Discrimination and Immigration Control

This chapter focuses on the ethics of the institutional apparatus that goes along with immigration control. It takes seriously the fact that immigration control sometimes lead to human rights violations, and that liberal states sometimes engage in problematic forms of discrimination when they engage in the business of policing their internal borders. It argues that liberal states must endorse a number of key strategies to ensure that unauthorized immigrants are neither placed in a position where their human rights are violated or left unprotected nor discriminated against on the basis of arbitrary criteria. The discussion therefore aims to minimize the vulnerability of those immigrants who have not received authorization to reside in the territory of the liberal states.

The mass release of migrants from UK immigration detention during the COVID-19 pandemic: what can be learned?

Summary Convincing international evidence demonstrates that immigration detention adversely affects mental health. During the COVID-19 outbreak, additional concerns were raised about the safety and appropriateness of immigration detention. Consequently, several hundred migrants were released en masse from UK immigration detention centres, and few new detentions took place. Over 70% fewer migrants were held in detention centres in June 2020 compared with December 2019. This large ‘natural experiment’ has demonstrated that detaining fewer migrants is possible and it provides an opportunity to review the necessity for large-scale detention for the purpose of immigration control, as well as its impact on health inequalities. Additionally, given that detainee release arrangements had already been considered unsafe prior to the pandemic, clinicians and service providers should take into consideration that many of those released may not be receiving adequate post-release continuity of care.

Collectivized Discretion: Seeking Explanations for Decreased Asylum Recognition Rates in Finland After Europe's 2015 “Refugee Crisis”

In 2015, during the so-called “refugee crisis” in Europe, Finland was among the European countries receiving exceptionally large numbers of asylum applications. As the volume of asylum applications surged, however, the percentage of positive asylum decisions in Finland declined substantially. In this article, we explore reasons for this dramatic drop in recognitions rates and examine Finnish immigration control authorities’ use of discretion in asylum credibility assessment. Our approach is unique in its application of mixed methods to examine asylum decisions in pre- and post-crisis situations. We found that asylum caseworkers’ inconsistent assessment of similar facts and lack of faith in the veracity of applicants’ claims were essential to the mass denial of young Iraqi asylum applicants in Finland. This finding is important because it illustrates how asylum officers are able to “shift the border,” or generate a shift in asylum decision-making on a grand scale, without meaningful changes in law. Asylum officers, we show, are able to bring about such a shift via what we call collectivized discretion, or large-scale use of discretion, in asylum status determinations to control migration. Prior research on discretion in asylum decision-making highlights the individual decision-maker. This article expands discretion research by offering new insights on large-scale, collective discretionary shifts in the application of asylum law. We conclude that it is crucial that asylum status determinations be anchored in the individual assessment of each applicant's case, as collectivized discretion can lead to arbitrary results in the application of asylum law, potentially forcing those in need of refugee protection to face deportation.

Riding the Wave: Daily Life and Religion among Brazilian Immigrants to Japan in the Age of COVID-19 Pandemic

In March 2020, the world folded before an imminent pandemic. Community gatherings, events, and rituals quickly moved online. Jobs halted or were conducted remotely. The fear of the COVID-19 pandemic impacted different areas of daily life. In this article, we propose examining and analyzing the experiences and narratives of Brazilian migrants in Japan. With the Immigration Control and Refugee Recognition Act amendment on 8 December 1989, thousands of Japanese descendants born and raised in the Americas migrated to Japan. They are the offspring of Japanese immigrants who established colonies in the Americas in the late nineteenth and early twentieth century. Over time, the community of Brazilian immigrants in Japan fluctuated from being a minority to become the fifth-largest ethnic group of immigrants. Our analysis focuses on two areas of concern in times of the COVID-19 pandemic: daily life—including gender, and religion. On the one hand, daily life became cumbersome due to issues related to language and the hardships of accessing health services in a foreign land. On the other hand, we state that in the process of adaptation to the new society, the role of faith communities has been notable in offering support to these immigrants. Religious institutions, in particular, confronted the fact of moving their support and activities online with the consequent difficulties for those who are not tech-savvy or lack reliable connectivity. Both situations impacted Brazilian immigrants in different ways during the COVID-19 pandemic and highlighted the agency they displayed in coping with its consequences.

Analisa Penegakan Hukum dan Pengawasan Keimigrasian pada Kasus Masuknya Warga Negara China Ditengah Masa Pandemi Covid-19

Immigration officers while implementing their functions as well as state gatekeepers have a very important role in the situation of the spread of the covid-19 virus in the world. Immigration has four functions of immigration, namely service, security, law enforcement, and facilitator for state development. In a scientific paper with the theme of analysis of law enforcement and immigration control with case studies of the entry of Chinese nationals in the midst of the COVID-19 pandemic. where law enforcement and supervision of people during the current pandemic is very risky because it will have a number of differences where in this difficult time or in the New Normal adaptation period in Indonesia, immigration can actually develop and adjust in law enforcement both Indonesian citizens and foreigners. The government itself, in collaboration with the Directorate General of Immigration, provides new regulations and policies relating to the implementation of the main duties and functions of immigration, including including law. This scientific work aims to provide an explanation regarding immigration law enforcement and the supervision of foreigners carried out during the Covid-19 pandemic, and is also based on Indonesian government policies, especially immigration in preventing the spread of Covid-19.

The Constitutional Right to Asylum and Humanitarianism in Indonesian Law: “Foreign Refugees” and PR 125/2016

Article 28G(2) in Indonesia’s 1945 Constitution reflects a human rights approach to asylum; it guarantees “the right to obtain political asylum from another country,” together with freedom from torture. It imposes an obligation upon the state to give access to basic rights to those to whom it offers asylum, following an appropriate determination procedure. By contrast, in Presidential Regulation No. 125 of 2016 concerning the Treatment of Refugees, the Indonesian government’s response to asylum seekers and refugees is conceptualized as “humanitarian assistance,” and through a politicized and securitized immigration-control approach. We argue that the competition between these three approaches—the human right to asylum, humanitarianism, and immigration control—constitutes a “triangulation” of asylum and refugee protection in Indonesia, in which the latter two prevail. In light of this framework, this article provides a socio-political and legal analysis of why Article 28G(2) has not been widely accepted as the basis of asylum and refugee protection in Indonesia.