Asylum update – 21st December 2007

Secondary migration
New Europeans on the move: a preliminary review of the onward migration of refugees within the European Union, by Anna Lindley and Nicholas Van Hear
The onward movement of new citizens of refugee backgrounds within the European Union is an apparently growing pattern in European mobility which has largely been overlooked. This paper reviews the [...]

Worth reading…

…from Comment Central this post by Daniel Finklestein discusses the political gains and losses to be made by adopting a particular stance on immigration, particularly illegal immigration. While the reference point for this is the position of Republican candidates for next year’s US Presidential election, there are some interesting insights into the limits of recent [...]

The binary logic of asylum

There is a certain logic that often pervades coverage of asylum issues from all sides. The logic turns on the fact that the asylum decision is seen as a pure determination of an individual’s moral worth. Those who are given asylum, the refugee, are often seen as saintly; the failed asylum seeker is seen as [...]

Campaigning against deportation

Al Bangura, the Watford footballer set to be deported back to Sierra Leone, has received unprecedented support from football fans of all clubs in recent days. Bangura fled the civil war in his country and arrived in the UK as an unaccompanied minor four years ago; he is now a well-paid professional with a family [...]

Asylum update – 14th December 2007

Forced Migration Online podcast
The podcast was recorded at the Refugee Studies Centre’s Annual Harrell-Bond Lecture which was on Wednesday 21 November 2007 at the University of Oxford’s Museum of Natural History. In celebration of the 25th Anniversary of the Refugee Studies Centre, HRH Prince El Hassan bin Talal of Jordan gave the lecture and spoke [...]

Worth reading…

…from Eurozine this article discusses the impact on conducting research of changing discourses of race and ethnicity and self and other across the last three decades, suggesting that while advances have been made in talking about white racism, new taxonomies can generate new divisions.
…from New York Times this comment piece outlines Ayaan Hirsi Ali’s take [...]

Country of origin information and return

In returning failed asylum seekers to their country of origin or a country of transit, the Home Office must be clear that the individual in question will not face reprisals upon his or her return in the form of imprisonment, torture or murder. A recent ruling by the House of Lords suggests that people facing [...]

Asylum Update – 3rd December 2007

New report: Asylum seekers and volunteering in Europe
The report “Asylum seekers and volunteering in Europe – a transnational report based on experiences in Hungary, France and England” provides accounts of a wide range of activities focusing on asylum seekers and volunteering, organised and carried on by a transnational partnership involving partners in Hungary, France and [...]