Foreign nationals seeking asylum must demonstrate a well-founded fear that if returned home, they will be persecuted based upon one of five characteristics: race, religion, nationality, membership in a particular social group or political opinion. This book explores the asylum policy in the United States wherein some assert that asylum has become an alternative pathway for immigration rather than humanitarian protection. Others argue that given the religious, ethnic and political violence in various countries around the world, it has become difficult to differentiate the persecuted from the persecutors and that U.S. sympathies for asylum seekers could inadvertently facilitate the entry of terrorists.

The admission of refugees to the United States and their resettlement here are authorized by the immigration and Nationality Act (INA), as amended by the Refugee Act of 1980. The 1980 Act had two basic purposes: to provide a uniform procedure for refugee admissions and to authorize federal assistance to resettle refugees and promote their self-sufficiency. The intent of the legislation was to end an ad hoc approach to refugee admissions and resettlement that had characterized U.S. refugee policy since World War II. Under the INA, a refugee is a person who is outside his or her country and who is unable or unwilling to return because of persecution or a well-founded fear of persecution on account of race, religion, nationality, membership in a particular social group or political opinion. This book examines the refugee admissions and assistance process with a focus on resettlement policy; economic self-sufficiency and refugee minors.

To many, a border is a geographical fact. But what happens when a border is subject to an emergency? Today, as millions are forced to migrate due to war, famine and political unrest, it is important to analyse how states use new bordering techniques to control populations. New Borders focuses on the Greek island of Lesbos. Since 2015, the island has come under intense scrutiny as more than one million people have disembarked on its shores. During this time, the authors spent two years studying the changing meanings and functions of the EU's border. They observed how the reception of the refugees slid into detention and refuge became duress. Examining how and why this happened, they tackle questions on European policy, the securitisation of national and EU borders and the real impacts this has had on everyday life, determining who 'belongs' where and when.

In July 2013, the UK government arranged for a van to drive through parts of London carrying the message 'In the UK illegally? GO HOME or face arrest.' This book tells the story of what happened next. The vans were short-lived, but they were part of an ongoing trend in government-sponsored communication designed to demonstrate toughness on immigration. The authors set out to explore the effects of such performances: on policy, on public debate, on pro-migrant and anti-racist activism, and on the everyday lives of people in Britain. This book presents their findings, and provides insights into the practice of conducting research on such a charged and sensitive topic. -- .

"Bartolo tells us about rescuing everyone he can, burying those he cannot, and saving their stories as if they were his own. This is a personal, urgent and universal book" GLORIA STEINEM "An urgent, wrenching dispatch from the frontline of the defining crisis of our times . . . Bartolo is at once the saviour and the coroner to boatload after boatload of migrants who risk everything to cross the deadly seas. It is also a damning indictment of the broader, collective indifference of humankind to both the drowned and the saved" PHILIP GOUREVITCH "Dr Pietro Bartolo has seen more suffering and death in his career than any one man should have to witness" Amnesty International "Through Bartolo we understand that it is impossible to do nothing in the face of such great human need" Vanity Fair It is common to think of the refugee crisis as a recent phenomenon, but Dr Pietro Bartolo, who runs the clinic on the Italian island of Lampedusa, has been caring for its victims - both the living and the dead - for a quarter of a century. Situated some 200 km off Italy's Southern coast, Lampedusa has hit the world headlines in recent years as the first port of call for hundreds of thousands of African and Middle Eastern migrants hoping to make a new life in Europe. The shipwrecks began in 1992. Before the Arab Spring, they came from Africa, but now they come from across the Arab world as well. And the death toll is staggering. On Christmas Eve, 1996, 286 bodies were recovered; on the night of October 3, 2003, 366 out of 500 migrants died after a shipwreck nearby. For the past twenty-five years, Doctor Bartolo has been rescuing, welcoming, helping, and providing medical assistance to those who survived. But, above all, he has been listening to them. Tales of pain and hope, stories of those who didn't make it, who died at sea, their bodies washed up on shore; stories of those who lost their loved ones, of babies that never had a chance to be born. SHORTLISTED FOR THE ITALIAN PROSE TRANSLATION AWARD (IPTA) Translated from the Italian by Chenxin Jiang

Through stories and thoughtful analysis, this book shows how migration and U.S. immigration detention harms the future of immigrant children and their parents. For decades, the United States has used detention to control immigration. Through Iceboxes and Kennels traces the rise of family migration from Central America and why the U.S. incarcerated and separated thousands of children and parents. Zayas argues that answers are found in U.S. history. The book takes the reader across the licensing of detention centers in Texas as licensed childcare facilities, holding of teenage immigrants in residential treatment centers, and the full scope of the Family Separation Policy of 2018 that unleashed a national outcry. With a storyteller's ability and from sources as varied as history, politics, and psychology, Zayas identifies four stages in Central American migration-pre-migration forces that push people from their homes; mid-migration journeys fraught with hunger, violence, and pain; detention in cold rooms, cages, and jails; and the post-detention period of settlement and adjustment. In chapter after chapter, Zayas tells the stories-sometimes harrowing, always riveting-told to him by children and parents. Like epic narratives, there are villains and heroes, honesty and betrayal, and moments of abject desperation and of soaring valor. The book shows readers just how damaging detention is to the developing child's brain, body, and mental health. At once alarming and optimistic, Through Iceboxes and Kennels reveals the endurance of parents insistent on bringing their children to safety and security, and the inspiring gallantry of children, parents, and strangers. It is a book for those who want to understand the urgency of immigration reform and the need for humane policies and practices.

Today, 426 million children are growing up in war zones. Since 1919 Save the Children has been protecting and promoting the well-being of children in more than 110 countries. For its 100th anniversary, this global, large and independent children's rights organisation is teaming with the Swiss photojournalist Dominik Nahr to present the stories of 10 children and a 'baby of hope', all of whom survived the wars of the past century. This touching illustrated volume tells of their fates, of everyday life in war, of escape and persecution, but also how they found hope and their own paths, despite the adversity they faced. Guest authors: Anne-Sophie Mutter, Ingo Zamperoni, Jon Swain, Anne Watts, Margrethe Vestager, Ban Ki-moon, Professor Wole Soyinka, Mayte Carrasco, Marcel Mettelsiefen, Ulrike C. Tscharre, Amir Hassan Cheheltan, Dr. Gerd Muller

This book discusses some of the most potent threats to human security in Africa. It deals especially with those threats to the security of African people which are least understood or explored. In themes varying from the proliferation of small arms and light weapons, multidimensional consequences of the using of girls as soldiers in wars, food security, the devastation of internal displacement in Africa, the policy conundrums of HIV/AIDS, the link between natural resources and human security, to the problems of forced labour, threats to women's security, and environmental security, the book examines the legal and policy challenges of protecting human security in Africa.
This work also analyses the role of NGOs and the civil society in advocating human security issues in Africa. It considers the role of regional human rights mechanisms and judicial bodies, such as the African Commission for Human Rights and the African Court of Human and Peoples' Rights, in seeking to guarantee human security in Africa. Finally, with particular reference to the Somalia, Zimbabwe, Kenya, and Darfur crises, the book studies the role of African regional organizations, especially the African Union, in protecting the human security of Africans.
Written by leading experts on its various themes, this is an indispensable book for all those seeking to learn more about the real challenges facing Africans and African organizations.

Everyone has the right to seek asylum under international law, but public discourse in Australia about refugees is dominated by scare-mongering and political point-scoring. The government seeks to 'stop the boats' whatever the cost, be it human, economic, moral or legal. In this new book, Jane McAdam and Fiona Chong find that Australia's policies towards refugees have hardened since their previous bestselling book was published five years ago. Now, Refugee Rights and Policy Wrongs provides a wholly updated account of Australian refugee law and policy. Clearly and carefully, they explain who a refugee is, what rights refugees have under international law, and whether Australia's policies on offshore processing, detention, boat turnbacks and so on violate Australia's obligations under international law. The book also outlines what a human rights-based protection framework might look like and how Australia could show greater global leadership on refugee issues, so as to expand the protection space available to refugees in the Asia-Pacific region. McAdam and Chong trace the ways in which draconian domestic laws enacted over recent years blatantly contravene international law -obligations that Australia has voluntarily signed up to. People seeking asylum, especially those held indefinitely on Manus Island and Nauru, have been broken as a result. The crucial information and depth of understanding this book offers has never been more urgent. Key focal points: Refugee Rights and Policy Wrongs is the most current book on the topic, and includes the so-called medevac legislation that became law on 1 March 2019. Includes full discussion of more recent developments such as Operation Sovereign Borders, with its focus on boat turnbacks, which are shrouded in secrecy. Covers the issue of whether refugees can bring their cases to Australian courts under the provisions of international law.

The practice of sanctuary-giving refuge to the threatened, vulnerable stranger-may be universal among humans. From primate populations to ancient religious traditions to the modern legal institution of asylum, anthropologist Linda Rabben explores the long history of sanctuary and analyzes modern asylum policies in North America, Europe, and elsewhere, contrasting them with the role that courageous individuals and organizations have played in offering refuge to survivors of torture, persecution, and discrimination. Rabben gives close attention to the mid-2010s refugee crisis in Europe and to Central Americans seeking asylum in the United States. This wide-ranging, timely, and carefully documented account draws on Rabben's experiences as a human rights advocate as well as her training as an anthropologist. Sanctuary and Asylum will help citizens, professionals, and policy makers take informed and compassionate action. A Capell Family Book

This book argues that states have a special obligation to offer asylum as a form of reparation to refugees for whose flight they are responsible. It shows the great relevance of reparative justice, and the importance of the causes of contemporary forced migration, for our understanding of states' responsibilities to refugees. Part I explains how this view presents an alternative to the dominant humanitarian approach to asylum in political theory and some practice. Part II outlines the conditions under which asylum should act as a form of reparation, arguing that a state owes this form of asylum to refugees where it bears responsibility for the unjustified harms that they experience, and where asylum is the most fitting form of reparation available. Part III explores some of the ethical implications of this reparative approach to asylum for the workings of states' asylum systems and the international politics of refugee protection.

To the charity workers, Dadaab refugee camp is a humanitarian crisis; to the Kenyan government, it is a 'nursery for terrorists'; to the western media, it is a dangerous no-go area; but to its half a million residents, it is their last resort. Situated hundreds of miles from any other settlement, deep within the inhospitable desert of northern Kenya where only thorn bushes grow, Dadaab is a city like no other. Its buildings are made from mud, sticks or plastic, its entire economy is grey, and its citizens survive on rations and luck. Over the course of four years, Ben Rawlence became a first-hand witness to a strange and desperate limbo-land, getting to know many of those who have come there seeking sanctuary. Among them are Guled, a former child soldier who lives for football; Nisho, who scrapes an existence by pushing a wheelbarrow and dreaming of riches; Tawane, the indomitable youth leader; and schoolgirl Kheyro, whose future hangs upon her education. In City of Thorns, Rawlence interweaves the stories of nine individuals to show what life is like in the camp and to sketch the wider political forces that keep the refugees trapped there. Lucid, vivid and illuminating, here is an urgent human story with deep international repercussions, brought to life through the people who call Dadaab home.

The focus of this book is on the experiences of government-sponsored refugees in the early stages of integrating into Canadian society. Combining data gleaned from a longitudinal study of relatively recently arrived refugees in Calgary, Canada, with a close focus on the case of a physician from Colombia and his family, this volume illustrates how the cultural and social capital of refugees is marginalized and, in some cases, erased by the undervaluing of their education, training, credentials, and other knowledge. The findings presented in the book underscore the importance of addressing the challenge of integrating highly trained professionals into the professions for which they are credentialed.

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.

This book investigates the social and political orientation of ordinary Lebanese citizens toward the Palestinian presence in Lebanon, as well as the Palestinian refugees' perceptions of their situation and status. Of all the countries hosting Palestinians, Lebanon confronts probably the most sensitive and serious problems. After two decades of civil war, the Palestinian presence has been the subject of much controversial debate. Large-scale resettlement would further erode the country's precarious demographic composition, and for a multi-confessional state that recognizes the primacy of religious communities, Palestinian refugee resettlement policy must satisfy all communities to be workable. In particular, most Lebanese groups should see resettlement as benefiting Lebanese society and in line with their country's national interest. Current minimal social integration and weak inter-communal bonds between Lebanese and Palestinian groups are a major obstacle to achieving resettlement wit

Every minute 24 people are forced to leave their homes and over 65 million are currently displaced world-wide. Small wonder that tackling the refugee and migration crisis has become a global political priority. But can this crisis be resolved and if so, how? In this compelling essay, renowned human rights lawyer and scholar Jacqueline Bhabha explains why forced migration demands compassion, generosity and a more vigorous acknowledgement of our shared dependence on human mobility as a key element of global collaboration. Unless we develop humane 'win-win' strategies for tackling the inequalities and conflicts driving migration and for addressing the fears fuelling xenophobia, she argues, both innocent lives and cardinal human rights principles will be squandered in the service of futile nationalism and oppressive border control.

In The Concerned Women of Buduburam, Elizabeth Holzer offers an unprecedented firsthand account of the rise and fall of social protests in a long-standing refugee camp. The UN High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) and the host government of Ghana established the Buduburam Refugee Camp in 1990 to provide sanctuary for refugees from the Liberian civil war (1989-2003). Long hailed as a model of effectiveness, Buduburam offered a best-case scenario for how to handle a refugee crisis. But what happens when refugees and humanitarian actors disagree over humanitarian aid? In Buduburam, refugee protesters were met with Ghanaian riot police. Holzer uses the clash to delve into the complex and often hidden world of humanitarian politics and refugee activism.Drawing on fifteen months of ethnographic fieldwork in Ghana and subsequent interviews with participants now returned to Liberia, Holzer exposes a distinctive form of rule that accompanies humanitarian intervention: compassionate authoritarianism. Humanitarians strive to relieve the suffering of refugees, but refugees have little or no access to grievance procedures, and humanitarian authorities face little or no accountability for political failures. By casting humanitarians and refugees as co-creators of a shared sociopolitical world, Holzer throws into sharp relief the contradictory elements of humanitarian crisis and of transnational interventions in poor countries more broadly.

This book represents an exciting new contribution to the field of refugee law and human rights law. It considers the legal obligations which countries have to people who do not meet the legal definition of a 'refugee', but who have nonetheless been forcibly displaced from their homes, whether due to war, generalized violence, humanitarian disaster or torture, inhuman or degrading treatment or punishment. This is known as 'complementary protection', because it complements the central international instrument in this area, the 1951 Refugee Convention. The book analyses international human rights law to discern where such legal obligations to protect might arise, and considers the legal status which countries ought to provide to such people. It provides a comprehensive overview of States' current responses to this issue, and offers original and thoughtful suggestions for protecting such persons within the international legal framework. This book is the first dedicated study on 'complementary protection' - the protection afforded by States to persons who need international protection but fall outside the legal definition of a refugee in article 1A(2) of the 1951 Refugee Convention. Human rights law has extended States' international protection obligations beyond the Refugee Convention, preventing States from removing individuals who would be at risk of serious harm if returned to their countries of origin. While a number of States have traditionally respected these additional human rights obligations, they have been reluctant to grant beneficiaries a formal legal status analogous to that enjoyed by Convention refugees. This book provides a comprehensive analysis of complementary protection, from its historical development through to its contemporary application. By examining the human rights foundations of the Convention, the architecture of Convention rights, regional examples of complementary protection, and principles of non-discrimination, the book argues that the Convention acts as a type of lex specialis for persons in need of international protection, providing a specialized blueprint for legal status, irrespective of the legal source of the protection obligation. Chapter 1 identifies pre-1951 examples of complementary protection, demonstrating how the content of the status afforded to extended categories of refugees was historically the same as that granted to 'legal' refugees. It traces unsuccessful attempts at the international and European levels to codify a system of complementary protection, prior to the EU's adoption of the Qualification Directive in 2004 and international support for an ExCom Conclusion in 2005. The Qualification Directive, examined in Chapter 2, represents the first supranational codification of complementary protection, but is hampered by a hierarchical conceptualization of protection that grants a lesser status to beneficiaries of 'subsidiary protection' vis-a-vis Convention refugees. Chapters 3 to 5 examine a number of human rights treaties (CAT, ECHR, ICCPR and CRC) to identify provisions which may give rise to a claim for international protection. Finally, Chapter 6 illustrates why all persons protected by the principle of non-refoulement should be entitled to the same legal status as refugees, demonstrating the Refugee Convention's role in providing a rights blueprint for beneficiaries of complementary protection.

For decades, the American political asylum process has been used to punish enemies and reward friends of the US government. Refugees from Cuba can walk through an open door. People fleeing Eastern Europe have been judged very differently than those trying to escape persecution in "friendly" but deeply violent states like Mexico, El Salvador, Colombia and Honduras. From a storefront law office in the US border city of El Paso, Texas, one man set out to challenge that system. Carlos Specter has filed hundreds of political asylum cases on behalf of human rights defenders, journalists, and political dissidents, and though his legal activism has only inched the process forward-98% of refugees from Mexico are still denied asylum-his myriad legal cases and the media fallout from them has increasingly put US immigration policy, the corrupt state of Mexico, and the political basis of immigration, asylum, and deportation decisions-on the spot. We Built the Wall is an immersive, engrossing story of a new front in the immigration wars.

An important and topical contribution to the field of Middle East studies, this innovative, provocative, and timely study tackles head-on the main assumptions of the foundation of Israel as a Jewish state. Theoretically sophisticated and empirically rich, Yaacov Yadgar provides a novel analysis of the interplay between Israeli nationalism and Jewish tradition, arriving at a fresh understanding of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict through its focus on internal questions about Israeli identity. By critiquing and transcending the current discourse on religion and politics in Israel, this study brings to an international audience debates within Israel that have been previously inaccessible to non-Hebrew speaking academics. Featuring discussions on Israeli jurisprudence, nation-state law, and rabbinic courts, Israel's Jewish Identity Crisis will have far-reaching implications, not only within the state of Israel but on politics, society and culture beyond its borders.

This volume is focused on the core areas of imparting education to the refugee population and highlights the recent developments intended to meet an urgent need: that of the refugees who have no or very little previous schooling and who are in need of both language learning and furthering their studies for higher education. This book is designed to provide recognition to those who are working relentlessly towards imparting education to vulnerable people and giving them the tools they need to help withstand and recover from the effects of conflict and displacement. The chapters in this book speaks about some exemplary work done by individuals and institutions from Africa to Germany.

Kenya's Kakuma refugee camp is one of the world's largest, home to over 100,000 people drawn from across east and central Africa. Though notionally still a 'temporary' camp, it has become a permanent urban space in all but name with businesses, schools, a hospital and its own court system. Such places, Bram J. Jansen argues, should be recognised as 'accidental cities', a unique form of urbanization that has so far been overlooked by scholars. Based on extensive ethnographic fieldwork, Jansen's book explores the dynamics of everyday life in such accidental cities. The result is a holistic socio-economic picture, moving beyond the conventional view of such spaces as transitory and desolate to demonstrate how their inhabitants can develop a permanent society and a distinctive identity. Crucially, the book offers important insights into one of the greatest challenges facing humanitarian and international development workers: how we might develop more effective strategies for managing refugee camps in the global South and beyond. An original take on African urbanism, Kakuma Refugee Camp will appeal to practitioners and academics across the social sciences interested in social and economic issues increasingly at the heart of contemporary development.