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Institutionalist scholars argue that international rights norms, judicial autonomy and discourses of immigrant nationhood constrain shifts to harsher immigration policies in liberal democracies, particularly settler societies. The Trump presidency and the Liberal–National Coalition government in Australia during the same period are occasions to test whether those norms functioned as expected in two paradigmatic country cases. Both governments attempted to undermine judicial autonomy, the illegitimacy of ethnic and religious selection of immigrants, the rights of detained children and families, and the principle of non-refoulement. A new institutionalist analysis of attempted norm-busting in each country specifies which norms were effective constraints. International legal and political constraints were weak. Domestically, norms obliging the protection of children were more effective than norms related to adults. Discourses favouring immigrant nationhood and opposing discrimination resonated, but were confronted by equally powerful discourses of insular nationalism and security that promoted restriction. While the judiciary moderately constrained new policies, particularly in the US, in neither country did the judiciary fully act in line with dominant theoretical expectations, because of both structural and normative weaknesses. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Taiwan is considered to be one of the most progressive countries in Asia but has no asylum law. Does it need one? Many in Taiwan, including officials and politicians, claim that the regulations that are currently in place are sufficient. There are, however, some people in Taiwan who require protection, and the government is not able to respond effectively in the absence of an asylum law. The author has identified several different groups in Taiwan that would benefit from an asylum law — from Hong Kong protesters facing persecution, through Chinese dissidents or descendants of the ROC army from the Thai-Myanmar border region, to Turkish people with revoked passports; grouped into two major categories — persons from the PRC, Tibet, Hong Kong, and Macau (group 1) and persons from other countries (group 2). The draft of the asylum law has been sitting in the Parliament for 14 years, and the reason for it not yet having passed is the "China Factor." The Taiwan-China relationship thus cannot be disconnected from this issue, and the article discusses the three most common concerns with regard to this in the Taiwanese society. While these are legitimate concerns, they could be solved by adopting a dual asylum system dealing with group 1 and group 2 separately. Compared to UN member countries, Taiwan is on its own when it comes to the asylum issue, although adopting an asylum law is part of a broader push to bring Taiwan's legal system in line with international human rights law. The article provides a comprehensive description and analysis of the refugee situation in Taiwan; it is based on document studies and interviews conducted in Taipei in autumn 2020. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

For several years, South Africa has been a world leader in deporting people en masse. This paper analyses the contradictions that exist between South Africa's progressive asylum and refugee laws and its very rigid practice of mass deportation. These contradictions are instrumentalised by the Department of Home Affairs as part of a policy to control and manipulate migration, often executed by the police in a violent and arbitrary manner; the authorities primarily target people from Mozambique and Zimbabwe. The article argues that the current state of affairs can only be fully understood within historical context. Therefore, it is important to keep in mind that rigid controls of immigration and the practice of deportation were established during the colonial period and institutionalised during apartheid. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Asylum practitioners often work with traumatised persons and hear stories of persecution and other traumatic narratives in their everyday work. This study sought to assess the emotional impacts of working as an asylum practitioner, and how these effects could affect a practitioner's performance in their role or their relationship with their clients. This qualitative study consisted of 10 semi-structured interviews with asylum practitioners in England and the Republic of Ireland. An inductive thematic analysis was used to analyse data. A number of key themes emerged, including participants describing having experienced or witnessed burnout and other negative emotional effects caused by working in this role. Practitioners also described having experienced feelings of detachment from clients, as well as in some cases cynicism and disbelief of their narratives. However, these emotional states were seen to engender positive as well as negative attributes in the delivery of legal representation. Heavy caseloads, the futility of working in a system where some clients have little chance of success, cuts to legal aid, as well as societal stigmatisation of claimants were also cited as providing challenges for practitioners. A complex understanding of this role emerged in times of austerity, where anti-immigration sentiment is common within society. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This policy note highlights issues concerning the right to seek asylum raised by a panel of migration experts in Sweden during the annual Swedish Forum for Human Rights in 2016. The discussion took place following Swedish asylum and immigration policy taking an increasingly restrictive turn. Two main themes are identified. The first theme encompasses views on the relationship between the legal framework's increased restrictiveness and discourses of securitization and explores the possibilities of moving beyond this pattern. The second theme highlights that different professionals and other staff engaged with asylum seekers and refugees can retain a (legal) space to resist repressive activities that challenge their professional code of conduct and personal integrity. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The U.S.-led global LGBT human rights campaign, formalised on International Human Rights Day 2011, sutures human rights policing with a politics of protection. Centred on a singular LGBT victim of violence, the campaign’s multiple projects legitimate military and financial intervention under the auspices of human rights. This article examines the regulatory production of globalised LGBT rights through the nexus of international LGBT human rights/hate crime laws, U.S. asylum law, and equal protection treatment of sexual orientation. I argue that the juridical and ideological frameworks that guide state action in each of these areas converge in the construction of an immutable LGBT identity that is the object of racialised, culturally othered violence. This rendering of sexual difference through the flattening of culture elides structural violence and advances human rights imperialism. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In the aftermath of the 'Arab Spring' and of crumbling state structures, an exodus of unknown proportion from the Near East and from Northern Africa has set in and was further exacerbated by civil war and ISIS terror rule over large territories in the Near East. As a consequence, thousands of refugees came to Europe. Many of them fulfilled the conditions for non-refoulement according to Article 33 of the Geneva Convention on the Law of Refugees of 1951 or were at least entitled for temporary protection according to the Common European Asylum System. These instruments did not, however, take into consideration situations of mass influx and neither is there an efficient mechanism for burden sharing within the EU in place. Some countries where overwhelmed by these migration flows. In this contribution, particular attention will be given to the reactions to these developments by the Austrian government. In Austria, as a consequence of mounting pressure by considerable parts of the population demanding a halt to this migration, the government adopted or announced a series of measures that, if implemented, will constitute a blatant violation of international law. This holds true, in particular, for the so-called upper limit ('Obergrenze') for asylum seekers. Legal academia in Austria in part was silent as to these events, in part sustained it after having been engaged for a legal. It is contended here that unilateralism may be effective in a short-time perspective, but the long-term consequences should not be overlooked. It would be better to work on a genuine international burden-sharing mechanism even though this approach is more difficult to sell to national constituencies. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Using Michel Foucault's concept of biopower, this article examines the role of asylum law in the control of Mexican migration to the U.S., arguing that U.S. authorities are using asylum law as a new means of regulating Mexican immigration. The article relies on theoretical input and empirical data to prove that there are extra-legal and technical legal issues allowing for the biopolitical use of asylum law, usually linked to sovereign power. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article analyzes framing strategies by political actors and their impact on media framing. By framing the issue strategically, we argue that political actors face three strategic choices. First, they must choose one or several substantive frames capable of steering the attention of the media and the public to their own cause and away from the cause of their opponents (“substantive emphasis choice”). Second, they must decide about the amount of attention they want to pay to the opponent's substantive frame(s) as compared to their own frames and whether they want to use their opponents' frames offensively or defensively (“oppositional emphasis choice”). Third, they must decide about how much priority they want to give to their own substantive frame(s) as compared to the (referendum) campaign contest (“contest emphasis choice”). The results are based on a Swiss direct-democratic campaign about the tightening of the asylum law and can be summarized along the three choices. First, in this case, the framing input of the political actors is decisive. The media tend to respect frame ownership and report accordingly. Second, while the political actors predominantly focus on their own frames, they do not exclusively, but refer to their adversaries' frames as well. They do so mainly in a defensive way. The journalists reported both camps with their adversaries' frames too, and attributed a slightly more offensive stance to both camps. Third, the political actors mainly focus on substance. The substantive frames also dominate in the media. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This study examines the European legal framework and policy on children's rights and on the development and developmental risks of children from asylum-seeking families who have lived in asylum centres for over five years with the prospect of being forced to return to their home country. The legal procedures and practices of Member States in the Western European countries seem to be far too lengthy, and the standards for reception far too low to protect the children's positive development. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]