Expanding Canada’s borders
In recent decades, Canadian authorities have been actively involved in intercepting asylum seekers and impeding their entry. The expansion of Canada’s externalisation practices – such as border cooperation agreements, surveillance through data sharing and new technologies, and migration diplomacy tactics…
Humanitarian Admission Programmes: how networks enable mobility in contexts of protracted displacement
Humanitarian Admission Programmes (HAPs) can play an important role as ‘complementary pathways’ for refugees out of protracted displacement, as shown in initiatives by the German government and its federal states during the Syrian war. Such initiatives are particularly effective if…
‘Constrained mobility’: a feature of protracted displacement in Greece and Italy
Protracted displacement is often implicitly associated with passivity and immobility, and it is not by chance that protracted displacement is often described through the metaphor of ‘limbo’. But people living in protracted displacement are far from immobile. On the contrary,…
Family networks and Syrian refugees’ mobility aspirations
Sustaining local, regional and transnational family networks is a strategy that displaced persons use in order to cope in conditions of protracted displacement. These networks can help provide access to humanitarian aid, socio-economic resources, psychosocial support, and opportunities for mobility.…
Mobility dynamics in protracted displacement: Eritreans and Congolese on the move
The most widely used definition of protracted displacement is UNHCR’s term for people who are ‘stuck’ in a particular place for at least five years. This stresses the static elements of protracted displacement but when such displacement is examined more…
Understanding the dynamics of protracted displacement
Almost 20 years ago, UNHCR coined the term ‘protracted refugee situations’ to draw attention to the plight of refugees in extended exile and to promote durable solutions. However, the search for solutions for persons in longer-term displacement has been at…
The Khartoum Process and human trafficking
Sudan ranks 14th in the world for prevalence of modern slavery per capita.[1] Different types of abuse and exploitation occur along mixed migration routes from East and West Africa to and through North Africa – routes travelled by people from Sudan, as…
Externalisation, immigration detention and the Committee on Migrant Workers
Detention has long played a central role in the efforts of major destination countries to externalise their immigration controls and asylum procedures.[1] Under the guise of combatting the trafficking of people and assisting countries on the periphery of the Global…
Eyes in the sky: European aerial surveillance
Since the 2015–16 peak in numbers of migrants crossing the Mediterranean, the European Union has sought to close off the Central Mediterranean route by enabling the interception and forced return of vessels carrying migrants. To facilitate this, the EU and…