This book explores the legitimacy of political asylum applications in the US and UK through an examination of the varieties of evidence, narratives, and documentation with which they are assessed. Credibility is the central issue in determining the legitimacy of political asylum seekers, but the line between truth and lies is often elusive, partly because desperate people often have to use deception to escape persecution. The vetting process has become infused with a climate of suspicion that not only assesses the credibility of an applicant's story and differentiates between the economic migrant and the person fleeing persecution, but also attempts to determine whether an applicant represents a future threat to the receiving country. This innovative text approaches the problem of deception from several angles, including increased demand for evidence, uses of new technologies to examine applicants' narratives, assessments of forged documents, attempts to differentiate between victims and persecutors, and ways that cultural misunderstandings can compromise the process. Essential reading for researchers and students of Political Science, International Studies, Refugee and Migration Studies, Human Rights, Anthropology, Sociology, Law, Public Policy, and Narrative Studies.

Europe is currently experiencing a "refugee crisis", demonstrated by millions of displaced people unseen since World War II. This book examines the interface between the EU's response to irregular flows, in particular the main extraterritorial border and migration controls taken by the Member States, and the rights asylum seekers acquire from EU law. "Remote control" techniques, such as the imposition of visas, fines on carriers transporting unsatisfactorily documented third-country nationals, and interception at sea are investigated in detail in a bid to assess the impact these measures have on access to asylum in the EU. The book also thoroughly analyses the rights recognised by the EU Charter of Fundamental Rights to persons in need of international protection, inclusive of the principle of non-refoulement, the right to leave any country including one's own, the right to asylum, and the right to remedies and effective judicial protection. The fundamental focus of the book is the relationship between the aforementioned border and migration controls and the rights of asylum seekers and, most importantly, how these rights (should) limit the scope of such measures and the ways in which they are implemented. The ultimate goal is to conclude whether the current series of extraterritorial mechanisms of pre-entry vetting is compatible in EU law with the EU rights of forced migrants.

Recent migratory flows to Europe have brought about considerable changes in many countries. Italy in particular offers a unique point of view, since it is possible to observe not only the way migration has changed specific features of the country, but also how it is intertwined with gender relations. Considering both the type of migration that has affected Italy and the consequent measures adopted by the Government, a variety of distinctive elements may be seen. By providing a broad and more complete picture of the Italian perspective on gender and migration, this book makes a valuable contribution to the wider debate. The contributions consider the problematic linkage between gender and migration, as well as analyse particular aspects including Italian colonial past, domestic work, self-determination, access to social services, second-generation migrant women, family law, multiculturalism and religious symbols. Taking an empirical and theoretical approach, the volume underlines both the multifaceted problems affecting migrant women in Italy and the way in which questions raised in other countries are introduced and redefined by Italian scholarship. The book presents a valuable resource for researchers, academics and policy-makers working in the areas of migration and gender studies.

On any given day nearly 3000 foreign national citizens are detained under immigration powers in UK detention centres alone. Around the world immigrants are routinely detained in similar conditions. The institutions charged with immigrant detention are volatile and contested sites. They are also places about which we know very little. What is their goal? How do they operate? How are they justified? Inside Immigration Detention lifts the lid on the hidden world of migrant detention, presenting the first national study of life in British immigration removal centres. Offering more than just a description of life behind bars of those men and women awaiting deportation, it uses staff and detainee testimonies to revisit key assumptions about state power and the legacies of colonialism under conditions of globalization. Based on fieldwork conducted in six immigration removal centres (IRCs) between 2009 and 2012, it draws together a large amount of empirical data including: detainee surveys and interviews, staff interviews, observation, and detailed field notes. From this, the book explores how immigration removal centres identify their inhabitants as strangers, constructing them as unfamiliar, ambiguous and uncertain. In this endeavour, the establishments are greatly assisted by their resemblance to prisons and by familiar racialized narratives about foreigners and nationality. However, as staff and detainee testimonies reveal, in their interactions and day-to-day life women and men find many points of commonality. Such recognition of one another reveals the goal and effect of detention to be incomplete. Denial requires effort. In order to minimize the effort it must expend, the state 'governs at distance', via the contract. It also splits itself in two, deploying some immigration staff onsite, while keeping the actual decision-makers (the caseworkers) elsewhere, sequestered from the potentially destabilizing effects of facing up to those whom they wish to remove. Such distancing, while bureaucratically effective, contributes to the uncertainty of daily life in detention, and is often the source of considerable criticism and unease. Denial and familiarity are embodied and localized activities, whose pains and contradictions inhere in concrete relationships.

Economic interaction has enlarged the international trade in goods and services, but the safe and humane flow of persons across international borders remains a challenge in a State-based model of territorial jurisdictions. Once an immigrant enters a new host country the guarantee of respect for their human rights comes into question. Indeed, the legal and political constructions of inclusion or exclusion of migrants from the political community touch at the very heart of the cosmopolitan spirit of universal human rights. This book brings together leading experts in the fields of migration and human rights law to examine central problems in the protection of the human rights of migrants. They explain the theoretical background of present issues in the area including, immigrant integration policies in Europe, the social and labour rights of migrants, the conditions and legal frameworks affecting migrant women, asylum seekers and refugees worldwide among many others. It explains in a clear and critical manner the legal and political implications of migration today in the context of an evolving globalized world.

This series strives to bring together international networks of migration scholars and policy-makers to document and discuss research on various facets of migration. It encourages interdisciplinary commentaries on diverse aspects of the migration experience and continues to focus on the economic, social, cultural, ethical, security, and policy ramifications of international movements of people.

The Immigration Act of 1965 was one of the most consequential laws ever passed in the United States and immigration policy continues to be one of the most contentious areas of American politics. As a "nation of immigrants," the United States has a long and complex history of immigration programs and controls which are deeply connected to the shape of American society today. This volume makes sense of the political history and the social impacts of immigration law, showing how legislation has reflected both domestic concerns and wider foreign policy. John S. W. Park examines how immigration law reforms have inspired radically different responses across all levels of government, from cooperation to outright disobedience, and how they continue to fracture broader political debates. He concludes with an overview of how significant, on-going challenges in our interconnected world, including "failed states" and climate change, will shape American migrations for many decades to come.

In this groundbreaking work, Kamal Sadiq reveals that most of the world's illegal immigrants are not migrating directly to the US, but to countries in the vast developing world. And when they arrive in countries like India and Malaysia--which are often governed by weak and erratic bureaucracies--they are able to obtain citizenship papers fairly easily. Sadiq introduces "documentary citizenship" to explain how paperwork--often falsely obtained--confers citizenship on illegal immigrants. Once immigrants obtain documents, Sadiq writes, it is a relatively simple matter for, say, an Afghan migrant with Pakistani papers to pass himself off as a Pakistani citizen both in Pakistan and abroad. Across the globe, there are literally tens of millions of such illegal immigrants who have assumed the guise of "citizens." Who, then, is really a citizen? And what does citizenship mean for most of the world's peoples? Rendered in vivid detail, Paper Citizens not only shows how illegal immigrants acquire false papers, but also sheds light on the consequences this will have for global security in the post 9/11 world.

In 1914 the British-built and Japanese-owned steamship Komagata Maru left Hong Kong for Vancouver carrying 376 Punjabi migrants. Chartered by railway contractor and purported rubber planter Gurdit Singh, the ship and its passengers were denied entry into Canada and two months later were deported to Calcutta. In Across Oceans of Law Renisa Mawani retells this well-known story of the Komagata Maru. Drawing on "oceans as method"-a mode of thinking and writing that repositions land and sea-Mawani examines the historical and conceptual stakes of situating histories of Indian migration within maritime worlds. Through close readings of the ship, the manifest, the trial, and the anticolonial writings of Singh and others, Mawani argues that the Komagata Maru's landing raised urgent questions regarding the jurisdictional tensions between the common law and admiralty law, and, ultimately, the legal status of the sea. By following the movements of a single ship and bringing oceans into sharper view, Mawani traces British imperial power through racial, temporal, and legal contests and offers a novel method of writing colonial legal history.

Over the past decade, a global convergence in migration policies has emerged, and with it a new, mean-spirited politics of immigration. It is now evident that the idea of a settler society, previously an important landmark in understanding migration, is a thing of the past. What are the consequences of this shift for how we imagine immigration? And for how we regulate it? This book analyzes the dramatic shift away from the settler society paradigm in light of the crisis of asylum, the fear of Islamic fundamentalism, and the demise of multiculturalism. What emerges is a radically original take on the new global politics of immigration that can explain policy paralysis in the face of rising death tolls, failing human rights arguments, and persistent state desires to treat migration as an economic calculus.

Over the past decade, a global convergence in migration policies has emerged, and with it a new, mean-spirited politics of immigration. It is now evident that the idea of a settler society, previously an important landmark in understanding migration, is a thing of the past. What are the consequences of this shift for how we imagine immigration? And for how we regulate it? This book analyzes the dramatic shift away from the settler society paradigm in light of the crisis of asylum, the fear of Islamic fundamentalism, and the demise of multiculturalism. What emerges is a radically original take on the new global politics of immigration that can explain policy paralysis in the face of rising death tolls, failing human rights arguments, and persistent state desires to treat migration as an economic calculus.

In this book, an array of legal, biomedical, psychosocial, and social science scholars and practitioners offer the first comparative account of the increasing dependence on expertise in the asylum and refugee status determination process. This volume presents a comprehensive study of the relevance of experts, as mediators of culture, who are called upon to corroborate, substantiate credibility, and serve as translators in the face of confusing legal standards that require proof of new forms and reasons for persecution around the globe. The authors draw upon their interactions with expertise and the immigration process to provide insights into the evidentiary burdens on asylum seekers and the expanding role of expertise in the forms of country-conditions reports, biomedical and psychiatric evaluations, and the emerging field of forensic linguistic analysis in response to emerging forms of persecution, such as gender-based or sexuality-based persecution. This book is essential reading for both scholars interested in the production of knowledge and clinicians considering the role of experts as mediators of asylum claims.

The 1905 Aliens Act was the first modern law to restrict immigration to British shores. In this book, David Glover asks how it was possible for Britain, a nation that had prided itself on offering asylum to refugees, to pass such legislation. Tracing the ways that the legal notion of the "alien" became a national-racist epithet indistinguishable from the figure of "the Jew," Glover argues that the literary and popular entertainments of fin de siecle Britain perpetuated a culture of xenophobia. Reconstructing the complex socio-political field known as "the alien question," Glover examines the work of George Eliot, Israel Zangwill, Rudyard Kipling, and Joseph Conrad, together with forgotten writers like Margaret Harkness, Edgar Wallace, and James Blyth. By linking them to the beliefs and ideologies that circulated via newspapers, periodicals, political meetings, Royal Commissions, patriotic melodramas, and social surveys, Glover sheds new light on dilemmas about nationality, borders, and citizenship that remain vital today."

Immigration policy is a subject of intense political and public debate. In this second edition of the widely recognized and authoritative work The Making of the Mosaic, Ninette Kelley and Michael Trebilcock have thoroughly revised and updated their examination of the ideas, interests, institutions, and rhetoric that have shaped Canada's immigration history.

Beginning their study in the pre-Confederation period, the authors interpret major episodes in the evolution of Canadian immigration policy, including the massive deportations of the First World War and Depression eras as well as the Japanese-Canadian internship camps during World War Two. New chapters provide perspective on immigration in a post-9/11 world, where security concerns and a demand for temporary foreign workers play a defining role in immigration policy reform. A comprehensive and important work, The Making of the Mosaic clarifies the attitudes underlying each phase and juncture of immigration history, providing vital perspective on the central issues of immigration policy that continue to confront us today.

Following the vexed codification attempts of the International Law Commission and the relevant jurisprudence of the International Court of Justice, this book addresses the permissibility of the practice of diplomatic asylum under general international law. In the light of a wealth of recent practice, most prominently the case of Julian Assange, the main objective of this book is to ascertain whether or not the practice of granting asylum within the premises of the diplomatic mission finds foundation under general international law. In doing so, it explores the legal framework of the Vienna Convention on Diplomatic Relations 1961, the regional treaty framework of Latin America, customary international law, and a possible legal basis for the practice on the basis of humanitarian considerations. In cases where the practice takes place without a legal basis, this book aims to contribute to bridging the legal lacuna created by the rigid nature of international diplomatic law with the absolute nature of the inviolability of the mission premises facilitating the continuation of the practice of diplomatic asylum even where it is without legal foundation. It does so by proposing solutions to the problem of diplomatic asylum. This book also aims to establish the extent to which international law relating to diplomatic asylum may presently find itself within a period of transformation indicative of both a change in the nature of the practice as well as exploring whether recent notions of humanity are superseding the traditional fundaments of the international legal system in this regard.

Refuge beyond Reach shows how rich democracies deliberately and systematically shut down most legal paths to safety. Media pundits, politicians, and the public are often skeptical or ambivalent about granting asylum. They fear that asylum-seekers will impose economic and cultural costs and pose security threats to nationals. Consequently, governments of rich, democratic countries attempt to limit who can approach their borders, which often leads to refugees breaking immigration laws. In Refuge beyond Reach, David Scott FitzGerald traces how rich democracies have deliberately and systematically shut down most legal paths to safety. Drawing on official government documents, information obtained via WikiLeaks, and interviews with asylum seekers, he finds that for ninety-nine percent of refugees, the only way to find safety in one of the prosperous democracies of the Global North is to reach its territory and then ask for asylum. FitzGerald shows how the US, Canada, Europe, and Australia comply with the letter of law while violating the spirit of those laws through a range of deterrence methods-first designed to keep out Jews fleeing the Nazis-that have now evolved into a pervasive global system of "remote control." While some of the most draconian remote control practices continue in secret, Fitzgerald identifies some pressure points and finds that a diffuse humanitarian obligation to help those in need is more difficult for governments to evade than the law alone. Refuge beyond Reach addresses one of the world's most pressing challenges-how to manage flows of refugees and other types of migrants-and helps to identify the conditions under which individuals can access the protection of their universal rights.

Spain and Italy have recently become countries of large-scale immigration. This provocative book explores immigration law and the immigrant experience in these southern European nations, and exposes the tension between the temporary and contingent legal status of most immigrants, and the government emphasis on integration. This book reveals that while law and the rhetoric of policymakers stress the urgency of integration, not only are they failing in that effort, but law itself plays a role in that failure. In addressing this paradox, the author combines theoretical insights and extensive data from myriad sources collected over more than a decade to demonstrate the connections among immigrants' role as cheap labor - carefully inscribed in law - and their social exclusion, criminalization, and racialization. Extrapolating from this economics of alterite, this book engages more general questions of citizenship, belonging, race and community in this global era.

The child asylum seeker poses unique challenges for reception and refugee status determination systems, not least because the child is entitled to have his or her rights as a child respected as a matter of international and regional human rights law. In the last decade the European Union has increasingly engaged with children s rights, with the entry into force of the Lisbon Treaty in December 2009, and a new Article 3(3) of the Treaty on European Union that commits the Union to promoting the protection of the rights of the child.

This book addresses the question of whether the Common European Asylum System (CEAS) complies with the rights of the child. It contrasts the normative standards of international child rights law with the treatment of child asylum seekers and refugees in the CEAS. Ciara Smyth identifies the attributes of the rights of the child that are most relevant to the asylum context and systematically examines whether and to what extent those attributes are reflected in the existing and proposed CEAS legislation. The book goes on to assess whether the CEAS instruments direct Member States to comply with the rights of the child, offering a comprehensive examination of the place of the child within European asylum law and policy.

The book will be of great use and interest to scholars and students of international law, immigration and children s rights studies. "

This is the first and only comprehensive, book-length political history of national ID card proposals and developments in identity policing in the United States. The book focuses on the period from 1915 to 2016, including the post-9/11 debates and policy decisions regarding the introduction of technologically-advanced identification documents. Putting the United States in comparative perspective and connecting the vital issues of immigration and homeland security, Magdalena Krajewska shows how national ID card proposals have been woven into political conflict across a variety of policy fields. Findings contradict conventional wisdom, debunking two common myths: that Americans are opposed to national ID cards and that American policymakers never propose national ID cards. Dr Krajewska draws on extensive archival research; high-level interviews with politicians, policymakers, and ID card technology experts in Washington, DC and London; and public opinion polls.

Touching on the laws and practices of a wide array of countries around the globe, this book examines the extent to which refugees and asylum-seekers' right to work is protected by international human rights law. The book examines a number of key international treaties, national constitutions and some foundational cases from national courts in order to make the case that the practise of restricting refugees and asylum-seekers access to the labour market is illegal. In so doing, the author examines some intricate legal questions, such as the interpretation of the Refugee Convention's provisions restricting rights to refugees 'lawfully staying', the application of racial discrimination to citizenship distinctions, and the ways in which limitations on human rights are applicable in this context. The book also looks at some broader philosophical questions such as the meaning of equality and human dignity, and the legitimacy of the right to work. The book goes on to explore broader debates concerning migration and 'open borders' in order to unpack the fears that drive many countries' restrictive measures. Readers are invited to consider whether the world would be a better place with more freedom of movement. It is a unique stand-alone treatment of the subject and includes the Michigan Guidelines on the Right to Work. Reworking the Relationship between Asylum-Seekers and Employment is written in an accessible style that will appeal to academics, policy-makers, practitioners and students. It combines a strong black-letter approach with a law in context approach that explains why the law takes its current shape and questions current orthodoxy.

A history of the battles over US immigrants' rights since 1965-and how these conflicts reshaped access to education, employment, civil liberties, and more The 1965 Hart-Celler Act transformed the American immigration system by abolishing national quotas in favor of a seemingly egalitarian approach. But subsequent demographic shifts resulted in a backlash over the social contract and the rights of citizens versus noncitizens. In The Walls Within, Sarah Coleman explores those political clashes, focusing not on attempts to stop immigration at the border, but on efforts to limit immigrants' rights within the United States through domestic policy. Drawing on new materials from the Carter, Reagan, and Clinton administrations, and immigration and civil rights organizations, Coleman exposes how the politics of immigration control has undermined the idea of citizenship for all. Coleman shows that immigration politics was not just about building or tearing down walls, but about employer sanctions, access to schools, welfare, and the role of local authorities in implementing policies. In the years after 1965, a rising restrictionist movement sought to marginalize immigrants in realms like public education and the labor market. Yet throughout the 1970s and 1980s, restrictionists faced countervailing forces committed to an expansive notion of immigrants' rights. In the 1990s, with national politics gridlocked, anti-immigrant groups turned to statehouses to enact their agenda. Achieving strength at the local level, conservatives supporting immigration restriction actually acquired more influence under the Clinton presidency than even during the so-called Reagan revolution, resulting in dire consequences for millions of immigrants. Revealing the roots behind much of today's nativist sentiment, The Walls Within examines debates about who is entitled to the American dream, and how such dreams can be subverted for those already calling the country home.

A free ebook version of this title is available through Luminos, University of California Press's Open Access publishing program. Visit www.luminosoa.org to learn more. As international migration continues to rise, sending states play an integral part in "managing" their diasporas, in some cases even stepping in to protect their citizens' labor and human rights in receiving states. At the same time, meso-level institutions-including labor unions, worker centers, legal aid groups, and other immigrant advocates-are among the most visible actors holding governments of immigrant destinations accountable at the local level. The potential for a functional immigrant worker rights regime, therefore, advocates to imagine a portable, universal system of justice and human rights, while simultaneously leaning on the bureaucratic minutiae of local enforcement. Taking Mexico and the United States as entry points, Scaling Migrant Worker Rights analyzes how an array of organizations put tactical pressure on government bureaucracies to holistically defend migrant rights. The result is a nuanced, multilayered picture of the impediments to and potential realization of migrant worker rights.

While nominally protected across Europe, the human rights of vulnerable migrants often fail to deliver their promised benefits in practice. This socio-legal study explores both the concrete expressions and possible causes of this persistent deficit. For this purpose, it presents an innovative multifaceted evaluation of selected judgments of the European Court of Human Rights and the Court of Justice of the EU pertaining to such complex questions as the protection of persons fleeing from indiscriminate violence, homosexual asylum seekers, the Dublin Regulation, and the externalisation of border control. Highlighting the demanding character of migrant rights, the book also discusses some steps that could be taken to improve the effectiveness of Europe's supranational human rights system including changes in judicial and litigation practice as well as a reconceptualization of human rights as existential commitments.

Cultural Rights of Third-Country Nationals in EU Law provides a complex analysis of the cultural rights of third-country nationals in European Union Law. Originally published in Polish and translated into English for the first time, this book examines EU migration policy and law from the perspective of cultural rights protection for migrants as a part of the overall system of human rights protection in the EU. In offering a careful analysis of these standards and their implementation mechanisms, Cultural Rights of Third-Country Nationals in EU Law will be of use to all researchers on EU law, especially in the areas of asylum law, migration law and the protection of the borders. It will also be useful to scholars and practitioners in the area of cultural policy.