Roundtable: Regularisation as asylum policy

Abstract

In the 1990s, return has emerged as the preferred ‘durable solution’ for refugees. Return in this context was construed as voluntary, when refugees no longer were in need of international protection. Its voluntary nature was soon put into question by several instances of large-scale returns in forced or insecure situations, but also in relation to temporarily admitted refugees and other targets of ‘coerced return’. In Europe, refugee returns were largely limited to Bosnian or Kosovars under temporary protection. The more significant group of returnees were failed asylum seekers and other migrants without an authorisation to stay. In practice, however, only a small share actually returned, prompting states to adopt a variety of policies to address the continuing presence of non-removed migrants, ranging from informal toleration to regularisation.

While there has been a long-standing debate on regularisation of irregular migrants, there has been relatively little systematic exploration of the interlinkage of regularisation and asylum, including the use of regularisation of a tool of asylum and refugee policies. This roundtable seeks to address this gap and explores the regularisation – asylum nexus both empirically and conceptually. We examine to what extent regularisation policies explicitly target failed and (long-term) asylum seekers, and conversely, to what extent these groups had access to other regularisation measures. We also address other responses such as toleration. Conceptually, we seek to examine the role of regularisation as an element of both migration management and protection policies and as an intrinsic element of asylum and refugee policies.

While several roundtable participants are confirmed, we are looking for expressions of interests to recruit two more participants. Please write an e-mail to ..., noting your name, affiliation, career stage/position, gender and briefly describing your relevant expertise and tentatively describing what you would like to contribute to the roundtable.

in-person event