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The Danish Social Democrats have been through a lengthy period of ideological change and transformation, whose effects have become particularly manifest in recent times. This chapter argues that these developments are to be seen in the light of the particular Danish political context and developments, already prefigured at the dawn of the century. Notably, the populist and anti-immigration right in Denmark which quickly made use of the political opportunities to exploit the weaknesses, indecision and the ambiguities on the Right and the Left to gain support. The strategy repertoires activated by the Social Democrats to stem the electoral appeal of the right-wing populist anti-immigration have shifted from attempts to isolate, ignore and dismiss the saliency of some policy issues, towards efforts to adverse and recently to accommodate and co-opt stricter positions on immigration and tougher integration politics. While it is premature to tell whether the Social Democratic right wing turn on immigration helped undermining the populist right-wing momentum, the party has not yet managed to take back the support it hoped for. Moreover, the paradigm shift on immigration and the opening up to transversal alliances might mobilise new friends, but also shed old ones. The new pattern undertaken by the Danish Social Democrats seems also to require internal consent, more control and party discipline to avoid internal disagreements and criticism from within the party. Our interviews unravel some discontent with the restrictive right turn on immigration bubbling under the surface among the party ranks and files.

This chapter interrogates the practice of gender-based asylum as a window to the problem of gender-based violence (GBV) as a driver of migration, with a focus on Southeast Europe, reporting on one instance of the intersection between the more private matter of gender and the realms of “high politics.”

The research is based on qualitative methods, primarily drawn from existing (written) sources, including legal cases, government and NGO reports, and other documents, supplemented by information gathered through in-depth interviews.

This research found that the region is a source of migrants escaping GBV, and that migrants from this region have been agents in moving the practice of gender-based asylum forward in recent years. That migration is increasingly multidirectional. Further, the “West” offers gender-based asylum inconsistently.

Political and policy change on these matters across this region were transitioning rapidly when this chapter was written; there will be a need, therefore, for updates based on any new developments.

Policy progress should be based on recognition of Southeast Europe’s varied roles as receiving, transit, and destination countries as the region’s viability and visibility increase.

The chapter analyzes a legal terrain that is rarely done outside of the field of law. It offers the most recent analysis of current developments in gender-based asylum with a Southeast Europe focus. Finally, it contributes empirical research to the evolving theoretical discussions of the privatization of the public sphere, particularly for emerging democracies.

Uncontrollable movement of people across international borders is one of most pressing contemporary challenge encountered by nation-states. Their response to this challenge is often rooted on a reconceptualisation of (in)security from a state-centric to a non-state-centric one. This has been the case with Australia where insecurity from asylum seekers, or what is referred to as the ‘boat people’, dominating the country's discourse on protecting its borders. Such conceptions are rooted on historical anxieties from ‘foreigners’, resulting in exclusionary policies of ‘White Australia’ to recent assertions of exclusive sovereignty over the refugee intake. In this context, while reviewing government documents, reports and other secondary sources, the chapter examines Australia's policy towards asylum seekers domestically as well as at the regional level, while placing them within the broader debate between deterrence and human rights. The chapter is significant as it provides an important case study of the inherent contradictions that come into light in a nation-state's response towards refugees on the one hand and undocumented arrivals, in this case, the ‘boat people’ on the other. This chapter provides analytical support to the primary assertion that while Australia has been an active international player regarding refugee issues, there is bipartisan exclusivity and hard-handedness towards asylum seekers.

According to the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees, the world is experiencing the greatest refugee crisis in recorded history alongside increasingly restrictive limits on asylum seekers and refugees. In 2020, the US administration established a ceiling for refugees of 18,000 people, the lowest number on record, and only 11,814 refugees were admitted to the United States. The Biden administration has expressed commitments to building a coherent asylum and refugee system and quickly reversing recent detrimental policies. But the administration has cautioned how quickly change might occur, given how “agencies and processes…have been so gutted.”¹

2016 to 2020 included an overwhelming series of changes to laws and policies affecting asylum seekers, often with little documented planning or communication, wreaking severe effects on conditions for asylum seekers at the US–Mexico border. These changes had significant consequences for human rights, most notably the linchpin right of access to information. At the US–Mexico border, must the right “to seek, receive and impart information” be fulfilled in order to fulfill the right to asylum?

While information professionals are not expected to be experts in law, they are experts in understanding the link between access to information and the realization of justice and human rights. This chapter investigates the role of the information professional in the fulfillment of the right to asylum, particularly in the context of contemporary asylum seekers at the US–Mexico border, volatile information landscapes, and the legal and historical framework in the United States for seeking asylum.

The purpose of this paper is to explore the key credibility principles used by Migration Agency case-officers in Sweden. More specifically it analyses how they construct arguments about asylum-seeking unaccompanied minors’ credibility in first-decisions.

The study is inspired by a social constructionist approach to discourse and explores how case-officers construct legally legitimate arguments about credibility. The qualitative text analysis is focused on discursive practice. The data selected for analysis consists of 827 excerpts containing case-officers’ credibility reasoning deducted from a sample of 916 decisions.

The main finding is that case-officers question unaccompanied minors by using argumentative techniques in which children appear to be expected to deliver detailed and coherent accounts. In addition, unaccompanied minors’ knowledge-claims can be questioned regardless of decision outcome (rejection or approval). As unaccompanied minors’ claims for asylum appear to be questioned in such an extensive manner, their humanitarian claims also seem to be reduced. The findings of this study suggest that there is a risk that the possibility to be understood as a legitimate asylum seeker, worthy of residency, can be restricted for unaccompanied minors.

The findings indicate that when case-officers base their understanding of credibility on unaccompanied children’s individual life experiences they make use of a limited repertoire of arguments.

This study contributes to insights about how case-officers fulfil legal expectations when assessing unaccompanied minors’ credibility. The findings can be of interest to both legal and social science as well policy planners and immigration practitioners.

This paper aims to examine the role of electronic governance (e-governance) in enabling asylum seekers’ access to public services in the city of Durban, South Africa. Because of COVID-19, the government scaled down its operations, limiting access to public services, including among migrants.

Because of COVID-19-related restrictions, a systematic review was conducted of the relevant academic literature as well as the information portals of relevant government departments, municipalities and research reports on migration and refugees in South Africa. A total of 320 peer-reviewed research articles were identified. These were filtered and 68 relevant articles were selected.

The study found that asylum seekers have limited access to public services via information communication technology-enabled mechanisms. Whilst the city government has embraced e-governance, it is still in its nascent stages.

This study was limited to a desktop one because of COVID-19 restrictions and it focused exclusively on asylum seekers. Therefore, its findings can only be generalised to this category of people.

Future studies on this subject should gather data from all categories of migrants to gain in-depth perspectives.

All spheres of governance in South Africa should recognise asylum seekers as a constituency that deserves access to public services. E-governance can facilitate easier access to these services, and policies need to be aligned with this reality.

This study examined the efficacy of e-governance in enabling access to government services by asylum seekers during COVID-19. To the best of the authors’ knowledge, no other study on this subject was conducted during this period.

Carrier sanctions oblige commercial entities to check the validity of passengers’ documents and deny boarding where no valid documents are shown, or where fraud is suspected. The necessity to flee to safer countries at a time of particular political unrest has necessitated the use of fraudulent documents, which the sanction regime and subsequent case law have attempted to curtail. However, increased investigation into legitimacy of travel documents has induced the taking of dangerous routes to reach Britain. In particular, danger is posed by oncoming traffic, and where entry is attempted clandestinely, within lorries. Men, accounting for the majority of irregular entrants, are more likely to experience danger. Due to the very nature of their precarious position, potential asylum seekers may not hold travel documents, which induce the taking of dangerous routes to make asylum applications once in Britain. This chapter will attempts to link carrier sanctions, danger, and humanitarian obligations.

The immigration conundrum to craft policy that ensures border security and safeguards human rights is grave and complex. Individuals fleeing religious persecution made finding refuge part of our heritage since colonial times. This American tradition has enshrined our values to the world. This essay is limited to summarizing the asylum process and recent events through the summer of 2018 which affect it. Policy changes are ongoing. The asylum process is complicated by illegal immigration. The surge in migrants arriving at and/or crossing the border has led to controversial policies over the years. Unlike those who illegally cross the border and remain unknown to law enforcement, everyone who makes an affirmative asylum claim to a United States Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS) officer, or a defensive asylum claim in immigration court, has been thoroughly vetted through identity, criminality, and terrorism background checks. Granting refuge to those fleeing persecution reaffirms the values of a country that is, as Lincoln richly stated, the last best hope of Earth. Comprehensive immigration reform is needed on many immigration issues, two of which are to ensure border security and safeguard the asylum-seeking process.

This study provides an in-depth understanding of the structural and contextual factors that foster or hinder the educational pathways and employment opportunities of young refugees and asylum-seekers in Catalonia (Spain), and how their expectations and aspirations vary and change before and after forced migration. The authors implemented a multimodal ethnographic methodology that explore, the potential of photography, to analyze how these young people, belonging to differentiated social locations – class, ethnicity, status, gender, and/or sexual orientation – have been exposed to similar systems of oppression. These systems function at their mutual intersection within a general matrix of domination. The vulnerability of asylum-seeker status is the main obstacle to social integration. However, these young people stand out for their great capacity for resilience and a strong desire to advance in education as a proactive response that helps them resist new “structural and contextual oppression” in the host society.

Samuel Huntington’s vision in the early 1990s of a “clash of civilizations” struck a chord to such an extent that his core theme was reignited after the attacks of September 11th. International migration seems to be viewed as an issue that signifies this so-called clash (Bade & Bommes, 1996). Migration, culture, ethnicity and conflict have become linked. The result is that conflicts arising from migration are more likely to be seen as an outcome of the multiplication of different cultures within one country. Germany, the U.K., the Netherlands and Switzerland have all been described as multicultural societies and advised to pay attention to this “fact.” This has been combined with the view that even if there was no road to multiculturalism without social conflicts, there was also no viable alternative to tolerance as a device for the interaction of cultures (Leggewie, 1990).