Refugee Children in Wales: Coping and Adaptation in the Face of Adversity

This article aims to makes a contribution to redressing a methodological and theoretical imbalance in existing research on refugee and asylum‐seeking children. It draws on two qualitative studies from Wales with children and young people. The samples include unaccompanied minors and children living with families as well as both children who are supported in the asylum system and those who have been granted refugee status. The focus on ecological post‐migratory stressors and coping processes that young people identify as being integral to their well‐being and, once granted status, to how they adapt to settlement includes a selective study of some of the sources of resilience referred to in the children's talk. Recognising the interplay between individual and environment leads to a discussion of both personal attributes and collective cultural identities.     

Children and Families Seeking Asylum in Northern Norway: Living Conditions and Mental Health

The mental health of children seeking asylum and their families is a somewhat neglected area of research. Research on refugee children and children living with adversities suggests that environmental factors are crucial in preventing mental health problems. In this study, we aim to identify central environmental conditions that affect the mental health of children living with their families at governmental asylum processing centres in northern Norway. This study has a qualitative design, and is based on 11 focus group interviews with the staff at asylum processing centres. The interviews were transcribed verbatim and analysed focusing on important risk and protective factors for mental health problems presented by the informants. The results highlighted time spent at asylum centres and the parent's mental health as the most important risk factors. Schooling, activities, general living conditions and poor economy were also seen as crucial. The findings suggest that these children are indeed vulnerable, and at high risk of developing mental health problems. Their rights are, however, open to local interpretations, and they fall between two stools; their right to proper health care, and national and international immigration policies.     

A Qualitative Exploration of the Premigration Victimization Experiences of Sexual and Gender Minority Refugees and Asylees in the United States and Canada

Progress in analyzing and interpreting the concepts of sexual orientation and gender identity in the context of refugee law has contributed to a rise in individuals seeking asylum in such countries as the United States and Canada. However, few studies have examined the victimization experiences of sexual- and gender-identity forced migrants prior to their arrival in North America. This qualitative study used thematic analysis to explore the premigration adult victimization experiences of 26 lesbian, gay, and transgender individuals who obtained refugee, asylee, or withholding-of-removal status in the United States or Canada based on persecution for their sexual orientation and/or gender identity. Participants originated from countries in Asia, Africa, the Caribbean, Eastern Europe, Latin America, and the Middle East. Analysis revealed the following themes: living on the edge, adopting concealment strategies, routine victimization, and protectors as perpetrators. Participants described living in a constant state of hypervigilance, and they adopted numerous strategies to protect themselves from victimization. Despite the use of such strategies, participants experienced victimization by community members and state actors, leaving them no choice but to flee to ensure their safety and well-being. Findings are discussed using the ecological framework outlined by the World Health Organization (WHO). The discussion concludes with implications for international policy and clinical practice.     

The Politics of Childhood and Asylum in the UK

This article considers the general treatment of asylum‐seeking families with children in the UK, focusing on the government's practices and public reactions to these measures. It first describes both the exclusive asylum framework, based on institutionalised suspicion, welfare restrictions and detention, and the inclusive child policy framework, based on recognising children's rights and protecting all children. The article then investigates the implications for policy‐making that these radically opposed regimes have for those who fall between the two categories, i.e. asylum‐seeking children. To this end, we examine more closely three asylum practices — Section 9 of the Asylum and Immigration (Treatment of Claimants, etc.) Act 2004, detention of accompanied asylum‐seeking children in immigration removal centres and removals. Our analysis indicates that the government's attempt to fully include families within the restrictive asylum framework has been somewhat frustrated by the mobilisation of a wide range of public actors. As such, despite its supposedly ‘legally unconstrained’ room for action, the government has recently agreed to partly review its policy standards for asylum‐seeking families, apparently aware of the potentially damaging effects of being seen as disregarding children's rights and needs. On the other hand, the government does not seem inclined to question the current asylum framework and the assumptions on which it is based. Consequently, the asylum system for families is likely to remain based on ad hocarrangements conditioned by the scale of the protests.     

Hunger: The Silent Epidemic Among Asylum Seekers and Resettled Refugees

Refugees and asylum seekers face challenges after arriving in a host country. They carry the trauma that they may have experienced in their countries of origin, during fight, and in countries of asylum. Other stressors impact on their adjustment after arriving in the United States including basic needs such as food, clothing, and shelter. This is a retrospective review of data collected as part of a needs assessment by a program, which serves survivors of torture and refugee trauma. Asylum seekers (n=65) and refugees were compared (n=30). Asylum seekers were more apt to be from Africa (p<.001), need family reunification (p=.027), speak more languages (p<.001), suffer from political persecution (p<.001), move from place to place due to not having a permanent place to live (p=.031), and be unable to contribute to the rent (p<.001). Unadjusted, asylum seekers were also more likely than refugees to have gone to bed hungry in the previous two weeks (p<.001) or since arriving in the United States (p<.001). Refugees were more likely to be eating more food now than before feeing, and asylum seekers the opposite (p<.001). Being an asylum seeker made one 3.7 times more likely to suffer from food insecurity than being a refugee, and 5.3 times more likely to not have work authorization. Among asylum seekers, adjusting for gender, age, education, lack of permanent housing, English fluency, and self-reported health status, not having work authorization made one 5.6 times more likely to suffer from hunger. Independently, being a torture survivor made one 10.4 times more likely to suffer from hunger. Asylum seekers must wait 150 days before applying for asylum in the United States. For humanitarian reasons, mandatory-waiting periods for work authorization for asylum seekers should be eliminated.     

Colonialism,Decolonisation, and the Right to be Human: Britain and the 1951 Geneva Convention on the Status of Refugees

The Geneva Convention on the Status of Refugees is central to scholarship on refugee and asylum issues. It is the primary basis upon which asylum seekers make their claims to the majority of host states today and, as a key text of the human rights framework, has come to be associated with the very idea of a universalised rights-bearing human being. Yet British asylum policy today is characterized by efforts to limit access to the right to asylum. Many scholars believe this is because asylum seekers today are different, in character and number, to previous cohorts of applicants. This article goes back to the founding of the refugee rights regime and investigates the exclusions of colonized peoples from access to the right to asylum. Using Chimni's concept of the “myth of difference”, the article demonstrates that asylum seekers have long existed outside of Europe, and that their exclusion from international rights has been both longstanding and intentional. This historical sociology suggests that the basis for critical work on the issue of asylum policy today must be one which takes colonial histories into account.     

Organized International Asylum‐Seeker Networks: Formation and Utilization by Chinese Students1

This article examines the formation and role of international networks formed by Chinese students living in the West in the late 1980s and early 1990s as part of their efforts to obtain the right to remain in Western countries in the immediate aftermath of the Tiananmen Square violence of June 4, 1989. Various forms of migrant social networks have been a research focus in international refugee and migration studies, but international networks formed by asylum seekers themselves, and their role in asylum‐seeking processes, have been largely ignored. This article is based on a multi‐method comparative study of Chinese students living in Australia and the United States at the time. Their experience provides data for examining and conceptualizing the role of organized international asylum‐seeker networks in the asylum‐seeking process. The analysis focuses on Chinese student lobbying in 1989, led by an independent Chinese student union, which helped “the Pelosi Bill” to be passed by the U.S. Congress. The main strategies adopted by Chinese students in the United States and Australia, as well as their internationally coordinated actions, are compared. Also examined is the role of two politicized international Chinese student organizations, the Chinese Alliance for Democracy and the Federation for Democratic China, in assisting students with obtaining residence.     

‘Taking advantage’ or fleeing persecution? Opposing accounts of asylum seeking

This paper discursively analyses advocates' explanations of asylum seeking in the 2001 Australian parliamentary debates. Previous research has mapped the negative discourses used to present asylum seekers as economic migrants ‘taking advantage’ of soft laws. This paper analyses how advocates oppose this rhetoric, re‐categorising asylum seekers as potential refugees, and establishing Australia as legally and morally responsible for providing protection. This paper examines three influences shaping advocates' arguments: opposing anti‐asylum seeker rhetoric; theories of the formation of anti‐asylum seeker public opinion; and the parliamentary and wider liberal democratic intellectual political framework. It then analyses four extracts taken from political speeches in the parliament, focussing on the rhetorical strategies used to counter a pervasive ‘culture of disbelief’ against asylum seekers.     

Refugee movements and Turkey

There has been a long tradition in the Ottoman Empire and the Turkish Republic of receiving refugees. There were Jewish refugees from the Spanish Inquisition, Hungarians and Poles fleeing revolts in 1848-9, and those of Turkish descent and usually from the Balkans. Concurrent with this trend is the history of refugees and immigrants leaving Turkey, such as many Armenians, Greeks and Jews leaving at the turn of the century, and after 1923 and the Treaty of Lausanne. Little is currently published on the topic. This article defines a refugee; provides an overview of the refugee problems of the 1980's due to Bulgarian, Kurdish, and Turkish refugees; and the legal and political aspects. As a country of origin, there is discussion of the political and economic aspects of Turkish asylum seekers in Europe. The potential refugee flows to and from Turkey are also examined. I) For this study, refugees are victims of political violence and are persecuted for political or religious beliefs, ethnic or racial background, or war. In Turkey, there are national refugees, international refugees outside the Convention, and UNHCR Convention refugees. During the 1980's all 3 groups were arriving: from eastern Europe, Iranian Kurds, Iraqis, and ethnic Turks from Bulgaria and Afghanistan. The Turkish restricted acceptance of the 1951 Convention on Refugees creates serious humanitarian and security consequences for refugees other than those from eastern Europe and of Turkish ethnicity. Political considerations play an important role in treatment where security threats outweigh humanitarian need. The case is given for Kurdish refugees. II) Asylum seekers from Turkey in Western Europe was determined between 1986-90 to be 185,000 from applications. These figures have risen steadily due to the political instability and military activity of areas bordering Iraq and Syria, the Emergency Region. In addition there are economic and employment problems, and there has been a suspension of human rights. Europe in return has tightened legislation and procedures to differentiate economically motivated refugees from authentic political asylum seekers. Further research is needed to investigate refugee problems. Further refugees may come due to the promotion of a Black Sea Cooperation Region and easier crossings of borders to the former Soviet Republics. Ethnic Turks in Moldavia or Romania or Bulgaria may leave due to unrest. Factors affecting asylum seekers are improvements in Turkey's human rights record, repeal of bans of the Kurdish language, completion of the South Eastern Development Project, and the European government policy on asylum.     

A comprehensive review of refugee and asylum studies in contemporary Hong Kong: Law,policies, and lived experiences

This review covers 46 research studies from 2007 to 2019, which examine the inflow of asylum seekers and refugees in Hong Kong after the Vietnamese refugee influx in the early 2000s. By analysing existing research studies, the authors summarise three themes, namely refugee law, asylum policies,¹ and lived experiences of refugees and asylum seekers, on refugee and asylum studies in contemporary Hong Kong. While further research is needed, scholars can examine the potential possibilities of the legal reform of statutory insufficiencies, the development trajectory of asylum policy instruments with a more appropriate framework, and the protection mechanism of refugees’ and asylum seekers’ children.     

Immigrants,Refugees and Asylum Seekers

Abstract

This article reviews policies and services related to immigrants, refugees and asylum seekers in the U.S. Definitions of immigration categories are provided to clarify the context in which services operate. Particular attention is given to issues that are unique to populations of the Southwest. Historical information on this region is offered; immigration trends and recent statistics are presented. The article is based on published data; field interviews with personnel in selected immigrant and refugee serving social agencies are used to compliment the literature. The authors highlight the social consequences of the global phenomenon of migration, whether motivated by economic or political realities. Recommendations for those who serve immigrants, refugees and asylum seekers are offered.     

Beyond control: the criminalization of African asylum seekers in Israel

ABSTRACT

This article analyzes the discursive process of criminalization of African asylum seekers in Israel. The Israeli case illuminates the way that marginalized social groups are constructed as a criminal threat, thus becoming a focal point of moral panic. Using content analysis, in-depth interviews and observations, we assert that the criminalization of asylum seekers is facilitated by their portrayal as ‘infiltrators’ who are beyond state control. State authorities’ ostensible inability to keep asylum seekers under surveillance is dialectically constructed along two main axes: the private space axis and the public space axis. On the private space axis, the asylum seekers are portrayed as unidentified people living beyond the authorities’ field of vision whose largely unreported criminality is directed against vulnerable asylum seeker women and children in the private sphere. At the same time, asylum seekers are portrayed as a prominent, faceless and animalistic presence in public space, a presence that breaches physical-spatial borders as well as social-cultural boundaries, thereby undermining the social order. Thus, asylum seekers are viewed as conspicuously invisible. This rhetoric connects border violation with criminal activity; emphasizes the pent-up potential for violence by asylum seekers; and blurs the lines between criminal threat and security threat.     

Refugee Women in Europe: Some Aspects of the Legal and Policy Dimensions

This article presents an overview of the legal and policy issues affecting refugee and asylum-seeking women in European host societies. First, it explores the unique types of persecution experienced by women and shows that the asylum determination process, along with the status of women relative to men, mitigates against the effective protection of women. The legal basis for asylum, the evidential requirements and the procedural norms all reduce the protection which is likely to be conferred upon asylum-seeking women. Second, the article provides an overview of responses to female refugees and asylum-seekers in European countries of asylum. Although there are differences between countries, there is also a large degree of uniformity. For example, there is a lack of recognition and understanding of the diversity and the range of experiences which refugees bring with them, including different social and cultural norms. Moreover, European policies do not provide special provisions to facilitate the settlement of refugee women and instead place barriers to their social and economic participation. Third, the article examines policies for family reunion in different countries and shows that such unfavourable and unsympathetic policies mitigate against the settlement of refugee women. Finally, the article argues that if refugee and asylum-seeking women are to have their cases recognized and to be successfully settled, then there needs to be a complete rethink of legislation and policy in Europe.     

Iraqi refugees in Jordan: lessons for practice with refugees internationally

Asylum seekers, refugees who are resettled in third countries or those who are forced into refugee camps, present new challenges to social work practitioners. In an attempt to advance theory and develop specialised practice in the area of refugee studies within social work as an international profession, we argue that whatever the flight context, the country of asylum or of resettlement, there is a process underlying what Malkki referred to as refugeeness. This article focuses on the situation of Iraqi refugees in Jordan as an example of the challenges that confront today's refugees. We show that salient issues raised in a local community centre's needs assessment mirror those elements that are central to integration processes that have been discussed in much of the refugee studies literature across the world. We show how these concerns are closely linked to processes that resettled refugees and asylum seekers face, regardless of the country of resettlement. We introduce a framework for analysing an individual refugee's situation and show how an international phenomenon is linked to local practice.     

Asylum seekers in Europe in the context of south-north movements

This article elucidates the threat towards the established system for asylum in Europe which originates from the increase of asylum seekers with very weak or no genuine claims at all. This increase might be the early sign of new intercontinental movements of migration. Europeans are now facing 1) continued immigration control, 2) the development of a single European market, 3) aging and population stagnation, 4) increased economic pressure form countries with weaker economies, 5) new refugee crises in the 3rd World, and 6) an overburdened asylum procedure in industrialized countries with many weak or abusive claims. Solutions include 1) attacking the causes of refugee movements, 2) increased economic assistance, 3) maintaining present refugee legislation, 4) European agreements on state responsibility to carry out asylum requests, 5) speeding up asylum requests, 6) condemning abuse and fraud, 7) facilitating voluntary repatriation, 8) informing the public on refugee problems, and 9) establishing consultative links between states.     

The Economy of Seeking Asylum in the Global City

This article explores asylum seeker survival strategies and agency in relation to the structural, post‐industrial conditions that have emerged in Hong Kong. The focus is on the livelihoods of asylum seekers within spaces of illegality and social exclusion, how such spaces are formed, and how asylum seekers exploit local conditions to establish profitable networks across borders. The article considers asylum seekers' engagement in income‐generating activities and the importance of legal status in the sectors of the economy in which they most often work: recycling and trading. Far from being a burden to society or opportunistic deviants taking advantage of Hong Kong's economic prosperity, as they are normally depicted in public discourse, asylum seekers are economically productive. They act in economic spaces in which disadvantaged strata of the local resident population organize their means of survival, thereby improving the economic opportunities for locals.     

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.     

Fake Passports and Appointed Communities: Nation and Transnationalism in the Danish Asylum System

Nationality underwrites a great deal of the Danish asylum process, and of the refugee regime as a whole. The housing and care of asylum seekers, handled by the Danish Red Cross, is based on classifications by nationality. Bending a phrase from Benedict Anderson, these might be called 'appointed communities'. While the Danish asylum system in principle performs individual determination procedures for asylum seekers, granting refugee status on a case-by-case basis, in practice those identified as Iraqi or Afghani have had a very high acceptance rate. However, it is clearly the case that not all asylum seekers have citizenship of the countries they claim to come from, or indeed feel they come from the countries of which they have citizenship. In this context, we must enquire about the mechanics of determining nationality and about how asylum seekers themselves relate to national identities. I argue that although the social networks that are significant to asylum seekers at times may be composed mainly of individuals from a single nation, they are also thoroughly transnational, and embody a sense of home not necessarily so tightly bound to place, as the asylum process presumes.