Talking Migration

The Refugee Convention classes anyone as a refugee who fears persecution because of their race, religion, nationality, membership of a particular social group or political opinion. This does not include one group of people who are frequently persecuted for who they are, namely LGBTQ+ people. Yet many countries do recognise sexual orientation as a ground of asylum, at least in theory. In practice, LGBTQ asylum seekers face many obstacles in trying to prove their cases. The episode will mainly focus on the situation in Germany and in the UK.

In this episode:

Mengia Tschalaer - Marie Curie Research Fellow at the School of Sociology, Politics and International Studies at the University of Bristol (http://www.bristol.ac.uk/spais/people/person/mengia-tschalaer/) Read more about Tschalaer's research here: https://www.queerasylum.org/

Kerri Woods, Lecturer in Political Theory at the School of Politics and International Studies at the University of Leeds (https://essl.leeds.ac.uk/politics/staff/111/dr-kerri-woods)

The Global Compact for Safe, Orderly and Regular Migration was adopted at the end of 2018. Will is safeguard migrants' human rights, or undermine state sovereignty?

In this episode:

Elspeth Guild, Professor of Law at Queen Mary University of London https://www.qmul.ac.uk/law/staff/guild.html

Tugba Basaran, Senior Research Associate at the Centre for Global Human Movement University of Cambridge https://www.crim.cam.ac.uk/People/tb317

They have edited a series of blog posts analysing the final draft of the Compact, published by the Refugee Law Initiative: https://t.co/ief51ru1MG and https://rli.blogs.sas.ac.uk/themed-content/global-compact-for-migration/

This episode was recorded last week with volunteers and researchers working on Samos. They tell about dreadful conditions, a third sector filling governance gaps and discuss alternative policies. The podcast is supported by the Department of Politics and the Migration Research Group, the University of Sheffield.

In this episode:

Giulia Cicoli, Co-Founder Still I Rise https://www.stillirisengo.org/about_us

Gemma Bird, Lecturer in Politics at Liverpool University https://www.liverpool.ac.uk/politics/staff/gemma-bird/

Amanada Russell, Senior Lecturer in Politics and International Relations at Aston University https://www2.aston.ac.uk/lss/staff-directory/dr-amanda-russell-beattie/index

The NGOs mentioned are Still I Rise and Samos Volunteers https://samosvolunteers.org/

To find about about recent protests on Samos: https://www.pressenza.com/2019/01/protests-on-samos-demands-for-rights-freedom-and-healthcare/

There are many calls for reforming the way the world protects, or fails to protect, refugees. Some have suggested that the UN Refugee Convention is out-dated, others that the right to seek asylum should be abolished or that asylum claims should be processed off-shore. At the same time, the UNHCR has been drafting a Global Compact on Refugees, promising to increase global cooperation on refugee protection. James Hathaway, James E. and Sarah A. Degan Professor of Law at the University of Michigan, is the founding director of the University of Michigan’s Program in Refugee Asylum Law and author of two leading treatises: The Law of Refugee Status and of The Rights of Refugees under International Law.

James Hathaway has put forward a model for a global solution to refugee protection, based on a five year project involving over 100 participants, including six governments. You can read the findings of that project here: https://dialnet.unirioja.es/servlet/articulo?codigo=5732735&orden=0&info=link (pdf)

The images of children in cages, separated from their parents, at the US-Mexico border have upset people across the world. Part of a so called 'zero-tolerance' policy against 'illegal' migration, everyone crossing the border, even to apply for asylum, become subject of criminal prosecution. To facilitate this, almost 2000 children have been separated from their parents. But why is this happening now? What is being done to reunite the families? Who are the people trying to cross the border and what about their right to apply for asylum? To help answer these questions, we speak to Gabriella Sanchez, Research Fellow at the Migration Policy Centre at the European University Institute.

Public and policy debates about immigration in most parts of the world are pursued on the assumption that states have the right to exclude immigrants, if they so wish, perhaps with the exception of refugees. The main questions are how states can manage migration - who and how many immigrants a state should let in. But do states really have this right, morally, to exclude others from settling on their territory? In his new book, Do States Have the Right to Exclude Immigrants?, Christopher Bertram, Professor in Social and Political Philosophy at the University of Bristol, argues that in most cases states do not have such a right. Instead, Bertram suggests, migration should be governed globally and states would have to justify to this global governance entity any restrictions they wanted to place on movement.

In this episode, Bertram discusses his book, its methodology and central argument. You can get the book here: https://www.amazon.com/States-Have-Right-Exclude-Immigrants/dp/150952195X

Apologies for some light banging noise in the background, mainly towards the end of the episode.

Many people express and urge others to stand in solidarity with refugees. In 2016, the UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon spoke about the 65 million forcibly displaced in the world, addressing the UNHCR Executive Committee. He said: ‘The numbers are staggering. Each one represents a human life. But this is not a crisis of numbers. It is a crisis of solidarity.’

But, what does it mean to stand in solidarity with refugees? What precisely is a crisis of solidarity? What is one committed to when one expresses solidarity? This has been the topic of a project funded by the White Rose University Consortium, led by Kerri Woods, Lecturer in Political Theory at the University of Leeds, Alice Nah, Lecturer at the Centre for Applied Human Rights at the University of York, and the producer of this podcast, Clara Sandelind, Leverhulme Research Fellow at the University of Sheffield. You can read more about the project, 'Understanding Solidarity Amid Refugee Crises', here: https://www.whiterose.ac.uk/collaborationfunds/understanding-solidarity-amid-refugee-crises/

In this episode, we discuss some of the topics and conclusions drawn throughout this project, which are currently being collated and finalised for a Special Issue.

If you have worked for a Western military in places such as Afghanistan or Iraq, you may think that you would be able to settle in the Western country that you worked for, especially if your life is at risk due to the work you performed. But things are not that straight forward. A new report by the UK parliament’s Commons defence select committee is highly critical of how the UK government has treated Afghan interpreters and other civilians who are not safe in Afghanistan. Earlier this month, the UK government made some concessions towards interpreters who have applied for indefinite leave to remain in the UK.

Yet many people’s lives are still in limbo, including Nazir Ayeen’s, a former Afghan interpreter now living in the UK, who joins this episode to discuss how the UK and other Western countries treat their former military employees. We are also joined by Dr Sara de Jong, Research Fellow at the Open University. Sara de Jong currently conducts research on the claims for protection, rights and settlement by Afghans and Iraqis who have worked for Western military forces and development organisations, as well as on the activities and strategies of their supporters.

No one will have missed the royal wedding between American actress Meghan Markle and Prince Harry happening this week. Markle has moved to the UK is expected to become known as the Duchess of Sussex after the wedding. But not all family migration procedures are quite so joyful and straightforward. In a new research paper, Dr Marcia Vera Espinoza and Dr Joe Turner, both at the Department of Politics at the University of Sheffield, investigate the intimacy of the family migration visa application in the UK. They both have personal experience of the process, which is also part of the research. The disruption, fear and anxiety they describe is quite far from a fairy tale royal wedding.

Migration policy-makers tend to portray the migrant smuggler as their main enemy. Not only do they help facilitate irregular migration, but they are also seen as exploitative of the people they are helping. But who are migrant smugglers and what do they do? To help answer these questions, I talked to Dr Gabriella Sanchez, Research Fellow at the Migration Policy Centre at the European University Institute. Gabriella Sanchez is an expert on migrant smuggling, but also on the US-Mexico border, so this episode also covers details of that particular border area. Gabriella Sanchez is the author of Human Smuggling and Border Crossings.