed an asylum seeker's freedom to choose where to settle. This means that since 2000, the UK Home Office has implemented a policy of dispersal whereby asylum seekers are housed on a no choice basis to locations around the country. Asylum seekers in the UK are housed in various locations in England, Scotland and Wales. At the end of December 2006, the top three dispersal towns in England were Leeds, Birmingham and Manchester (Bennett et al. 2007). All asylum seekers fully supported by NASS and dispersed to Scotland are located in Glasgow City (5,010). In Glasgow, housing is provided for asylum seekers by Glasgow City Council as well as the YMCA. A small number of asylum seekers are located in Edinburgh (75) and supported on a subsistence only basis. In Scotland, and indeed within the UK as a whole, the largest concentration of asylum seekers is housed within Glasgow. Furthermore, there are an estimated 10,000 refugees and asylum seekers in Scotland which represent over 50 different nationalities (Charlaff et al. 2004). As a result the discussion focuses upon this local case study. Dispersal policy is one key element of UK asylum policy that determines the geographical distribution of asylum seekers across the country. But nearly a decade since the UK Home Office implemented dispersal policy, knowledge gaps still remain in understanding the onward migration decisions of refugees. Despite the clear aim of dispersal to determine local and national movements of asylum seekers, there has been surprisingly little attention paid to the role played by current UK dispersal policy in onward migration and integration. Policy driven research has tended to focus upon international and national issues to the exclusion of micro level processes (Bowes et al. 2009). Indeed, the majority of literature on dispersal has focused upon critiquing the policy for being driven by void housing and concentrating vulnerable populations in deprived, inner city neighbourhoods. With attention clearly focused upon critiquing dispersal policy, the potential long-term implications for refugee integration have been under-researched. The aim of this paper is to reassert the importance of considering mobility issues in refugee integration research. The current UK asylum policy environment is considered before attention turns to the theoretical developments in understanding refugee integration. Empirical evidence is presented from the Scottish Refugee Council's SUNRISE (Strategic Upgrade of National Refugee Integration Services programme) database to identify the geography of onward migration flows as well as the diversity of individuals engaged in movement around the UK during the asylum process as well as after being granted or refused status. The empirical material is employed to provoke questions of how onward migration may be linked to refugee integration. This includes considering factors which predispose individuals to migrate and how this may usefully provide insights into the process of refugee integration

Comparative Perspectives of Constitutional Asylum in France, Italy and Germany: Requiescat in Pace?

Most countries provide asylum through domestic legislation, such as a statute incorporating the 1951 Convention Relating to the Status of Refugees. France, Italy, and Germany stand out as three of very few European countries specifically to guarantee a right of asylum in their national Constitutions. The origin, wording, and scope of these constitutional provisions vary, depending on historical factors specific to each country. This article examines the right of asylum guaranteed in the Constitutions of France, Italy, and Germany from a historical perspective. It discusses how this right has evolved in all three countries, especially in light of the Refugee Convention and recent European Asylum Legislation. It concludes that however unique and individual constitutional asylum has traditionally been regarded as in France, Italy, and Germany, international obligations and recent European commitments have absorbed its distinctiveness, making it a redundant, almost obsolete, concept

Asylum Policy under New Labour

This article examines New Labour policies on asylum with a focus on changes in welfare provision. The changes that have taken place have resulted in the exclusion of asylum seekers from 'mainstream' provision and have led to an increase in poverty and destitution among some asylum seekers

Asylum Reforms, Discrimination of Refugees with Special Needs and Practices of Resistance in Local Contexts of Europe

The standardization of the asylum system demonstrated a gap in providing specific assistance to asylum seekers with specific vulnerabilities as required in the Art. 17 of the 2013/33/EU Directive. The aim of this proposal is to describe the results of the research "Provide", founded by the EU (Rights, Equality and Citizenship Program 2014-2020), conducted in the last two years . The reasearch, based on mixed methods, highlights a problem of legislative discomfort between the EU and the different States; a gap in the assistance of migrants with specific needs; a problem of lack of understanding of phenomenon of proximity violence. In France, it is highlighted a lack of porosity between the Common Law and the asylum Law, especially regarding the granting of protection to vulnerable categories. Similarly, in Spain, violence suffered by migrants after leaving the origin country is not considered as a motive for International and national protection. In Italy there was a disparity in approaches in the assistance of migrants with specific needs. In the different regions and municipalities of three Countries involved there is no formalized coordinated system between asylum law and common law, between the asylum seekers’ reception system and the system of protection of victims of violence. Furthemore, asylum reforms currently underway risk of increasing the vulnerabilities related to the perpetuation of proximity violence among migrants. This is due to some of the measures envisaged by legislative reforms relating to asylum, including those concerning shorter waiting times for asylum applications and longer periods of administrative detention. The effect could be to make the victims of proximity violence even more invisible. Few are the practices of resistance in local contexts

Access to healthcare for people seeking and refused asylum in Great Britain: a review of evidence

This research report is a review of evidence looking at the barriers people seeking or refused asylum face in trying to access healthcare services in the UK, and what may help them to do so more easily. This report, and the partner report on lived experiences (https://www.equalityhumanrights.com/en/publication-download/lived-experiences-access-healthcare-people-seeking-and-refused-asylum), will be of interest to people who play an important role in delivering healthcare and related support services to people seeking or refused asylum. We have also made recommendations for what changes are needed (https://www.equalityhumanrights.com/en/publication-download/making-sure-people-seeking-and-refused-asylum-can-access-healthcare-what-needs) to make sure that people seeking and refused asylum have full enjoyment of their right to health. This review was carried out by Imperial College London, with primary data provided by Doctors of the World UK

The Institution of Gender-Based Asylum and Epistemic Injustice: A Structural Limit

One of the recent attempts to explore epistemic dimensions of forced displacement focuses on the institution of gender-based asylum and hopes to detect forms of epistemic injustice within assessments of gender related asylum applications. Following this attempt, I aim in this paper to demonstrate how the institution of gender-based asylum is structured to produce epistemic injustice at least in the forms of testimonial injustice and contributory injustice. This structural limit becomes visible when we realize how the institution of asylum is formed to provide legitimacy to the institutional comfort the respective migration courts and boards enjoy. This institutional comfort afforded to migration boards and courts by the existing asylum regimes in the current order of nation-states leads to a systemic prioritization of state actors’ epistemic resources rather than that of applicants, which, in turn, results in epistemic injustice and impacts the determination of applicants’ refugee status

Don’t Gut Political Asylum

For many years, the United States has granted political asylum to victims of persecution who come to our country and seek our protection. Now, however, Congress is on the verge of abolishing the right of political asylum. Congress is not proposing to repeal the asylum provisions of the Refugee Act of 1980. An outright repeal would probably never pass, because many in Congress, recalling America\u27s sorry treatment of refugees during the Holocaust, accept the humanitarian premises underlying asylum. Rather, the abolition is in the form of a new, apparently innocuous procedural requirement. The House Judiciary Committee recently adopted, as an amendment to this year\u27s immigration reform act, a proviso that denies asylum to any person who applies for it more than thirty days after arriving in the United States. A Senate subcommittee has approved a similar proposal

Chasing Efficiency Can operational changes fix European asylum systems? Bertelsmann Stiftung Migration Policy Institute Europe March 2020

The heightened arrivals of asylum seekers and migrants on European shores in 2015–16 sent policymakers across the continent scrambling for new strategies to manage migration. Proposals to reform the European Union’s legal framework for asylum were the first out of the starting blocks but, several years later, no such agreement has been reached. And with new EU leadership having taken office in late 2019, Brussels is hungry for fresh ideas that will either revive or reform the Common European Asylum System (CEAS). Crucial to this search will be a recognition that, while deficiencies still plague Europe’s asylum systems, these systems have changed significantly since the onset of the migration and refugee crisis—even in the absence of legal reforms