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In a growing number of destination countries state authorities have started to use various digital devices such as analysis of data captured from mobile phones to verify asylum seekers' claimed country of origin. This move has prompted some critics to claim that asylum decision-making is increasingly delegated to machines. Based on fieldwork at a reception centre in Germany, this paper mobilises insights from science and technology studies (STS) to develop a framework that allows for more nuanced analyses and modes of critiques of the digitisation of asylum procedures. Rather than thinking human and non-human forms of agency as external to one another in order to juxtapose them in a zero-sum game, I comprehend the introduction of digital technologies as a reconfiguration of existing human-machine configurations. This conception highlights how the use digital technologies enables caseworkers to retain their position as an epistemic authority in asylum decision-making by assembling clues about asylum seekers' country of origin generated by digital technologies into hard juridical evidence. Subsequently, I develop an alternative critique that focuses on epistemic implications of the digitisation of asylum procedures. I identify a particular version of data colonialism that enables epistemic domination by means of data extraction. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

As the number of asylum seekers grew, and flight stories became more complex, many Western governments deployed national research units, tasked with producing reliable Country of Origin Information (COI) to assist officials, judges and policy-makers in decision-making. Building on ethnographic research at Staatendokumentation, the COI unit at the Austrian Federal Office for Immigration and Asylum, the paper argues that country research practices can best be understood as 'tinkering' – e.g. making use of know-how, equipment, material sources at disposal to produce workable COI in conditions of uncertainty. The concept of tinkering is derived from science and technology studies (STS) and brings into view how the research professionals cobble together a workable version of reality with the methodologies and materials at hand. Moreover, it highlights how country research involves continuous modification and adjustments to satisfy the needs of the unwitting case officer as the end-user of COI reports. Finally, using insights from feminist science and technology studies, the paper shows how country experts foster care for some things – i.e. the workload of case officers – at the expense of others – i.e. the experience of the asylum seeker. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

A rise in anti-immigrant pressure can reduce asylum recognition rates, irrespective of individuals' protection needs. Independent courts, which often act as a safeguard of migrant rights vis-à-vis such pressures, have been subject to increasing political interference. Yet, we know very little about how variation in the level of judicial independence – especially among lower courts – affects policy outcomes. In this paper, we assess the impact of anti-immigrant pressure and judicial independence on first and final instance refugee status determination decisions across 28 European Union member states over a ten-year period (2008–2018). We find that the relative independence of courts makes the biggest difference in asylum recognition rates at first and final instance when levels of anti-immigrant pressure are particularly high. This effect can be demonstrated not just regarding asylum appeals, but also for first instance decisions, suggesting that independent courts can have a liberal 'foreshadowing effect' on national asylum agencies. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Italy has recently been one of the main entry points for asylum seekers and refugees into Europe (UNHCR 2023). Credibility assessment of claims in asylum procedures heavily hinges on the applicants’ ability to (re)construct their refugee identity in written declarations and oral testimonies, which are in turn shaped and reshaped within the interaction in the further course of the procedure, not only but also by interpreters. Over the past 30 years, a growing number of publications testifies to the importance of asylum interpreters’ roles and ethics and show that asylum interpreters rarely fulfil the expectations of normative role prescriptions. This paper aims to gain a better understanding of some critical aspects of interpreting in the asylum context in Italy, an understudied area of interpreting so far, mainly for difficult access to data. It is based on a combination of participant observation, semi-structured interviews to some of the participants in the hearings and documentation about our dataset, which was collected at a Prefecture in central Italy in 2023. After an overview of the normative aspects of the right to asylum in the world and, more specifically, in Italy, we discuss the main issues concerning the complex profile and role of asylum interpreters and provide a description of the Italian international protection system. We then contextualise the dataset and the linguistic-ethnographic methods adopted to unravel the complex interactional dynamics under investigation. Based on our data analysis, we conclude that, in order to provide quality services, more specialised interpreter training is needed – not only in terms of language, legal knowledge and terminology, intercultural and communication skills, but also in terms of interviewing techniques and interactional mechanisms, as well as awareness of roles and respective boundaries in the asylum hearing.

This article dissects the refugee recognition regime in Jordan. It argues that refugee recognition, despite being conducted by UNHCR, is a heavily politicized process shaped by intersecting racial and national hierarchies, restrictive government regulations, and UNHCR policies. Despite Jordan hosting the 'second highest share of refugees per capita in the world', relatively few protection seekers gain refugee status, and when they do, it is almost always as part of the resettlement process. Many remain asylum seekers for years or decades, while others cannot even register their claim for international protection with UNHCR. This article contributes to refugee studies by demonstrating how UNHCR policies are changing RSD in non-signatory states, the importance of asylum/refugee registration, how state and humanitarian policies lead to some protection seekers being missed in academic analyses, and highlighting the ever-growing gap between the legal and 'everyday' uses of the term 'refugee'. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Sexual orientation, gender identity, gender expression and sex characteristics (SOGIESC) are often considered among the main personal characteristics which are likely to give rise to special procedural and reception needs, often resulting in labelling lesbian, gay, bisexual, trans, intersex and queer (LGBTIQ+) asylum-seekers and refugees as "vulnerable". However, SOGIESC issues should not be analysed in isolation, as there are various factors that can impact on one's experience in the country of origin and throughout the asylum procedure. This paper shows the added value of mobilizing intersectionality in the assessment of SOGIESC asylum claims. By analysing soft law instruments, legislation and case law and taking Italy as a case study, this paper shows that intersectionality can be a useful analytical tool that can support a better understanding of how LGBTIQ+ asylum-seekers experience their "vulnerabilities", as well as sustain State practices that address their protection needs in the asylum domain. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In 2021, there were 4.6 million asylum claims pending globally. How does the state determine that someone qualifies for refugee status? To understand refugee status determination, scholarship has focused on the characteristics of asylum seekers, their applications, and adjudicating officials. Relatively less is known about how officials make sense of asylum seekers and their claims. Building from a cognitive sociological approach, this article details frames of perception and evaluation at work in refugee status determination, cognitive prisms through which asylum officials make legible those seeking safe haven before the state. In doing so, it turns analytical focus from 'what' to 'how' officials interpret. It is based on an ethnography of the asylum-screening process in Brazil, including fieldwork, official interviews, and case files. It delineates four cognitive frames: credibility, gravity, affinity, and novelty. Such frames coexist, and they can also interact through frame configuration or competition. This article contributes to asylum scholarship by turning to the operative cognitive structures through which officials process information and evaluate asylum claims, and their variable development and operations in situated context. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Research on refugee resettlement frequently overlooks the larger context of the experience of forced migration. As a result, the micro-level interactions between refugees and the bureaucrats who make resettlement decisions are obscured. We can better understand the socio-political dynamics between refugees and the officials deciding their resettlement cases if we approach encounters between refugees and migration officials during ceremonial visits as sites of emotional exchange. This article examines the complex socio-political emotional exchanges of power and vulnerability that underpin the refugee resettlement process through an ethnographic analysis of Bhutanese refugee camps in Nepal.

The article explores whether the European Union Agency for Asylum's country guidance (CG) reflects the international protection needs of persons fleeing armed conflicts. It uses the Agency's guidance on Iraq as a case study through the lens of objectivity and relevance. The article highlights the disproportionate reliance on military and State-centric sources which adopt a traditional and narrow concept of security grounded in quantitative approaches. The article argues that the main sources of Country of Origin Information used in CG are inadequate to capture the present-day nature of violence in situations of armed conflict. The article makes the case for a re-balancing of sources to be included in CG that reflects wider security studies perspectives and approaches. The article also suggests that the indicators of indiscriminate violence used by the Agency are grounded in international humanitarian law norms and therefore fail to reflect international protection standards, whilst also being inadequate to capture the nature of violence in situations of contemporary armed conflict. The use of sources of information adopting wider security perspectives and qualitative approaches are encouraged and other factors, such as spheres of control by actors to the conflict, are proposed for inclusion into international protection assessments. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Contemporary refugee law builds on the 1951 Geneva Convention, but causes of forced migration not regulated by the Convention need to be addressed by national border and migration authorities. The right to asylum beyond the definition of the Convention does not entail the right of the migrant for refugee status but still entails the right to individual assessment of his legal status. This right remains relevant even if the respective state applies safe third country lists resulting in an almost instant rejection violating the nonrefoulement principle. Naturally, states have the right to expel irregular migrants without legal grounds to stay. However, during this process, the state shall respect the prohibition of collective expulsion. Yet, as the ECtHR holds, if the lack of individual assessment derives from the culpable conduct of the alien -- e.g. due to unauthorised en masse entry -- the state can expel them without individual assessment. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this article, the authors highlight the need for refugee legislation in India while India celebrates its 75 years of independence. India should have domestic legislation to uniformise legal and conceptual understanding of refugees, to uniformise the procedural standards for all refugees without discrimination, to address the increasing influx of refugees due to increase in conflicts in the neighbouring geography such as Afghanistan and Myanmar and due to increasing threats of sea-level rise and de-territorialisation. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Human vulnerability is at the core of refugee status determination and human rights provides its regulatory frame, so to speak of artificial intelligence within the refugee context may seem troubling at least, dystopian at worst. But the rapid development of artificial intelligence in government decision-making will unlikely be slowed by such ethical quandaries. The potential integration of automation, machine learning and algorithmic decision-making into global migration regulation and policy has far-reaching implications for refugee law. The consequences for efficiency, legality, accountability, transparency and human rights warrant a timely and critical conversation about the possible impact of existing and future technologies on refugee status determination. Predictive analytics, biometrics, automated credibility assessments and algorithmic decision-making are technologies that could have utility for refugee status determination processing, credibility assessments and decision-making. Each technology is considered through a lens of 'risk and potential', which is measured in terms of 'fair, efficient and effective' refugee status determination. The opportunities that artificial intelligence offers for efficiency and effectiveness in refugee status determination are compelling. Artificial intelligence allows for faster data processing and the ability to undertake highvolume, repetitive tasks. Increased consistency and up-to-date information, a capacity to plan for workloads and predict movements and the potential to 'design out' existing biases, promise to deliver positive outcomes for asylum seekers. But the risks of integrating artificial intelligence in a decision-making process that is defined by human vulnerability loom large. The lack of transparency in algorithms may result in a denial of procedural fairness, and algorithmic bias continues to be a vexing issue. If refugee and human rights are denied, international protection may be compromised. Technical and contextual issues may increase the potential for error, and unanswered questions remain around legality. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Asylum decision-making and discretion: Types of room for maneuver in refugee status determination. By mobilizing ethnographic methods to study the Swiss asylum administration, this article analyzes the discretionary powers of Swiss asylum caseworkers in a context characterized by an important sophistication of law. Starting from the observation that the daily work of asylum caseworkers is strongly oriented and controlled by their superiors and colleagues, by institutional rules and guidelines, as well as by their socialization, the author identifies different types of discretionary powers, on which caseworkers’ discretion rests. Consequently, he discusses how caseworkers perceive and use it differently, depending on the situation in which they find themselves. Thus, the article argues that asylum caseworkers have different types of room for maneuver according to their tasks, to the situations they are faced with, to the conditions in which they operate, and to their own characteristics (capitals, attitudes, experience). Eventually, the present contribution shows the relational and collective dimensions of bureaucratic discretion. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Thailand and Malaysia together host hundreds of thousands of refugees and asylum seekers even while neither of the two countries has signed international refugee conventions and there exist little or no formal national asylum frameworks for distinguishing refugees and asylum seekers from other undocumented migrants. Scholars who have explored this situation and the precarious condition of refugees and asylum seekers have yet to question how refugees and asylum seekers are identified in light of this legal ambiguity. This paper follows the cases of registration exercises along the Thai-Myanmar border and mobile registration in Kuala Lumpur until around 2013 in order to explore the mechanisms and technologies employed by the Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees in cooperation with non-governmental organizations for registering and identifying refugees from Myanmar. It argues that both the registration and non-registration of refugees and asylum seekers can be understood in terms of competing rationalities of the various actors involved, their incongruent programs, and uneven technologies that serve to make refugees both appear and disappear, that is, to actively construct and assert knowledge and information concerning the existence of refugees, or to conceal, deny, if not altogether dispense of the presence of refugees.

This article seeks to understand a common and regular feature of asylum decision-making, namely, that the majority of asylum claims are rejected, mostly on the basis of non-credibility. It draws on a bottom-up, qualitative study of an administration in which asylum decision-making takes place: the Swiss Secretariat for Migration. By adopting a practice-theoretical approach to administrative work, it advocates paying attention to caseworkers' routinised, self-evident and largely unquestioned behaviours, not only in terms of what they do, but also of what they think, feel and know. Building on Bourdieu, it introduces the concept of institutional habitus, which refers to the dispositions caseworkers develop on the job. On the basis of a specific decision-making practice termed 'digging deep', the article shows how these dispositions are structured and how, through the practices institutional habitus generates, these 'structuring structures' are continuously reaffirmed, leading to the relatively stable outcomes of administrative decision-making that can be observed from the outside. The article argues against the assumption that regularities of administrative work should be understood as the outcome of strict rule-following, top-down orders and political instrumentalism. At the same time, it challenges the individualist quality sometimes ascribed to discretionary practices in street-level bureaucracy literature and in critiques of credibility assessment practices in asylum adjudication. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article focuses on Refugee Status Determination (rsd) procedures, in order to understand the relationships among language, translation / interpreting, evidentiary assessment, and what we call the ‘listening state’. Legal systems have only recently begun to consider whether adjudicative processes ought to take place in multiple languages concurrently, or whether the ideal procedure is to monolingualize evidence first, and then assess it accordingly. Because of this ambivalence, asylum applicants are often left in the ‘zone of uncertainty’ between monolingualism and multilingualism. Their experiences and testimonies become subject to an ‘epistemic anxiety’ only infrequently seen in other areas of adjudication. We therefore ask whether asylum applicants ought to enjoy a ‘right to untranslatability’, taking account of the State's responsibility to cooperate actively with them or whether the burden ought to remain with the applicant to achieve credibility in the language of the respective jurisdiction, through interpretation and translation.

China is party to the 1951 Refugee Convention and the 2000 UN Trafficking Protocol, but has not extended coverage of either of the treaties to the Hong Kong Special Administrative Region of China (Hong Kong). Hong Kong does however offer non-refoulement protection on the basis of risks of torture or persecution. Further, Hong Kong legislation defines human trafficking, albeit only in terms of cross-border sex work. Victim identification also remains inadequate. The limited extant protection systems for refugees and victims of human trafficking operate separately and assume that such people are distinct with respect to their experiences and needs. These practices are often mirrored in the approaches of NGOs working in the city. Based on research undertaken by Justice Centre Hong Kong, this paper argues instead that boundaries between the two categories are blurry. The paper focuses on migrant domestic workers who may have claims to asylum and may be at the same time victims of human trafficking. It explores some of the implications for NGOs trying to secure better protections for such groups in Hong Kong. The paper concludes that siloing the refugee and the human trafficking frameworks creates a protection gap, particularly for people who enter Hong Kong as migrant domestic workers and cannot return home because they face a risk of persecution or torture.

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Witchcraft-related violence (WRV), in particular directed towards women and children, has become a source of increasing concern for human rights organizations in the current century. Yet for those fleeing WRV, this heightened attention has not translated across into refugee status. This research examines how claims of WRV were addressed in all available asylum decisions in English, drawn from five jurisdictions. We argue that WRV is a manifestation of gender-related harm; one which exposes major failings in the application of refugee jurisprudence. Inattention to the religious and organizational elements of witchcraft practices, combined with gender insensitivity in analysis, meant that claims were frequently reconfigured by decision makers as personal grudges, or family or community disputes, such that they were not cognizable harms within the terms of the Refugee Convention; or they were simply disbelieved as far-fetched. The success rate of claims was low, compared to available averages, and, when successful, claims were universally accepted on some basis other than the witchcraft element of the case. This article focuses in particular upon cases where the applicant feared harm as an accused witch, while a second related article addresses those fearing persecution from witches or through the medium of witchcraft. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The current era demands our thoughtful attention to how states process asylum seeker claims for safe haven, yet we know little about the practices through which asylum officials carry out that work. Building from literature on the body and knowledge production, this paper illuminates the workings of (dis)embodiment in the asylum process. I use the term (dis)embodiment to refer to an arrangement of separate yet interdependent practices of disembodying and embodying knowledge. These practices of knowledge production together form an integral part of what I call the “epistemic logic” of asylum - the techniques and processes of reasoning used to produce and analyse information to determine if an asylum seeker qualifies for refugee status. Through an ethnography of the asylum process in Brazil, I document how officials produce and privilege disembodied knowledge, while they contrastingly constrain the knowledge of asylum seekers to their bodies and lived experiences. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

China is party to the 1951 Refugee Convention and the 2000 UN Trafficking Protocol, but has not extended coverage of either of the treaties to the Hong Kong Special Administrative Region of China (Hong Kong). Hong Kong does however offer non-refoulement protection on the basis of risks of torture or persecution. Further, Hong Kong legislation defines human trafficking, albeit only in terms of cross-border sex work. Victim identification also remains inadequate. The limited extant protection systems for refugees and victims of human trafficking operate separately and assume that such people are distinct with respect to their experiences and needs. These practices are often mirrored in the approaches of NGOs working in the city. Based on research undertaken by Justice Centre Hong Kong, this paper argues instead that boundaries between the two categories are blurry. The paper focuses on migrant domestic workers who may have claims to asylum and may be at the same time victims of human trafficking. It explores some of the implications for NGOs trying to secure better protections for such groups in Hong Kong. The paper concludes that siloing the refugee and the human trafficking frameworks creates a protection gap, particularly for people who enter Hong Kong as migrant domestic workers and cannot return home because they face a risk of persecution or torture. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

State-based processes for determining refugee claims are crucial sites of inclusion or exclusion for onshore refugee applicants. This paper argues that cultures of disbelief and exclusion towards onshore refugee applicants are increasingly being enacted indirectly, via procedural reforms to Refugee Status Determination (RSD), which limit the ability of applicants to establish and articulate their claims. Focusing on Australia and Canada, this paper tracks the acceleration and truncation of RSD procedures, which first reflect and then frequently achieve the exclusion of onshore applicants. Two sets of reforms in particular have profoundly limited the terms on which applicants may present their claims. In Canada, this occurred as the result of a major overhaul of RSD that took place in December 2012. In Australia, the policy of ‘enhanced screening’ of applicants achieves the immediate screening-out of certain claims from the Australian determination system. Alongside analysing these reforms as a means of exclusion, this paper argues that the new procedures most disadvantage applicants making claims on the basis of gender-related persecution. Los procesos estatales para resolver las concesiones de asilo son situaciones cruciales para la inclusión o exclusión de los solicitantes de asilo una vez están en el territorio de acogida. Este artículo defiende que cada vez más, se está promulgando indirectamente la cultura de la desconfianza y exclusión hacia los solicitantes de asilo, a través de reformas procesuales de la Determinación del Estatus de Refugiado (DER), lo que limita la capacidad de los solicitantes para establecer y articular sus demandas de asilo. Centrándose en Australia y Canadá, este artículo realiza un seguimiento de la aceleración y el truncamiento de los procedimientos de DER que primero reflejan y después a menudo consiguen la exclusión de los solicitantes en el propio territorio de acogida. Dos grupos de reformas en particular han limitado profundamente las condiciones en las que los demandantes pueden presentar sus solicitudes. En Canadá esto ocurrió debido a una revisión importante de DER que se dio en diciembre de 2012. En Australia, la política de cribado mejorado de los solicitantes consigue la exclusión inmediata de determinadas solicitudes del sistema de determinación australiano. Además de analizar estas reformas como medio de exclusión, este artículo defiende que los nuevos procedimientos perjudican especialmente a los demandantes que realizan la solicitud en base a una persecución por motivos de género. DOWNLOAD THIS PAPER FROM SSRN: http://ssrn.com/abstract=2662547

In 2012, Canada made regulatory changes and adopted legislations amending the Immigration and Refugee Protection Act, including the Protecting Canada's Immigration System Act and the Balanced Refugee Reform Act. These pieces of legislation contain a number of measures which include: expedited refugee claim hearings, reduced procedural guarantees and reviews, growing use of socioeconomic deterrents, and increased immigration detention. Drawing on a qualitative research, this article explores the unintended results and counter-productive effects of these new measures, with a particular focus on their practical and human rights implications. It is argued that the government has used the language of security to rationalise the imposition of disproportionately harsh treatment on asylum seekers. Unsurprisingly, the new measures have resulted in violations of asylum seekers' human rights. In addition, they have had a detrimental impact on third parties involved in the refugee protection system, such as legal counsels and service providers. Finally, it is argued that there is a correlation between the new refugee measures and the increase in irregular migration in Canada [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article explores the genre and form of narratives that refugee applicants must present in order to move from refugee applicants to (refugee) citizens. It addresses these narratives as they feature in the adjudicative setting of the oral hearing within refugee status determination (RSD) processes. My argument is that the generic aspects of credible refugee testimony constitute and reflect the non-citizen subject whom refugee-receiving states are willing to accept. Through a close reading of testimonial forms and dialogue within the oral hearing, I show that the narratorial voice required of refugees is that of the realist novel's omniscient narrator, who can confidently account for herself and others. Second, drawing on Joseph R Slaughter's work on the relationship between the novel and human rights discourse, I argue that the narrative of a ‘genuine’ refugee is marked by the literary conventions of theBildungsroman. Just as in the reconciliatory genre of theBildungsroman, refugees must present their evidence in the form of a linear narrative that moves towards self-possession and sovereignty, and that resolves in incorporation into the nation-state and citizenship. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

This article examines the assessment of Indochinese refugees through Australia's first formal refugee status determination procedure between 1978 and 1983. Drawing from a unique set of UN High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) records, this is the first study to detail how the newly established Determination of Refugee Status (DORS) Committee's decision-making on Indochinese boat arrivals evolved over time. The Committee provided a basis on which the then Fraser government could process the Indochinese who sailed directly to Australia, while attempting to reassure the Australian public that it remained in control of their arrival. Through revealing new details of DORS' deliberations, this article provides an insight into interdepartmental debates about the Indochinese boat arrivals, and provides historical context for the Fraser government's public insistence on accepting only 'genuine' refugees. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article focuses on Refugee Status Determination (RSD) procedures, in order to understand the relationships among language, translation / interpreting, evidentiary assessment, and what we call the 'listening state'. Legal systems have only recently begun to consider whether adjudicative processes ought to take place in multiple languages concurrently, or whether the ideal procedure is to monolingualize evidence first, and then assess it accordingly. Because of this ambivalence, asylum applicants are often left in the 'zone of uncertainty' between monolingualism and multilingualism. Their experiences and testimonies become subject to an 'epistemic anxiety' only infrequently seen in other areas of adjudication. We therefore ask whether asylum applicants ought to enjoy a 'right to untranslatability', taking account of the State's responsibility to cooperate actively with them or whether the burden ought to remain with the applicant to achieve credibility in the language of the respective jurisdiction, through interpretation and translation. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article examines the legal challenges asylum seekers arriving by boat to Australia experience when seeking assistance with their claims and its impact on their mental health. The authors outline the experiences of asylum seekers in the “legacy caseload” group who have been waiting up to four years to have their protection claims assessed. The complex interplay between legal assistance to support refugee claims and the way those making claims inevitably struggle to understand, engage and participate in the process is analysed. It is argued that provision of legal assistance for this group will be essential to ensuring that the refugee status determination process is fair and allows asylum seekers to understand and participate more fully in the process. Recent changes to the assessment of claims combined with a reduction in funding for legal assistance create significant hurdles and combine to compound existing stress and emotional trauma leading to detrimental outcomes on the mental health of asylum seekers.

Currently the instruments of refugee status determination make asylum claims depend on images of women that are characterised by victimisation and motherhood.