tag:theconversation.com,2011:/global/topics/asylum-seekers-682/articlesAsylum seekers – The Conversation2024-02-21T04:06:34Ztag:theconversation.com,2011:article/2239572024-02-21T04:06:34Z2024-02-21T04:06:34ZBy boat or by plane? If you’re seeking asylum in Australia, the outcome is similarly bleak<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/576913/original/file-20240221-18-tl88st.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=18%2C0%2C4071%2C2299&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">
</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.shutterstock.com/image-illustration/refugees-boat-floating-on-sea-341539700">Shutterstock</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>Last week, <a href="https://www.abc.net.au/news/2024-02-18/asylum-seekers-moved-to-nauru-mid-political-row/103481494">39 foreign nationals</a> arrived in a remote part of Western Australia by boat. This revived dormant debates about border security.</p>
<p>People without visas come to Australia by air and sea, though we only ever seem to hear about the latter. Unlike unauthorised air arrivals, unauthorised maritime arrivals (people without visas that arrive by boat without permission) are given high media visibility. This feeds a narrative that the country has lost control of its borders, which in turn creates a political problem for the government of the day. </p>
<p>But behind the headlines, what actually happens when people arrive in Australia without permission, whether by boat or by plane?</p>
<hr>
<p>
<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/boat-arrivals-sent-to-nauru-and-sovereign-borders-commander-warns-against-politicising-the-issue-223822">Boat arrivals sent to Nauru, and Sovereign Borders commander warns against politicising the issue</a>
</strong>
</em>
</p>
<hr>
<h2>What is Australia obligated to do?</h2>
<p>Anyone who’s not an Australian citizen is required to have authorisation in the form of a visa to enter and remain in the country. </p>
<p>What Australia can do to deal with unauthorised arrivals is limited by its international treaty obligations. The United Nations Refugee <a href="https://www.unhcr.org/au/about-unhcr/who-we-are/1951-refugee-convention">Convention</a> and <a href="https://www.ohchr.org/en/instruments-mechanisms/instruments/protocol-relating-status-refugees">Protocol</a> oblige Australia to refrain from sending “refugees” (as defined in those treaties) to places where they will face a real chance of persecution. </p>
<p>Under other treaties to which it is a party, Australia is also obliged to refrain from sending anyone, not just refugees, to places where they will face a real risk of certain serious human rights violations. </p>
<p>These treaty obligations are referred to as “non-refoulement” or protection obligations. People who claim the benefit of such protection obligations are called asylum seekers.</p>
<p><div data-react-class="Tweet" data-react-props="{"tweetId":"1759045943268159543"}"></div></p>
<h2>What happens to asylum seekers when they arrive?</h2>
<p>The processes for people arriving by boat or plane have similarities, but are slightly different.</p>
<p>Australian policy is for unauthorised air arrivals to be given a screening interview to ascertain whether they could be entitled to Australia’s protection under international law. If not, they are returned to their most recent country of departure. Those who are found to have a possible case are given access to the protection visa application process. </p>
<p>The protection visa is Australia’s main domestic mechanism for implementing its international protection obligations. People who initially entered Australia on a valid visa can also apply for a protection visa. Most applicants fall into this group. </p>
<hr>
<p>
<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/who-counts-as-a-refugee-four-questions-to-understand-current-migration-debates-219735">Who counts as a refugee? Four questions to understand current migration debates</a>
</strong>
</em>
</p>
<hr>
<p>Australia imposes penalties on airlines that bring non-citizens without valid visas here. It also posts its officials at overseas airports to help airlines identify people without visas so they can be refused boarding. As a result, there are <a href="https://www.homeaffairs.gov.au/foi/files/2022/fa-220600105-document-released-part-3.PDF">very few</a> unauthorised air arrivals to Australia.</p>
<p>Like people who come by plane, unauthorised maritime arrivals go through a screening process. </p>
<p>Those who are deemed not to be asylum seekers are returned to their most recent country of departure. This is usually, but not always, Indonesia. </p>
<p>Unless the responsible minister grants an exemption, unauthorised maritime arrivals who are found to have a possible asylum claim must be transferred to a regional processing country to have their asylum claims determined there. </p>
<h2>How has regional processing worked?</h2>
<p>Regional processing has a complicated history.</p>
<p>In late 2001, the Coalition government under John Howard entered arrangements with Nauru and Papua New Guinea (PNG) to take unauthorised maritime arrivals to those countries to process their asylum claims. Those arrangements were ended by Labor shortly after it won government in November 2007. </p>
<p>However, a resurgence of unauthorised maritime arrivals led the Gillard Labor government to enter a new set of arrangements with Nauru and PNG in late 2012. These allowed Australia to transfer unauthorised maritime arrivals to processing centres in those countries to have their asylum claims considered by their governments. </p>
<p>The 2012 arrangements left open the possibility that transferees who were found to be refugees might be resettled in Australia. However, when boats kept arriving, the Rudd Labor government decided to get even tougher. In 2013, it <a href="https://webarchive.nla.gov.au/awa/20130730234007/http://pandora.nla.gov.au/pan/79983/20130731-0937/www.pm.gov.au/press-office/transcript-joint-press-conference-2.html">announced</a> future unauthorised maritime arrivals would never be resettled in Australia.</p>
<p>After its election in September 2013, the Coalition government implemented Operation Sovereign Borders, which has been continued by the current Labor government. Many activities come under the Operation Sovereign Borders banner, including the interception of unauthorised maritime arrivals at sea by the Australian navy. Regional processing is now also characterised as being part of the program.</p>
<p>The regional processing arrangement with PNG <a href="https://web.archive.org/web/20220105030919/https:/minister.homeaffairs.gov.au/KarenAndrews/Pages/finalisation-of-the-regional-resettlement-arrangement.aspx">ceased</a> at the end of 2021. As of November 16 2023, there were still <a href="https://www.refugeecouncil.org.au/operation-sovereign-borders-offshore-detention-statistics/2/">64 transferees</a> remaining in PNG. However, the Australian government’s position is that responsibility for these people lies entirely with PNG and not with Australia.</p>
<p>Nauru is still a <a href="https://www.legislation.gov.au/Details/F2023L00093">regional processing country</a> but under a new agreement. At the time it was signed in late 2021, there hadn’t been any transfers for years. However, it was <a href="https://web.archive.org/web/20211218062006/https:/www.dfat.gov.au/geo/nauru/memorandum-understanding-between-republic-nauru-and-australia-enduring-regional-processing-capability-republic-nauru">considered important</a> to maintain an “enduring regional processing capacity” on Nauru as a deterrent to people smugglers. </p>
<p>As previously, the Nauruan government is responsible for processing the asylum claims of transferees and managing them until they depart Nauru or are permanently settled there. However, Australia has contracted and is <a href="https://www.homeaffairs.gov.au/foi/files/2023/fa-221201134-document-released.PDF">paying</a> the processing centre’s service providers.</p>
<p>On June 25 2023, it was reported there were <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/australia-news/2023/jun/25/last-refugee-on-nauru-evacuated-as-australian-government-says-offshore-processing-policy-remains">no transferees</a> remaining in Nauru. This did not mean that a durable solution had been found for everyone who had been transferred to Nauru up until that time. While some people had been resettled in third countries, others had simply been brought to Australia with the legal status of “transitory persons”. This status prevents them from applying for a visa to remain in Australia unless granted ministerial permission to do so. </p>
<p>Australia’s options for resettling this cohort are limited. It has at its disposal the remainder of <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/australia-news/2017/feb/01/white-house-australian-refugees-deal-resettle-extreme-vetting">1,250 refugee places</a> promised by the United States in November 2016 and <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/australia-news/2022/mar/24/australia-agrees-450-refugees-can-be-resettled-in-new-zealand-nine-years-after-deal-first-offered">450 refugee places</a> over three years promised by New Zealand in 2022. Even if all these places are used, hundreds of people will remain in limbo.</p>
<h2>What happens to last week’s arrivals?</h2>
<p>Since Operation Sovereign Borders began, boats have either been intercepted at sea or have managed to make landfall in Australia <a href="https://www.aph.gov.au/api/qon/downloadattachment?attachmentId=dc14c17a-6ca6-4082-8f77-c15a72b19314">every year</a> except 2021. </p>
<p>However, between the start of Operation Sovereign Borders and the end of August 2023, <a href="https://www.aph.gov.au/api/qon/downloadattachment?attachmentId=dc14c17a-6ca6-4082-8f77-c15a72b19314">only two</a> out of the 1,123 boat passengers involved to that point had ever been accepted for regional processing. Both cases were in 2014. </p>
<p>This statistic raised serious concerns about the reliability of the screening process as the people screened included many from known refugee producing countries. </p>
<p>Given this history, it was a little surprising when the Australian government transferred <a href="https://www.abc.net.au/news/2023-10-27/nauru-new-group-detained-processing-centre/103014910">11 unauthorised maritime arrivals</a> to Nauru in September 2023. A further 12 were transferred to Nauru in <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/australia-news/2023/nov/23/wa-border-force-custody-12-asylum-seekers-nauru">November 2023</a>. The 39 people found in Western Australia have just been transferred there too. </p>
<hr>
<p>
<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/aus-nz-refugee-deal-is-a-bandage-on-a-failed-policy-its-time-to-end-offshore-processing-180241">Aus-NZ refugee deal is a bandage on a failed policy. It's time to end offshore processing</a>
</strong>
</em>
</p>
<hr>
<p>It seems the screening process has been abandoned or has been vastly improved. While the most reliable way for Australia to meet its international protection obligations would be to give all unauthorised maritime arrivals access to its protection visa application process, giving them all access to regional processing is certainly better than sending them back to their country of departure. </p>
<p>However, resettlement in Nauru of those found to be refugees is not realistic. The country, which has a population of approximately 13,000 people, is only <a href="https://www.adaptation-undp.org/explore/asia-and-pacific/nauru#:%7E:text=Nauru%20is%20an%20isolated%2C%20uplifted,120%20and%20300%20metres%20wide.">2,200 hectares</a> in land area. To put this in context, Melbourne airport <a href="https://www.melbourneairport.com.au/corporate/master-plan">is larger</a> than Nauru. </p>
<p>There is no reason to believe it will be any easier to find third country resettlement for transferees in the future than it has been up to now. For most, the only way out of limbo will be to return home, as eight of those transferred to Nauru in September have <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/australia-news/2024/jan/22/australia-asylum-seekers-nauru-returned-home-country">already done</a>. Regional processing continues to be a policy failure for which vulnerable people will pay the price.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/223957/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Savitri Taylor has received funding from the Australian Research Council in the past. She is a member of the Committee of Management of Refugee Legal and a member of the Kim for Canberra party. Views expressed in this article are her own and not attributable to any organisations with she is associated.</span></em></p>With the arrival of 39 foreign nationals in Western Australia, debate around boat arrivals has been re-ignited. What happens if you come by plane instead?Savitri Taylor, Associate Professor, Law School, La Trobe UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/2225802024-02-13T20:22:20Z2024-02-13T20:22:20ZImmigrants do work that might not otherwise get done – bolstering the US economy<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/574706/original/file-20240209-22-8e58kg.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=46%2C303%2C6889%2C4215&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Hundreds protested peacefully in Immokalee, Fla., against a state law enacted in 2023 that imposes restrictions on undocumented immigrants.</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://newsroom.ap.org/detail/Florida%20Day%20Without%20Immigrants/f748660925de4eb49e9de66ebcb24178?Query=immigrant%20workers&mediaType=photo&sortBy=arrivaldatetime:desc&dateRange=Anytime&totalCount=1114&currentItemNo=9">AP Photo/Rebecca Blackwell</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>Although Congress is failing to pass laws to restrict the number of migrants arriving in the U.S., a majority of Americans – about 6 in 10 – <a href="https://poll.qu.edu/poll-release?releaseid=3889">believe there’s an immigration crisis</a> along the Mexico-U.S. border. Politicians who want fewer people to move here often cast those arriving without prior authorization as a <a href="https://kstp.com/kstp-news/top-news/lawmakers-push-north-star-act-in-effort-to-make-minnesota-sanctuary-state-republicans-warn-of-economic-burden/">burden on the economy</a>.</p>
<p>As an <a href="https://stockton.academia.edu/RamyaVIjaya">economist who has researched immigration and employment</a>, I’m <a href="https://www.cbo.gov/system/files/2024-02/59710-Outlook-2024.pdf">confident that economic trends</a> and research findings contradict those arguments.</p>
<p>The U.S. is <a href="https://www.uschamber.com/workforce/understanding-americas-labor-shortage">experiencing a labor market shortage</a> that is likely to last well into the future as the U.S.-born population gets older overall, <a href="https://www.bls.gov/opub/mlr/2023/article/labor-force-and-macroeconomic-projections.htm">slowing growth in the number of workers</a>.</p>
<p>Rather than a drain on the economy, an uptick in immigration presents an opportunity to alleviate this shortage. Data from <a href="https://doi.org/10.1080/13545701.2020.1759815">my own research</a> and studies conducted by other scholars show that immigrant workers in the U.S. are more likely to be active in the labor market – either employed or looking for work – and tend to <a href="https://www.brookings.edu/articles/the-immigrant-workforce-supports-millions-of-u-s-jobs/">work in professions with</a> the most unmet demand.</p>
<h2>Help really wanted</h2>
<p>The U.S. had <a href="https://www.bls.gov/news.release/pdf/jolts.pdf">9 million job openings</a> in December 2023, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics. The government agency also found that there were <a href="https://www.bls.gov/news.release/empsit.nr0.htm">6.1 million unemployed people</a> actively seeking paid work.</p>
<p>Economists generally compare the two numbers to calculate the labor shortage. It currently stands at nearly 3 million workers, and the bureau expects this gap to grow as <a href="https://www.bls.gov/news.release/pdf/ecopro.pdf">the population ages and people have fewer children</a> over the next decade.</p>
<p>In other words, the U.S. faces a long-term shortage of people looking for employment.</p>
<p>That shortfall would be much bigger without foreign-born workers, who accounted for a <a href="https://www.bls.gov/opub/ted/2023/foreign-born-workers-were-a-record-high-18-1-percent-of-the-u-s-civilian-labor-force-in-2022.htm">record high of 18.1%</a> of the U.S. civilian labor force in 2022, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics.</p>
<p><iframe id="aLpRY" class="tc-infographic-datawrapper" src="https://datawrapper.dwcdn.net/aLpRY/3/" height="400px" width="100%" style="border: none" frameborder="0"></iframe></p>
<h2>More likely to be active in the workforce</h2>
<p>Another reason why immigrants can help fill that big hole in the U.S. labor market is that so many of them tend to be employed or are looking for work. </p>
<p>About <a href="https://www.bls.gov/news.release/pdf/forbrn.pdf">65.9% of all people who were born elsewhere</a> were either employed or actively looking for work as of 2022, in comparison to 61.5% of people born in the U.S. </p>
<p>This difference has been <a href="https://www.pgpf.org/blog/2022/11/the-foreign-born-labor-force-of-the-united-states">consistent since 2007</a>, according to research by the Peterson Foundation, a think tank that focuses on long-term budget problems.</p>
<p>In a <a href="https://doi.org/10.1080/13545701.2020.1759815">study I conducted a few years ago</a>, I found that immigrants who arrive in the United States as refugees fleeing violence and persecution in their home countries are eventually more likely to be employed or looking for work than people who are born in the U.S.</p>
<h2>More home health aides and janitors</h2>
<p>Some of the labor market’s biggest shortages are especially acute in professions that tend to attract immigrants, <a href="https://theconversation.com/why-the-daunting-economics-of-elder-care-are-about-to-get-much-worse-83123">such as home health aides</a>.</p>
<p>The health care and social services sector as a whole has about <a href="https://www.bls.gov/news.release/jolts.a.htm">1.8 million</a> open jobs, the largest number of job openings currently available.</p>
<p>This is followed by professional and business services with 1.7 million open jobs. This <a href="https://www.bls.gov/iag/tgs/iag60.htm">category encompasses everything from legal services to janitorial work</a>, including cleaning and grounds maintenance.</p>
<p>Currently, about <a href="https://www.bls.gov/news.release/pdf/forbrn.pdf">22% of employed immigrants work</a> in one of those two high-demand categories or another service occupation.</p>
<h2>Making it easier to age in place</h2>
<p>A team of economists has found that the <a href="https://doi.org/10.1111/roie.12607">cost of home health care and support services is lower</a> than average in places with large numbers of immigrant service workers. This in turn makes it more likely that older adults can avoid institutionalization and stay in their own homes. </p>
<p>But, to be sure, immigrant workers providing these vital community support services often <a href="https://doi.org/10.1001/amajethics.2022.890">endure exploitative</a> working conditions. </p>
<p>The labor market data not only makes it clear that the U.S. economy can absorb large numbers of immigrants, but it shows that these newcomers could be a much-needed solution to a labor supply crisis.</p>
<p>And yet people arriving in the U.S. as political asylum applicants are enduring <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/business/2023/05/23/one-answer-to-the-migration-crisis-jobs/54096526-f974-11ed-bafc-bf50205661da_story.html">backlogs and facing hurdles in securing employment authorization</a>, which is delaying their entry into the workforce.</p>
<p>Wouldn’t it make more sense for Congress to expand pathways for legal employment access for migrants? From an economic perspective, that seems to be the most prudent course of action.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/222580/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Ramya Vijaya does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organization that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>Despite widespread fears about immigrants being a burden, even those arriving as asylum applicants are more likely to work than the US-born population.Ramya Vijaya, Professor of Economics, Stockton UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/2230722024-02-13T13:21:23Z2024-02-13T13:21:23ZImmigration reform has always been tough, and rarely happens in election years - 4 things to know<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/575094/original/file-20240212-24-rrmn75.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Migrants cross the border from Mexico into Texas on Feb. 6, 2024. </span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.gettyimages.com/detail/news-photo/migrants-cross-the-border-to-usa-through-gate-36-and-to-be-news-photo/1983631787?adppopup=true">Christian Torres/Anadolu via Getty Images</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>Immigration is already a major polarizing issue in the 2024 U.S. presidential election. Arrests for <a href="https://apnews.com/article/immigration-border-crossings-mexico-biden-18ac91ef502e0c5433f74de6cc629b32">illegal border crossings</a> from Mexico reached an all-time high in December 2023, and cities like New York and Chicago are struggling to provide housing and basic services for tens of thousands of <a href="https://www.texastribune.org/2024/01/04/texas-migrants-new-york-bus-companies-lawsuit/#:%7E:text=As%20of%20Dec.,33%2C600%20migrants%20to%20New%20York.">migrants arriving from Texas</a>. </p>
<p>In early February 2024, a group of senators <a href="https://www.reuters.com/world/us/us-senate-unveils-118-billion-bipartisan-bill-tighten-border-security-aid-2024-02-04/">proposed new immigration legislation</a> that would have slowed the migrant influx at the border. The bill would have made it harder for migrants to both apply for and receive asylum, which is the legal right to stay in the U.S. because of fear of persecution if they return back home. <a href="https://apnews.com/article/congress-border-deal-rejected-lankford-immigration-045fdf42d42b26270ee1f5f73e8bc1b0">But the bill</a>, like others proposed in recent years, quickly faltered after Republicans opposed it. </p>
<p>This is far from the first time that Democrats and Republicans have failed to pass legislation that was intended to improve the country’s immigration system. </p>
<p>I am a <a href="https://scholar.google.com/citations?user=Y1qVRfUAAAAJ&hl=en">scholar of immigration and refugee policy</a>. Here are four key reasons why meaningful immigration policy change has been so difficult to achieve – and why it remains a pipe dream:</p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/575096/original/file-20240212-20-e4zl2t.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="People wearing dark clothing and jackets reach for and hold bags of bread." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/575096/original/file-20240212-20-e4zl2t.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/575096/original/file-20240212-20-e4zl2t.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/575096/original/file-20240212-20-e4zl2t.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/575096/original/file-20240212-20-e4zl2t.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/575096/original/file-20240212-20-e4zl2t.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/575096/original/file-20240212-20-e4zl2t.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/575096/original/file-20240212-20-e4zl2t.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Newly arrived migrants receive a meal from a church in Manhattan on Jan. 24, 2024. According to New York Mayor Eric Adams’ administration, 172,400 migrants have arrived in the city since the spring of 2022.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.gettyimages.com/detail/news-photo/people-mostly-newly-arrived-migrants-receive-an-afternoon-news-photo/1958071905?adppopup=true">Spencer Platt/Getty Images</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<h2>1. Immigration reform has always been hard</h2>
<p>The U.S. has faced major roadblocks every time it has tried to achieve immigration reform. </p>
<p>For decades after World War II, presidents, lawmakers and activists tried and failed to revamp the nation’s immigration system to remove <a href="https://www.hachettebookgroup.com/titles/erika-lee/america-for-americans/9781541672598/?lens=basic-books">racist quotas based on national origin</a>, set in the 1920s, that restricted all but northern and western Europeans from immigrating to the U.S. </p>
<p>Change finally came in 1965, when Congress passed the <a href="https://www.uscis.gov/laws-and-policy/legislation/immigration-and-nationality-act">Immigration and Nationality Act</a>. This required extensive negotiations. The final bipartisan bargain <a href="https://www.npr.org/2015/10/03/445339838/the-unintended-consequences-of-the-1965-immigration-act">removed racist quotas but appeased those who wanted to restrict immigration</a> by prioritizing new immigrants’ connections to family already in the country – a preference that lawmakers thought would favor Europeans.</p>
<p>The <a href="https://press.princeton.edu/books/paperback/9780691088051/dividing-lines">last big immigration reform</a> happened in 1986, when Congress passed the <a href="https://guides.loc.gov/latinx-civil-rights/irca">Immigration Reform and Control Act</a>. Year after year, throughout the 1970s and 1980s, Congressional bills to address the porous border with Mexico and the undocumented immigrant population living in the country went nowhere. After many false starts, an uneasy Left-Right majority finally agreed in 1986 on a package that sanctioned employers who hired undocumented immigrants, provided legal status to roughly 3 million undocumented migrants, created a new farmworker program, and increased border security resources.</p>
<p>For almost four decades, Washington has been stuck in neutral on this issue.</p>
<h2>2. The US is more polarized on immigration than ever before</h2>
<p>Americans have been at odds over how to handle immigration since the nation’s founding. But partisan and ideological polarization over border control and immigrants’ rights <a href="https://press.uchicago.edu/ucp/books/book/chicago/R/bo221112082.html">is greater today</a> than any other time.</p>
<p>Over the past 20 years, <a href="https://global.oup.com/academic/product/the-politics-of-immigration-9780190235307?cc=us&lang=en&">Democratic and Republican voters</a> and politicians alike became more firmly <a href="https://press.uchicago.edu/ucp/books/book/chicago/R/bo28424644.html">aligned with rival</a> pro- and anti-immigration rights movements.</p>
<p>In 2008, 46% of Republicans and 39% of Democrats said they thought immigration to the U.S. <a href="https://news.gallup.com/poll/395882/immigration-views-remain-mixed-highly-partisan.aspx">should be decreased</a>. In 2023, GOP support for decreased immigration soared to 73%, compared with just 18% of Democrats who said they wanted that. Today, Republicans are almost three times as likely as Democrats to see unauthorized immigration as a very big national problem – <a href="https://www.pewresearch.org/politics/2023/06/21/inflation-health-costs-partisan-cooperation-among-the-nations-top-problems/">70% versus 25%</a>.</p>
<p>Despite growing polarization, leaders from both parties have tried a few times in recent decades to work together on bipartisan reform. </p>
<p>In 2006, former President George W. Bush, a Republican, joined Senators Edward Kennedy, a Democrat, John McCain, a member of the GOP, and other lawmakers in a coalition that pushed for comprehensive immigration reform. Like the 1986 reform, their proposal included stronger border security measures, a path to legalization for undocumented immigrants and a new, expansive program for employers to legally host foreign workers. </p>
<p>Right-wing pundits and anti-immigrant activists vigorously mobilized <a href="https://cis.org/Historical-Overview-Immigration-Policy">against the legislation,</a> and the GOP-controlled House of Representatives killed the bill.</p>
<p>In 2013, a <a href="https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2013/06/24/getting-to-maybe">bipartisan group of politicians called the “Gang of Eight”</a> spearheaded a new reform. Their bill reflected a familiar package: a new path to citizenship for undocumented immigrants, more work visas for skilled foreign immigrants, and a guest worker program. The <a href="https://www.politico.com/story/2013/06/immigration-bill-2013-senate-passes-093530">Senate passed the legislation</a>, but the <a href="https://www.salon.com/2007/06/26/immigration_22/">measure then died</a> in the House. The Republican majority there refused to vote on what they considered an amnesty bill.</p>
<p>Partisan warfare over immigration reached a fevered pitch during the Donald Trump presidency. Liberals, for example, rallied against Trump’s <a href="https://www.theatlantic.com/photo/2017/01/a-weekend-of-protest-against-trumps-immigration-ban/514953/">ban on immigrants from some Muslim countries</a>, and conservatives fretted over <a href="https://www.newyorker.com/news/news-desk/donald-trump-the-migrant-caravan-and-a-manufactured-crisis-at-the-us-border">caravans of migrants crossing into the country</a>. </p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/575364/original/file-20240213-30-wm3195.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="Kyrsten Sinema wears a red dress and red framed glasses and gestures with her hands, while people stand around her and hold out phones and tape recorders." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/575364/original/file-20240213-30-wm3195.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/575364/original/file-20240213-30-wm3195.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=410&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/575364/original/file-20240213-30-wm3195.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=410&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/575364/original/file-20240213-30-wm3195.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=410&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/575364/original/file-20240213-30-wm3195.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=516&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/575364/original/file-20240213-30-wm3195.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=516&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/575364/original/file-20240213-30-wm3195.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=516&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">US Senator Kyrsten Sinema, one of the co-sponsors of the Senate bi-partisan border and immigration bill, speaks to reporters in Washington, D.C., on Feb. 5, 2024.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.gettyimages.com/detail/news-photo/sen-kyrsten-sinema-speaks-to-reporters-at-the-u-s-capitol-news-photo/1988744214?adppopup=true">Kevin Dietsch/Getty Images</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<h2>3. There’s little bipartisan agreement over what the problem actually is</h2>
<p>Most Americans generally agree that the nation’s immigration system is broken. Yet different political groups cannot agree on what exactly is wrong and how to solve it.</p>
<p>For some Republicans, including former Trump, the problem is lax border control and permissive policies that allow dangerous migrants to enter and stay in the country. Right-wing politicians and commentators, like Tucker Carlson, have exploited these anxieties, warning that large-scale immigration will <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2022/05/15/us/replacement-theory-shooting-tucker-carlson.html">“replace” white Americans</a>. Their solution is to militarize the nation’s borders, deport undocumented immigrants living in the country, and make it harder for people to legally stay in the country. </p>
<p><a href="https://www.hoover.org/research/mobility-socialism-how-anti-immigration-politics-advances-socialism-and-impedes-capitalism">There are also conservatives</a> who think immigration is consistent with the principles of individual liberty, entrepreneurship and national economic growth. They support more visas for highly skilled newcomers, especially those with strong science and technology backgrounds.</p>
<p>Democrats <a href="https://www.pewresearch.org/short-reads/2022/09/08/republicans-and-democrats-have-different-top-priorities-for-u-s-immigration-policy/">aligned with the immigrant rights</a> movement believe that the country is obliged to address the humanitarian needs of migrants seeking asylum at the southern border. They argue that millions of undocumented people <a href="https://www.ucpress.edu/book/9780520287266/lives-in-limbo">living in the shadows</a> of American life creates an undemocratic caste system, and they think this can be solved by creating pathways for most undocumented immigrants to get legal permanent residency. </p>
<p>Moderate Democrats <a href="https://www.azcentral.com/story/opinion/op-ed/laurieroberts/2024/02/07/kyrsten-sinema-border-bill-impact-arizona-election/72509061007/">advocate tougher restrictions to address migrant surges</a> that overwhelm Border Patrol agents and other officials along the U.S.-Mexican border. Their solutions include hiring thousands of new immigration officers, strengthening physical and technological barriers along the border, and making the asylum program more efficient. </p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/575097/original/file-20240212-16-pkh45o.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="Joe Biden wears dark sunglasses and a suit and walks, in front of men in green uniforms, along a large fence. The sun shines through it." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/575097/original/file-20240212-16-pkh45o.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/575097/original/file-20240212-16-pkh45o.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/575097/original/file-20240212-16-pkh45o.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/575097/original/file-20240212-16-pkh45o.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/575097/original/file-20240212-16-pkh45o.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/575097/original/file-20240212-16-pkh45o.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/575097/original/file-20240212-16-pkh45o.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">President Joe Biden walks along the U.S.-Mexico border fence in January 2023 in El Paso, Texas.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.gettyimages.com/detail/news-photo/president-joe-biden-walks-along-the-us-mexico-border-fence-news-photo/1246095870?adppopup=true">Jim Watson/AFP via Getty Images</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<h2>4. Immigration reform is especially messy in a presidential election year</h2>
<p>Presidential election years are fertile ground for politicking on immigrants and borders, but not lasting policy reform.</p>
<p>In 2021, President Joe Biden and his supporters introduced an <a href="https://www.azcentral.com/story/opinion/op-ed/laurieroberts/2024/02/07/kyrsten-sinema-border-bill-impact-arizona-election/72509061007/">immigration bill</a> that would offer a pathway to legal residency for nearly all undocumented immigrants. But the measure never gained the 60 votes necessary to win passage in the Senate. </p>
<p>Now, Biden finds himself <a href="https://thehill.com/homenews/administration/4394262-biden-approval-rating-on-handling-immigration-reaches-all-time-low-poll/">underwater with voters, including Democrats, on immigration</a> and the perceived chaos at the border. </p>
<p>Eager to protect themselves in the 2024 election and to alleviate the headaches that migrant surges at the border present, Biden and other top Democrats temporarily set aside past blueprints for legalizing undocumented people and <a href="https://www.reuters.com/world/us/us-senate-unveils-118-billion-bipartisan-bill-tighten-border-security-aid-2024-02-04/">joined Republican negotiators</a> in advancing one of the <a href="https://www.wsj.com/politics/policy/border-deal-to-cut-illegal-immigration-is-released-after-months-of-talks-26a66211">toughest border security measures</a> in decades. This bill, which the Senate introduced on Feb. 5, 2024, would have dedicated US$20.2 billion to strengthen border security, and it would have made it much harder for immigrants to apply for or receive asylum. </p>
<p>Republican border hawks had long demanded more restrictive immigration rules. But they did not embrace this deal. When Trump eviscerated the legislation, intent on keeping problems at the border as a campaign issue, Republican members of Congress lined up to quickly kill the legislation.</p>
<p>The death of the bipartisan Senate border deal is a triumph of election-year grandstanding over governing. Yet its demise also reflects a much longer trend of ideological conflict and partisan warfare that has made congressional gridlock on immigration reform a defining feature of contemporary American politics.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/223072/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Daniel Tichenor does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organization that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>Immigration reform has always been hard to accomplish. As the U.S. enters an election year, bipartisan reform now appears out of reach.Daniel Tichenor, Professor of Political Science, University of OregonLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/2214872024-01-28T13:53:49Z2024-01-28T13:53:49ZHow art can challenge election-time rhetoric about immigrants<iframe style="width: 100%; height: 100px; border: none; position: relative; z-index: 1;" allowtransparency="" allow="clipboard-read; clipboard-write" src="https://narrations.ad-auris.com/widget/the-conversation-canada/how-art-can-challenge-election-time-rhetoric-about-immigrants" width="100%" height="400"></iframe>
<p>The coming year is expected to be one of <a href="https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2024/1/4/the-year-of-elections-is-2024-democracys-biggest-test-ever">unprecedented election activity</a> worldwide. And as politicians gear up for the polls, immigrants are being pushed into the spotlight. </p>
<p>In the United States, Donald Trump has vowed to <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2023/oct/17/trump-muslim-ban-gaza-refugees">expand his Muslim ban and bar Palestinian refugees from Gaza</a> if he is re-elected. </p>
<p>In Germany, anti-immigration rhetoric has been on the rise ahead of <a href="https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2024/1/21/whats-behind-mass-protests-against-germanys-far-right-afd-party">regional elections</a> later this year. Protests erupted recently after reports of <a href="https://www.dw.com/en/german-remigration-debate-fuels-push-to-ban-far-right-afd/a-67965896">a mass-deportation plan by far-right political parties</a>. This would see the expulsion of asylum seekers, permitted residents, as well as citizens who are viewed as not integrating into society.</p>
<p>Foreshadowing an election in fall, a government bill in the United Kingdom enabling deportation of asylum seekers to Rwanda is linked to <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/politics/live/2024/jan/18/rishi-sunak-press-conference-rwanda-bill-conservatives-labour-fujitsu-post-office-horizon-uk-politics-latest?filterKeyEvents=false&page=with:block-65a956cf8f082472faf423f4#block-65a956cf8f082472faf423f4">inaccurate public perceptions</a> of immigration dominated by illegal entry into the country. </p>
<p>This situation challenges artists alongside journalists and media makers to represent the complexity of immigration realities with respect and accuracy. </p>
<h2>Immigration and electioneering</h2>
<p>Though not scheduled until October 2025, a Canadian election in 2024 could be added to the long list of countries going to the polls this year, alongside the U.S., Mexico, Pakistan, India, Indonesia, Ghana, South Africa, as well as elections in the European Union parliament. </p>
<p>Anxieties over immigration and housing availability are <a href="https://theconversation.com/whats-behind-the-dramatic-shift-in-canadian-public-opinion-about-immigration-levels-219193">rising in public discourse</a>. British Columbia Premier David Eby, who is expected to face the electorate for the first time as leader in 2024, has already expressed immigration concerns. “The anxiety I have is that the numbers are such that we can’t support these folks,” <a href="https://www.cbc.ca/listen/live-radio/1-91-the-early-edition/clip/16033140-is-canadian-dream-dead?share=true">Eby told the CBC</a> in a recent interview. </p>
<p>In 2016, I began a long-range art project called <a href="https://lightfactorypublications.ca/rml/rml-about/">Reading the Migration Library (RML)</a> at a similar time when election-related anti-immigration rhetoric was reaching a fever pitch in the U.S. </p>
<p>Trump’s campaign for the presidency pushed hard on immigration including promises to fortify the southern border with an impenetrable wall. Researching the responses of artists to human rights abuses at the time, I learned from human rights workers in San Diego, Tijuana, New Mexico, Texas, and Juarez of the direct link between border fortification and an <a href="https://missingmigrants.iom.int/region/americas">increasing death rate</a> of asylum seekers.</p>
<p>Also fresh in my mind at the time was the impact that a journalistic image had on public discourse during the Canadian 2015 election. That year the photo of two-year-old Syrian boy <a href="https://www.npr.org/sections/goatsandsoda/2018/08/31/642952840/an-aunts-memoir-remembering-the-drowned-syrian-boy-on-the-beach">Alan Kurdi</a>’s lifeless body on the shore of the Mediterranean Sea deflated anti-immigration election rhetoric and resulted in Liberal <a href="https://www.cbc.ca/news/politics/syria-migrants-canada-drowned-migrants-leaders-respond-1.3213878">campaign promises</a> to increase the number of Syrian refugees admitted into Canada. </p>
<p>There was much <a href="https://doi.org/10.1177/1741659016672716">critical reflection</a> on the <a href="https://www.fmreview.org/sites/default/files/FMRdownloads/en/ethics/ethics.pdf">ethical challenge</a> presented by photos that pictured refugees in states of extreme vulnerability. </p>
<h2>Reading the Migration Library</h2>
<p>Since then, RML worked as a form of scholarly research-creation aimed at diversifying representations of migration and immigration from the perspective of individuals and their families or communities. RML invites artists, writers and community groups to produce artworks and short texts that explore displacement, diaspora or migration from the perspective of those with lived experience. </p>
<p>Some describe how the asylum process is experienced by detainees (<a href="https://lightfactorypublications.ca/rml-books/rml-notas-sobre-un-recorrido/"><em>Notes on a Tour: the El Paso Processing Center</em></a>). Others lament the internal and external displacement experienced by Ghanaians (<a href="https://lightfactorypublications.ca/rml-books/on-loss-two-poems-from-ghana/"><em>On Loss: Two Poems from Ghana</em></a>, <a href="https://lightfactorypublications.ca/rml-books/walking-on-water/"><em>Walking on Water</em></a>, <a href="https://lightfactorypublications.ca/rml-books/we-are-moulting-birds/"><em>We are Moulting Birds</em></a>), to memoirs about the impact of the British Home Children schemes (<a href="https://lightfactorypublications.ca/rml-books/charlie-henry-workman-1897-1976-the-unspoken/"><em>The Unspoken</em></a> and <a href="https://lightfactorypublications.ca/rml-books/henry-frederick-terry-1907-1980-i-remember/"><em>I Remember</em></a>). </p>
<figure>
<iframe src="https://player.vimeo.com/video/650706735" width="500" height="281" frameborder="0" webkitallowfullscreen="" mozallowfullscreen="" allowfullscreen=""></iframe>
<figcaption><span class="caption">Ghana-based poet Epifania Amoo-Adare reads from the publication <em>On Loss: Two Poems from Ghana</em></span></figcaption>
</figure>
<p>In the current phase of the project, <a href="https://lightfactorypublications.ca/artists-authors/deanne-achong/">Deanne Achong</a> and I are co-hosting artists who will address aspects of diaspora and mobility, including travel on Indigenous territories. Achong’s RML publication, <a href="https://lightfactorypublications.ca/rml-books/workin-for-the-yankee-dollar/"><em>Workin’ for the Yankee Dollar</em></a>, uses creatively altered family photos to represent the impact of a cultural and military invasion of Trinidad by the United States in the 1940s. </p>
<p>These included the appropriation and exportation of Lord Invader’s (Rupert Grant) Calypso song, Rum and Coca-Cola. In the RML project artists are challenged to publicly present creative responses to often hidden impacts of migration.</p>
<h2>Representing migrant stories</h2>
<p>I have learned from RML participants that people with immigration experience face demands to demonstrate their legitimacy to the country repeatedly through identity checks, immigration hearings and questioning over their place of origin. </p>
<p>Often, they are viewed by immigration and border officials with suspicion and essentially made to prove their innocence. It is an understatement to say that they carry an unfair burden of identification. At the same time, they are expected to demonstrate immediate and enthusiastic allegiance to the adopted country and culture. </p>
<p>The expectation for refugees to demonstrate gratitude for asylum, and for immigrants to show positive appreciation for their new country, is particularly problematic during times like elections when anti-immigration discourse threatens their safety and trust in the new country. </p>
<p>For Guatemalan artist Francisco-Fernando Granados, the evidentiary burden of his family’s long refugee adjudication is one that he chooses to refuse in art. In the <a href="https://publicationstudio.biz/books/who-claims-abstraction/">manifesto-like statement</a> “Propositions on minor abstraction” that accompanies the exhibit, <a href="https://www.sfu.ca/galleries/teck-gallery/who-claims-abstraction-.html"><em>who claims abstraction?</em></a>, Granados wonders “how experiences of displacement and other unspeakable moments can be presented in a critical manner, without being stereotyped or universalized.”</p>
<p>For Granados abstract art is a creative solution that challenges viewers to recognize his right, despite refugee history, to create a public image. <em>who claims abstraction?</em> is made up of a pair of digitally-drawn murals showing ribbons of colour in skin and landscape tones. A selection of abstract art by other queer and BIPOC artists from Simon Fraser University’s collection is also on view to expand Granados’s statement.</p>
<p>Elections by their nature put national and government identity under scrutiny. Politicians often unfairly displace that scrutiny by shifting onto those who are least able to defend themselves, the poor, homeless and of course, immigrants.</p>
<p><a href="https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/british-columbia/b-c-premier-david-eby-trumpets-transformative-housing-initiatives-as-he-looks-back-on-2023-1.7067997">In Eby’s 2023 year-end interview</a> his “huge level of anxiety for the [population] growth that we are seeing in British Columbia” referred to foreign workers in service delivery, skilled immigrants, as well as international students. The diversity of these roles reflects overlapping government responsibilities and complex cultural conditions. </p>
<p>Election times threaten to narrow the meaning of immigration to the detriment of public safety, human rights and democracy. In these times, artists’ reflections on migration are a vital way to publicly assert the reality and diversity of what it means to be an immigrant today.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/221487/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Lois Klassen receives funding from the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada. As the artist-host of "Reading the Migration Library" Klassen receives funding from the Canada Council for the Arts and British Columbia Arts Council.</span></em></p>2024 is expected to be a year of elections around the world, and as often happens, anti-immigrant rhetoric is on the rise. Art can play a critical role in challenging that rhetoric.Lois Klassen, SSHRC Postdoctoral Fellow, Critical Media Art Studio (cMAS), Simon Fraser UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/2217882024-01-25T12:21:00Z2024-01-25T12:21:00ZIreland’s asylum debate has turned violent thanks to the spread of misinformation and disinformation<p>The issue of asylum in Ireland has become increasingly contentious and fraught over the past year. Taoiseach Leo Varadkar has said arrests will be made after a spate of arson attacks against <a href="https://www.irishtimes.com/politics/2024/01/18/varadkar-says-there-will-be-arrests-over-recent-arson-attacks-on-asylum-seeker-accommodation/#:%7E:text=Taoiseach%20Leo%20Varadkar%20has%20said,them%20having%20occurred%20in%202023.">properties linked to housing asylum seekers</a>. </p>
<p>Protests have been held outside hotels and shelters across the country. And, notoriously, the riots that took place in Dublin in November 2023 were sparked by <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2023/nov/27/dublin-riots-far-right-ireland-anti-immigrant">claims spread on social media</a> that several violent stabbings in the city centre were carried out by an immigrant – who turned out to be a naturalised citizen. </p>
<p>A perfect storm has unfolded in Ireland in recent years. The number of asylum seekers has increased sharply <a href="https://ipo.gov.ie/en/IPO/20240109%20IPO%20Website%20Statistics%20Report%20Dec%202023%20FINAL.pdf/Files/20240109%20IPO%20Website%20Statistics%20Report%20Dec%202023%20FINAL.pdf">(to over 13,000 per year in the past two years)</a> and many Ukrainians have sought temporary protection <a href="https://ec.europa.eu/eurostat/statistics-explained/index.php?oldid=594548">(about 100,000 since the war began)</a>. All the while, Ireland has been experiencing a housing crisis. Record numbers of Irish people are in emergency accommodation and there has been a surge in <a href="https://homelessnessinireland.ie/homelessness-in-ireland/">rough sleeping</a>. </p>
<p>This creates the impression that asylum seekers may somehow be responsible for the housing crisis or competing with Irish people for scarce resources. That’s certainly an impression that has been cleverly seized on by the far right, which has been spreading damaging tropes and seeking to capitalise on protests by local communities against the opening of <a href="https://tippfm.com/news/community/far-right-protestors-told-leave-roscrea-ipa-protest/">new asylum reception centres</a>. This is therefore a good moment to dispel some of the leading myths.</p>
<h2>‘The inn is full’</h2>
<p>When a County Galway hotel that was due to accommodate asylum seekers was set on fire in December, a local Fianna Fáil councillor <a href="https://www.irishmirror.ie/news/irish-news/politics/fianna-fil-councillor-states-inn-31696793">said</a> that “the inn is full”. The councillor has been reported to his party over the comments but not before he’d already given the impression that Ireland is inundated with asylum seekers.</p>
<p>There has been a marked increase in the number of people claiming asylum in Ireland over the past two years, placing Ireland for the first time in the top half of EU member states as an asylum destination. However, Ireland received just 1.4% of the almost 1 million people applying for asylum in EU countries in 2022. By contrast, Germany, France, Spain, Austria and Italy received, between them, almost <a href="https://ec.europa.eu/eurostat/databrowser/view/tps00191/default/table?lang=en&category=t_migr.t_migr_asy">75% of asylum applications</a>. When further compared with impoverished <a href="https://www.unhcr.org/countries/bangladesh">asylum-hosting countries</a>, any suggestion that Ireland is overburdened does not hold up.</p>
<h2>‘Asylum seekers are causing the housing crisis’</h2>
<p>Given the accommodation crisis in Ireland, it is understandable that some people think asylum seekers are competing with Irish citizens for scarce resources. However, the two problems – the accommodation crisis facing Irish people and the accommodation crisis facing asylum seekers – are distinct from one another, even if they overlap. </p>
<p>The former problem is linked to successive government policies relating to homelessness, housing delivery, planning laws, house and rent prices and support for buyers and renters. The latter problem is a product of direct provision.</p>
<p><a href="https://www.citizensinformation.ie/en/moving-country/asylum-seekers-and-refugees/services-for-asylum-seekers-in-ireland/direct-provision/#1cebfb">Direct provision</a> is the Irish system of asylum accommodation that has existed since 2000, whereby private contractors profit enormously from providing bed and board to asylum seekers. </p>
<p>The accommodation is often overcrowded, the environment unsafe for children, the food unnourishing and the general conditions a risk to <a href="https://www.irishtimes.com/life-and-style/i-live-in-direct-provision-it-s-a-devastating-system-and-it-has-thrown-away-millions-1.4291670">mental health</a>. Direct provision has been the subject of numerous critical domestic and <a href="https://www.ihrec.ie/app/uploads/2020/01/Submission-to-the-UN-Committee-against-Torture-on-the-List-of-Issues-for-the-Third-Examination-of-Ireland.pdf">international reports</a>, not one but two major <a href="https://www.gov.ie/pdf/?file=https://assets.gov.ie/93410/d5f81351-2c06-4d50-bfe7-beaa74203a80.pdf#page=null">government reviews</a> and a government <a href="https://www.gov.ie/en/publication/7aad0-minister-ogorman-publishes-the-white-paper-on-ending-direct-provision/">white paper</a>. </p>
<p>The weekly allowance paid to asylum seekers places them below the poverty line (€38.80 per week per adult, €29.80 per child). Since the government relies on the private market for supply, it cannot guarantee that enough people will be able to get direct provision places. As a result, asylum seekers are also placed in emergency accommodation or, increasingly, have to sleep rough <a href="https://www.gov.ie/en/publication/e202e-statistics-on-international-protection-applicants-not-offered-accommodation/">(more than 600 asylum seekers are currently on the streets)</a>.</p>
<p>And yet nothing has been done to dismantle direct provision and replace it with something else. Indeed, only since the issue has gained prominence in recent weeks have tangible alternatives been advanced by government ministers. </p>
<p>The idea of a number (perhaps six) state-owned reception centres has been mooted. While this would be an improvement on private service providers, questions remain about how a public system would work, particularly in light of Ireland’s history of institutional care, such as in <a href="https://theconversation.com/mother-and-baby-homes-inquiry-now-reveal-the-secrets-of-irelands-psychiatric-hospitals-153608">Magdalene laundries</a> and <a href="https://www.jstor.org/stable/23724481">industrial schools</a>.</p>
<h2>‘Asylum seekers are dangerous’</h2>
<p>Asylum seekers, and particularly single young men, are often perceived as a <a href="https://www.irishtimes.com/opinion/2023/02/04/jennifer-oconnell-why-is-the-government-perpetuating-tropes-about-single-male-asylum-seekers/">dangerous group</a>. Their undocumented status and gender make them highly suspect.</p>
<p>Many asylum seekers are indeed undocumented – but not by choice. They end up that way because EU countries including Ireland place asylum-producing countries on visa blacklists, so people coming from those countries will probably be denied a visa.</p>
<p>It is no surprise, then, that asylum seekers have to enter the state on false or fraudulent documentation or via clandestine means, on boats and in shipping containers. Nonetheless, once they claim asylum, extensive checks are done, including cross-checking fingerprints with various EU databases. </p>
<p>Nor is the gender of asylum seekers relevant. In fact, because of conditions in their country of origin and during the perilous journey to get here, many asylum-seeking men are likely to have been victims of criminality and human rights abuses. </p>
<p>The main criminal acts linked to asylum are the trespass and public order offences associated with the protests against new asylum centres, the arson attacks, the intimidation of asylum seekers and the spreading of lies about this vulnerable group.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/221788/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Ciara Smyth does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>Tension has boiled over into threats of violence and suspicious fires at hotels accommodating asylum seekers.Ciara Smyth, Assistant Professor, School of Law, University of GalwayLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/2207412024-01-19T13:41:25Z2024-01-19T13:41:25ZThe US is struggling to handle an immigration surge – here’s how Europe is dealing with its own influx<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/570216/original/file-20240118-29-pkmecl.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Workers from the Spanish nonprofit Open Waters rescue 178 migrants from different countries, off the coast of Italy in September 2023. </span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.gettyimages.com/detail/news-photo/migrants-of-different-14-nationalities-are-rescued-by-the-news-photo/1698787922?adppopup=true">Jose Colon/Anadolu Agency via Getty Images</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>As record-high numbers of <a href="https://www.smithsonianmag.com/history/1924-law-slammed-door-immigrants-and-politicians-who-pushed-it-back-open-180974910/">undocumented migrants</a> cross the United States-Mexico border illegally, one key question is how the U.S. got into this situation, and what lessons can be learned from how other countries respond to <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2024/01/04/us/border-eagle-pass-ambulance-workers.html?action=click&pgtype=Article&state=default&module=styln-us-immigration&variant=show&region=MAIN_CONTENT_1&block=storyline_top_links_recirc">border security</a> and immigration problems. </p>
<p>Having worked <a href="https://fletcher.tufts.edu/people/faculty/tara-sonenshine">both inside the U.S. government</a> and in the private sector, I have observed the growing importance of welcoming foreign citizens to one’s country for <a href="https://www.cbpp.org/research/immigrants-contribute-greatly-to-us-economy-despite-administrations-public-charge-rule">improving economic growth</a>, scientific advancement, labor supply and cultural awareness. </p>
<p>But migrants entering and staying in the U.S. without visas or proper documentation can create problems – for the <a href="https://www.kff.org/racial-equity-and-health-policy/press-release/immigrants-overwhelmingly-say-they-and-their-children-are-better-off-in-the-us-but-many-also-report-substantial-discrimination-and-challenges-a-new-kff-los-angeles-times-survey-reveals/">migrants themselves</a>, and for overtaxed governments that lack the ability to quickly process asylum cases in <a href="https://www.gao.gov/blog/u.s.-immigration-courts-see-significant-and-growing-backlog#:%7E:text=This%20backlog%20has%20more%20than,immigration%20judges%20and%20court%20staff.">immigration courts</a>, for example, or to <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2024/01/17/nyregion/migrants-shelter-snow-nyc.html">provide temporary shelter</a> and other basic services for large numbers of arriving migrants. These strains are happening now in many places in the U.S.</p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/570214/original/file-20240118-27-na6vez.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="A black and white photo shows a large crowd of people, mostly men wearing hats, crowded on the second story of a small boat, which is coked." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/570214/original/file-20240118-27-na6vez.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/570214/original/file-20240118-27-na6vez.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=452&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/570214/original/file-20240118-27-na6vez.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=452&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/570214/original/file-20240118-27-na6vez.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=452&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/570214/original/file-20240118-27-na6vez.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=568&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/570214/original/file-20240118-27-na6vez.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=568&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/570214/original/file-20240118-27-na6vez.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=568&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Immigrants arrive at Ellis Island in 1923, one year before Congress reformed immigration laws in the U.S., making it harder to enter the country.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.gettyimages.com/detail/news-photo/immigrants-arriving-at-ellis-island-aboard-the-machigonne-news-photo/171811445?adppopup=true">Underwood & Underwood/Underwood Archives/Getty Images</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<h2>U.S. immigration trends</h2>
<p>In 1924, after decades of the U.S. welcoming foreign-born citizens to its shores, Congress passed the Immigration Act, <a href="https://history.state.gov/milestones/1921-1936/immigration-act#:%7E:text=The%20Immigration%20Act%20of%201924%20limited%20the%20number%20of%20immigrants,of%20the%201890%20national%20census">restricting the numbers</a> and types of people who could legally enter and stay in the U.S. </p>
<p>That legislation ushered in even more xenophobia and division in the U.S. over the ethnic origins of immigrants – cutting <a href="https://www.smithsonianmag.com/history/1924-law-slammed-door-immigrants-and-politicians-who-pushed-it-back-open-180974910">off large-scale immigration</a>, especially from <a href="https://history.state.gov/milestones/1921-1936/immigration-act">Europe and Asia</a>, until jobs needed to be filled – and there weren’t enough people in the U.S. to fill them. </p>
<p>In the 1960s, immigration laws were reformed again, ushering in waves of immigration from Asia because the U.S. needed people to work at unfilled jobs.</p>
<p>Today, once again, some U.S. politicians are pushing for new ways to <a href="https://theconversation.com/republicans-are-pushing-for-drastic-asylum-changes-an-immigration-law-scholar-breaks-down-the-proposal-219173">restrict immigration</a>. Much of their work focuses on making it harder for migrants to get asylum – meaning legal permission to remain in the U.S. if they have a legitimate fear of persecution in their home countries. </p>
<p>Overall, U.S. border officials encountered more than 1.1 million people <a href="https://www.cbp.gov/newsroom/stats/cbp-enforcement-statistics">illegally crossing</a> the U.S. border from April 2022 through March 2023 – a sharp rise from previous years, when the number of people illegally crossing each year hovered at less than 300,000. </p>
<p>U.S. authorities are now <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/immigration/2023/12/29/immigrants-ice-border-deportations-2023/#">stepping up deportations</a>, quickly sending more undocumented people back to their home countries.</p>
<h2>A shifting response to immigration</h2>
<p>Globally, <a href="https://www.ft.com/content/e1cabc36-d050-4674-a16c-fff60c548174">international migration to rich countries</a> reached an all-time high in 2022. </p>
<p>So, how do other countries, including Canada and Germany, respond to migrants crossing their borders without a visa or proper documentation? </p>
<p>One answer has been to reform their <a href="https://www.wsj.com/articles/the-worlds-biggest-economies-cautiously-open-their-doors-to-more-foreign-workers-664c3549">immigration systems</a> to make deportation easier.</p>
<p>Germany, for example, has been wrestling with increases in <a href="https://www.dw.com/en/germany-illegal-immigration-set-to-exceed-record-high/a-67175099">undocumented immigration</a>. </p>
<p>Germany Chancellor Olaf Scholz announced <a href="https://www.dw.com/en/german-immigration-policy-whats-changing-in-2024/a-67753472">at the end of 2023</a> that he supports <a href="https://www.bmi.bund.de/EN/topics/migration/illegal-entry/illegal-entry-node.html">large-scale deportations</a> for migrants who are rejected for asylum. </p>
<p>Germany deported close to 8,000 people, many of them fleeing the war in Ukraine, in the first part of 2023. In total, an estimated <a href="https://www.dw.com/en/germany-illegal-immigration-set-to-exceed-record-high/a-67175099#:%7E:text=Police%20data%20shows%20that%2092%2C119,that%20illegally%20entered%20in%202016.">92,119 immigrants entered</a> Germany illegally from January through September 2023. </p>
<p>New German <a href="https://www.dw.com/en/german-immigration-policy-whats-changing-in-2024/a-67753472#:%7E:text=A%20reform%2C%20dubbed%20the%20Repatriation,their%20property%2C%20such%20as%20phones">government reforms</a> will increase that figure and no longer require officials to announce deportations in advance. </p>
<p>Italy, which is also battling a huge influx of undocumented <a href="https://www.reuters.com/world/europe/what-lies-behind-italys-immigration-crisis-2023-09-13/">migrants from North Africa,</a> recently <a href="https://www.reuters.com/world/europe/italy-pass-tougher-measures-deter-migrant-arrivals-2023-09-18/">doubled the amount</a> of time that it can detain undocumented migrants, rising from three months to at least six months. This decision is seen as an <a href="https://www.france24.com/en/europe/20230918-italy-extends-detention-period-to-deter-migrant-crossings-after-lampedusa-surge">effort to deter more migrants</a> from illegally entering Italy. </p>
<p>In November 2023, Italy signed an agreement <a href="https://www.cnn.com/2023/11/07/europe/italy-albania-migrant-refugee-deal/index.html">to build two new immigration detention centers</a> across the Adriatic Sea in Albania. </p>
<p>This allows Italy to skirt a European Union policy that requires its member countries to consider and process all <a href="https://home-affairs.ec.europa.eu/policies/migration-and-asylum/common-european-asylum-system/country-responsible-asylum-application-dublin-regulation_en">asylum applicants’ requests</a> within a year of their arrival. Since Albania is not part of the European Union, it could quickly deport the migrants that Italy sends there. </p>
<p>In December 2023, the European Union’s 27 countries also <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2023/12/20/world/europe/eu-migration-asylum.html">voted on a major overhaul of asylum laws</a>. These changes will make it easier for countries to deport migrants who fail to get asylum. They also direct the European Union to give money to countries that allow more asylum seekers to stay in those countries. </p>
<h2>Other approaches</h2>
<p>Right now, Italy and Greece bear much of the brunt of migration in the EU.</p>
<p>More than <a href="https://www.voanews.com/a/greece-wants-eu-to-slap-sanctions-on-countries-that-won-t-accept-return-of-illegal-migrants/7297844.html">31,000 undocumented migrants</a>, mainly from Syria, crossed into Greece in 2023, up from 18,000 undocumented people who entered the country in 2022.</p>
<p>The parliament in Greece is considering new laws that would enable the country to issue tens of thousands of undocumented migrants <a href="https://apnews.com/article/greece-migrants-residence-work-permits-0851a9592f1811487d1fde49a63be5ae">residence and work permits</a> to address labor shortages. </p>
<p>Greece is also pushing the European Union to slap economic sanctions on countries, like Pakistan, that refuse to take back the <a href="https://apnews.com/article/migration-greece-deportations-eu-f4964595a5d9554cea7999df9f882795">undocumented migrants that Greece</a> deports to their home countries.</p>
<p>Closer to home, Canada is also experiencing a surge of undocumented migration into Quebec and other places, prompting some Canadians to <a href="https://theconversation.com/whats-behind-the-dramatic-shift-in-canadian-public-opinion-about-immigration-levels-219193">feel growing anxiety</a>, in part because of perceptions that the sudden population growth is also raising the country’s already-high housing costs. Canada <a href="https://www.thestar.com/news/canada/deportations-surge-as-regularization-stalls-for-the-undocumented/article_05fb6e0a-9461-11ee-8601-b3de32d91e09.html">deported 7,232 undocumented people</a> in the first six months of 2023 – a rise compared to the 7,635 deportations Canada carried out in the entire year of 2021.</p>
<p>Canada also announced in December 2023 that it is planning to allow people who entered the country with valid, short-term visas, and who continue living in Canada after these visas expire, to <a href="https://www.reuters.com/world/americas/canada-create-citizenship-path-undocumented-immigrants-globe-mail-2023-12-14/">apply for permanent residency</a>. This would mainly affect foreign students and temporary workers.</p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/570218/original/file-20240118-23-1y6fq2.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="A man in a grey uniform and a black police vest speaks to a small group of people who wear jackets and have suitcases as they approach him." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/570218/original/file-20240118-23-1y6fq2.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/570218/original/file-20240118-23-1y6fq2.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=384&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/570218/original/file-20240118-23-1y6fq2.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=384&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/570218/original/file-20240118-23-1y6fq2.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=384&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/570218/original/file-20240118-23-1y6fq2.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=483&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/570218/original/file-20240118-23-1y6fq2.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=483&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/570218/original/file-20240118-23-1y6fq2.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=483&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">A Canadian officer speaks to migrants as they arrive in Quebec in March 2023.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.gettyimages.com/detail/news-photo/an-officer-speaks-to-migrants-as-they-arrive-at-the-roxham-news-photo/1247840460?adppopup=true">Sebastien St-Jean/AFP via Getty Images</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<h2>An uncertain way ahead</h2>
<p>Back in the U.S., the fight over immigration continues, with Republicans eager to crack down and Democrats who generally want to avoid harsh new standards that could lead to more deportations and <a href="https://www.nbcnews.com/politics/congress/democrats-seek-restrain-new-immigration-powers-fearing-abuse-trump-rcna13031">mass roundups</a> of undocumented immigrants. </p>
<p>Traditionally, Democrats have been supportive of immigration and the rights of undocumented immigrants in the U.S. </p>
<p>But the <a href="https://www.nbcnews.com/politics/joe-biden/biden-immigration-border-plan-voters-senate-negotiations-rcna12515">wave of migrants</a> who arrive in cities like New York and <a href="https://www.pbs.org/newshour/show/chicago-leaders-demand-help-from-white-house-to-deal-with-surge-of-migrants-in-city">Chicago without any money</a>, jobs or places to live is severely straining city governments’ capacity and budgets. Local leaders like New York Mayor Eric Adams are pleading with the federal government to help with a crisis that, as Adams said in September 2023, has <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2023/09/07/nyregion/adams-migrants-destroy-nyc.html">no clear end</a> in sight.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/220741/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Tara Sonenshine does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organization that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>Germany and Italy are among the countries that are looking for ways to handle rises in undocumented migration and, in many cases, are making it harder for people to remain in their countries.Tara Sonenshine, Edward R. Murrow Professor of Practice in Public Diplomacy, Tufts UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/2191732024-01-10T13:32:59Z2024-01-10T13:32:59ZRepublicans are pushing for drastic asylum changes – an immigration law scholar breaks down the proposal<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/568299/original/file-20240108-23-1ap3d1.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Migrants cross through a gap in the U.S.-Mexico border fence on Dec. 22, 2023, in Jacumba Hot Springs, Calif.</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.gettyimages.com/detail/news-photo/migrants-cross-through-a-gap-in-the-us-mexico-border-fence-news-photo/1876398355?adppopup=true">Qian Weizhong/VCG via Getty Images</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>There is bipartisan agreement for the need for immigration reform and stark disagreement on what that reform should be. </p>
<p>A <a href="https://www.pewresearch.org/short-reads/2023/01/13/monthly-encounters-with-migrants-at-u-s-mexico-border-remain-near-record-highs/">rise in illegal</a> <a href="https://www.reuters.com/world/us/what-republicans-democrats-want-do-us-mexico-border-security-2024-01-08/">border crossings since 2020</a> has applied significant pressure for changing under what conditions someone can apply for asylum. This government system is designed to provide life-saving relief for noncitizens afraid of returning to their home countries. </p>
<p>Undocumented migrants entering the United States have few plausible options to legally stay in the country. For many migrants fleeing their countries due to violence, war, government collapse, natural disasters or any personal threats that could harm them, the only legal pathway of immigrating to the U.S. is by receiving asylum. </p>
<p>Conservative Republicans in Congress are now <a href="https://thehill.com/homenews/senate/4387973-shutdown-risk-grows-with-gops-border-fury/">proposing legal changes</a> that would make it harder for most applicants to get asylum. </p>
<p>The Republicans’ plan is <a href="https://thehill.com/homenews/house/4390204-5-things-to-know-about-border-bill-hr2-gop-shutdown-threats/">similar to</a> both a similar rule that the Department of Homeland Security adopted in 2019 and a policy that President Joe Biden is trying to push through. </p>
<p>I am an <a href="https://gould.usc.edu/faculty/profile/jean-lantz-reisz/">immigration professor</a> and teach asylum law. I believe it’s important to understand what sets Republicans’ proposed law apart from previous iterations. </p>
<p>The president cannot change the law, but Congress can. If these lawmakers succeed in changing federal asylum law, the law would override the court decisions striking down previous versions. Because Congress has broad power over immigration, the new laws would likely be upheld if challenged in court.</p>
<p>Still, currently, <a href="https://www.migrationpolicy.org/article/refugees-and-asylees-united-states">most people who seek asylum </a> do not receive permission to stay in the country, and they are deported. </p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/568300/original/file-20240108-29-cd4px2.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="People are seen standing in a desert on a grey day with a white SUV nearby." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/568300/original/file-20240108-29-cd4px2.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/568300/original/file-20240108-29-cd4px2.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=337&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/568300/original/file-20240108-29-cd4px2.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=337&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/568300/original/file-20240108-29-cd4px2.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=337&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/568300/original/file-20240108-29-cd4px2.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=424&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/568300/original/file-20240108-29-cd4px2.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=424&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/568300/original/file-20240108-29-cd4px2.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=424&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Migrants wait to be processed by U.S. Border Patrol agents near the U.S.-Mexico border in Jacumba Hot Springs, Calif.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.gettyimages.com/detail/news-photo/migrants-wait-to-be-processed-by-the-u-s-border-patrol-news-photo/1876398361?adppopup=true">Qian Weizhong/VCG via Getty Images</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<h2>Understanding asylum</h2>
<p>Currently, any noncitizen, including someone who already lives in the U.S. or who entered the country without a visa – <a href="https://uscode.house.gov/view.xhtml?req=granuleid:USC-prelim-title8-section1158&num=0&edition=prelim">can apply for asylum</a>. This is true regardless of the person’s legal immigration status. </p>
<p>A person can ask the U.S. government for asylum only once they are in the country or at the border – and they must ask for asylum within a year of arriving in the U.S. </p>
<p>Applying for asylum is a complicated process that could take several years. Undocumented migrants <a href="https://www.pbs.org/newshour/nation/supreme-court-says-detained-immigrants-not-entitled-to-bond-hearing">often apply for asylum</a> while they are detained in an immigration detention center. </p>
<p>Overall, asylum applicants <a href="https://www.usa.gov/asylum">will need to prove</a> that they face severe harm in their home country from their government or someone their government cannot control, like an armed militia group. This potential severe harm must trace back to their race, religion, political opinion, nationality or some characteristic they cannot, or should not have to, change.</p>
<p>Asylum seekers first make their case to a U.S. government asylum officer, who judges the veracity of their claim in an interview. </p>
<p>If migrants pass this <a href="https://www.uscis.gov/humanitarian/refugees-and-asylum/asylum/questions-and-answers-credible-fear-screening">first interview</a>, the migrant is allowed to seek asylum before an immigration judge. </p>
<p>At this stage, asylum seekers will need to show extensive evidence of events and other conditions that place them in severe danger if they are deported. Getting this proof is very difficult for asylum seekers, who typically require the help of an attorney to <a href="https://trac.syr.edu/immigration/reports/396/">complete this application process</a>. </p>
<p>Even if an applicant meets all of the requirements to get asylum, a judge still has the discretion to decide whether or not this person should receive it. </p>
<p>Judges then give some migrants asylum, allowing them to apply for U.S. green cards, which are the documents that give someone <a href="https://www.uscis.gov/sites/default/files/document/brochures/USCIS_Welcomes_Refugees_and_Asylees.pdf">legal permission to remain</a> in the U.S. They can then lawfully work, receive certain government benefits and eventually apply for citizenship. </p>
<h2>A backlog</h2>
<p>As a result of the rising number of undocumented migrants crossing into the U.S. – increasingly from <a href="https://www.dhs.gov/sites/default/files/2023-11/2023_0818_plcy_refugees_and_asylees_fy2022.pdf">places with widespread government instability</a> and violence, like Venezuela and Honduras – asylum requests are also on the rise.</p>
<p>Asylum cases in immigration court more than tripled <a href="https://www.dhs.gov/sites/default/files/2023-11/2023_0818_plcy_refugees_and_asylees_fy2022.pdf">between 2021 and 2022</a>, rising from 63,074 to 238,841. And the <a href="https://trac.syr.edu/reports/705/">asylum case numbers continue to grow</a>. </p>
<p>This rise in asylum applications is then coupled with a growing backlog of asylum cases in immigration court. </p>
<p>There are <a href="https://trac.syr.edu/reports/734/">3 million cases</a> still waiting to go before a judge in immigration courts – 1 million of these are asylum cases. In comparison, the average number of backlogged <a href="https://www.dhs.gov/sites/default/files/publications/Refugees_Asylees_2016_0.pdf">asylum cases</a> from 2012 through 2016 consistently remained below 200,000. </p>
<p>Consequently, people seeking asylum typically <a href="https://www.cbsnews.com/news/immigration-migrants-us-asylum-process-legal-limbo/">now wait an average of four years</a> before they have an asylum hearing in court – and, in many cases, may wait longer for a decision that they have appealed. </p>
<p>An asylum seeker may, in some cases, <a href="https://www.forbes.com/sites/stuartanderson/2023/09/01/new-york-businesses-give-immigrant-work-permits-to-asylum-seekers/?sh=58b60afb4219">apply for a work permit</a> if they must wait more than six months for a decision.</p>
<h2>Republican plan</h2>
<p>Conservative House Republicans are now <a href="https://www.nbcnews.com/politics/congress/republicans-threaten-government-shutdown-immigration-deal-democrats-rcna132534">threatening a government shutdown</a> that could happen as early as Jan. 19, 2024. They also have blocked more foreign aid to Ukraine and Israel, and are using their power over this aid as leverage for changing asylum laws. </p>
<p>Biden, meanwhile, wants Congress to <a href="https://www.reuters.com/world/us/what-republicans-democrats-want-do-us-mexico-border-security-2024-01-08/">approve nearly US$14 billion</a> to pay for more border security agents, as well as asylum officers and immigration judges. </p>
<p>Republicans have rejected Biden’s proposal and instead <a href="https://www.congress.gov/bill/118th-congress/house-bill/2?q=%7B%22search%22%3A%22hr2%22%7D&s=3&r=1">want new laws</a> that would deny asylum to any migrant who passed through a third country while traveling to the U.S., or who did not enter the U.S. at an official port of entry along a border. </p>
<p>These changes target the fact that most migrants who cross into the U.S. without documentation – and apply for asylum – come from countries other than Mexico. But these people, coming from countries like Venezuela, Haiti and Cuba, first pass through Mexico on their way to the U.S. Approximately 71% of the over <a href="https://www.npr.org/2023/11/12/1212058889/migrants-u-s-southern-border-historic-numbers-why">2.4 million</a> people who were apprehended at the southern border in 2023 traveled through Mexico, but were not <a href="https://www.migrationpolicy.org/news/border-numbers-fy2023">Mexican citizens</a>. </p>
<p>If this proposed law is passed, these migrants would no longer have a court consider their asylum applications. </p>
<p>Instead, they would not be allowed to apply for asylum. They would be immediately deported back to their own countries. </p>
<p>Democrats have opposed the changes when they were proposed as part of a bill in May 2023, but some <a href="https://www.reuters.com/world/us/what-republicans-democrats-want-do-us-mexico-border-security-2024-01-08/">Democrats are more open</a> to asylum restrictions and may compromise to reach a deal. </p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/568301/original/file-20240108-109125-esu3dh.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="People walk along white walls that wrap in a circular manner. The people carry backpacks, children and wear jackets." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/568301/original/file-20240108-109125-esu3dh.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/568301/original/file-20240108-109125-esu3dh.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=433&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/568301/original/file-20240108-109125-esu3dh.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=433&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/568301/original/file-20240108-109125-esu3dh.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=433&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/568301/original/file-20240108-109125-esu3dh.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=544&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/568301/original/file-20240108-109125-esu3dh.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=544&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/568301/original/file-20240108-109125-esu3dh.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=544&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Ukrainians who were seeking asylum arrive at the U.S. port of entry in Tijuana, Mexico, in April 2022.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.gettyimages.com/detail/news-photo/ukrainians-who-are-seeking-asylum-walk-at-the-el-chaparral-news-photo/1390002303?adppopup=true">Mario Tama/Getty Images</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<h2>Not the first go-around</h2>
<p>The proposed change that would deny asylum to those who have traveled through a third country is identical to a Department of Homeland Security rule that the agency adopted under former president <a href="https://www.cbsnews.com/news/asylum-ban-trump-administration-blocked-by-judge-today-2019-07-24/">Donald Trump’s administration in 2019</a>. </p>
<p><a href="https://www.cnn.com/2023/07/25/politics/biden-asylum-court-ruling/index.html">Biden has proposed a similar policy</a>, with exceptions for a migrant who obtained special permission to enter the U.S., or who was denied asylum in another country. The <a href="https://cdn.ca9.uscourts.gov/datastore/opinions/2020/03/05/19-56417.pdf">Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals</a> struck down Trump’s rule in 2020 because it violated current asylum law that permits anyone to seek asylum, regardless of how they enter the U.S. </p>
<p>The president cannot change the law. </p>
<p>A federal district court <a href="https://www.texastribune.org/2023/07/25/texas-biden-asylum-rule-california-judge/">struck down Biden’s policy</a> in July 2023 on the same basis. Biden has appealed <a href="https://www.ca9.uscourts.gov/cases-of-interest/east-bay-sanctuary-covenant-v-joseph-biden/">that decision</a>. </p>
<p>Republicans are proposing other laws to make it harder to receive asylum. One change would require asylum seekers to present a large amount of evidence proving their fear of persecution during their first interview with a government asylum officer – not later, when they go before a judge. The law would also end programs that allow migrants to stay with sponsors in the U.S. while seeking asylum. </p>
<p>In summary, the proposed changes would make it almost impossible for a migrant entering through the U.S.-Mexico border to get asylum, even if that migrant has a legitimate fear of returning to his or her home country.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/219173/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Jean Lantz Reisz receives funding from Los Angeles City and County. </span></em></p>A GOP proposal would make it nearly impossible for most migrants now crossing the US border to gain asylum and the right to remain in the country.Jean Lantz Reisz, Clinical Associate Professor of Law, Co-Director, USC Immigration Clinic, University of Southern CaliforniaLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/2197352023-12-14T13:19:13Z2023-12-14T13:19:13ZWho counts as a refugee? Four questions to understand current migration debates<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/565506/original/file-20231213-23-i1glub.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=95%2C95%2C4824%2C3157&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">
</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.shutterstock.com/image-photo/border-between-serbia-croatia-3-nov-1820261090">Ajdin Kamber/Shutterstock</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>The number of refugees worldwide has been <a href="https://www.unhcr.org/global-trends-report-2022">increasing since 2012</a>. At the end of 2022, there were 35.3 million refugees globally.</p>
<p>While some politicians have suggested that the UK is being <a href="https://www.itv.com/news/2023-03-13/mps-to-vote-on-controversial-migration-bill-which-sparked-lineker-row">overwhelmed by refugees</a>, 76% of the world’s refugees are hosted in low- and middle-income countries. In Europe, Germany, France and Spain receive <a href="https://migrationobservatory.ox.ac.uk/resources/briefings/migration-to-the-uk-asylum/">more asylum applications each year than the UK</a>.</p>
<p>As long as there is war and persecution, there will be people in need of protection. So how should countries handle the flow of people? </p>
<p>This is the question driving much political debate. The UK government appears committed to its policy of <a href="https://theconversation.com/rwanda-plan-rishi-sunak-has-insisted-on-pushing-ahead-heres-where-he-could-take-it-next-217865">sending refugees to Rwanda</a>. Charities are calling on political leaders to commit to <a href="https://togetherwithrefugees.org.uk/open-letter-to-political-leaders-we-need-a-fair-new-plan-for-refugees/">a fair new plan for refugees</a>. Meanwhile, the <a href="https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-67692099">death of a man</a> on a barge housing asylum seekers has reinvigorated concerns about the welfare of people who seek refuge in the UK. </p>
<p>Here are four questions (and answers) to help you make sense of it all.</p>
<h2>Who counts as a refugee?</h2>
<p>Under the <a href="https://www.unhcr.org/uk/about-unhcr/who-we-are/1951-refugee-convention">refugee convention of 1951</a> – which the UK and most other countries are party to – a refugee is a person who fears being persecuted, to the point that it is unsafe to return to their home country. Persecution means a person faces a threat to their life or freedom, or fears another serious violation of their human rights, such as torture or sexual violence. </p>
<p>A refugee must be persecuted because of their race, religion, nationality, political opinion or membership of a social group. Examples of social groups include women, LGBTQ+ people and children.</p>
<p>A person who has left their home country to seek protection, but has not yet been formally recognised as a refugee, is often referred to as an “asylum seeker”. </p>
<h2>What obligations do governments owe refugees?</h2>
<p>As a party to the refugee convention, the UK is legally obliged to abide by its provisions, including the principle of “non-refoulement” – that is, not sending a refugee to a country where their life or freedom is threatened. This can be the refugee’s home country or any other country where there is a risk to their life or freedom.</p>
<p>This was why the UK supreme court found that <a href="https://theconversation.com/supreme-court-rules-rwanda-plan-unlawful-a-legal-expert-explains-the-judgment-and-what-happens-next-217730">the Rwanda plan was unlawful</a> – because there was a risk that Rwanda would not decide asylum claims properly and thus return genuine refugees to their countries of origin.</p>
<p>Governments should also ensure an adequate standard of living for new arrivals, including by providing access to shelter, healthcare and education for refugee children. The <a href="https://www.un.org/en/development/desa/population/migration/generalassembly/docs/globalcompact/A_RES_71_1.pdf">UN has emphasised</a> the importance of a people-centred, sensitive and humane approach to people seeking asylum.</p>
<p>The Bibby Stockholm, the barge where an asylum seeker reportedly took his own life, has been <a href="https://theconversation.com/performative-cruelty-the-hostile-architecture-of-the-uk-governments-migrant-barge-210300">criticised</a> by charities, experts and politicians. Many argue that the close quarters, health concerns and isolation of being housed at sea are not an <a href="https://theconversation.com/bibby-stockholm-legionella-is-not-the-only-health-threat-on-the-asylum-barge-211641">adequate standard of living</a>.</p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="The Bibby Stockholm barge in a port" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/565505/original/file-20231213-21-hbylce.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/565505/original/file-20231213-21-hbylce.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/565505/original/file-20231213-21-hbylce.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/565505/original/file-20231213-21-hbylce.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/565505/original/file-20231213-21-hbylce.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/565505/original/file-20231213-21-hbylce.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/565505/original/file-20231213-21-hbylce.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Conditions on the Bibby Stockholm have raised concerns about the welfare of refugees the UK is housing.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.shutterstock.com/image-photo/falmouthcornwall-070723-bibby-stockholm-leaves-falmouth-2328547695">JMundy/Shutterstock</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<h2>How many people who travel to the UK are genuine refugees?</h2>
<p>So far, in 2023, <a href="https://www.migrationwatchuk.org/channel-crossings-tracker">over 29,000 people</a> have travelled to the UK on small boats to seek asylum. </p>
<p>Government statistics indicate that <a href="https://www.gov.uk/government/statistics/immigration-system-statistics-year-ending-september-2023/how-many-people-do-we-grant-protection-to#outcomes-of-asylum-applications">75% of people</a> who claim asylum in the UK are granted refugee status or another type of permission to remain in the UK. For <a href="https://www.gov.uk/government/statistics/immigration-system-statistics-year-ending-september-2023/how-many-people-do-we-grant-protection-to#outcomes-of-asylum-applications">some nationalities</a>, the figure is higher – 100% of applicants from Eritrea, 99% of those from Afghanistan and 99% from Syria are recognised as refugees.</p>
<p>However, many of the people who have travelled to the UK in recent years are part of the <a href="https://www.gov.uk/government/statistics/immigration-system-statistics-year-ending-september-2023/how-many-people-do-we-grant-protection-to#asylum-applications-awaiting-an-initial-decision">165,000 people</a> in the UK’s “asylum backlog”. This means they are still waiting for the government to decide their asylum claim. While the government is working to reduce the backlog, current schemes <a href="https://www.nottingham.ac.uk/hrlc/documents/2023/streamlined-asylum-processing-an-evaluation-of-recent-reforms.pdf">risk prioritising quick decisions over accurate decisions</a>.</p>
<h2>Why don’t refugees travel to the UK legally?</h2>
<p>There are many reasons refugees may not travel to the UK through regular, legal routes. One of the main reasons is that to come to the UK legally, a person must be granted a visa – for example, because they intend to work or study in the UK.</p>
<p>The government has created special visas for people fleeing Ukraine, Afghanistan and Hong Kong. In the past year, the government has allowed <a href="https://www.gov.uk/government/statistics/immigration-system-statistics-year-ending-september-2023/safe-and-legal-humanitarian-routes-to-the-uk">112,000 people to come to the UK</a> through these routes, including 64,000 people from Ukraine. </p>
<p>However, refugees from other countries do not have access to the same opportunities to apply for a visa in order to seek asylum. The absence of safe and legal routes forces them to travel irregularly.</p>
<p>Contrary to popular belief, refugees are not required to seek asylum in <a href="https://freemovement.org.uk/are-refugees-obliged-to-claim-asylum-in-the-first-safe-country-they-reach/">the “first safe country” they enter</a>. A <a href="https://webarchive.nationalarchives.gov.uk/ukgwa/20130128103514/http://rds.homeoffice.gov.uk/rds/pdfs2/hors243.pdf">government report</a> found that refugees seek asylum in the UK for many reasons, including that they have relatives in the UK, speak English and because of the UK’s reputation as a safe and tolerant democracy.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/219735/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Natalie Hodgson does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>As long as there is war and persecution, there will be people in need of protection.Natalie Hodgson, Assistant Professor in Law, University of NottinghamLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/2197772023-12-13T16:31:44Z2023-12-13T16:31:44ZHow the bill to declare Rwanda a ‘safe’ country for refugees could lead to a constitutional crisis<p>Rishi Sunak has had a small win in the ongoing saga of the UK government’s plan to deport asylum seekers to Rwanda. The second reading of the safety of Rwanda (asylum and immigration) bill has <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2023/dec/12/rishi-sunak-survives-rwanda-bill-commons-vote">passed the Commons</a>, despite rightwing Conservative MPs abstaining. </p>
<p>This bill has been proposed as a way to effectively defy the UK Supreme Court’s ruling that the Rwanda plan <a href="https://www.supremecourt.uk/cases/docs/uksc-2023-0093-etc-judgment.pdf">was unlawful</a>. The court found that Rwanda was not a “safe” country to send refugees, because there could be a risk of individuals being returned to their country of origin, where they may suffer ill treatment.</p>
<p>This is prohibited under international law, including the <a href="https://www.echr.coe.int/documents/d/echr/convention_ENG">European convention on human rights</a> and <a href="https://www.unhcr.org/uk/about-unhcr/who-we-are/1951-refugee-convention">the UN refugee convention</a>. It is also enshrined in domestic UK law through the <a href="https://www.legislation.gov.uk/ukpga/1998/42/contents">Human Rights Act</a>, <a href="https://www.legislation.gov.uk/ukpga/1993/23/contents">the Asylum and Immigration Appeals Act</a>, <a href="https://www.legislation.gov.uk/ukpga/2002/41/contents">the Nationality, Immigration and Asylum Act</a> and <a href="https://www.legislation.gov.uk/ukpga/2004/19/contents">the Asylum and Immigration (Treatment of Claimants etc) Act</a>. </p>
<p>The government has now introduced a revised <a href="https://www.gov.uk/government/speeches/rwanda-treaty">treaty with Rwanda</a>, as well this emergency <a href="https://bills.parliament.uk/bills/3540">legislation</a> which would declare the country to be safe and limit further court challenges.</p>
<h2>Why does the government think it can ‘overrule’ the courts?</h2>
<p>At the centre of these developments is the issue of whether Rwanda is a safe country, as well as who should answer that question, the government or the courts.</p>
<p>This goes to the centre of the UK’s constitutional framework. The bill’s existence depends on the principle of <a href="https://www.parliament.uk/site-information/glossary/parliamentary-sovereignty/">parliamentary sovereignty</a>. This means that parliament can pass any law, and that its lawmaking authority cannot be challenged. </p>
<p>Hypothetically, if the government introduced a bill saying the Earth was flat, and that was passed by parliament, that would become law, but would not change reality. In the same sense, introducing the Rwanda bill does not, in itself, change the reality on the ground. </p>
<p>The government, however, has agreed a new treaty with Rwanda, which it argues does materially change the situation and addresses the court’s concerns. The home secretary has stated that Rwanda has made <a href="https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-67627696">“clear commitments”</a> to the safety of the people who will go there. </p>
<p>Also, under the new agreement, Rwanda will set up an appeal body (composed of judges of mixed nationalities) where refused asylum claims can be reviewed.</p>
<h2>Constitutional principles and the rule of law</h2>
<p>As the UK does not have a <a href="https://consoc.org.uk/the-constitution-explained/the-uk-constitution/">written constitution</a>, addressing the constitutionality of the government’s actions depends on a broad range of sources, including principles defined in common law.</p>
<p>These Rwanda developments have called into question the government’s commitment to the <a href="https://www.lawsociety.org.uk/topics/human-rights/the-rule-of-law-what-does-it-really-mean">rule of law</a>, the principle that <a href="https://www.gov.uk/government/news/attorney-general-delivers-speech-on-the-rule-of-law">no one is above the law, including the government</a>.</p>
<p>The bill does allow for individual cases where a court could decide, based on compelling evidence, that it would be unsafe to send someone to Rwanda (for example, if they were <a href="https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-67680136">pregnant or had rare medical conditions</a>).</p>
<p>However, it effectively “overrules” the court’s previous decision, and prevents domestic courts from reconsidering whether Rwanda is generally safe. It is difficult to see how these proposals respect the <a href="https://binghamcentre.biicl.org/publications/safety-of-rwanda-asylum-and-immigration-bill-a-preliminary-rule-of-law-analysis-for-house-of-commons-second-reading">rule of law</a>.</p>
<p>There is also the issue of <a href="https://researchbriefings.files.parliament.uk/documents/SN06053/SN06053.pdf">separation of powers</a>. The UK theoretically has a system of checks and balance, whereby parliament, government and judges should limit and keep each other in check. </p>
<p>Parliament can make any law it wishes and the courts must dutifully apply it. Similarly, government must respect, preserve and not interfere with judicial independence. Such tensions arose during Brexit litigation, but <a href="https://publiclawforeveryone.com/2019/09/24/the-supreme-courts-judgment-in-cherry-miller-no-2-a-new-approach-to-constitutional-adjudication/">the decision of the court</a> upheld the sovereignty of parliament. </p>
<p>What is different about the Rwanda proposals is that we are in the territory where parliament could pass something that is so contentious as to be unconstitutional.</p>
<h2>Possible constitutional crisis</h2>
<p>There is precedent for parliament passing legislation to reverse the effect of a court decision. </p>
<p>In 1965 parliament passed the <a href="https://hansard.parliament.uk/commons/1965-02-03/debates/9c473bda-2ba4-47b0-a54d-346af752996a/WarDamageBill">War Damage Act</a> that nullified a <a href="https://www.jstor.org/stable/20689759">court decision</a> regarding compensation for the destruction of oil fields in Burma. While initially the court found that the proprietor should be compensated from public funds, legislation that came later retrospectively limited the government’s financial liability for damage caused during war.</p>
<p>With the Rwanda bill, much broader rule of law and international obligation issues are also engaged. Some have argued that the UK may now be heading for an <a href="https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2023/12/12/supreme-court-could-bring-down-the-government/">unprecedented constitutional crisis</a>, particularly if the government amends the bill to impose more draconian measures that would limit judicial oversight. </p>
<p>If the government introduced these kind of measures, <a href="https://www.supremecourt.uk/cases/uksc-2018-0004.html">judges have previously warned</a> that it is “ultimately for the courts, not the legislature, to determine the limits set by the rule of law”. </p>
<h2>What happens next?</h2>
<p>Much of what happens next rests on amendments to the draft law – for example, whether the bill will command support in the House of Lords – as well as whether the prime minister is able to <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2023/dec/12/collective-of-rightwing-tory-mps-say-they-will-not-support-rwanda-bill">unify splits within his party</a>.</p>
<p>The bill also stops short of disapplying the <a href="https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-67641805">European convention on human rights</a>. It is still possible, then, that the bill could face legal challenges at the European court of human rights, which can determine whether the law is consistent with the UK’s international human rights obligations. </p>
<p>Any attempts to further limit judicial oversight will see the UK potentially stray into unprecedented territory surrounding the rule of law. This could run the risk of forcing courts to do the previously <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2023/dec/12/collective-of-rightwing-tory-mps-say-they-will-not-support-rwanda-bill">unthinkable</a> in striking down an act of parliament as unconstitutional.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/219777/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Stephen Clear does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>The government is attempting to overrule the supreme court by passing a new law.Stephen Clear, Lecturer in Constitutional and Administrative Law, and Public Procurement, Bangor UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/2186992023-11-28T09:23:23Z2023-11-28T09:23:23ZHigh Court reasons on immigration ruling pave way for further legislation<p>After ruling on November 8 that indefinite immigration detention is unlawful, the High Court today delivered its <a href="https://eresources.hcourt.gov.au/showCase/2023/HCA/37">reasons</a> for the decision that upturned 20 years of precedent. Its ruling has required the release of some 140 people from immigration detention so far, and set off a political scramble to legislate in response to the outcome.</p>
<p>The judgment, the first made by the court under new Chief Justice Stephen Gageler, was unanimous. It largely turned on questions of constitutional law and the limits of executive power. </p>
<p>The court made it clear that a person must be released from detention when there was no real prospect of them being deported in the foreseeable future. Previously, there was no limit to the length of time people could be detained in immigration detention in Australian law. In fact, people could legally be detained for the rest of their lives without ever being found guilty of a crime. </p>
<hr>
<p>
<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/the-high-court-has-decided-indefinite-detention-is-unlawful-what-happens-now-217438">The High Court has decided indefinite detention is unlawful. What happens now?</a>
</strong>
</em>
</p>
<hr>
<p>The decision overturns the much-criticised 2004 Al-Kateb v Godwin case, where a 4-3 majority ruled that, provided the government maintained an intention to eventually remove a person from Australia, the Constitution allowed them to be detained indefinitely until that removal took place. </p>
<p>The court’s reasons in this case indicated that other laws allowing detention, such as continuing detention orders, could apply to people released because of the decision. Continuing detention orders are a mechanism that enable people to be detained once they have served their sentence for a crime. </p>
<p>However, those orders are only available if the person is considered to pose an “<a href="https://www.legislation.gov.au/Details/C2023C00283">unacceptable</a>” risk of reoffending and only in relation to specific, serious crimes. Such orders can only be made with the support of expert evidence and with judicial oversight, as detailed below. </p>
<h2>Implications of the decision</h2>
<p>The decision has significant ramifications for the rapidly drafted legislation that was passed by parliament in response to the case, before the High Court had released its reasons. </p>
<p>In response to the release of the reasons for the decision, the federal government <a href="https://www.theage.com.au/politics/federal/high-court-publishes-reasons-for-indefinite-detention-decision-20231128-p5ena0.html">indicated</a> it would legislate again before parliament rises for the year.</p>
<p>Laws rushed through parliament earlier this month included curfews, high levels of monitoring of people released from detention and severe mandatory prison sentences for infringements of release conditions. The first package of laws has <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/law/2023/nov/22/labor-immigration-detention-laws-high-court-challenge">already been challenged</a> in the courts by a Chinese refugee known as S151, on the basis they are “punitive”. More challenges are anticipated. </p>
<p>With this decision, the court has revealed an intention to exercise much greater scrutiny of the parliament and executive in ensuring constitutional limits on power are respected. </p>
<p>In this way, this judgment can be seen as representing a turn from more permissive approaches to limits on parliamentary legislative power.</p>
<p><div data-react-class="Tweet" data-react-props="{"tweetId":"1729361661839184093"}"></div></p>
<h2>The challenge and decision</h2>
<p>The challenge was brought by a <a href="https://theconversation.com/the-high-court-has-decided-indefinite-detention-is-unlawful-what-happens-now-217438">stateless Rohingya man</a>, given the pseudonym NZYQ, who had fled his home country of Myanmar and arrived in Australia by boat in 2012. He spent just over a year in immigration detention on arrival. </p>
<p>Soon after he was released into the community, he was convicted of sexual intercourse with a minor and was sentenced to a maximum of five years imprisonment. While in prison, he applied for refugee status. He was found to be owed protection but, due to his criminal history, was not granted a protection visa. On release from prison, he was immediately re-detained in immigration detention.</p>
<p>Both international and Australian law prohibit sending people back to places where they are at risk of persecution, as NZYQ had been found to be. </p>
<p>The <a href="http://www5.austlii.edu.au/au/legis/cth/consol_act/ma1958118/s196.html">Migration Act</a> requires “unlawful non-citizens” to be held in detention until they are removed from Australia, deported or granted a visa. </p>
<p>NZYQ’s appeal focused on two questions. Did the detention provisions authorise the potential indefinite detention of non-citizens in circumstances where there were no real prospects of removal? If so, was this constitutionally valid?</p>
<p>The High Court answered the first question in the affirmative, in essence agreeing with the majority in Al-Kateb that relevant legislative provisions authorised detention until a detainee was removed, deported or given a visa, no matter how long that might take.</p>
<p><div data-react-class="Tweet" data-react-props="{"tweetId":"1729359883114557499"}"></div></p>
<p>But on the second question, treading a course it said “should not lightly be taken”, the court reopened and overruled the constitutional holding in Al-Kateb, finding that detention provisions contravened the separation of powers in the Constitution. That is, detention is generally punishment, which can only be ordered by courts, not the government. </p>
<p>There are limited exceptions to this rule for immigration detention. Detention will not be punishment as long as it for the purpose of deportation or enabling an application for a visa to be made.</p>
<p>In NZYQ, the High Court stated that ongoing detention – where there is no reasonable prospect of the removal of the plaintiff from Australia in the reasonably foreseeable future – would not meet this test. </p>
<h2>What does it mean?</h2>
<p>With this judgment, the court unanimously rejected the ability of the parliament to define its own limits for detention. In doing so, it brings Australia into line with international law and practice. No other country allows for, let alone requires, indefinite mandatory immigration detention. </p>
<p>While the court did not engage directly with international law arguments, the outcome and reasoning reaffirm international principles of reasonableness and proportionality, set out in a <a href="https://www.kaldorcentre.unsw.edu.au/sites/kaldorcentre.unsw.edu.au/files/Memo_Explusion_Non-Citizens.pdf">memo</a> by international refugee law expert Professor Guy S Goodwin-Gill. This formed the basis of Kaldor Centre’s <a href="https://www.hcourt.gov.au/assets/cases/08-Sydney/s28-2023/NZYQ-MICMA-IntHRLCKaldor.pdf">intervention</a> with the Human Rights Law Centre in the case. </p>
<p>In terms of when an individual will be required to be released from detention, the court makes clear that the onus is on the government to show there is real prospect of removal in the reasonable future. This means deportation has to be a real possibility – it is not enough for the government to say it is trying without showing there is a real prospect it can be achieved.</p>
<p>This decision also will have broader ramifications for <em>habeas corpus</em> in Australian courts. This is the requirement that any person detained by the government has the right to challenge that detention. When challenged, the government must demonstrate the basis for the detention. With this judgment, the court has made it clear that inquiries will be rigorous, not merely considering the surface arguments made by detaining authorities. </p>
<hr>
<p>
<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/grattan-on-friday-a-government-in-a-big-hurry-gives-opposition-some-wins-on-ex-detainees-217912">Grattan on Friday: A government in a big hurry gives opposition some wins on ex-detainees</a>
</strong>
</em>
</p>
<hr>
<h2>Preventive detention</h2>
<p>The court acknowledged that people released from immigration detention because of its decision could be re-detained under other laws, such as continuing detention provisions. These allow for the ongoing detention of people who are considered to pose an unacceptable risk of reoffending. This would need to be for reasons exclusively connected to the risk that is posed, not to their immigration status.</p>
<p><div data-react-class="Tweet" data-react-props="{"tweetId":"1729355450498625543"}"></div></p>
<p>Such provisions already exist for some sex or terrorism crimes. However, for such orders to be made, there must be clear evidence the individual poses an unacceptable risk; merely having committed a crime before is not adequate. Most importantly, these decisions are generally made by the courts, and not the government.</p>
<p>The High Court’s decision was clear – only the courts have the power to deal out punishment. The risk is that any further blanket restrictions on individual liberty that are not subject to judicial oversight will be similarly overturned by the courts.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/218699/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Daniel Ghezelbash receives funding from the Australian Research Council and the NSW Government. He is a member of the management committee of Refugee Advice and Casework Services and a Special Counsel at the National Justice Project. He is the Deputy Director of the Kaldor Centre for International Refugee Law, which was given leave to intervene in the NZYQ case as amicus curiae.</span></em></p><p class="fine-print"><em><span>Anna Talbot receives funding from the Australian government as a PhD scholar at the Kaldor Centre for International Refugee Law, University of NSW, Sydney, which was given leave to intervene in the NZYQ case as amicus curiae.</span></em></p>The High Court judges unanimously held that a person must be released from immigration detention where there is no real prospect of them being deported in the foreseeable future.Daniel Ghezelbash, Associate Professor and Deputy Director, Kaldor Centre for International Refugee Law, UNSW Law & Justice, UNSW SydneyAnna Talbot, PhD Candidate, Kaldor Centre for International Refugee Law, UNSW Sydney, UNSW SydneyLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/2182632023-11-24T15:44:52Z2023-11-24T15:44:52ZUK’s failed asylum deportation plan puts Rwanda’s human rights and refugee struggles in the spotlight<p>The UK Supreme Court <a href="https://www.supremecourt.uk/cases/docs/uksc-2023-0093-press-summary.pdf">ruled on 15 November 2023 that</a> sending asylum seekers to Rwanda was unlawful. The plan would have seen <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2022/apr/14/tens-of-thousands-of-asylum-seekers-could-be-sent-to-rwanda-says-boris-johnson">tens of thousands</a> of asylum seekers sent from the UK to Rwanda, which would then process and host such refugees indefinitely.</p>
<p>Along with countless <a href="https://www.hrw.org/news/2023/10/10/uk-abandon-rwanda-asylum-transfer-plan">refugee and human rights groups</a> – including <a href="https://www.unhcr.org/uk/what-we-do/uk-asylum-and-policy-and-illegal-migration-act/migration-and-economic-development#:%7E:text=UNHCR%20believes%20the%20UK's%20announced,established%20international%20refugee%20protection%20system.">the United Nations</a> – I raised <a href="https://theconversation.com/the-uks-plans-to-send-asylum-seekers-to-rwanda-raise-four-red-flags-182709">red flags about the plan</a> and welcome the decision to halt it. My <a href="https://www.rsc.ox.ac.uk/people/evan-easton-calabria">research and work</a> over more than a decade has focused on the livelihoods and survival of refugees in east Africa, the Horn of Africa and the Great Lakes region. </p>
<p>The <a href="https://theconversation.com/supreme-court-rules-rwanda-plan-unlawful-a-legal-expert-explains-the-judgment-and-what-happens-next-217730">UK court’s decision</a> is grounded in the view that Rwanda is unsafe for asylum seekers because it might force them to return to their home country. Forced return is against <a href="https://theconversation.com/the-rights-of-refugees-in-africa-are-under-threat-what-can-be-done-182892">international human rights law</a> as refugees and asylum seekers may be persecuted again in their country of origin. </p>
<p>Much of the recent media focus has been on what the ruling means for the UK and its migration policy. But it’s also important to understand the implications for Rwanda itself and for the refugees already residing there. </p>
<p>Rwanda currently hosts <a href="https://data.unhcr.org/en/country/rwa">more than 135,000 refugees and asylum seekers</a>. Most are from the Democratic Republic of Congo and Burundi. It’s one of the <a href="https://www.cia.gov/the-world-factbook/countries/rwanda/#people-and-society">most densely populated</a> countries in Africa and has a <a href="https://databankfiles.worldbank.org/public/ddpext_download/poverty/987B9C90-CB9F-4D93-AE8C-750588BF00QA/current/Global_POVEQ_RWA.pdf#page=1">high poverty rate</a>, which matters for its ability to host refugees. In the UK’s effort to deter irregular migration, it sought to outsource the asylum-seeking process and ultimately refugee hosting to Rwanda. The east African nation would in return <a href="https://commonslibrary.parliament.uk/research-briefings/cbp-9568/#:%7E:text=In%20return%2C%20the%20UK%20has,around%20%C2%A312%2C000%20per%20person">receive development funds</a>. Neither side of this deal was taking the needs of asylum seekers into account. </p>
<p>The recent UK court ruling highlights two things that Rwanda and its development and humanitarian partners need to consider:</p>
<ul>
<li><p>the east African nation’s human rights record</p></li>
<li><p>international support for refugees and asylum seekers. </p></li>
</ul>
<p>Failing to address the current gaps in these two areas reflects a disregard for human rights that falls on the international community’s shoulders, too.</p>
<h2>Rwanda’s human rights record</h2>
<p>The <a href="https://www.supremecourt.uk/cases/docs/uksc-2023-0093-press-summary.pdf#page=4">evidence</a> considered in the UK ruling adds to ongoing documentation about Rwanda’s poor human rights record. Refugees and citizens in the country have experienced political repression, including being <a href="https://deeply.thenewhumanitarian.org/refugees/articles/2018/04/04/please-tell-us-where-we-belong-a-deadly-refugee-protest-in-rwanda">killed during protests</a>. A recent <a href="https://www.hrw.org/news/2023/10/10/rwanda-global-playbook-abuse-silence-critics">Human Rights Watch report</a> documented Kigali’s use of threats, kidnapping and even killing of Rwandan refugees and migrants abroad who undertake or are affiliated to political activism. </p>
<p>Worrying past evidence of the treatment of asylum seekers includes the outcome of a <a href="https://www.amnesty.org.uk/press-releases/israel-secret-deal-over-deporting-african-migrants-reckless-and-illegal">secretive deal between Israel, Rwanda and Uganda</a> to receive African asylum seekers (mostly from Eritrea and Sudan) between 2014 and 2017. A majority of those deported from Israel to Rwanda immediately left, some through <a href="https://blogs.law.ox.ac.uk/research-subject-groups/centre-criminology/centreborder-criminologies/blog/2018/10/moving-under">dangerous migration routes</a>. </p>
<p>In its recent ruling, the <a href="https://www.supremecourt.uk/cases/docs/uksc-2023-0093-press-summary.pdf#page=2">UK court concluded</a></p>
<blockquote>
<p>there were substantial grounds for believing that there were real risks that asylum claims would not be properly determined by the Rwandan authorities. There were, therefore, real risks of refoulement {forced return}.</p>
</blockquote>
<p>The evidence provided by the UN Refugee Agency highlighted <a href="https://www.unhcr.org/uk/sites/uk/files/legacy-pdf/631f52a84.pdf#page=3">serious issues in Rwanda’s asylum system</a>. This included a lack of adequate legal representation, the risk of bias by judges and lawyers in politically sensitive cases, and current practices of forced return. A failure to comply with international law suggests Rwanda may well continue to benefit from development funding while sending asylum seekers home or <a href="https://blogs.law.ox.ac.uk/research-subject-groups/centre-criminology/centreborder-criminologies/blog/2018/10/moving-under">pressuring them to leave the country</a>.</p>
<p>To rectify these failings, the government of Rwanda must commit to eliminating forced return. In the absence of enforcement mechanisms in Rwanda to do so, the international community – including the UN Refugee Agency and activists in the region – must continue to document evidence of human rights violations and speak out. If these violations don’t cease, Rwanda should no longer be funded as the “<a href="https://www.devex.com/news/q-a-new-book-puts-fresh-scrutiny-on-donor-darling-rwanda-99584">donor darling</a>” that it has been. </p>
<h2>Areas for improvement</h2>
<p>At the same time, the UK court ruling illustrates the need for humanitarian and development partners to support Rwanda to improve its conditions for refugees and its asylum-seeking process. In its written evidence for the case, the UN Refugee Agency <a href="https://www.unhcr.org/uk/sites/uk/files/legacy-pdf/631f52a84.pdf#page=3">assessed that</a></p>
<blockquote>
<p>long-term and fundamental engagement is required to develop Rwanda’s national asylum structures to fairly adjudicate individual asylum claims.</p>
</blockquote>
<p>This statement is both a critique of the limitations to the existing asylum infrastructure in Rwanda and an important call for action. </p>
<p>As of 31 October 2023, the UN Refugee Agency’s Rwanda operation was only <a href="https://reporting.unhcr.org/rwanda-funding-2023">38% funded</a>. This means that refugees within Rwanda <a href="https://reporting.unhcr.org/rwanda-operational-update-6137">lack healthcare support and have limited access to legal counselling</a> and assistance.</p>
<p>These figures demand a closer look at the treatment of refugees in Rwanda and the region. These funding deficits restrict the rights of those refugees most in need.</p>
<hr>
<p>
<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/supreme-court-rules-rwanda-plan-unlawful-a-legal-expert-explains-the-judgment-and-what-happens-next-217730">Supreme court rules Rwanda plan unlawful: a legal expert explains the judgment, and what happens next</a>
</strong>
</em>
</p>
<hr>
<p>Efforts to improve the asylum system can and should build on the promising practices within Rwanda that relate to refugees. These include <a href="https://reporting.unhcr.org/rwanda-operational-update-6137">over 90%</a> of children born as refugees having their birth registered, and a provision on the <a href="https://www.refugeesinternational.org/reports-briefs/turning-policy-into-reality-refugees-access-to-work-in-rwanda/">right to work</a>. Urban refugees and refugee students can also <a href="https://globalcompactrefugees.org/good-practices/community-based-health-insurance-urban-refugees-and-refugee-students-rwanda">access</a> the national community-based health insurance scheme. </p>
<p>Non-legal barriers – such as lack of access to capital for businesses and poor camp infrastructure, including limited electricity – still play a role in impeding access to these services for many refugees. However, these are important rights to continue to actualise – and ones that many other refugee-hosting countries don’t offer at all. </p>
<p>The court’s attention to Rwanda’s human rights violations may lead to restricted development funding or wider repercussions for the country from the international community. But there’s a need for more – not less – investment in refugee assistance in Rwanda. </p>
<h2>Next steps</h2>
<p>There are two best possible outcomes of the UK-Rwanda migration deal being deemed unlawful. </p>
<p>First is that it leads to commitments by the government of Rwanda to improve its treatment of refugees, including Rwandan refugees abroad. Second is that it encourages the UK and other countries to examine their own unlawful practices, such as the <a href="https://www.redcross.org.uk/stories/migration-and-displacement/refugees-and-asylum-seekers/scared-confused-alone-the-dark-truths-of-immigration-detention">indefinite detention of asylum seekers</a> and ongoing attempts to <a href="https://theconversation.com/outsourcing-asylum-seekers-the-case-of-rwanda-and-the-uk-180973">externalise asylum</a>. </p>
<p>Just as Rwanda’s human rights record should not be brushed under the rug, neither should the international community’s limited support for refugees.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/218263/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Evan Easton-Calabria receives funding from the United States Agency for International Development (USAID), National Institutes of Health (NIH), and the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA). Research conducted through these grants is unrelated to the contents of this article.</span></em></p>The government of Rwanda must commit to eliminating the forced return of refugees and asylum seekers.Evan Easton-Calabria, Senior Researcher at the Feinstein International Center, Tufts University, and Research Associate at the Refugee Studies Centre, University of OxfordLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/2179412023-11-23T15:01:09Z2023-11-23T15:01:09ZSouth Africa’s immigration proposals are based on false claims and poor logic – experts<p>The South African government recently issued a long-awaited policy statement – called a <a href="https://www.gov.za/speeches/minister-aaron-motsoaledi-release-white-paper-citizenship-immigration-and-refugee">White Paper</a> – outlining proposed changes to the country’s asylum and immigration system. More than 20 years after its first post-apartheid immigration legislation <a href="https://www.gov.za/sites/default/files/gcis_document/201409/a130-980.pdf">in 1998</a>, immigration remains a <a href="https://www.iom.int/countries/south-africa#:%7E:text=South%20Africa%20is%20the%20preferred,and%20border%20management%20processes%3B%20rising">pressing concern</a>. Getting this policy right could help with South Africa’s economic recovery, increase regional prosperity, and heighten security for citizens and migrants alike.</p>
<p>A general election is <a href="https://www.elections.org.za/pw/voter/voter-registration-campaign">due in 2024</a> and the issue is at the heart of <a href="https://www.dw.com/en/south-africa-faces-growing-xenophobia-problem/a-67305882">political debate</a>.</p>
<p><a href="https://link.springer.com/chapter/10.1007/978-3-030-92114-9_5">Immigrant rights advocates and anti-immigrant activists</a> will welcome the far-reaching efforts to reform frameworks that currently work for none but a few <a href="https://pmg.org.za/committee-meeting/33573/">rent-seeking bureaucrats</a>. Most will embrace proposed initiatives to better train officials and reduce corruption but will agree on little else.</p>
<p>Human rights advocates will decry proposals to relocate the processing of asylum applications to the border and to narrow immigrants’ channels to permanent residency and citizenship. The stated imperative to “develop a well-coordinated strategy of tracking down illegal foreigners” will raise their hackles. Anti-immigrant activists and leaders will say the proposals <a href="https://www.politicsweb.co.za/politics/immigration-reforms-a-bandaid-on-bullet-wound--her">do not go far enough</a>. </p>
<p>Collectively we have <a href="https://scholar.google.co.za/citations?user=Hw4YkqoAAAAJ&hl=en">studied</a> <a href="https://scholar.google.co.za/citations?user=932HsxAAAAAJ&hl=en">immigration policy and practice</a> in South Africa and elsewhere for almost 40 years. Based on this experience, we find that the White Paper does not provide an empirical foundation for effective, developmental policy reform.</p>
<p>Instead, it offers vague proposals to address problems that are less about immigration than bureaucratic and political mismanagement. It provides a smokescreen to hide government faults. Perhaps it’s intended to distract voters in the <a href="https://www.gov.za/speeches/electoral-commission-south-africa-launches-2024-national-and-provincial-elections-24-oct">2024 elections</a> from the <a href="https://www.worldbank.org/en/country/southafrica/overview">increasing inequalities and socio-economic challenges</a> in South Africa. </p>
<h2>False claims and lapses of logic</h2>
<p>What is most unsettling about the paper is how the government invents its own social reality, and then offers vague and poorly considered proposals to solve nonexistent problems.</p>
<p>Case in point: the document states that 150,997 people in South Africa have been granted citizenship by naturalisation (presumably since the 2002 <a href="https://www.gov.za/documents/immigration-act">Immigration Act</a>). This number is used to justify radically narrowing pathways to citizenship. Yet, this figure represents less than 0.2% of the country’s population of <a href="https://census.statssa.gov.za/#/">62 million</a>.</p>
<p>The suggestion that citizenship is easily accessed – especially through the asylum process – is bizarre. This could only happen if asylum cases were effectively processed. <a href="https://www.amnesty.org/en/latest/press-release/2019/10/south-africa-failing-asylum-system-is-exacerbating-xenophobia/#:%7E:text=Despite%20its%20strong%20legal%20and,in%20Limbo%3A%20Rights%20of%20Asylum">They are not</a>. </p>
<p>Since the <a href="https://www.gov.za/sites/default/files/gcis_document/201409/a130-980.pdf">Refugees Act was passed in 1998</a>, only <a href="https://issafrica.s3.amazonaws.com/site/uploads/sar-53.pdf">about 300,000 people have been granted refugee status</a>. Many of these have since left South Africa or needed to reapply (so they may have been counted more than once). Of these 300,000, <a href="https://genderjustice.org.za/card/what-is-the-white-paper-on-international-migration/permanent-residency-and-citizenship/">only a small percentage</a> have become permanent residents, let alone citizens.</p>
<p>The White Paper reaches its tragi-comic apex by including a substantial list of legal cases that civil society has won against the Department of Home Affairs for <a href="https://www.citizen.co.za/news/south-africa/government/home-affairs-facing-more-than-r2bn-in-lawsuits/">not enforcing its own laws</a>. The cases are supposedly so numerous that </p>
<blockquote>
<p>there are several instances wherein the DHA has been slapped with court orders of which it has not been aware of the proceedings.</p>
</blockquote>
<p>Rather than bring itself into line, the department wants the law altered to prevent these court challenges. And it argues that without legal reform, scapegoating and violence against immigrants will continue. </p>
<p>The White Paper reasons that excluding immigrants from South Africa will protect them by making Home Affairs more legally compliant, and South Africans more tolerant and welcoming.</p>
<p>The paper’s most remarkable self-delusion is in its estimates of between 5 million and 13 million immigrants. <a href="https://africacheck.org/fact-checks/spotchecks/are-there-15-million-undocumented-immigrants-living-south-africa-no-another">These estimates have been debunked</a>. The most reliable source of information on population data, <a href="https://www.statssa.gov.za/?p=16716">Stats SA Census 2022</a>, indicates that the percentage of immigrants in the country has declined in the last decade. The numbers <a href="https://theconversation.com/south-africas-2022-census-missed-31-of-people-big-data-could-help-in-future-215560">may not be perfect</a>, but the total number of foreign-born residents (including exiles, spouses, investors, and others) is <a href="https://census.statssa.gov.za/#/">close to 2.4 million</a> – somewhere around 4% of the total population of <a href="https://census.statssa.gov.za/#/">62 million</a>. The previous census (2010) put the figure at <a href="http://www.statssa.gov.za/census/census_2011/census_products/Census_2011_Census_in_brief.pdf">4.4% of a total population of 52 million</a>.</p>
<p>The White Paper suggests that strict laws are needed “to protect the rights” of South African citizens against “the harsh realities” that there are simply not enough resources for everyone. Yet the question is: what exactly do South Africans need to be protected from?</p>
<h2>Misplaced blame</h2>
<p>Immigration can be a challenge. But this does not explain why South Africans spend days without light, water, jobs, or hope of addressing <a href="https://www.eh-exhibition.uni-bayreuth.de/en/cs/South-Africa/index.html#:%7E:text=At%20the%20time%20of%20Mandela's,since%20the%20end%20of%20apartheid.">economic inequality</a>. Immigrants are not the reason why the <a href="https://theconversation.com/healthcare-in-south-africa-how-inequity-is-contributing-to-inefficiency-163753">health service is failing</a> or <a href="https://theconversation.com/johannesburg-fire-there-was-a-plan-to-fix-derelict-buildings-and-provide-good-accommodation-how-to-move-forward-213095">infrastracture is crumbling</a>. And immigrants are <a href="https://issafrica.s3.amazonaws.com/site/uploads/sar-53.pdf">not responsible for most of the country’s crime</a>. </p>
<p>Missing too from the White Paper is a grounded discussion of how mobility and immigration schemes can meet skills gaps, promote investment, and create jobs across the region. Whether in the <a href="https://www.aeaweb.org/articles?id=10.1257/mac.20190042">US</a> or <a href="https://blogs.worldbank.org/africacan/empirical-evidence-shows-migrants-in-south-africa-create-jobs">South Africa</a>, most careful research suggests immigration has positive economic effects. </p>
<p>Nowhere is there reference to the careful analysis of <a href="https://theconversation.com/zimbabwean-migrants-south-africas-anti-immigrant-sentiments-are-hindering-policy-reform-209884">connections between immigration and development</a>, or research involving the <a href="https://www.labour.gov.za/DocumentCenter/Publications/Public%20Employment%20Services/National%20Labour%20Migration%20Policy%202021%202.pdf">Department of Labour</a>, <a href="https://www.ilo.org/wcmsp5/groups/public/---ed_protect/---protrav/---migrant/documents/publication/wcms_635964.pdf">the International Labour Organisation</a>, <a href="https://www.solidaritycenter.org/wp-content/uploads/2015/09/Restriction-and-Solidarity-in-New-South-Africa-migration-report.1.2014.pdf">unions</a>, and <a href="https://scholar.google.co.za/citations?view_op=view_citation&hl=en&user=Hw4YkqoAAAAJ&cstart=20&pagesize=80&citation_for_view=Hw4YkqoAAAAJ:_axFR9aDTf0C">scholars</a>.</p>
<p>Instead, the White Paper offers an almost Soviet style programme where experts will designate entry requirements based on predictions of needed skills. The unpredictability of the regional economy, the high economic and human costs of state-managed labour systems, and the diplomatic benefits of a more regionally integrated labour market suggest another model is needed. </p>
<p>It is another illusion that a government that <a href="https://mg.co.za/thoughtleader/opinion/2022-11-02-shape-and-size-matter-our-governments-structure-not-just-its-capacity-hamstrings-development/">cannot identify and respond to citizens’ basic needs</a> – <a href="https://theconversation.com/water-cuts-in-south-africa-are-hurting-hospitals-and-clinics-theres-an-increased-risk-of-infections-199425">water</a>, <a href="https://theconversation.com/south-africas-power-crisis-will-continue-until-2025-and-blackouts-will-take-5-years-to-phase-out-206343">electricity</a>, <a href="https://www.amnesty.org/en/latest/news/2020/02/south-africa-broken-and-unequal-education-perpetuating-poverty-and-inequality/">education</a>, or <a href="https://www.hhrjournal.org/2018/11/contribution-of-the-health-ombud-to-accountability-the-life-esidimeni-tragedy-in-south-africa/">healthcare</a> – can somehow predict and carefully manage a regional migrant labour system. It is equally fantastical to think that it should.</p>
<h2>Imagined problems, impractical solutions</h2>
<p>The White Paper does not outline an approach to improve immigration policy. Its proposals are vague and the problems it seeks to solve are not about immigration. </p>
<p>This appears to be part of a trend: the poorly researched and largely unsubstantiated 2017 <a href="https://www.justice.gov.za/salrc/reports/r-pr107-SXO-AdultProstitution-2017-Sum.pdf">South African Law Reform Commission’s Report on Adult Prostitution</a> similarly overlooked <a href="https://www.dailymaverick.co.za/article/2023-01-24-sex-workers-and-moral-stigmatisation-where-criminal-law-has-no-place/">robust evidence-based research</a> in favour of “data” from religious NGOs in the US and <a href="https://www.dailymaverick.co.za/article/2017-05-29-analysis-what-happened-to-the-sex-work-report/">personal blogs</a>.</p>
<p>Both examples point to a government lacking capacity to empirically analyse the world and develop solutions to real problems. If not that, they suggest a government wilfully deceiving its citizenry: making immigrants the scapegoat for its own failings. Given the content of the White Paper, it is likely both.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/217941/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Loren B Landau receives funding from the South African National Research Foundation. Research informing this article was also supported by the Presidency of South Africa, the South African Local Government Association, the Open Society Foundation, and the US Agency for International Development. </span></em></p><p class="fine-print"><em><span>Rebecca Walker does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>The White Paper’s proposals are vague and seek to solve problems that are not about immigration.Loren B Landau, Co-Director of the Wits-Oxford Mobility Governance Lab, University of the WitwatersrandRebecca Walker, Research Associate at the African Centre for Migration & Society, University of the WitwatersrandLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/2116862023-11-15T17:44:31Z2023-11-15T17:44:31ZHow the Welsh language is being promoted to help migrants feel at home<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/550026/original/file-20230925-22-4zy1hu.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=43%2C0%2C4819%2C3174&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">The Welsh government has announced plans to make Wales a 'nation of sanctuary'.</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.shutterstock.com/image-photo/second-severn-crossing-wales-november-2018-1229207257">Ceri Breeze/Shutterstock</a></span></figcaption></figure><p><em>You can read this article in <a href="https://theconversation.com/maer-gymraeg-yn-cael-ei-defnyddio-i-annog-ymfudwyr-i-deimlon-gartrefol-217503">Welsh</a>.</em></p>
<p>The UK government alone decides who can enter the country and how migration and asylum policies are made. But devolved governments have scope to use <a href="https://researchbriefings.files.parliament.uk/documents/CBP-8599/CBP-8599.pdf">their powers</a> in fields such as housing, education, health and social services to shape the nature of the support that is subsequently offered to new arrivals.</p>
<p>In recent years, the Welsh government has <a href="https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/1369183X.2023.2198809">looked for ways</a> to use its powers to help refugees and migrants integrate into Welsh society, taking into account the role of the Welsh language. </p>
<p>Overall, this is an approach that seeks to create a welcoming and supportive environment in Wales. It contrasts with the UK government’s commitment to <a href="https://migrationobservatory.ox.ac.uk/resources/briefings/long-term-international-migration-flows-to-and-from-the-uk/">reducing net migration</a> and to create a “<a href="https://inews.co.uk/news/politics/what-is-hostile-environment-theresa-may-windrush-eu-citizens-legal-immigrants-145067">hostile environment</a>” for refugees and asylum seekers.</p>
<p>The most prominent step taken to date was the publication of the Welsh government’s <a href="https://www.gov.wales/refugee-and-asylum-seeker-plan-nation-sanctuary">plan in 2019</a>, which set out measures aimed at turning Wales into a “<a href="https://www.gov.wales/written-statement-wales-nation-sanctuary">nation of sanctuary</a>”.</p>
<p>However, another significant – but less obvious – aspect of the Welsh government’s work are the steps taken to ensure that the Welsh language plays a more prominent role in the process of welcoming migrants and refugees.</p>
<p>Reflecting on this work, <a href="https://www.gov.wales/jane-hutt-ms">Jane Hutt</a>, Wales’ social justice minister, <a href="https://www.bbc.co.uk/cymrufyw/64811421">has argued</a> that the Welsh language could become “an extremely powerful integration tool”.</p>
<h2>Hospitality and integration</h2>
<p>The shift to viewing the Welsh language as a resource that can facilitate integration is evident when tracing the evolution of English for speakers of other languages (ESOL) provision in Wales.</p>
<p>In 2013, the formal link between ESOL provision and the process of gaining UK citizenship was <a href="https://www.gov.uk/government/news/tougher-language-requirements-announced-for-british-citizenship">unpicked</a> by the then Conservative-Liberal Democrat coalition government.</p>
<p>An unforeseen consequence of this reform was that it created an opportunity to initiate a distinct approach to language education for migrants in Wales. Hence, a year later, the Welsh government published its first <a href="https://www.gov.wales/english-speakers-other-languages-esol-policy-statement">ESOL policy for Wales</a>. It was the first of its kind to be developed by any of the UK’s four governments.</p>
<p>The original ESOL policy did not make a link between the Welsh language and linguistic integration. But a <a href="https://www.gov.wales/sites/default/files/publications/2019-11/english-for-speakers-of-other-languages-esol-policy-wales.pdf">later iteration</a>, published in 2019, called on ESOL providers in Wales “to integrate the Welsh language into their classes”. </p>
<hr>
<p>
<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/esol-english-classes-are-crucial-for-migrant-integration-yet-challenges-remain-unaddressed-204415">Esol English classes are crucial for migrant integration, yet challenges remain unaddressed</a>
</strong>
</em>
</p>
<hr>
<p>This was deemed necessary as the “the Welsh language can be a valuable skill in the workplace”. And also because learning Welsh can facilitate “social integration”, particularly in “predominantly Welsh speaking communities”.</p>
<p>Coinciding with this, the <a href="https://learnwelsh.cymru/learn-welsh-with-us-croeso-i-bawb/">National Centre for Learning Welsh</a> worked in partnership with <a href="https://www.adultlearning.wales/cym">Adult Learning Wales</a>, the umbrella organisation for adult education providers across Wales, to develop a novel Welsh for speakers of other languages (WSOL) provision. Introduced for the first time in 2019, <em><a href="https://learnwelsh.cymru/learn-welsh-with-us-croeso-i-bawb/">Croeso i Bawb</a></em> (“Welcome to Everyone”) is a bespoke course that aims to introduce the Welsh language to migrants and refugees.</p>
<p>A Welsh government-commissioned <a href="https://www.gov.wales/sites/default/files/publications/2023-07/review-english-speakers-other-languages-esol-policy-wales.pdf">review</a> of ESOL provision in Wales this year reiterated the value of introducing Welsh for promoting a sense of belonging. The review also called for the National Centre for Learning Welsh to be integrated fully into existing educational networks that work to support migrants in Wales. </p>
<h2>Implications</h2>
<p>It is important not to overstate the scale of these changes. Overall, English remains the primary medium of integration for the majority of immigrants and refugees settling in Wales.</p>
<p>Yet the increasing emphasis on the Welsh language in integration efforts reinforces the sense of a distinctive Welsh approach to welcoming migrants and refugees. The new WSOL provision <a href="https://wales.britishcouncil.org/en/blog/migrants-multilingualism-and-welsh-language">challenges</a> the monolingual image of life in the UK and promotes multilingualism and multiculturalism. </p>
<figure>
<iframe width="440" height="260" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/qgjVx8bTMfg?wmode=transparent&start=0" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen=""></iframe>
<figcaption><span class="caption">Adult Learning Wales’ information on WSOL.</span></figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Other <a href="https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s10993-019-09517-0">research</a> suggests that learning Welsh can enhance the employment opportunities of migrants and refugees. It can also facilitate their ability to access a variety of new social networks. </p>
<p>But if there is to be a serious effort to offer a route to integration, it will not be sufficient to merely focus on offering formal opportunities to learn the Welsh language, important as that may be.</p>
<p>Policymakers and activists should consider other ways to make Welsh language learning more accessible. Providing opportunities for learners to interact socially through the medium of Welsh is also vital.</p>
<p>While the UK government seems set to continue emphasising English as the only way to integrate successfully, the current evidence suggests that Wales wants a different, more multilingual vision.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/211686/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>This article has benefited from financial support offered by the Independent Social Research Foundation (ISRF) as part of a project on the ethics of linguistic integration.
</span></em></p><p class="fine-print"><em><span>Mike Chick is affiliated with the Welsh Refugee Council as a Trustee.</span></em></p>The Welsh government has taken steps to ensure that the Welsh language plays a more prominent role in welcoming refugees and migrants.Huw Lewis, Senior Lecturer in Politics, Aberystwyth UniversityGwennan Higham, Senior Lecturer in Welsh, Swansea UniversityMike Chick, Senior Lecturer in TESOL/English, University of South WalesLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/2177302023-11-15T12:43:15Z2023-11-15T12:43:15ZSupreme court rules Rwanda plan unlawful: a legal expert explains the judgment, and what happens next<p>The UK supreme court has <a href="https://www.supremecourt.uk/cases/uksc-2023-0093.html">unanimously ruled</a> that the government’s plan to send asylum seekers to Rwanda is unlawful.</p>
<p>Upholding an <a href="https://theconversation.com/why-uk-court-ruled-rwanda-isnt-a-safe-place-to-send-refugees-and-what-this-means-for-the-governments-immigration-plans-208768">earlier decision</a> by the court of appeal, the supreme court found that asylum seekers sent to Rwanda may be at risk of refoulement – being sent back to a country where they may be persecuted, tortured or killed. </p>
<hr>
<iframe id="noa-web-audio-player" style="border: none" src="https://embed-player.newsoveraudio.com/v4?key=x84olp&id=https://theconversation.com/supreme-court-rules-rwanda-plan-unlawful-a-legal-expert-explains-the-judgment-and-what-happens-next-217730&bgColor=F5F5F5&color=D8352A&playColor=D8352A" width="100%" height="110px"></iframe>
<p><em>You can listen to more articles from The Conversation <a href="https://theconversation.com/us/topics/audio-narrated-99682">narrated by Noa</a>.</em></p>
<hr>
<p>The courts cited extensive evidence from the UN refugee agency (UNHCR) that Rwanda does not respect the principle of non-refoulement – a legal obligation. The UNHCR’s evidence questioned the ability of Rwandan authorities to fairly assess asylum claims. It also raised concerns about human rights violations by Rwandan authorities, including not respecting non-refoulement with other asylum seekers.</p>
<p>It is important to note that the supreme court’s decision is not a comment on the political viability of the Rwanda plan, or on the concept of offshoring asylum processes generally. The ruling focused only on the legal principle of non-refoulement, and determined that in this respect, Rwanda is not a “safe third country” to send asylum seekers.</p>
<p>The ruling is another blow to the government’s promise to “stop the boats”. And since the Rwanda plan is at the heart of its new Illegal Migration Act, the government will need to reconsider its asylum policies. This is further complicated by Conservative party infighting and the firing of home secretary Suella Braverman, just two days before the ruling.</p>
<h2>How did we get here?</h2>
<p>For years, the UK government has been seeking to reduce small boat arrivals to the UK. In April 2022, the UK and Rwanda signed an agreement making it possible for the UK to deport some people seeking asylum in Britain to Rwanda, without their cases being heard in the UK. Instead, they would have their cases decided by Rwandan authorities, to be granted (or rejected) asylum in Rwanda.</p>
<p>While the Rwanda plan specifically was found to be unlawful, the government could, in theory, replicate this in other countries so long as they are considered “safe” for asylum seekers. </p>
<p>The government has not yet sent anyone to Rwanda. The first flight was prevented from <a href="https://theconversation.com/rwanda-deportations-what-is-the-european-court-of-human-rights-and-why-did-it-stop-the-uk-flight-from-taking-off-185143">taking off</a> by the European court of human rights in June 2022, which said that British courts needed to consider all human rights issues before starting deportations.</p>
<p>A UK high court then <a href="https://www.judiciary.uk/judgments/aaa-and-others-v-secretary-of-state-for-the-home-department/">decided</a> in December 2022 that the Rwanda plan was lawful. </p>
<hr>
<p><em><strong>Catch up on our other coverage of the Rwanda plan</strong>:</em></p>
<p>• <strong><em><a href="https://theconversation.com/why-uk-court-ruled-rwanda-isnt-a-safe-place-to-send-refugees-and-what-this-means-for-the-governments-immigration-plans-208768?utm_source=TCUK&utm_medium=linkback&utm_campaign=UK+Pol2023&utm_content=InArticleTop">Why UK court ruled Rwanda isn’t a safe place to send refugees – and what this means for the government’s immigration plans</a></em></strong></p>
<p>• <strong><em><a href="https://theconversation.com/rwanda-deportations-what-is-the-european-court-of-human-rights-and-why-did-it-stop-the-uk-flight-from-taking-off-185143?utm_source=TCUK&utm_medium=linkback&utm_campaign=UK+Pol2023&utm_content=InArticleTop">Rwanda deportations: what is the European Court of Human Rights, and why did it stop the UK flight from taking off?</a></em></strong></p>
<p>• <strong><em><a href="https://theconversation.com/suella-braverman-is-wrong-about-the-un-refugee-convention-being-not-fit-for-purpose-heres-why-214505?utm_source=TCUK&utm_medium=linkback&utm_campaign=UK+Pol2023&utm_content=InArticleTop">Suella Braverman is wrong about the UN refugee convention being ‘not fit for purpose’ – here’s why</a></em></strong></p>
<p>• <strong><em><a href="https://theconversation.com/the-government-passed-a-major-immigration-law-last-year-so-why-is-it-trying-to-pass-another-one-207343?utm_source=TCUK&utm_medium=linkback&utm_campaign=UK+Pol2023&utm_content=InArticleTop">The government passed a major immigration law last year – so why is it trying to pass another one?</a></em></strong></p>
<p>• <strong><em><a href="https://theconversation.com/a-toxic-policy-with-little-returns-lessons-for-the-uk-rwanda-deal-from-australia-and-the-us-201790?utm_source=TCUK&utm_medium=linkback&utm_campaign=UK+Pol2023&utm_content=InArticleTop">‘A toxic policy with little returns’ – lessons for the UK-Rwanda deal from Australia and the US</a></em></strong></p>
<hr>
<p>Ten asylum seekers from Syria, Iraq, Iran, Vietnam, Sudan and Albania challenged the high court ruling, with the support of the charity Asylum Aid. Their claim was about whether Rwanda meets the legal threshold for being a safe country for asylum seekers. </p>
<p>The court of appeal <a href="https://theconversation.com/why-uk-court-ruled-rwanda-isnt-a-safe-place-to-send-refugees-and-what-this-means-for-the-governments-immigration-plans-208768">said it was not</a> and that asylum seekers risked being sent back to their home countries (where they could face persecution), when in fact they may have a good claim for asylum. </p>
<p>The government has since passed the Illegal Migration Act. The law now states that all asylum seekers arriving irregularly (for example, in small boats) must be removed to a safe third country. But now that the Rwanda deal has been ruled unlawful, there are no other countries that have said they would take asylum seekers from the UK.</p>
<h2>What happens next?</h2>
<p>It is clear that the government’s asylum policies will need rethinking. Should another country now be designated as a safe country and different arrangements put in place, these will probably be subject to further legal challenges, including in the European court of human rights and in British courts.</p>
<p>This ruling is likely to revive discussion about the UK leaving the European convention on human rights (ECHR), which holds the UK to the non-refoulement obligation. Some Conservatives, including the former home secretary Suella Braverman, have argued that <a href="https://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/crime/echt-explained-rwanda-braverman-europe-b2447587.html">leaving the convention</a> would make it easier to pass stronger immigration laws. </p>
<p>But while handing down the supreme court judgment, Lord Reed emphasised that there are obligations towards asylum seekers that go beyond the ECHR. The duty of non-refoulement is part of many other international conventions, and domestic law as well. In other words, exiting the ECHR would not automatically make the Rwanda plan lawful or easier to implement. </p>
<p>The prime minister, Rishi Sunak, has said that he is working on a new treaty with Rwanda and is prepared to change domestic laws to “do whatever it takes to stop the boats”.</p>
<p>The UK is not the only country to attempt to off-shore asylum processing. <a href="https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2023-11-11/scholz-looks-at-italy-s-asylum-deal-with-albania-as-way-forward?leadSource=uverify%20wall">Germany</a> and <a href="https://abcnews.go.com/International/wireStory/migration-experts-italys-deal-albania-house-asylum-seekers-104690941">Italy</a> have recently been considering finding new safe third countries to accept asylum seekers as well. </p>
<p>But ensuring these measures comply with human rights obligations is complicated. International law requires states to provide sanctuary to those fleeing persecution or risk to their lives. As this ruling shows, the UK is not going to find an easy way out of these obligations.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/217730/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Devyani Prabhat does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>Leaving the European convention on human rights would not automatically make the Rwanda plan lawful or easier to implement.Devyani Prabhat, Professor of Law, University of BristolLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/2149282023-11-05T13:01:57Z2023-11-05T13:01:57ZUnpacking Elon Musk’s convoluted U.S.-Mexico border visit<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/557510/original/file-20231103-17-agxdj5.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=0%2C67%2C680%2C438&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Elon Musk and Texas congressman Tony Gonzales stand in front of a group of South American migrants at the U.S.-Mexico border.</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://twitter.com/TonyGonzales4TX/status/1708142923626209519">(Twitter/Tony Gonzales)</a></span></figcaption></figure><iframe style="width: 100%; height: 100px; border: none; position: relative; z-index: 1;" allowtransparency="" allow="clipboard-read; clipboard-write" src="https://narrations.ad-auris.com/widget/the-conversation-canada/unpacking-elon-musks-convoluted-us-mexico-border-visit" width="100%" height="400"></iframe>
<p>In late September, Elon Musk, the tech billionaire behind Tesla and SpaceX, set the internet ablaze with his visit to the Texas-Mexico border to provide what he called an “<a href="https://economictimes.indiatimes.com/news/international/us/why-did-elon-musk-visit-texas-mexico-border-and-what-did-he-say-about-the-migrants/articleshow/104034433.cms?from=mdr">unfiltered</a>” perspective on the border crisis as <a href="https://www.reuters.com/world/migrants-cross-into-texas-undeterred-by-razor-wire-or-new-asylum-rules-2023-09-28/">thousands of migrants</a>, mostly from Venezuela, crossed the Rio Grande River.</p>
<p><a href="https://x.com/elonmusk/status/1707565081750290910?s=20">In a video at Eagle Pass, Texas</a>, Musk calls for a “greatly expanded legal immigration system” that would welcome “hard-working and honest” people and “<a href="https://twitter.com/elonmusk/status/1707525800830828619?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw%7Ctwcamp%5Etweetembed%7Ctwterm%5E1707525800830828619%7Ctwgr%5E3df67ff84fb408e2c51eceefcad89b5db37b30d0%7Ctwcon%5Es1_&ref_url=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.dailysignal.com%2F2023%2F09%2F29%2Felon-musk-visits-eagle-pass-livestreams-real-story-of-whats-happening-at-southern-border%2F">not let anyone in the country who is breaking the law</a>.”</p>
<p>Many were quick to highlight the absurdity of the world’s richest person, who is himself an immigrant, standing before a group of other immigrants calling for stricter policies. </p>
<p><div data-react-class="Tweet" data-react-props="{"tweetId":"1708283629665927576"}"></div></p>
<h2>Pro-immigrant but anti-asylum?</h2>
<p>Musk’s position on immigration appears convoluted. On the one hand, he says he is “<a href="https://x.com/elonmusk/status/1707525800830828619?s=20">extremely pro-immigrant</a>,” given he is an immigrant to the United States himself. This also makes sense from the perspective of his businesses, which rely on <a href="https://www.vice.com/en/article/n7z5px/twitter-employees-on-visas-cant-just-quit">highly skilled migrant workers</a>.</p>
<p>While Musk said he supports legal immigration, he said the U.S. should “not be allowing people in the country if they are breaking the law.” A day before his visit to the border, Musk <a href="https://x.com/elonmusk/status/1707146779894951982?s=20">tweeted</a> support for a <a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/elon-musk-trump-wall-us-mexico-border-2023-9">Trump-style wall</a> to securitize the border. He implied that asylum seekers were entering without evidence to support their claims and they could “literally Google to know exactly what to say” to border officers.</p>
<p>Musk’s peddling of right wing anti-refugee rhetoric isn’t surprising, but the misinformation shared in Musk’s self-proclaimed “unfiltered” video may inadvertently bolster border militarization, increased repatriations and the criminalization of vulnerable asylum seekers. </p>
<p><div data-react-class="Tweet" data-react-props="{"tweetId":"1707565081750290910"}"></div></p>
<p>For example, during Musk’s border visit, congressman Tony Gonzales shares an anecdote about an asylum seeker he saw that had teardrop tattoos on their face. Musk calls this person a “serial murderer and proud of it” and made the leap that America has become the place people “go to escape the law.” </p>
<p>This kind of language plays into tropes that paint immigrants as dangerous and criminal. However, research has demonstrated that immigrants are not more likely to commit crimes. <a href="https://www.newsnationnow.com/us-news/immigration/u-s-citizens-most-likely-to-commit-crimes-than-immigrants/">Research from 2022</a> found U.S. citizens are more than two times more likely to be arrested for a violent crime than undocumented immigrants. </p>
<p>In the video, Gonzales claimed there has been zero repatriation. However, <a href="https://www.newyorker.com/news/daily-comment/the-border-doesnt-need-elon-musks-citizen-journalism">3.6 million people who have crossed into the U.S. illegally have been repatriated</a> since Biden took office. Soon after Musk’s visit, Biden announced that the <a href="https://www.nbcnews.com/politics/white-house/us-resume-direct-deportation-flights-venezuelan-migrants-rcna119107">U.S. was resuming direct repatriation flights for Venezuelans</a> who unlawfully cross the border and have no legal basis to stay. </p>
<h2>An open border for all of Earth?</h2>
<p>The most troubling and sensationalist claim that Musk makes is that the U.S. southern border is an “<a href="https://x.com/elonmusk/status/1707565081750290910?s=20">open border for all of earth…an open border to 8 billion</a>.” Not only is this statement far from the truth, it plays into tropes that immigrants and refugees from the Global South are invading western countries. </p>
<p>It’s a dramatic misconception of the realities of global migration and displacement. The vast majority of refugees are hosted by countries in the Global South. </p>
<p>For example, displacement from <a href="https://www.cbsnews.com/news/immigration-venezuela-refugee-crisis-us-border-policies/?fbclid=IwAR0qEfobBJ98gamFou7F0KpdQMo0XvcXivdfeccOs5NGC6-22oxyYbNnplI">Venezuela is now the largest refugee crisis</a> in the world, outpacing refugees from Ukraine and Syria. Of the <a href="https://www.r4v.info/es/refugiadosymigrantes">7.7 million displaced</a>, 85 per cent have moved to neighbouring Latin American countries. Only around <a href="https://www.r4v.info/es/refugiadosymigrantes">700,000 are in the U.S. under temporary protection status</a>, which is only nine per cent of the total displaced population. </p>
<p><div data-react-class="Tweet" data-react-props="{"tweetId":"1707146779894951982"}"></div></p>
<p>The claim that the U.S. border is open “for all of earth” is plainly wrong, and gives the U.S. credit for what has been a Latin American-led humanitarian response to the Venezuelan crisis. </p>
<p>Musk has been criticized for meddling in international affairs, most recently the <a href="https://www.theverge.com/2022/10/21/23415242/elon-musk-starlink-ukraine-dod-twitter-david-sacks-russia">Ukraine war</a>. He has <a href="https://twitter.com/elonmusk/status/1576969255031296000?">tweeted a peace proposal</a>, <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/technology/2022/03/19/elon-musk-ukraine-starlink/">provided</a> then <a href="https://www.cnbc.com/2023/09/07/ukraine-rips-musk-disrupting-sneak-attack-russian-navy.html">shut off Starlink’s satellite</a> network over Crimea and <a href="https://twitter.com/panoparker/status/1318157559266762752">seemingly supported</a> a U.S.-backed coup in Bolivia.</p>
<p>And we are seeing the implications for his misinformation at the border impact the lives of people seeking asylum in the U.S. being portrayed as “serial murderers” and “breaking the law.” As Musk wades into yet another political issue, it is crucial for the public to get their information from credible news sources and research, not billionaires on Twitter.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/214928/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Yvonne Su does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>Elon Musk’s visit to the U.S.-Mexico border played into false tropes that paint asylum seekers as dangerous criminals.Yvonne Su, Assistant Professor in the Department of Equity Studies, York University, CanadaLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/2149582023-11-01T19:54:40Z2023-11-01T19:54:40ZCanada’s refugee pilot programs risk making refugees prove their worth<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/557163/original/file-20231101-27-nsb8h2.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=26%2C139%2C2973%2C2106&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Admitting refugees based on their skills risks setting a dangerous precedent, and Canada would be wise to proceed with caution.</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">(Shutterstock)</span></span></figcaption></figure><iframe style="width: 100%; height: 100px; border: none; position: relative; z-index: 1;" allowtransparency="" allow="clipboard-read; clipboard-write" src="https://narrations.ad-auris.com/widget/the-conversation-canada/canadas-refugee-pilot-programs-risk-making-refugees-prove-their-worth" width="100%" height="400"></iframe>
<p>Canada’s <a href="https://www.canada.ca/en/immigration-refugees-citizenship/services/refugees/economic-mobility-pathways-pilot/immigrate/eligibility.html">Economic Mobility Pathways Pilot (EMPP)</a>, intended to settle skilled refugees to fill urgent Canadian labour shortages, risks commodifying refugees and humanitarianism. A shift towards using <a href="https://theconversation.com/canada-needs-to-stop-wasting-the-talent-of-skilled-immigrants-182005">an asylum claimant’s economic potential to judge their claim</a> risks blurring the lines between humanitarian- and economically-driven migration to Canada. </p>
<p>Canada has garnered international praise for the way it has welcomed refugees. The country has a <a href="https://www.canada.ca/en/immigration-refugees-citizenship/services/refugees/canada-role/timeline.html">long history of granting protection to individuals fleeing persecution, war and violence</a>. Since 1980, <a href="https://www.unhcr.ca/in-canada/refugees-in-canada/">Canada has welcomed over one million refugees</a>, and takes pride in their contributions to the Canadian economy and its multicultural milieu. </p>
<p>Canada’s welcoming approach, and its <a href="https://theconversation.com/the-story-behind-the-worlds-first-private-refugee-sponsorship-program-126257">private refugee sponsorship program</a>, have been touted as a model for other countries to follow. Canada has also been celebrated for its <a href="https://www.fmreview.org/latinamerica-caribbean/dustin-ferreira">proceedings involving refugees who have suffered due to their sexual orientation or gender identity</a>.</p>
<p>Finding durable solutions to global refugee crises is a persistent challenge. However, admitting refugees based on their skills risks setting a dangerous precedent, and Canada would be wise to proceed with caution.</p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/556956/original/file-20231031-29-iqfv1r.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="A group of people holding signs that say welcome to Canada" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/556956/original/file-20231031-29-iqfv1r.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/556956/original/file-20231031-29-iqfv1r.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/556956/original/file-20231031-29-iqfv1r.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/556956/original/file-20231031-29-iqfv1r.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/556956/original/file-20231031-29-iqfv1r.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/556956/original/file-20231031-29-iqfv1r.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/556956/original/file-20231031-29-iqfv1r.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">A family waits to welcome Syrian refugees at Toronto Pearson Airport. The EMPP risks jeopardizing Canada’s welcoming reputation.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">(Shutterstock)</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<h2>Economic Mobility Pathways Pilot</h2>
<p><a href="https://www.canada.ca/en/immigration-refugees-citizenship/corporate/publications-manuals/economic-mobility-pathways-project-labour-mobility.html">The EMPP</a> was launched in April 2018 in collaboration with refugee-focused organizations like <a href="https://www.talentbeyondboundaries.org/">Talent Beyond Boundaries</a> and <a href="https://www.refugepoint.org/">RefugePoint</a>, and is designed to combine refugee resettlement and economic immigration. </p>
<p>Through the EMPP, around 10 to 15 “skilled refugees” in the Middle East and East Africa were referred to <a href="https://www.canada.ca/en/immigration-refugees-citizenship/services/immigrate-canada/provincial-nominees/works.html">provincial nominee programs</a> in Canada. Through these programs, Canadian provinces are able to nominate people for permanent residence. The EMPP was intended to be another avenue for refugees seeking to come to Canada. </p>
<p>In the summer of 2023, Immigration, Refugees and Citizenship Canada (IRCC) announced two new immigration streams under the EMPP. Refugees who secured a full-time job offer could come to Canada through the EMPP Skills Job Stream. Those without a full-time job offer, but who <a href="https://www.unhcr.ca/in-canada/other-immigration-pathways-refugees/economic-immigration-skilled-refugees/#:%7E:text=To%20date%2C%20a%20software%20developer,other%20applications%20are%20being%20processed.">possessed skills that match with employers’ needs</a>, could apply through the EMPP Federal Skills Without a Job Offer Stream. </p>
<p>These newer pathways apply a skills distinction to refugee selection and admission in Canada. Essentially, they distinguish refugee applicants based on their perceived skills, education, training and experience. Such a practice is counter to <a href="https://www.ohchr.org/en/instruments-mechanisms/instruments/convention-relating-status-refugees">international</a> and <a href="https://laws.justice.gc.ca/eng/acts/i-2.5/page-1.html#h-274085">national</a> protocols that state refugees must be protected based on their fears of persecution. </p>
<p>More importantly, distinguishing refugees in this way only serves the private interests of employers and businesses, and not necessarily those of asylum seekers. </p>
<h2>Making refugees prove their worth</h2>
<p>The government states the EMPP gives Canadian employers access to <a href="https://www.canada.ca/en/immigration-refugees-citizenship/services/refugees/economic-mobility-pathways-pilot.html">“a new pool of qualified candidates”</a> who can meet ongoing labour shortages.</p>
<p>Migrant-receiving countries in the Global North have long relied on immigration to enhance their economic competitiveness. This economic basis for immigration has a long history in Canada and can be traced back to the <a href="https://www.thecanadianencyclopedia.ca/en/article/immigration-policy">1967 introduction of the points system</a>. Under this system, people seeking to immigrate to Canada are ranked and assessed based on their skills and human capital.</p>
<p>This kind of skilled immigration has become the <a href="https://theconversation.com/immigrants-could-be-the-solution-to-canadas-labour-shortage-but-they-need-to-be-supported-194613">preferred solution</a> to Canada’s ongoing labour shortages, <a href="https://theconversation.com/the-pandemic-created-challenges-and-opportunities-for-canadian-immigration-194490">particularly during the COVID-19 pandemic</a>.</p>
<p>These immigration systems can often create power imbalances between companies and their workers that are ripe for abuse. They can often give employers significant say in <a href="https://theconversation.com/new-regulations-on-migrant-farm-workers-should-tackle-employer-employee-power-imbalances-198489">who gets to stay in Canada and who does not</a>.</p>
<h2>Risks of abuse</h2>
<p>Inserting labour market objectives into refugee policy means the federal government risks not fully considering the dangers of exposing already vulnerable refugees to increased trauma and exploitation by <a href="https://theconversation.com/canada-the-good-myth-exposed-migrant-workers-resist-debt-bondage-90279">employers or unregulated recruiters</a>. </p>
<p>Assessing a refugee based on their employment or economic prospects fails to consider their other needs, <a href="https://policyoptions.irpp.org/fr/magazines/mai-2016/from-newcomer-to-canadian-making-refugee-integration-work/">such as health care, housing and language training</a>. The current EMPP pathways remain small and are intended to complement, rather than replace, the humanitarian impetus driving Canada’s refugee policy. </p>
<p>Now is the time to stop, think and apply caution. There is a need for more dialogue on the potential risks for refugees if Canada starts to assess their applications based on their economic prospects rather than the depth of their humanitarian needs. </p>
<p>This is especially important as Canada could serve as a model for other countries, which it has done in the past, and shape the lives of global refugees.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/214958/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Romeo Joe Quintero does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>Canada has cultivated a reputation for being welcoming toward refugees. However, a new pilot program risks jeopardizing that reputation by making asylum seekers prove their economic worth.Romeo Joe Quintero, PhD Student, Human Geography, York University, CanadaLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/2155202023-10-30T19:03:52Z2023-10-30T19:03:52ZDarien Gap: As migrants take deadly risks for better lives, Canada and the U.S. must do much more<iframe style="width: 100%; height: 100px; border: none; position: relative; z-index: 1;" allowtransparency="" allow="clipboard-read; clipboard-write" src="https://narrations.ad-auris.com/widget/the-conversation-canada/darien-gap-as-migrants-take-deadly-risks-for-better-lives-canada-and-the-us-must-do-much-more" width="100%" height="400"></iframe>
<p>Canadian Immigration Minister Marc Miller recently announced that as many as 15,000 displaced people with extended family connections in Canada — most of them from Colombia, Haiti and Venezuela and located in Central or South America or the Caribbean — <a href="https://www.canada.ca/en/immigration-refugees-citizenship/news/2023/10/statement-from-minister-miller-on-canadas-commitment-to-support-migrants-in-the-americas.html">are now eligible to apply to immigrate to Canada</a> on a humanitarian basis. </p>
<p>By announcing this measure, Canada affirmed its commitment to <a href="https://www.dhs.gov/news/2023/04/27/fact-sheet-us-government-announces-sweeping-new-actions-manage-regional-migration">a joint initiative, known as Safe Mobility</a>, launched by the United States in April 2023 to stem the irregular crossings of hundreds of thousands of people into the U.S. by offering alternatives.</p>
<p>These 15,000 people represent a small number of as many as <a href="https://www.cbc.ca/news/world/americas-migration-crisis-panama-texas-1.6982215">400,000 displaced people</a> expected to cross the Darien Gap, a 100-kilometre stretch of treacherous jungle shared by Colombia and Panama, in 2023 in search of safety, security and protection.</p>
<p>Forced to migrate by political instability, repression and other hardships, people from Venezuela, Cuba, Ecuador and Haiti represent most of the displaced people who have crossed the Darien Gap in the last few years. </p>
<p>As many migrants told us when <a href="http://doi.org/10.1002/psp.2441">we interviewed </a> them in <a href="https://doi.org/10.1111/cag.12701">Tijuana</a> in northern Mexico and Tapachula in the south of Mexico between 2018 and 2022, crossing the continent is not for the faint of heart. </p>
<p>They may experience harassment, extortion or detention by migration authorities, violence perpetrated by criminals and abuse by deceitful unscrupulous smugglers. The number of lives lost in the Darien Gap, including children and adolescents, <a href="https://doi.org/10.1016/S0140-6736(23)01635-5">is increasing</a>. </p>
<h2>Cracking down in Costa Rica</h2>
<p>In the past, at least for Venezuelans, it was not necessary to cross the jungle. They were able to travel to Costa Rica, for instance, by air. As many as 12,533 Venezuelans <a href="https://www.migrationpolicy.org/research/costa-rican-migration-immigrant-integration-policy">applied for refugee status</a> in Costa Rica between 2015 and August 2021. </p>
<p>But to curtail this flow, the Costa Rican government introduced a <a href="https://doi.org/10.1016/j.wss.2023.100151">visa requirement</a> in 2022 for Venezuelans, forcing people who wished to travel to the country to undertake the dangerous journey through the Darien Gap.</p>
<p>But the problems for Venezuelan asylum-seekers don’t end there. As the migrants and NGO representatives in our study told us, the current wait time for the first eligibility interview with Costa Rican immigration officials is 10 years. The Costa Rican refugee unit is <a href="https://www.migrationpolicy.org/research/costa-rican-migration-immigrant-integration-policy">severely under-resourced and heavily reliant on international assistance</a>. </p>
<p>Further curtailing refugee rights, Costa Rica introduced <a href="https://www.pgrweb.go.cr/scij/Busqueda/Normativa/Normas/nrm_texto_completo.aspx?param1=NRTC&param2=1&nValor1=1&nValor2=98356&nValor3=133735&strTipM=TC&lResultado=2&nValor4=1&strSelect=sel">reforms in late 2022</a> that prevent asylum-seekers who have travelled through third countries from making refugee claims.</p>
<h2>Nicaraguan refugees</h2>
<p>Ironically, the vast majority of the refugee applications Costa Rica receives today are not from people who cross the Darien Gap. The <a href="https://gjia.georgetown.edu/2023/03/17/nicaragua-on-the-brink-protests-elections-and-mass-atrocity/">political violence and repression in Nicaragua since 2018</a> have propelled many to flee to Costa Rica. </p>
<p>As of June 2022, <a href="https://www.migrationpolicy.org/article/record-emigration-nicaragua-crisis#:%7E:text=The%20erosion%20of%20democracy%20and,of%20the%20Cold%20War%20era.">Costa Rica hosted</a> 205,000 asylum seekers — 89 per cent of them from Nicaragua. </p>
<p>To deter new arrivals from Nicaragua from presenting refugee claims or obtaining the status, the Costa Rican reforms announced on December 2022 changed certain rules and regulations. These measures were criticized by the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees and NGO representatives we interviewed in Costa Rica in 2023. In fact, the <a href="https://delfino.cr/2023/02/sala-iv-condena-al-estado-por-decreto-de-chaves-que-limita-libertad-de-transito-de-refugiados">Costa Rican Supreme Court</a> found some provisions of these reforms unconstitutional.</p>
<h2>The scene in Mexico</h2>
<p>Unlike Costa Rica, Mexico, <a href="https://www.whitehouse.gov/briefing-room/presidential-actions/2021/02/02/executive-order-creating-a-comprehensive-regional-framework-to-address-the-causes-of-migration-to-manage-migration-throughout-north-and-central-america-and-to-provide-safe-and-orderly-processing/">under pressure from the U.S.</a>, encourages migrants in transit toward the U.S. border to seek asylum in Mexico. </p>
<p>By the end of 2022, the <a href="https://www.gob.mx/cms/uploads/attachment/file/792337/Cierre_Diciembre-2022__31-Dic.__1.pdf">number of refugee claimants</a> in Mexico from other Central American countries, Haiti, Venezuela and Cuba had reached 120,000. </p>
<p>However, they were forced to remain in the southern state of Chiapas while their claims were reviewed, and the migrants we interviewed reported harassment by official authorities and destitution.</p>
<p><a href="https://www.wola.org/wp-content/uploads/2022/06/FINAL-Struggling-to-Survive-Asylum-Seekers-in-Tapachula.pdf">Other studies</a> support their claims. Furthermore, most migrants we interviewed in Mexico told us they had no intention of staying in Mexico even if recognized as refugees because they did not consider the country safe.</p>
<h2>U.S., Canada, must step up</h2>
<p>In April 2023, the U.S. State Department and the Department of Homeland Security announced new measures to deport all migrants and asylum-seekers who crossed the southern U.S. border by irregular means. The U.S. also introduced the <a href="https://www.dhs.gov/news/2023/04/27/fact-sheet-us-government-announces-sweeping-new-actions-manage-regional-migration">Safe Mobility initiative</a> to process applications for admissions submitted in offices set up in Colombia, Ecuador, Costa Rica and Guatemala.</p>
<p>The U.S. promised to admit up to <a href="https://www.uscis.gov/CHNV">30,000 people</a> a month from <a href="https://movilidadsegura.org/en/">Venezuela, Nicaragua, Guatemala, Cuba and Haiti</a>. Not only is this protection status temporary — a two-year <a href="https://helpspanish.cbp.gov/s/article/Article-1639?language=en_US#:%7E:text=Humanitarian%20Parole%20is%20granted%20to,reason%20or%20significant%20public%20benefit.">humanitarian parole</a> rather than permanent residency — but it’s conditional upon a “supporter” present in the U.S. </p>
<p>Canada’s <a href="https://www.canada.ca/en/immigration-refugees-citizenship/news/2023/10/statement-from-minister-miller-on-canadas-commitment-to-support-migrants-in-the-americas.html">recent announcement</a> fails to make it clear whether admitting 15,000 displaced people is a one-off measure or whether Canada is setting an annual target.</p>
<p>Regardless, it doesn’t come anywhere close to meeting the needs of the displaced people in the Americas. Canada should consider expanding its refugee resettlement program to assist more asylum-seekers in desperate conditions in this region, not only those with family ties in Canada.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/215520/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Tanya Basok receives funding from Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada.</span></em></p><p class="fine-print"><em><span>Guillermo Candiz receives funding from Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada. </span></em></p>Migrants who cross the treacherous Darien Gap between Panama and Colombia often experience violence and abuse, extortion or detention by migration authorities.Tanya Basok, Professor, Sociology, University of WindsorGuillermo Candiz, Assistant Professor, Human Plurality, Université de l'Ontario françaisLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/2150612023-10-05T05:11:41Z2023-10-05T05:11:41ZWhy the government’s plan to overhaul the asylum system is a smart use of resources – and might just work<p>Immigration Minister Andrew Giles today <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/australia-news/2023/oct/05/labor-to-prioritise-new-asylum-seeker-claims-as-part-of-160m-package-to-tackle-backlog">announced</a> significant changes aimed at restoring the integrity of Australia’s refugee protection system. </p>
<p>The key focus is on reducing the significant backlogs in the processing and reviewing of protection visa applications once people apply for asylum in Australia. </p>
<p>The aim is to ensure people who fear persecution or other serious rights abuses can be granted protection quickly. This will, <a href="https://minister.homeaffairs.gov.au/AndrewGiles/Pages/restoring-integrity-protection-system.aspx">Giles</a> says, allow them to “rebuild their lives with certainty and stability”.</p>
<p>According to Giles, “Australians are rightly proud of our country’s generous refugee program”. But there is no denying the current onshore protection system is broken. </p>
<p>The focus of successive governments in recent years has been on blocking and punishing asylum seekers who attempt to reach Australia by boat. This has distracted both the public – and the government – from the serious systemic issues slowing down access to protection here in Australia.</p>
<h2>A decade for a final decision</h2>
<p>The onshore protection system covers people who arrive in Australia on a valid visa – such as a tourist or student visa – and then apply for asylum. </p>
<p>Some people have valid protection claims, some don’t. A key problem is that processing times for these claims have been ballooning in recent years. On average, it <a href="https://www.refugeecouncil.org.au/refugee-council-welcomes-investment-in-protection-visa-reform/">now takes around</a> 2.4 years for an initial decision on a protection claim to be made by the Department of Home Affairs. If the application is denied, it takes another 3.6 years to seek a merits review of the claim at the Administrative Appeals Tribunal. And if it’s denied again, there’s an additional 5.1 years for judicial review by the courts. </p>
<p>As a result, some people have had to wait as long as 11 years for a final decision. Such delays have a <a href="https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/full/10.1177/00207640231159297#:%7E:text=The%20mental%20distress%20of%20asylum,ongoing%20uncertainty%20of%20legal%20status.">devastating impact</a> on people with genuine asylum claims, who are forced to live in limbo and uncertainty for lengthy periods of time.</p>
<p>On the flipside, these delays have also been “motivating bad actors” to take advantage of the system by lodging increasing numbers of “non-genuine applications for protection”, according to the <a href="https://theconversation.com/visa-exploitation-review-urges-tougher-penalties-and-a-ban-on-temporary-migrants-in-sex-work-would-this-solve-the-problem-214953">Nixon report</a>, a review into the exploitation of Australia’s visa system by Victoria’s former police chief commissioner, Christine Nixon, which was released this week.</p>
<hr>
<p>
<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/visa-exploitation-review-urges-tougher-penalties-and-a-ban-on-temporary-migrants-in-sex-work-would-this-solve-the-problem-214953">Visa exploitation review urges tougher penalties and a ban on temporary migrants in sex work. Would this solve the problem?</a>
</strong>
</em>
</p>
<hr>
<h2>The proposed changes</h2>
<p>In this context, we welcome the A$160 million investment announced by the government today to implement a faster and fairer onshore protection system. This will increase the decision-making capacity across the whole asylum system. The funding includes:</p>
<ul>
<li><p>$54 million for the initial processing of claims by Home Affairs</p></li>
<li><p>$58 million for the appointment of ten additional members to the Administrative Appeals Tribunal, the body that reviews claims that have been rejected </p></li>
<li><p>and ten additional judges to the Federal Circuit and Family Court. </p></li>
</ul>
<p>Another $48 million will be provided for legal assistance to support people through the complex asylum application process – something we have <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2014/apr/01/scrapping-legal-aid-for-refugees-will-cost-australia-more-than-it-saves">long called for</a>.</p>
<p>There is a wealth of evidence demonstrating legal assistance increases the fairness and efficiency of the asylum process. Research by the <a href="https://www.kaldorcentre.unsw.edu.au/kaldor-centre-data-lab">Kaldor Centre Data Lab</a> found asylum applicants with legal representation are, on average, <a href="https://www.kaldorcentre.unsw.edu.au/breaking-down-data-what-numbers-tell-us-about-asylum-claims-aat">five times more likely</a> to succeed on a merits review than applicants who represent themselves. They are also <a href="https://www.unswlawjournal.unsw.edu.au/wp-content/uploads/2022/10/Issue-453-05-Ghezelbesh-et-al.pdf">six times more likely</a> to succeed at the judicial review stage. </p>
<p>There is a wealth of similar research from other countries, including <a href="https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/abs/10.1111/capa.12503">Canada</a>, <a href="https://library.fes.de/pdf-files/bueros/budapest/15098.pdf">Switzerland</a> and the <a href="https://scholarship.law.upenn.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=9502&context=penn_law_review">United States</a>, showing legal representation makes the entire system more efficient.</p>
<hr>
<p>
<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/how-refugees-succeed-in-visa-reviews-new-research-reveals-the-factors-that-matter-131763">How refugees succeed in visa reviews: new research reveals the factors that matter</a>
</strong>
</em>
</p>
<hr>
<p>This is because refugee lawyers provide a very important “triage” service in the process. Their specialised understanding of the law – as well as the social and political conditions from which asylum seekers have fled – means they only take on cases they feel have merit. In this way, lawyers help reduce the number of unmeritorious claims reaching tribunals and courts.</p>
<p>Refugee lawyers also help asylum seekers prepare their statements coherently and systematically. They identify relevant evidence and legal principles, which assists decision-makers to focus on the key aspects of the claim. </p>
<p>When an asylum seeker is unrepresented, decision-makers have to spend much more time ensuring the applicant understands the process and possible outcomes. They also want to ensure the person feels they have had a fair hearing. Overall, this is an inefficient use of public resources.</p>
<h2>Smarter use of resources</h2>
<p>These reforms represent a significant departure from Australia’s previous attempts to increase the efficiency of Australia’s asylum processes. Over the past three decades, successive governments have instead limited the rights of people seeking asylum – including by cutting funding for legal support. </p>
<p>Our <a href="https://kaldorcentre.unsw.edu.au/sites/kaldorcentre.unsw.edu.au/files/Submission_Administrative_Review_Reform.pdf">research</a> has made clear these efforts have almost always backfired, leading to more appeals and longer delays. </p>
<p>The most egregious example is the so-called “fast-track” procedure for processing the claims of certain asylum seekers who arrive by boat. Not only is the procedure unfair, but (contrary to its name) it has also been <a href="https://kaldorcentre.unsw.edu.au/sites/kaldorcentre.unsw.edu.au/files/Submission_Administrative_Review_Reform.pdf">excruciatingly slow</a>.</p>
<hr>
<p>
<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/australias-temporary-visa-system-is-unfair-expensive-impractical-and-inconsistent-heres-how-the-new-government-could-fix-it-185870">Australia's temporary visa system is unfair, expensive, impractical and inconsistent. Here's how the new government could fix it</a>
</strong>
</em>
</p>
<hr>
<p>Now, to help speed up the asylum process more broadly, the government is implementing a new approach called “real-time priority processing” of protection visa applications at Home Affairs. This will involve a “<a href="https://www.theguardian.com/australia-news/2023/oct/05/labor-to-prioritise-new-asylum-seeker-claims-as-part-of-160m-package-to-tackle-backlog">last in, first out</a>” approach that prioritises new asylum applications for rapid processing. </p>
<p>The rationale is this will de-incentivise unmeritorious applications and abuse of the asylum system.</p>
<p>While this makes sense as an interim measure as the government works through its significant backlogs, we still need a wider discussion on different approaches to prioritising claims. We need to ensure government resources are being used most efficiently and in the best interests of people seeking asylum. </p>
<p>There are potential lessons Australia can draw on from overseas. <a href="https://irb.gc.ca/en/information-sheets/Pages/less-complex-claims.aspx">Canada</a>, for example, prioritises and fast tracks applications that have a high likelihood of success. <a href="https://www.sem.admin.ch/sem/en/home/asyl/asylverfahren.html#:%7E:text=Under%2520the%2520revised%2520Asylum%2520Act,version%2520of%2520the%2520Asylum%2520Act.">Switzerland</a> accelerates cases with both high and low chances of success. Only complex cases requiring further investigation take longer to resolve. </p>
<p>To ensure fairness, Switzerland also provides universal access to government-funded legal representation. We need to spend more time examining these models to see what we can learn and adopt in Australia. </p>
<p>The <a href="https://www.kaldorconference.com/">Kaldor Centre</a> is continuing this process by hosting a conference in Sydney next month which will discuss how we can ensure fairness for people seeking protection in the decade ahead. However, the central focus of the announcement this week on increasing the quality and capacity of Australia’s asylum system is a welcome first step in the right direction.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/215061/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Daniel Ghezelbash receives funding from the Australian Research Council and the NSW Government. He is a member of the management committee of Refugee Advice and Casework Services and a Special Counsel at the National Justice Project.</span></em></p><p class="fine-print"><em><span>Jane McAdam receives funding from the Australian Research Council.</span></em></p>Eleven years is far too long for a final decision on asylum claims. The government’s vision is for a new system that will be both faster and fairer.Daniel Ghezelbash, Associate Professor and Deputy Director, Kaldor Centre for International Refugee Law, UNSW Law & Justice, UNSW Sydney, UNSW SydneyJane McAdam, Scientia Professor and Director of the Kaldor Centre for International Refugee Law, UNSW SydneyLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/2140142023-10-03T16:43:02Z2023-10-03T16:43:02ZSuella Braverman warns of ‘unmanageable’ numbers of asylum seekers – the data shows we hardly take any<p>A migration “hurricane” is coming, Suella Braverman has warned. Speaking at the <a href="https://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/politics/suella-braverman-conference-speech-live-b2423149.html">Conservative party conference</a>, the home secretary claimed that without action by the Conservatives, millions more people will come to Britain, “uncontrolled and unmanageable”. </p>
<p>The idea that there is a “right” amount of migration has a long history in Britain, despite not being <a href="https://theconversation.com/net-migration-how-an-unreachable-target-came-to-shape-britain-206430">very helpful as a metric</a>. But let’s play along, as it’s clear that migration and asylum – largely discussed in terms of numbers of small boat arrivals – will be a major campaigning focus ahead of the next election. </p>
<p>The reality is that, compared to our European neighbours, the UK does not currently take a fair share of asylum seekers.</p>
<p>Home Office statistics released in <a href="https://www.gov.uk/government/statistics/immigration-system-statistics-year-ending-june-2023/how-many-people-do-we-grant-protection-to#international-comparisons">June 2023</a> reported that in the past year, the UK received the 6th largest number of asylum applicants in the EU and UK. But when measured per head of population, the UK ranks 21st – taking just under 10% of the total number of asylum seekers received in the EU and UK.</p>
<p>This is despite the fact that, in 2022, the UK received more asylum applicants than it has in 20 years. <a href="https://www.mdpi.com/2076-0760/12/8/451">Asylum applications in the UK</a> peaked at 84,130 in 2002, falling sharply to 17,916 in 2010 and fluctuating between about 20,000 and 40,000 for the following decade.</p>
<p>The European migration “crisis” – referring to the increase in arrivals of refugees into Europe in 2015 – largely passed the UK by. The UK received 39,720 applicants in 2015 and 39,240 in 2016, accounting for just 3.3% and 3.4% of all asylum applications in the EU during those two years. Germany, which had the most applications in the EU, received 441,805 and 722,270 <a href="https://ec.europa.eu/eurostat/databrowser/view/MIGR_ASYAPPCTZA/default/table?lang=en">respectively</a>.</p>
<h2>Why applications have risen</h2>
<p>Arrivals to the UK and Europe generally in 2022 were due to increased political instability, particularly in Afghanistan, Syria and Eritrea. The most significant difference for the UK was the higher number of applications from Albanians, which was not reflected across the EU – possibly because Albanians can travel visa free for <a href="https://migrationobservatory.ox.ac.uk/resources/commentaries/albanian-asylum-seekers-in-the-uk-and-eu-a-look-at-recent-data/">90 days in the EU</a>.</p>
<p>But it is not simply an increase in asylum applications that has affected the UK.</p>
<p>As applications have risen, the speed at which officials have made decisions on applications has declined. This has been true every year since 2011, leading to the current backlog of asylum applicants. The most recent count is that <a href="https://commonslibrary.parliament.uk/research-briefings/sn01403">138,000 people</a> are awaiting a decision.</p>
<p>There are another 41,200 people whose applications have been rejected and are waiting to be removed from the UK. The number of removals of rejected asylum seekers has also fallen.</p>
<p><strong>UK asylum applications with a positive decision, 2004-2021</strong></p>
<p>Although decisions are taking longer, a greater proportion of them are positive. In 2021, 77% of all decisions resulted in a grant of asylum, after all appeals. This is a new high, up from only 27% in 2004. In every year since 2012, <a href="https://www.gov.uk/government/statistical-data-sets/immigration-system-statistics-data-tables#asylum-applications-decisions-and-resettlement">more than half</a> of all applications for asylum have resulted in applicants being granted refugee status.</p>
<p>In addition to seeking asylum, refugees may arrive in the UK through resettlement and other <a href="https://commonslibrary.parliament.uk/research-briefings/sn01403/">country-specific schemes</a>. Between 2014 and June 2023, 51,000 people arrived through these schemes, mostly from Syria and Afghanistan. A further 179,000 Ukrainians have arrived and in 2022, an estimated 52,000 British National (Overseas) visa holders arrived from Hong Kong.</p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="Asylum seekers walking ashore on a beach after leaving an RNLI rescue vessel" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/550195/original/file-20230926-17-7ehf99.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=221%2C51%2C5465%2C3419&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/550195/original/file-20230926-17-7ehf99.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=367&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/550195/original/file-20230926-17-7ehf99.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=367&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/550195/original/file-20230926-17-7ehf99.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=367&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/550195/original/file-20230926-17-7ehf99.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=461&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/550195/original/file-20230926-17-7ehf99.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=461&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/550195/original/file-20230926-17-7ehf99.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=461&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption"></span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.shutterstock.com/image-photo/dungeness-kent-uk-29th-august-2022-2198927701">Sean Aidan Calderbank/Shutterstock</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<h2>The need for safe and legal routes</h2>
<p>By most measures, the current government is the most aggressively anti-refugee administration in British history. They have passed laws threatening to send asylum seekers to Rwanda, and have <a href="https://theconversation.com/performative-cruelty-the-hostile-architecture-of-the-uk-governments-migrant-barge-210300">stuck them on a barge</a>. </p>
<p>The language ministers use to discuss refugees has been linked with <a href="https://scottishrefugeecouncil.org.uk/research-reveals-link-between-governments-anti-migrant-rhetoric-and-far-right-activity/">increasing hate crime</a> towards refugees. And their landmark piece of legislation, the Illegal Migration Act 2023, is widely considered to breach the UK’s <a href="https://www.unhcr.org/news/press-releases/uk-illegal-migration-bill-un-refugee-agency-and-un-human-rights-office-warn">international legal obligations</a> by organisations such as UNHCR. </p>
<p>But despite appearing tough on borders, this government has recognised a greater proportion of asylum seekers as refugees than any previous administration. It has also enacted the largest refugee support scheme in UK history with Homes for Ukraine and the Ukraine Family Scheme.</p>
<p>In addition to these, there are a significant number of people from Hong Kong and Afghanistan currently arriving through specially designed schemes outside the asylum system. Such programmes demonstrate an important direction for future policy – even the current government recognises the need for safe and legal routes for vulnerable people to reach the UK.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/214014/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Michael Collyer receives funding from the Economic and Social Research Council. He is chair of Sanctuary on Sea, Brighton's City of Sanctuary group. He is also (voluntary) chair of the Independent Advisory Group on Country Information. </span></em></p>The numbers on how many asylum seekers the UK accepts.Michael Collyer, Professor of Geography, University of SussexLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/2116412023-08-17T15:05:53Z2023-08-17T15:05:53ZBibby Stockholm: legionella is not the only health threat on the asylum barge<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/543205/original/file-20230817-27-8wnnkw.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">shutterstock</span> </figcaption></figure><p>Just days after being moved in, people seeking asylum were removed from the Bibby Stockholm accommodation barge due to legionella bacteria on board. Dorset council, where the barge is located, has <a href="https://www.dorsetecho.co.uk/news/23720673.legionella-bacteria-found-portland-barge-move-in-day/">raised concerns</a> that delays in removing people increased their risk of exposure to the potentially fatal bacteria.</p>
<p>Even before this development, the use of the barge to house people seeking asylum was controversial. This is both because of the impact on the local community, and conditions for the people living on board. The barge has been used in the past to house workers, including military personnel. But when being used for asylum seekers, the cabins on the barge – originally designed for one person and only “<a href="https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2023/jul/21/life-aboard-bibby-stockholm-asylum-seeker-barge-home-office-tour">slightly larger</a>” than a prison cell – will be <a href="https://www.refugeecouncil.org.uk/latest/news/an-open-letter-to-bibby-marine/">used to house at least two</a>. </p>
<p>People seeking asylum will be expected to share their small accommodation with a stranger. This is a situation that few would find desirable. It does not meet the government’s own <a href="https://www.ons.gov.uk/peoplepopulationandcommunity/housing/articles/adminbasedlevelsofovercrowdingusingthebedroomstandardandvaluationofficeagencynumberofbedroomsfeasibilityresearchenglandandwales/january2021">bedroom standard</a>, which is itself not overly generous. </p>
<p>Crowded conditions such as these are associated with a range of negative health consequences including <a href="https://www.annualreviews.org/doi/10.1146/annurev.publhealth.25.101802.123036?url_ver=Z39.88-2003&rfr_id=ori%3Arid%3Acrossref.org&rfr_dat=cr_pub++0pubmed">anxiety, depression</a> and <a href="https://www.health.org.uk/publications/long-reads/better-housing-is-crucial-for-our-health-and-the-covid-19-recovery">psychological distress</a>. They are also associated with increased risk of respiratory illness, <a href="https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0033350621003097">including</a> <a href="https://bmcresnotes.biomedcentral.com/articles/10.1186/s13104-022-06015-1">COVID-19</a> and <a href="https://jech.bmj.com/content/62/8/715">tuberculosis</a>, as well as <a href="https://jech.bmj.com/content/jech/76/9/833.full.pdf">infectious</a> disease. </p>
<p>These diseases include <a href="https://www.who.int/publications/i/item/9789241550376">diarrhoea and gastroenteritis</a>. We often hear stories of norovirus, a common cause of gastroenteritis, spreading through other high-density spaces such as cruise ships and resorts. However, these are usually much less densely populated than the Bibby Stockholm is expected to be.</p>
<p>The effect of crowding on health is <a href="https://www.who.int/publications/i/item/9789241550376">notable</a>. A review of evidence found that around <a href="https://s3-ap-southeast-2.amazonaws.com/assets.asthmafoundation.org.nz/documents/Infectious-disease-attributable-to-household-crowding-in-NZ.pdf">one-fifth</a> of hospital admissions due to infectious disease in New Zealand were attributable to crowded conditions in the home. </p>
<p>Links between crowding and mental health problems have been established among the general population, but risks are likely higher for those that have recently fled their home country due to the trauma that they have already experienced.</p>
<h2>Life in lockdown</h2>
<p>Another important difference between the experience of asylum seekers on the barge compared to others that have lived onboard is the <a href="https://www.portland-port.co.uk/news/101/Portland+Port+Update+-+Setting+out+the+Facts">restricted movement</a> and high security they will experience. Residents will be <a href="https://www.refugeecouncil.org.uk/latest/news/an-open-letter-to-bibby-marine/">unable to freely leave the barge</a> or the nearby containment area. </p>
<p>Like most asylum seekers in the UK, they are <a href="https://www.refugeecouncil.org.uk/information/refugee-asylum-facts/top-10-facts-about-refugees-and-people-seeking-asylum/">prohibited from working</a>, and the very <a href="https://www.jrf.org.uk/blog/its-wrong-uk-immigration-and-asylum-systems-make-people-destitute">low levels</a> of <a href="https://www.refugeecouncil.org.uk/information/refugee-asylum-facts/top-10-facts-about-refugees-and-people-seeking-asylum/">financial support</a> they receive would severely limit any activities they could take part in. They will probably spend much of their time onboard in their small, cramped rooms (with <a href="https://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/home-news/bibby-stockholm-barge-inside-portland-migrant-b2388754.html">disconnected</a> TVs) or the limited space onboard.</p>
<p>The lockdowns of the COVID pandemic <a href="https://www.health.org.uk/sites/default/files/2021-01/2020%20-%20Better%20housing%20is%20crucial.pdf">demonstrated</a> the <a href="https://www.smf.co.uk/commentary_podcasts/homes-health-and-covid-19-how-poor-housing-adds-to-the-hardship-of-the-coronavirus-crisis/">importance</a> of safe, secure and suitable housing for protecting our health and wellbeing as well as the challenges of restricted movement. People seeking asylum and housed on the Bibby Stockholm will experience lockdown-like conditions, and evidence suggests that lockdown had greater negative effect on those in <a href="https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S1353829220307383?via%3Dihub">smaller homes</a> and without outside space. </p>
<hr>
<p>
<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/performative-cruelty-the-hostile-architecture-of-the-uk-governments-migrant-barge-210300">'Performative cruelty': the hostile architecture of the UK government's migrant barge</a>
</strong>
</em>
</p>
<hr>
<p>The facilities on the Bibby Stockholm are not just bleak, but dangerous. The Fire Brigades Union has raised concerns about <a href="https://www.fbu.org.uk/news/2023/08/02/firefighters-union-demands-meeting-braverman-over-bibby-stockholm-fire-safety">fire safety</a> on board the vessel, a worry familiar to those that spent lockdown in homes covered in <a href="https://www.bbc.com/news/business-57314681">flammable cladding</a> identified after the Grenfell Tower fire. </p>
<p>Further, there are concerns about a lack of <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2023/jul/27/first-50-people-coming-to-bibby-stockholm-asylum-barge-despite-safety-worries">life jackets</a>. This worry is likely to be particularly severe for people who may not be able to swim. And for those who may have arrived via a dangerous sea-crossing journey, simply being housed on the water could be <a href="https://www.refugeecouncil.org.uk/latest/news/an-open-letter-to-bibby-marine/">traumatic</a>.</p>
<h2>Savings, at what cost?</h2>
<p>The government has argued that the Bibby Stockholm is needed to <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2023/aug/15/sunak-committed-to-housing-asylum-seekers-on-bibby-stockholm">save money</a> on housing asylum seekers as it works through the backlog of applications. But there is <a href="https://www.reclaimthesea.org.uk/_files/ugd/4e7ff9_b86b690af5b941fd9a01acb127497cba.pdf">little evidence</a> for this – and the potential health costs of housing people on the barge could easily wipe out any savings. </p>
<p>Among the general population, the health effects of poor housing in England are thought to cost the NHS <a href="https://bregroup.com/news-insights/the-cost-of-poor-housing-to-the-nhs/">£1.4 billion a year</a>. Overcrowding is the third highest contributor to this figure.</p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="The side of a block of council flats in disrepair in London" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/543213/original/file-20230817-27-hinf7y.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/543213/original/file-20230817-27-hinf7y.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/543213/original/file-20230817-27-hinf7y.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/543213/original/file-20230817-27-hinf7y.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/543213/original/file-20230817-27-hinf7y.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/543213/original/file-20230817-27-hinf7y.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/543213/original/file-20230817-27-hinf7y.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Overcrowding is a serious health risk throughout the UK.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.shutterstock.com/image-photo/dilapidated-council-flat-housing-block-robin-656604220">I Wei Huang/Shutterstock</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>While conditions on the barge are particularly likely to harm the health of people living there, many of the issues will also <a href="https://appgdetention.org.uk/inquiry-into-quasi-detention-full-report/">apply to other</a> asylum seeker “containment sites”. The Bibby Stockholm is the latest in a long history of housing asylum seekers in the poorest conditions, including more <a href="https://blogs.law.ox.ac.uk/border-criminologies-blog/blog-post/2022/10/quasi-detention-expansion-dehumanising-border-spaces">recent trends</a> of using “<a href="https://appgdetention.org.uk/wp-content/uploads/2021/12/211209-APPG-on-Immigration-Detention-Report-of-Inquiry-into-Quasi-Detention.pdf?x49459">quasi-detention</a>” sites, which are isolated, have high security and reduce people’s access to privacy, freedom and legal advice.</p>
<p>Government ministers have said that the use of hotels as temporary housing is a <a href="https://news.sky.com/story/immigration-minister-vows-hotel-britain-will-end-for-migrants-to-deter-asylum-shopping-12746211">“pull factor”</a> for asylum seekers, attracting them to Britain. Housing is a basic, essential need and shouldn’t be used punitively – as a deterrent or <a href="https://blogs.law.ox.ac.uk/border-criminologies-blog/blog-post/2022/10/quasi-detention-expansion-dehumanising-border-spaces">punishment</a>. In fact, any <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2023/mar/29/nothing-off-the-table-in-ending-hotel-housing-for-asylum-seekers-says-raab">deterrent</a> is unlikely to work, so long as the push factors forcing people to seek asylum in the first place remain.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/211641/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Amy Clair does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>Overcrowding is associated with many other mental and physical health concerns.Amy Clair, Research Associate, ESRC Research Centre on Micro-Social Change, University of EssexLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/2103002023-07-26T16:43:01Z2023-07-26T16:43:01Z‘Performative cruelty’: the hostile architecture of the UK government’s migrant barge<p>The arrival of the <a href="https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/av/uk-england-dorset-66233056">Bibby Stockholm</a> barge at Portland Port, in Dorset, on July 18 2023, marks a new low in the UK government’s hostile immigration environment. The vessel is set to accommodate over 500 asylum seekers. This, the Home Office argues, will <a href="https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/asylum-accommodation-factsheets/factsheet-asylum-accommodation-on-a-vessel-in-portland-port">benefit</a> British taxpayers and local residents. </p>
<p>The barge, however, was <a href="https://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/politics/asylum-cruise-ship-barge-suella-braverman-b2377965.html">immediately rejected</a> by the local population and <a href="https://news.dorsetcouncil.gov.uk/2023/07/18/leaders-comments-on-the-home-office-barge/">Dorset council</a>. Several British charities and <a href="https://www.agensir.it/europa/2023/07/21/uk-barge-for-asylum-seekers-the-churchs-condemnation-an-affront-to-human-dignity/">church groups</a> have condemned the barge, and the <a href="https://theconversation.com/illegal-migration-bill-to-become-law-what-you-need-to-know-209993">illegal migration bill</a> it accompanies, as “an affront to human dignity”. </p>
<p>Anti-immigration groups have also protested against the barge, with some adopting offensive language, referring to the asylum seekers who will be hosted there as <a href="https://news.dorsetcouncil.gov.uk/2023/07/06/latest-statement-on-asylum-seeker-barge/">“bargies”</a>. Conservative MP for South Dorset Richard Drax <a href="https://www.parallelparliament.co.uk/debate/2023-03-29/commons">has claimed</a> that hosting migrants at sea would exacerbate tenfold the issues that have arisen in hotels to date, namely <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2022/nov/03/teenage-boy-allegedly-raped-hotel-housing-refugees-london">sexual assaults</a>, children <a href="https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-63231470">disappearing</a> and <a href="https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-12287169/Protesters-camping-outside-Welsh-hotel-migrants-vow-stage-demo-long-takes.html">local residents</a> protesting.</p>
<p>My research shows that facilities built to house irregular migrants <a href="https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/full/10.1177/0309132519856702?casa_token=06ed1JWb6u4AAAAA:Z3-rguRHfOJ6stpbDmkQFmIO1XMT01s12TFm8bCSnOv9rVOosLgNIBA-mH0hnm-dypSFwxA1BZ8">in Europe</a> and <a href="https://medium.com/insecurities/the-global-infrastructure-of-camps-8153fb61ea30">beyond</a> create a temporary infrastructure <a href="https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/full/10.1177/26326663221084586">designed</a> to be hostile. Governments thereby effectively make asylum seekers more displaceable while ignoring their everyday spatial and social needs. </p>
<h2>Precarious space</h2>
<p>The <a href="https://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/politics/inside-bibby-stockholm-migrant-barge-dorset-b2377231.html">official brochure plans</a> for the Bibby Stockholm show 222 single bedrooms over three stories, built around two small internal courtyards. It has now been retrofitted with bunk beds to host more than 500 single men – more than double the number it was designed to host. </p>
<p>Journalists Lizzie Dearden and Martha McHardy <a href="https://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/politics/inside-bibby-stockholm-migrant-barge-dorset-b2377231.html">have shown</a> this means the asylum seekers housed there – for up to nine months – will have “less living space than an average parking bay”. This stands in contravention of <a href="https://emergency.unhcr.org/emergency-assistance/shelter-camp-and-settlement/shelter/emergency-shelter-standard">international standards</a> of a minimum 4.5m² of covered living space per person in cold climates, where more time is spent indoors.</p>
<p>In <a href="https://www.reclaimthesea.org.uk/post/no-floating-prisons-open-letter">an open letter</a>, dated June 15 2023 and addressed to home secretary Suella Braverman, over 700 people and nearly 100 non-governmental organisations (NGOs) voiced concerns that this will only add to the trauma migrants have already experienced:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>Housing people on a sea barge – which we argue is equal to a floating prison – is morally indefensible, and threatens to retraumatise a group of already vulnerable people. </p>
</blockquote>
<p>Locals are <a href="https://news.dorsetcouncil.gov.uk/2023/07/06/latest-statement-on-asylum-seeker-barge/">concerned</a> already overstretched services in Portland, including GP practices, will not be able to cope with further pressure. West Dorset MP Chris Lode has <a href="https://inews.co.uk/news/migrant-barge-dorset-mp-demands-proof-safety-checks-2485382">questioned</a> whether the barge itself is safe “to cope with double the weight that it was designed to bear”. A <a href="https://www.lbc.co.uk/radio/presenters/david-lammy/caller-warns-of-the-danger-of-migrant-barges/">caller</a> to the LBC radio station, meanwhile, has voiced concerns over the vessel’s very narrow and low fire escape routes, saying: “What they [the government] are effectively doing here is creating a potential Grenfell on water, a floating coffin.” </p>
<p>Such fears are not unfounded. There have been several cases of fires destroying migrant camps in Europe, from the <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/world/2017/apr/11/blaze-devastates-grand-synthe-migrant-camp-outside-dunkirk">Grand-Synthe camp</a> near Dunkirk in France, in 2017, to the 2020 fire at the <a href="https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-europe-54082201">Moria camp</a> in Greece. The difficulty of escaping a vessel at sea could turn it into a death trap. </p>
<h2>Performative hostility</h2>
<p><a href="https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/13621025.2019.1634311">Research</a> on migrant accommodation shows that being able to inhabit a place – even temporarily – and develop feelings of attachment and belonging, is crucial to a person’s wellbeing. Even amid <a href="https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/full/10.1111/anti.12923">ever tighter border controls</a>, migrants in Europe, who can be described as “stuck on the move”, nonetheless still attempt to inhabit their temporary spaces and form such connections. </p>
<p>However, designs can hamper such efforts when they concentrate asylum seekers in inhospitable, cut-off spaces. In 2015, Berlin officials began temporarily <a href="https://www.vice.com/en/article/vdqdya/tempelhof-germany-refugee-camp-photos-876">housing refugees</a> in the former Tempelhof airport, a noisy, alienating industrial space, lacking in privacy and disconnected from the city. Many people ended up staying there for the better part of a year. </p>
<p>French authorities, meanwhile, opened the Centre Humanitaire Paris-Nord in Paris in 2016, temporary migrant housing in a disused train depot. Nicknamed <a href="https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-3934112/It-s-perfect-place-plan-journeys-Britain-Migrants-new-6million-Paris-bubble-Eurostar-complete-hot-showers-beds-table-tennis-FOOTBALL-PITCH.html">la Bulle</a> (the bubble) for its bulbous inflatable covering, this facility was noisy and claustrophobic, lacking in basic comforts. </p>
<p>Like the barge in Portland Port, these facilities, placed in industrial sites, sit uncomfortably between hospitality and hostility. The barge will be fenced off, since the port is a secured zone, and access will be heavily restricted and controlled. The Home Office <a href="https://www.times-series.co.uk/news/national/23672521.migrant-barge-not-floating-prison-home-office-says/">insists</a> that the barge is not a floating prison, yet it is an unmistakably hostile space. </p>
<p>Infrastructure for water and electricity will physically link the barge to shore. However, Dorset council has no jurisdiction at sea. </p>
<p>The commercial agreement on the barge <a href="https://news.dorsetcouncil.gov.uk/2023/07/06/latest-statement-on-asylum-seeker-barge/">was signed</a> between the Home Office and Portland Port, not the council. Since the vessel is positioned <a href="https://news.dorsetcouncil.gov.uk/2023/07/18/leaders-comments-on-the-home-office-barge/">below the mean low water mark</a>, it did not require planning permission. </p>
<p>This makes the barge an island of sorts, where other rules apply, much like those islands in the Aegean sea and in the Pacific, on which Greece and Australia have respectively housed migrants. </p>
<p>I have shown how <a href="https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/full/10.1177/26326663221084586">facilities</a> are often designed in this way not to give displaced people any agency, but, on the contrary, to objectify them. They heighten the <a href="https://academic.oup.com/jrs/article/29/4/483/2741223?login=false">instability</a> migrants face, keeping them detached from local communities and constantly on the move. </p>
<p>The government has presented the barge as a cheaper solution than the <a href="https://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/diana-johnson-channel-government-french-mps-b2210968.html">£6.8 million</a> it is currently spending, daily, on housing asylum seekers in hotels. A <a href="https://www.reclaimthesea.org.uk/_files/ugd/4e7ff9_b86b690af5b941fd9a01acb127497cba.pdf">recent report</a> by two NGOs, Reclaim the Seas and One Life to Live, concludes, however, that it will save <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2023/jul/11/housing-asylum-seekers-on-barge-may-only-save-10-a-person-daily-report-says">less than £10 a person a day</a>. It could even prove <a href="https://www.dorsetecho.co.uk/news/23651735.portland-barge-more-expensive-hotels-asylum-seekers/">more expensive</a> than the hotel model. </p>
<p>Sarah Teather, director of the Jesuit Refugee Service UK charity, <a href="https://www.bracknellnews.co.uk/news/national/23663188.bibby-stockholm-met-protesters-arrives-portland-port/">has described</a> the illegal migration bill as “performative cruelty”. Images of the barge which have flooded the news certainly meet that description too. </p>
<p>However threatening these images might be, though, they will not stop desperate people from attempting to come to the UK to <a href="https://www.redcross.org.uk/stories/migration-and-displacement/refugees-and-asylum-seekers/5-reasons-people-cross-the-channel">seek safety</a>.
Rather than <a href="https://theconversation.com/the-governments-plan-to-remove-asylum-seekers-will-be-a-logistical-mess-and-may-not-deter-people-from-coming-to-the-uk-201248">deterring asylum seekers</a>, the Bibby Stockholm is potentially creating another hazard to them and to their hosting communities.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/210300/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Irit Katz does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>Semi-carceral facilities accommodating irregular migrants are designed to be hostile spaces that expose people to substandard conditions and keep them on the move, detached from wider society.Irit Katz, Assistant Professor in Architecture and Urban Studies, University of CambridgeLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/2103782023-07-26T02:07:46Z2023-07-26T02:07:46ZOur cruel and costly offshore processing system was a failure. We have a better solution on asylum policy<p>It has been over a decade since Australia revived its offshore processing regime for asylum seekers, yet revelations of the policy’s human and financial failures keep coming. </p>
<p>Last weekend, the Nine newspapers <a href="https://www.smh.com.au/politics/federal/millions-of-dollars-in-detention-money-went-to-pacific-politicians-20230718-p5dp51.html?mc_cid=a65f9d8376&mc_eid=8883ffeb42">reported</a> that the Department of Home Affairs allegedly oversaw the payments of millions of taxpayer dollars to politicians in the Pacific through a chain of suspect contracts. </p>
<p>The Guardian also <a href="https://amp.theguardian.com/australia-news/2023/jul/22/morrison-government-png-asylum-seeker-deal-refugee?mc_cid=a65f9d8376&mc_eid=8883ffeb42">revealed</a> that the Morrison government had signed a “confidential bilateral agreement” with Papua New Guinea, which promised an undisclosed amount of money in return for welfare and support services for fewer than 80 refugees who remained trapped there. </p>
<p>In the wake of these reports, the Greens have <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/australia-news/2023/jul/25/peter-dutton-briefed-by-afp-on-bribery-investigation-before-contract-signed-with-probe-target">reiterated</a> their call for a royal commission into offshore processing, <a href="https://www.smh.com.au/politics/federal/minister-invokes-corruption-watchdog-over-offshore-detention-scandal-20230725-p5dr57.html">supported</a> by independent MP Zali Steggall. </p>
<p>These latest reports add to the <a href="https://www.kaldorcentre.unsw.edu.au/publication/policy-brief-11-cruel-costly-and-ineffective-failure-offshore-processing-australia">large amount of research</a> laying bare the human toll of offshore processing. </p>
<p>Offshore processing has had <a href="https://theconversation.com/why-europe-shouldnt-follow-australias-lead-on-asylum-seekers-90304">far-reaching consequences</a> beyond our region as well. In the United Kingdom, a similar policy is unfolding, modelled on Australia’s asylum practices. Prime Minister Rishi Sunak’s government has just passed <a href="https://bills.parliament.uk/bills/3429">legislation</a> that provides new powers to deport those who seek protection across the Channel. </p>
<p>As the number of people in need of protection grows every year, it is imperative that unlawful and unsustainable efforts to push the problem elsewhere be reversed. Bringing Australia’s offshore processing policy to an end is an important first step. </p>
<p>But Australia must also look ahead to the challenges and opportunities that forced migration will create in the coming decade. </p>
<p><div data-react-class="Tweet" data-react-props="{"tweetId":"1681212950382559236"}"></div></p>
<h2>Regional cooperation on asylum</h2>
<p>By the end of 2022, there were around 14 million displaced and/or stateless <a href="https://data.unhcr.org/en/documents/details/101659">people</a> in the Asia-Pacific region. This included seven million refugees, five million internally displaced people and 2.5 million stateless people. </p>
<p>Violence, conflict and persecution in Afghanistan and Myanmar have produced the largest number of displaced people. Of particular concern are the millions of Rohingya living in <a href="https://www.ohchr.org/en/press-releases/2023/06/bangladesh-un-experts-decry-devastating-second-round-rations-cuts-rohingya">extremely precarious conditions</a> in Bangladesh. </p>
<p>Australian policy seems premised on the idea that without strong border controls, all these people would set sail for our shores. The reality, though, is vastly different. </p>
<p>Indeed, since 1975, 90% of refugees displaced in the Asia-Pacific region have stayed as <a href="https://www.unhcr.org/sites/default/files/2023-06/global-trends-report-2022.pdf">close to home</a> as possible. </p>
<p>However, many lack basic rights to work, health care and education, and are at risk of destitution, detention or exploitation. This means that, without a concerted effort to improve protection for refugees in the region, we will likely see more people in search of their own solutions. </p>
<p>The challenges of displacement are global in nature, and its multi-layered causes mean there are no simple solutions. But we have a better chance of managing displacement with clear-eyed, collaborative and holistic responses, rather than unilateral policies aimed at deterrence and deflection.</p>
<hr>
<p>
<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/rwanda-plan-is-in-legal-limbo-but-history-shows-such-migration-deals-are-unlikely-to-disappear-209354">Rwanda plan is in legal limbo, but history shows such migration deals are unlikely to disappear</a>
</strong>
</em>
</p>
<hr>
<h2>What should Australia do?</h2>
<p>First, we need to move from a responsibility-shifting to a responsibility-sharing approach. </p>
<p>In recent years, our government has asked countries in the region for help in stopping people from trying to reach Australia. But our credibility and moral authority to promote constructive responses to the problem have been fundamentally undermined by policies such as offshore processing and turning back boats. </p>
<p>Above all, we need to listen, not lecture; to collaborate, not cajole. </p>
<p>By listening to other governments, as well as civil society and refugee-led organisations in the region, we will gain a better understanding of their perspectives and needs. </p>
<p>We need to take a “whole-of-society approach”, engaging a diverse set of stakeholders to meet the needs of asylum seekers collaboratively. The UN High Commissioner for Refugees has recently <a href="https://news.un.org/en/story/2023/07/1139047">emphasised</a> that countries must also take a “whole-of-route approach”, ensuring protection at every stage of an asylum seeker’s journey. </p>
<p>In the short term, Australia should work with governments in the region to help provide refugees and other displaced people with basic rights and protections. By improving conditions in these countries, we could reduce the need for onward travel to Australia. </p>
<p>There is considerable goodwill right now, with Indonesia, Malaysia, the Philippines and Thailand all signalling a desire to improve their legal frameworks in this area. <a href="https://www.fmreview.org/issue67/barbour">For instance</a>, Thailand is developing a new “national screening mechanism” to identify refugees, while the Philippines recently revised its systems for determining refugee and statelessness status and has pending legislation on a number of issues. </p>
<p>In return for governments in Southeast Asia adopting reforms, Australia should significantly increase the number of people it resettles from these countries and create other “<a href="https://www.kaldorcentre.unsw.edu.au/sites/kaldorcentre.unsw.edu.au/files/Complementary_Pathways_in_Refugee_Protection.pdf">complementary pathways</a>” to protection. We should also develop more strategic responses in acute crises, just as we did for people <a href="https://www.kaldorcentre.unsw.edu.au/ukraine-3-things-know-about-getting-refugees-safety">fleeing Ukraine</a> last year. </p>
<p>This would be a win–win. More people would be afforded protection in Australia through orderly programs, and those remaining in the region would have basic rights they currently lack. </p>
<p>We also need to engage in diplomatic efforts to encourage other countries in the region, such as New Zealand, Japan and South Korea, to increase their resettlement quotas. </p>
<p>And Australia should provide better resourcing to UNHCR, as well as to local networks and civil society initiatives, such as the Asia Pacific Refugee Rights Network and the Asia Pacific Network of Refugees. </p>
<p>This is not only the right thing to do, but would also be more effective and efficient than current approaches. It is in our national interest not to ignore or compound the consequences of unresolved displacement in our region. </p>
<hr>
<p>
<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/amid-a-worsening-refugee-crisis-public-support-is-high-in-both-australia-and-nz-to-accept-more-rohingya-199504">Amid a worsening refugee crisis, public support is high in both Australia and NZ to accept more Rohingya</a>
</strong>
</em>
</p>
<hr>
<h2>Achieving better protection outcomes</h2>
<p>Over the longer term, we should <a href="https://www.kaldorcentre.unsw.edu.au/publication/principles-australian-refugee-policy">promote</a> respect for human rights and the rule of law, increase our contributions to aid and development in the region, and work to reduce conflict and the negative effects of climate change. </p>
<p>These efforts could help ease the conditions that force people to leave their homes in search of safety. This could also improve conditions for the safe, dignified and sustainable return of those not in need of protection. </p>
<p>Finally, success should not only be measured by whether a state has ratified a particular refugee treaty or adopted national asylum legislation. Protection outcomes for real people are what matter. In other words, are the needs of displaced people and their host communities being met? </p>
<p>This is why we need to develop a more collaborative approach across the Asia-Pacific to ensure that displaced people can move on with their lives in safety and with dignity - whether that is in Australia or elsewhere in the region. </p>
<p>In so doing, we must ensure the concerns and voices of those most directly impacted are heard and addressed.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/210378/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Jane McAdam AO receives funding from the Australian Research Council and has provided expert advice to a range of international bodies, including the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) and the International Organization for Migration (IOM). </span></em></p><p class="fine-print"><em><span>Brian Barbour is a senior refugee protection advisor for Act for Peace.</span></em></p><p class="fine-print"><em><span>Claire Higgins receives funding from the Australian Research Council.</span></em></p><p class="fine-print"><em><span>Daniel Ghezelbash receives funding from the Australian Research Council and the NSW Government. He is a member of the management committee of Refugee Advice and Casework Services and a Special Counsel at the National Justice Project.</span></em></p><p class="fine-print"><em><span>Madeline has provided advice to the Australian and UK governments about the international law implications of offshore processing. </span></em></p><p class="fine-print"><em><span>Tristan Harley receives funding from the Gerda Henkel Foundation and Act for Peace. He has previously worked as a consultant for the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees, the Asia Pacific Refugee Rights Network and the Asia Pacific Network of Refugees.
</span></em></p>Helping our Southeast Asian neighbours make conditions better for refugees there will reduce the need for them to make dangerous journeys elsewhere.Jane McAdam, Scientia Professor and Director of the Kaldor Centre for International Refugee Law, UNSW SydneyBrian Barbour, PhD candidate, UNSW SydneyClaire Higgins, Senior Research Fellow, Kaldor Centre for International Refugee Law, UNSW SydneyDaniel Ghezelbash, Associate Professor and Deputy Director, Kaldor Centre for International Refugee Law, UNSW Law & Justice, UNSW Sydney, UNSW SydneyMadeline Gleeson, Senior Research Fellow, Andrew & Renata Kaldor Centre for International Refugee Law, UNSW SydneyTristan Harley, Senior Research Associate, Kaldor Centre for International Refugee Law, UNSW SydneyLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/2093542023-07-20T16:44:56Z2023-07-20T16:44:56ZRwanda plan is in legal limbo, but history shows such migration deals are unlikely to disappear<p>The UK government is taking its controversial Rwanda asylum plan <a href="https://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/home-news/braverman-rwanda-illegal-migration-bill-appeal-b2374718.html">to the supreme court</a>, after the court of appeal <a href="https://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/home-news/suella-braverman-rwanda-deportation-court-b2367097.html">ruled</a> that the proposal was illegal.</p>
<p>However, even if the higher court appeal fails, agreements like the UK-Rwanda asylum partnership are unlikely to disappear. This is because migration “deals”, as historical analysis shows, are almost never just about migration. Rather, they are more often quid pro quo arrangements linked to other domestic and foreign policy goals. </p>
<p>The <a href="https://commonslibrary.parliament.uk/research-briefings/cbp-9568/">UK-Rwanda partnership</a> involves the UK committing to provide Rwanda with £120 million in economic development aid. This is on top of an estimated <a href="https://www.ft.com/content/2a510246-495c-49e8-a064-07871122db6f">£170,000 per asylum seeker</a> that the government expects to spend if the agreement is implemented. </p>
<p>In exchange, Rwanda would host these asylum seekers and determine whether their claims are genuine, in which case they would be offered refugee status in Rwanda. The court of appeal found that the Rwandan asylum system would be unable to accurately and fairly assess asylum claims, therefore putting refugees in danger.</p>
<p>In addition to its aim of tackling irregular migration, the arrangement allows the UK to <a href="https://theconversation.com/how-the-uks-plan-to-send-asylum-seekers-to-rwanda-is-21st-century-imperialism-writ-large-181501">increase its influence</a> in the <a href="https://waronwant.org/resources/new-colonialism-britains-scramble-africas-energy-and-mineral-resources">mineral-rich</a> Great Lakes region of Africa.</p>
<hr>
<p>
<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/how-the-uks-plan-to-send-asylum-seekers-to-rwanda-is-21st-century-imperialism-writ-large-181501">How the UK's plan to send asylum seekers to Rwanda is 21st-century imperialism writ large</a>
</strong>
</em>
</p>
<hr>
<p>The partnership provides Rwanda with resources and an opportunity to boost its international profile. It also means Britain exercising restraint in critiquing or putting pressure on Rwanda in areas where it might otherwise be far more vocal, such as human rights and meddling in the affairs of its neighbours. </p>
<p>For example, <a href="https://www.ft.com/content/6da56e7f-0d01-4883-bca7-050c0aae6e02">the UK refused to directly criticise</a> Rwanda’s <a href="https://www.hrw.org/news/2023/06/13/dr-congo-killings-rapes-rwanda-backed-m23-rebels">backing of the M23</a> rebel military group involved in a series of rapes and other crimes in the Democratic Republic of Congo, while the US, France, Germany and Belgium called on Rwanda to halt its support of the group.</p>
<p>The UK-Rwanda partnership is also a sign of how future migration “deals” could shape UK foreign policy. The government’s <a href="https://bills.parliament.uk/bills/3429">illegal migration bill</a> hinges on the detention and removal of migrants who arrive in the UK irregularly. It lists 57 other countries that could be potential future partners, including Ecuador, Gambia, Moldova, Mongolia and Sierra Leone. Deals with any or all of these states could similarly affect UK foreign policy in arenas far beyond migration and border control.</p>
<h2>Deals throughout history</h2>
<p>The government <a href="https://homeofficemedia.blog.gov.uk/2022/04/14/factsheet-migration-and-economic-development-partnership/">claims</a> that its approach is “completely new and innovative”. But in recent decades, <a href="https://www.birmingham.ac.uk/news/2022/the-uk-governments-plan-to-send-refugees-to-rwanda-isnt-that-different-to-policies-in-europe">Denmark</a>, the US, Australia, the <a href="https://www.rescue.org/eu/article/what-eu-turkey-deal#:%7E:text=The%20'EU%2DTurkey%20deal'%20is%20the%20term%20often%20used,Turkey%20to%20the%20Greek%20islands.">European Union</a> and others have all pursued deals that strongly resemble the UK-Rwanda partnership.</p>
<p><a href="https://academic.oup.com/ia/article/99/2/707/7024981">Transactional migration schemes</a> commonly involve the exchange of cash and other incentives for hosting, assisting with or accepting the return of people who have been deemed “illegal” or “unwanted”. History is <a href="https://academic.oup.com/ia/article/99/2/707/7024981">full of attempts</a> to transfer “unwanted” populations to far-flung locales in exchange for financial or foreign policy benefits. </p>
<p>In 1902, British colonial secretary Joseph Chamberlain proposed that parts of eastern Africa would be settled by Jewish immigrants. This came to be known as the “<a href="https://www.google.com/books/edition/A_Concise_History_of_the_Jewish_People/z4eaj09hscAC?hl=en&gbpv=1&dq=joseph+chamberlain+uganda+scheme&pg=PA240&printsec=frontcover">Uganda scheme</a>”. </p>
<p>This was sold to domestic constituents as a solution to the “alien” (Jewish) migration of “persecuted people” to Britain. But it also served numerous <a href="https://www.google.co.uk/books/edition/In_the_Shadow_of_Zion/Ej_UBAAAQBAJ?hl=en&gbpv=1&printsec=frontcover">British imperial and economic interests</a>, including justifying public investments in failed colonial infrastructure projects and deterring German expansionism in the region.</p>
<p>Jews were not the only group to be a focus of involuntary resettlement in distant lands. The League of Nations’ Nansen International Office for Refugees received numerous proposals for such schemes. </p>
<p>In 1934, it led the search for a “suitable home” in which to resettle Iraqi Assyrians. It considered venues such as British Guiana, Brazil and Timbuktu. The <a href="https://www.jstor.org/stable/45334591">prospect of resettlement in Brazil</a> was due in part to the interests of the London-based Paraña Plantations Company. </p>
<p>The company operated in Brazil and offered to sell the League of Nations tracts of land for the project as a moneymaking scheme that would simultaneously attract usable labour.</p>
<p>Like the migration partnerships of today, these schemes were often justified on grounds of pragmatism, and cast as humanitarian responses designed to <a href="https://sup.org/books/title/?id=28037">stop human suffering</a>. They also involved promises of financial and other assistance in exchange for receiving populations, and were deeply intertwined with states’ larger geopolitical objectives.</p>
<h2>When deals backfire</h2>
<p>Beyond the <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/world/2023/jun/26/eu-migration-aid-tunisia-betrayal-values-imprisoned-dissidents-children">human rights implications</a> and legal questions, these deals can also cause problems for the states that sign onto them.</p>
<p>States that agree to migration deals can commit to ongoing transfers of resources in exchange for arrangements that ultimately <a href="https://www.voanews.com/a/australia-s-cambodia-refugee-deal-is-dead/4638263.html">never come to fruition</a> or fail to achieve their aims. They might also become locked into expensive contracts that continue long after detention facilities are no longer in use. </p>
<p>This has happened with Australia, which is <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/australia-news/2023/may/23/nauru-offshore-detention-immigration-processing-to-cost-australia-485m-22-asylum-seekers">still paying</a> the tiny island nation of Nauru AU$350 million (£184 million) annually, despite the fact that its processing centres now stand empty.</p>
<p>Countries that agree to receive migrants can also exploit their position as de facto refugee and migrant warehouses. They can <a href="https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/full/10.1177/09670106211027464">threaten</a> not to cooperate with the terms of the deal, or expel those housed on their soil to extract more aid and other concessions over time. </p>
<p>This is something now deposed Libyan leader Muammar Gaddafi did on <a href="https://global.oup.com/academic/product/coercion-9780190846343?cc=us&lang=en&">multiple occasions</a> in the early 2000s while hosting migrants and asylum seekers from several Middle Eastern, North African and sub-Saharan countries.</p>
<p>In some cases, authoritarian regimes may use the aid received as part of a migration deal to <a href="https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/full/10.1111/imig.13075">bolster their power</a> and increase control in their own countries. This can, ironically, lead to more people fleeing the country as refugees amid escalating political repression.</p>
<p>History shows that migration partnerships voluntarily entered can backfire. And yet, the current UK government seems determined to push ahead with these deals (in Rwanda or elsewhere) as a central aspect of its border control policy. Doing so may also lead to unexpected outcomes and consequences in regions far beyond its borders – with lasting implications for foreign policy.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/209354/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>This piece is based on research that has received funding from the Leverhulme Trust and the British Academy.</span></em></p>Migration arrangements like the Rwanda plan have existed for well over a century.Fiona B. Adamson, Professor of International Relations, SOAS, University of LondonKelly M. Greenhill, Associate Professor and Senior Research Fellow at Tufts University and at MIT, Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT)Licensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/2099932023-07-19T16:06:58Z2023-07-19T16:06:58ZIllegal migration bill to become law: what you need to know<p><em>The UK government has succeeded in passing its illegal migration bill. After a series of late-night votes and months of controversy, the bill is now set to receive royal assent and become the Illegal Migration Act 2023. The following round-up will give you the key details of the bill and the analysis of the academic experts who have written about it for The Conversation.</em></p>
<p>The illegal migration bill is the central pillar of Rishi Sunak’s plan to stop small boat crossings, one of his <a href="https://www.gov.uk/government/news/prime-minister-outlines-his-five-key-priorities-for-2023">five promises</a> as prime minister. On its journey to becoming law, the bill faced opposition from the House of Lords, Conservative backbenchers in the House of Commons, activists and organisations who support refugees in the UK, and the <a href="https://www.unhcr.org/news/press-releases/uk-illegal-migration-bill-un-refugee-agency-and-un-human-rights-office-warn">United Nations</a>.</p>
<p>A key facet of the bill – the Rwanda migration partnership – remains in legal limbo. The <a href="https://theconversation.com/why-uk-court-ruled-rwanda-isnt-a-safe-place-to-send-refugees-and-what-this-means-for-the-governments-immigration-plans-208768">Court of Appeal ruled</a> that Rwanda would not be able to fairly and accurately assess refugees’ asylum claims if they were sent there from the UK, and that therefore the plan was unlawful. The government will appeal this decision at the Supreme Court.</p>
<p>But regardless of whether the appeal is successful, the act sets the stage for future migration partnerships, where asylum seekers who enter the UK irregularly (such as by small boat) may be sent to another country the government deems “safe”.</p>
<hr>
<p>
<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/why-uk-court-ruled-rwanda-isnt-a-safe-place-to-send-refugees-and-what-this-means-for-the-governments-immigration-plans-208768">Why UK court ruled Rwanda isn't a safe place to send refugees – and what this means for the government's immigration plans</a>
</strong>
</em>
</p>
<hr>
<p>This act is the second major immigration law passed in the last 15 months. The Nationality and Borders Act, <a href="https://theconversation.com/nationality-and-borders-act-becomes-law-five-key-changes-explained-182099">enacted in April 2022</a>, was the Boris Johnson government’s plan to fix a “broken” asylum system. But after it failed to have any discernible impact on the number of people making the dangerous journey across the Channel in small boats, the government introduced the illegal migration bill. </p>
<p>Erica Consterdine, an immigration policy expert at Lancaster University, has <a href="https://theconversation.com/the-government-passed-a-major-immigration-law-last-year-so-why-is-it-trying-to-pass-another-one-207343">explained the difference</a> between the two pieces of legislation for us. She describes the new law as “the most extreme piece of immigration legislation to date”. It will effectively ban asylum seeking in the UK, by requiring the home secretary to detain and deport anyone who enters the UK illegally (most asylum seekers), before their cases can be considered.</p>
<hr>
<p>
<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/the-government-passed-a-major-immigration-law-last-year-so-why-is-it-trying-to-pass-another-one-207343">The government passed a major immigration law last year – so why is it trying to pass another one?</a>
</strong>
</em>
</p>
<hr>
<p>This would include potential victims of modern slavery. One of the most controversial aspects of the legislation is that it would deny modern slavery protections to anyone who enters the UK illegally. This is, as expert Alex Balch from the University of Liverpool <a href="https://theconversation.com/how-the-uks-new-immigration-law-will-put-more-people-at-risk-of-modern-slavery-209746">explains</a>, because the government has accused asylum seekers of falsely claiming to be modern slavery victims in order to avoid deportation. </p>
<p>The House of Lords tried to soften these parts of the bill through a series of amendments, but was ultimately defeated by the government.</p>
<hr>
<p>
<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/how-the-uks-new-immigration-law-will-put-more-people-at-risk-of-modern-slavery-209746">How the UK's new immigration law will put more people at risk of modern slavery</a>
</strong>
</em>
</p>
<hr>
<h2>Legal concerns</h2>
<p>From the moment it was announced, critics have said the illegal migration bill would clash with the UK’s human rights obligations. The home secretary, Suella Braverman, said herself that the bill would “push the boundaries” of international law. </p>
<p>Helen O'Nions, an expert in human rights law at Nottingham Trent University <a href="https://theconversation.com/illegal-immigration-bill-does-more-than-push-the-boundaries-of-international-law-201332">writes that</a> the provisions in the bill hinge on a “shaky interpretation” of the UN Refugee Convention of 1951, an international treaty that sets out the rights of refugees. While international refugee law is difficult to enforce, there are a number of issues in the bill that are likely to face prolonged legal battles.</p>
<hr>
<p>
<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/illegal-immigration-bill-does-more-than-push-the-boundaries-of-international-law-201332">Illegal immigration bill does more than 'push the boundaries' of international law</a>
</strong>
</em>
</p>
<hr>
<p>It’s notable that these two migration policies have been passed under two ethnic minority home secretaries, and endorsed by other ministers who are the descendants of immigrants themselves. Politics researchers Neema Begum (University of Nottingham), Michael Bankole (King’s College) and Rima Saini (Middlesex University) have <a href="https://theconversation.com/minority-ethnic-politicians-are-pushing-harsh-immigration-policies-why-representation-doesnt-always-mean-racial-justice-206885">dug into this phenomenon</a> and argue that the appearance of ethnic diversity in government is used to prop up hard right views on immigration and race.</p>
<hr>
<p>
<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/minority-ethnic-politicians-are-pushing-harsh-immigration-policies-why-representation-doesnt-always-mean-racial-justice-206885">Minority ethnic politicians are pushing harsh immigration policies – why representation doesn't always mean racial justice</a>
</strong>
</em>
</p>
<hr>
<h2>Will it even work?</h2>
<p>At the heart of the act is the government’s claim that people won’t come to the UK to seek asylum if they know they will be detained and deported to Rwanda or elsewhere. But there is <a href="https://theconversation.com/the-governments-plan-to-remove-asylum-seekers-will-be-a-logistical-mess-and-may-not-deter-people-from-coming-to-the-uk-201248">very little evidence</a>) to show that this approach of “deterrence” would be effective, writes Peter William Walsh, a researcher at Oxford University’s Migration Observatory.</p>
<p>Explaining the logistical problems with the proposals, he says that with the future of the Rwanda partnership uncertain, it’s not clear how the “detain and remove” approach will actually be put into practice. </p>
<hr>
<p>
<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/the-governments-plan-to-remove-asylum-seekers-will-be-a-logistical-mess-and-may-not-deter-people-from-coming-to-the-uk-201248">The government's plan to remove asylum seekers will be a logistical mess – and may not deter people from coming to the UK</a>
</strong>
</em>
</p>
<hr>
<h2>The trauma of the asylum system</h2>
<p>This new legislation comes against the backdrop of an asylum “backlog” – tens of thousands of applications that have not yet been decided, leaving people uncertain about their future in the country. </p>
<p>This longform article by Steve Taylor, senior lecturer in psychology at Leeds Beckett University, details the physical and psychological impacts of being stuck in the UK’s asylum system. Taylor’s interviewees described experiences of trauma, suicidal thoughts, hostility and threats, from years spent in asylum limbo.</p>
<p>And, as he points out, the act “is predicted to lead to <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/world/2023/mar/22/draconian-migration-bill-could-leave-tens-of-thousands-destitute-or-locked-up">more long-term detention</a>”. This will come at high cost to taxpayers, and to the human lives caught up in the policy. </p>
<hr>
<p>
<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/its-like-youre-a-criminal-but-i-am-not-a-criminal-first-hand-accounts-of-the-trauma-of-being-stuck-in-the-uk-asylum-system-202276">'It’s like you’re a criminal, but I am not a criminal.' First-hand accounts of the trauma of being stuck in the UK asylum system</a>
</strong>
</em>
</p>
<hr>
<img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/209993/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
A recap of our expert analysis of the UK’s new migration law.Avery Anapol, Commissioning Editor, Politics + SocietyLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/2097462023-07-19T16:06:56Z2023-07-19T16:06:56ZHow the UK’s new immigration law will put more people at risk of modern slavery<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/538364/original/file-20230719-27-braier.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=155%2C146%2C5596%2C3423&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">
</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.shutterstock.com/image-photo/woman-buying-tickets-passport-box-office-366362966">Shutterstock</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>The UK’s illegal migration bill is set to become law after going back and forth between the two houses of parliament. The final sticking point, which the House of Lords tried to address in a series of amendments, was about the bill’s treatment of people who have experienced modern slavery.</p>
<p>The government’s aim with the bill is to crack down on small boat crossings. It stipulates that if someone arrives in the UK irregularly, there will be a duty on the home secretary to detain and remove them from the UK. They will also not be able to access protections under the Modern Slavery Act.</p>
<p>One of the most vocal opponents to this aspect of the bill was Theresa May, former prime minister and home secretary. In one of the final debates, May said that it would <a href="https://news.sky.com/story/theresa-may-slams-illegal-migration-bill-for-allowing-more-slave-drivers-to-make-money-out-of-human-misery-12919165">“consign more people to slavery”</a>, and allow traffickers to “make money out of human misery”.</p>
<p>The home secretary, Suella Braverman, has said that the government wants to help <a href="https://theconversation.com/modern-slavery-uks-focus-on-genuine-victims-has-failed-survivors-since-the-1800s-192528">“genuine” victims</a> of modern slavery. But the new law means that migrants who have been exploited or trafficked to the UK are likely to be deported without receiving the support they are entitled to.</p>
<p>May argues that this will undermine the UK’s efforts to address modern slavery, as those affected by these crimes will be less able to help <a href="https://news.sky.com/story/theresa-may-slams-illegal-migration-bill-for-allowing-more-slave-drivers-to-make-money-out-of-human-misery-12919165">criminal prosecutions</a>.</p>
<p>Evidence shows she’s right. As our <a href="https://modernslaverypec.org/assets/downloads/Illegal-Migration-Bill-Explainer-12-July.pdf">analysis</a> at the Modern Slavery Policy and Evidence Centre points out, prosecution usually relies on testimonies of the victims. If people are not protected, few people will be willing, or in a position to testify in courts. As one survivor put it, if they had been detained and deported under the new bill, <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2023/jul/11/trafficker-behind-bars-uk-migration-bill-modern-slavery?">“my trafficker would still be walking the streets today”</a>.</p>
<h2>Modern slavery protections</h2>
<p>Since 2009, protections have been available to anyone identified as a potential victim of human trafficking. These were expanded in 2015 under <a href="https://www.legislation.gov.uk/ukpga/2015/30/part/1/crossheading/offences/enacted?view=plain">the Modern Slavery Act</a> to cover those experiencing slavery, servitude and forced or compulsory labour. </p>
<p>If someone is identified as a potential victim, they are referred through the <a href="https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/human-trafficking-victims-referral-and-assessment-forms/guidance-on-the-national-referral-mechanism-for-potential-adult-victims-of-modern-slavery-england-and-wales#:%7E:text=6.-,Access%20to%20support,protection">National Referral Mechanism</a>. They are entitled to support including legal advice, accommodation and protection from harm (including deportation) for at least 45 days while their case is assessed.</p>
<p>Ministers have <a href="https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2022/08/16/end-scourge-bogus-modern-slavery-claims/">argued</a> that irregular migrants are falsely claiming to be victims of modern slavery to avoid being deported. But these accusations are based on misleading use of statistics. </p>
<p>The immigration minister, Robert Jenrick, claimed earlier this year that 71% of foreign national offenders (non-British citizens convicted of a serious criminal offence) <a href="https://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/politics/robert-jenrick-modern-slavery-statistics-authority-b2369865.html">are claiming to be modern slaves</a>. The figure is much lower – around 20%.</p>
<p>The UK statistics authority also <a href="https://osr.statisticsauthority.gov.uk/correspondence/ed-humpherson-to-jennifer-rubin-use-of-national-referral-mechanism-statistics/">warned the Home Office</a> over claims about how many migrants arriving on small boats “game the system” by falsely claiming to be victims. </p>
<p><a href="https://modernslaverypec.org/resources/migration-bill-explainer">Our analysis</a> found no published evidence to support these claims. A very small proportion (7%) of people who arrived on small boats between 2018 and 2022 were referred as potential victims of modern slavery. And 85% of them were confirmed by the Home Office as victims – broadly in line with the average for all modern slavery referrals.</p>
<p>Nevertheless, the government insists that removing modern slavery protections for non-UK citizens who enter the UK irregularly will make people in these groups easier to detain and deport, and act as a deterrent for others. </p>
<h2>Opposition in the Lords</h2>
<p>The <a href="https://theconversation.com/illegal-migration-bill-the-concern-for-childrens-rights-keeping-the-house-of-lords-up-all-night-207387">House of Lords</a> led opposition to the bill in Westminster, proposing a number of <a href="https://news.sky.com/story/illegal-migration-bill-suffers-20-defeats-in-house-of-lords-in-fresh-blow-for-rishi-sunak-12915729">amendments</a> on human rights grounds.</p>
<p>One proposal was to add an exception to the legislation, so that people would not be disqualified from <a href="https://modernslaverypec.org/assets/downloads/Illegal-Migration-Bill-Explainer-12-July.pdf">modern slavery protections</a> even if they entered the UK illegally. This was ultimately rejected.</p>
<p>The government did commit to producing new guidance to delay removal of potential victims. However, this is only on condition of their <a href="https://www.ein.org.uk/news/mps-reject-all-lords-amendments-illegal-migration-bill-its-return-house-commons">cooperation with the police</a>, and if the modern slavery offence took place in the UK. For a number of reasons, it can take years for victims to come forward to police about their situation.</p>
<hr>
<p>
<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/mo-farah-was-trafficked-to-the-uk-the-governments-new-immigration-law-could-make-it-harder-for-modern-slavery-victims-to-receive-help-184286">Mo Farah was trafficked to the UK – the government's new immigration law could make it harder for modern slavery victims to receive help</a>
</strong>
</em>
</p>
<hr>
<p>Evidence shows that lack of support for victims is a <a href="https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/police-response-to-victims-of-modern-slavery/the-hidden-victims-report-on-hestias-super-complaint-on-the-police-response-to-victims-of-modern-slavery--2">significant factor</a> in low prosecution rates of people smugglers. The Crown Prosecution Service recognises the need to provide support for <a href="https://www.cps.gov.uk/legal-guidance/modern-slavery-human-trafficking-and-smuggling">“vulnerable and/or intimidated”</a> victims.</p>
<h2>Immigration policy and modern slavery</h2>
<p>The UK’s immigration system is one of complex, costly and restrictive visa regimes, with few legal routes for vulnerable people to come to the UK and be allowed to work. Under the new law, more migrants are likely to be left in precarious situations, at risk of further exploitation. </p>
<p>Seasonal workers in the agricultural sector, for example, say <a href="https://www.thegrocer.co.uk/fruit-and-veg/former-seasonal-workers-tell-lords-committee-of-appalling-conditions/680496.article">they are treated as “slave labour”</a>. But addressing these issues becomes harder without protections, because there are <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/world/2023/feb/05/care-worker-whistleblower-outed-by-home-office-over-exploitation-claims">serious risks to speaking out</a>, including the threat of having your visa revoked and becoming liable for detention and deportation. </p>
<p>And this doesn’t even cover the conditions for those without the right to work, such as those <a href="https://link.springer.com/chapter/10.1057/978-1-137-58739-8_8">claiming asylum</a> or the <a href="https://bristoluniversitypressdigital.com/view/journals/crsw/5/3/article-p357.xml">safeguarding concerns</a> for migrants who are not permitted to access public funds or basic welfare support.</p>
<p>The government has long described its approach to immigration as <a href="https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/01442879608423707?journalCode=cpos20">“firm but fair”</a>. By dismantling modern slavery protections, while at the same time tightening immigration rules, they are arguably defying their own political balancing act.</p>
<p>The Illegal Migration Act will deny protections to thousands of people, and is based on unevidenced claims about abuse of the <a href="https://modernslaverypec.org/resources/migration-bill-explainer">modern slavery system</a>. It will almost certainly undermine efforts to address modern slavery. </p>
<p>The protection of those affected by modern slavery should be <a href="http://www.antislaverycommissioner.co.uk/news-insights/new-research-on-refining-a-public-health-approach-to-modern-slavery/">separated</a> from the politics of immigration controls. This is the only way to ensure people will speak out about exploitation and abuse, without fear of denunciation, detention and deportation.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/209746/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Alex Balch receives funding from the Arts and Humanities Research Council (AHRC). He is Director of Research at the Modern Slavery and Human Rights Policy and Evidence Centre, based at the Bingham Centre for the Rule of Law (in the British Institute for International and Comparative Law). </span></em></p>The government has claimed that irregular migrants are falsely claiming to be victims of modern slavery to avoid being deported, but there is little evidence to support this.Alex Balch, Professor, Department of Politics, University of LiverpoolLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.