Examining Asylum Seekers

Asylum medicine, a field encompassing medical forensic evaluations of asylum seekers, is an emerging discipline in healthcare. In a time of record global displacement due to human rights violations, conflict and persecution, interest in the medical and psychological evaluation of individuals subjected to torture and other ill-treatment is high. Health professionals are uniquely qualified to use their skills to make contributions to a group of vulnerable individuals fleeing danger and death in their home countries. Health professionals involved in asylum medicine perform medical and psychological forensic evaluations of asylum seekers. Their educational background prepares them to examine and describe physical and emotional scars related to trauma, and further training allows them to assess these scars in the context of persecution, describe them in a medical-legal affidavit and support these findings with testimony. Providers of asylum medicine are often involved in advocacy, as many governments become increasingly hostile to asylum seekers. Books on human rights exist, but there is no authoritative text of asylum medicine. This book presents a comprehensive overview of asylum medicine, with emphasis on the historical and legal background of asylum law, best practices for performing asylum examinations, challenges of examining detained asylum seekers, education of trainees and advocacy. Written by experts in the field, Asylum Medicine: A Clinician's Guide is a first of its kind resource for health care providers who practice asylum medicine.

Troubled Transit considers the situation of asylum seekers stuck in limbo in Indonesia from a number of perspectives. It presents not only the narratives of many transit migrants but also the perceptions of Indonesian authorities and of representatives of international and non-government organizations responsible for the care of transiting asylum seekers. Fascinated by the extraordinary and seemingly limitless resilience shown by asylum seekers during their often lengthy and dangerous journeys, the author highlights one particular fragment of their journeys — their time in Indonesia, which many expect to be the last stepping stone to a new life. While they long for their new life to unfold, most asylum seekers become embroiled in the complexities of living in transit. Indonesia, a vast archipelago of more than 17,000 islands, is more than a location where people spend time waiting; it is a nation state that interacts with transiting asylum seekers and formulates policies that have a profound impact on their experience in transit there. Troubled Transit tries to explain the complexities faced by the transiting migrants within the context of the Indonesian government and its political challenges, including its relationship with Australia. The Australia-centric view of recent asylum seeker issues has tended to ignore the larger socio-political context of the migratory routes and the perspectives of transit states towards asylum seekers stuck in transit. This book hopes to direct the Australia-centric gaze northwards to take Indonesian policies and policymaking into account, thereby giving Indonesia more relevance as a transit country and as an important partner in regional protection schemes and migration management. Even though some Indonesian policies and practices are less than favourable for asylum seekers, and even reprehensible from a human rights perspective, more attention must be paid to ongoing developments that impact on transiting asylum seekers in Indonesia if any of the hardships they suffer there are to be alleviated.

This volume engages human rights, domestic immigration law, refugee policy in the United States, Canada, and Europe, and scholarship to examine forced migration, refugee resettlement, asylum seeker experiences, policies and programs for refugee well-being in North America and Europe. Given the recent "re-politicization" of forced migration and refugees in Europe and the U.S., this edited collection presents an in-depth, multi-dimensional analysis of the history of policies and laws related to the status of refugees and asylum seekers in the U.S., Canada, and Europe and the challenges and prospects of refugee and asylum seeker assistance and integration in the 21st century. The book provides rich insights on institutional perspectives critical to understanding the politics and practices of refugee resettlement and the asylum process in the U.S., Canada, and Europe, including international human rights and humanitarian law as well as domestic laws and policies related to forced migrants. Issues addressed include social welfare supports for resettled refugees; culturally responsive health and mental health approaches to working with refugees and asylum seekers; systemic failures in the asylum processing systems; and rights-based approaches to working with forced migrant children. The book also examines policy developments and strategies to advance the well-being and social inclusion of refugees in the U.S. and Europe.

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.

Identities on Trial in the United States radically shifts the asylum seeker narrative by focusing on rarely heard stories of persecution and escape from China and southeast Asia. ChorSwang Ngin, with contributions from immigration attorney, Joann Yeh, explores asylum seeker ca...

This book aims to account for the reception, treatment and sometimes, eventual deportation, of asylum seekers in Ireland, by analysing how they are framed and dealt with by the Irish state. Both historically and theoretically grounded, it will discuss contemporary immigration policies and issues in light of the overall social, historical, and economic development of Irish society and state immigration policy. State Power and Asylum Seekers in Ireland will be of interest to scholars and students in the fields of historical sociology, sociological theory and social policy, with a focus on discourses of patterns of European migration, the changing role and function of the state and its policies, and the psycho-social experience of asylum seekers.

Protection challenges around the globe require innovative legal, policy and practical responses. Drawing primarily from a new generation of researchers in the field of refugee law, this volume explores the ‘boundaries’ of refugee law. On the one hand, it ascertains the scope of the legal provisions by highlighting new trends in State practice and analysing the jurisprudence of international human rights bodies, as well as national and international Courts. On the other hand, it marks the boundaries of refugee law as ‘legal frontiers’ whilst exploring new approaches and new frameworks that are necessary in order to address the emerging protection challenges.