By Denise Gilman

The United States treats asylum as exceptional, meaning that asylum is presumptively unavailable and is offered only in rare cases. This exceptionality conceit, combined with an exclusionary apparatus, creates a problematic cycle. The claims of asylum seekers arriving as part of wide-scale refugee flows are discounted, and restrictive policies are adopted to block these claims. When asylum claims nonetheless continue to mount, the United States asserts “crisis” and deploys new exclusionary measures. The problems created by the asylum system are not addressed but are instead deepened. This Article encourages a turn away from policies that have led down the same paths once and again. This Article first describes the development of the modern U.S. asylum system, highlighting data that demonstrates the extent to which exceptionality is a basic feature of the system. In doing so, this Article reconsiders an assumption underlying much scholarship and commentary—that the U.S. asylum system is fundamentally generous even if it has sometimes failed to live up to its promise. This Article then establishes that the emphasis on exceptionality has led to an exclusionary asylum process. Most asylum claims are adjudicated within deportation proceedings, and policymakers have imposed layers of additional procedural barriers. Next, this Article presents the problems created by the system. It documents how the system places genuine asylees in danger while causing violence at the border. Further, embedded bias in the system, resulting from the focus on exceptionality, favors asylum claims from far-flung nations such as China over commonly arising claims from nearby troubled countries. This bias creates a legitimacy problem. The system also violates U.S. law and international human rights and refugee law  This Article concludes by offering suggestions for more stable, effective, and humane policies to address asylum seekers in the United States. In addition to eliminating many existing substantive restrictions on asylum, the system should incorporate group-based eligibility for applicants from designated nations or situations that are sending significant refugee flows. Finally, the United States should adopt a specialiZed non-adversarial asylum system for all cases, apart from the deportation system and with genuine independent review of denials of asylum.

  Loyola University Chicago Law Journal, 2023.

By Commission on the Integration of Refugees

The UK’s asylum system is broken: it is expensive, ineffective, and harmful. There is a desperate need for new ideas on how to create a system that works effectively and enjoys public consent. Taking up this challenge, the Commission on the Integration of Refugees has undertaken the most significant and detailed exploration of the UK asylum system in a generation. Our work has shown that it is possible to find solutions and to build political consensus around them. Based on six pillars of research, including evidence from more than 1,250 individuals and organisations, the Commission – with its diversity of experience and political perspectives – has been able to achieve full or near-consensus around 16 recommendations to shape a new future for the UK’s asylum system based on integration. approach is also necessary to unlock the economic benefits projected by the LSE. The three main conditions for this are that the government needs to meet its target to process asylum applications within six months (meaning people can work from this point), and that asylum seekers receive English language provision from day one and access to employment support from six months. The second is localisation of delivery. At the heart of our recommendations is a new settlement for refugees delivered through ‘local integration partnerships’. These would put devolved governments, regional and local authorities, and communities in control of resources and delivery in order to create the best possible conditions for integration. The national government would play a coordinating role, including setting overall numbers

An integration-based asylum system can deliver benefits not only for refugees but for wider society – from contributing to tackling the housing crisis and homelessness to promoting economic flourishing. The recommendations are underpinned by a financial model developed by the London School of Economics, which found that the benefits outweigh the costs within three years, and that they would yield a net economic benefit to the country of at least £1.2 billion within five years. There are two core elements to our proposals. The f irst is that our recommendations are designed to be mutually reinforcing and their impact will be greater if they are taken together. A coherent and holistic There is an abundance of good practice available to guide this shift towards localisation, including from the devolved national governments of Scotland and Wales, but also from other local authorities in the UK, from other countries, and from the success of initiatives including the community sponsorship and Ukrainian refugee settlement programmes. The solutions we are proposing would not only be more effective than the current system, but cheaper, more coherent, more in tune with the values of compassion and fairness that so many people manifest towards asylum seekers, and capable of delivering long-term economic benefits and positive social outcomes both for refugees and wider British society

Cambridge, U: Woolf Institute, University of Cambridge, 2024. 93p.