Refugees and Asylum-Seekers: Eroding Rights, Less-Friendly Welcome

Abstract

A combination of factors—[rising anti-immigrant sentiment, unprecedented scale and mixed composition of the flows, and threats of terrorist infiltration into the stream]—has led to the recent erosion of some of the hard-won rights/benefits of refugees and to less-friendly reception of new asylum-seekers. Many countries have adopted restrictive refugee and asylum laws, cutting back some of the rights and benefits previously accorded to refugees, while allowing increasing numbers of unlawful deportation and low levels of approvals of asylum applications. Concurrently, the new asylum-seekers have been subjected to harsh treatment and deplorable living conditions in transit posts and detention centres. These negative attitudes towards refugees and asylum-seekers seem to reflect a worldwide trend, as exemplified notably by the USA, where the Trump administration drastically reduced the annual refugee admissions, and Australia, which allowed most deplorable living conditions in its offshore asylum centres.