Asylum Policy Boat People And Political Discourse

This book compares the policies of Australia and Italy towards boat people who have arrived in the two countries since the early 1990s. While the regular and varied inflow of immigrants arriving at national airports, ferry terminals and train stations is seldom witnessed by the public, the arrival of boat people is often played out in the media and consequently attracts disproportionate political and public attention. Both Australia and Italy faced similar dilemmas, but the nature of political debate on the issue, the types of strategies introduced, and the effects that policy changes had on boat people diverged considerably. This book argues that contrasting migration path dependencies, disparate political values within the Left, and varying international obligations best explain the different approaches taken by the two countries to boat people.

Whether addressing questions of loss, (be)longing, fears of an immigration ‘invasion’ or perceived injustices in immigration policies, immigration debates are infused with strong emotions. Emotion is often presented as a factor that complicates and hinders rational discussion. This book explores how emotion is, in fact, central to understanding how and why we have the immigration policies we do, and what kinds of policies may be beneficial for various groups of people in society. The author looks beyond the ‘negative’ emotions of fear and hostility to examine on the politics of compassion and empathy. Using case studies from Australia, Europe and the US, the book offers a new and original analysis of immigration policy and immigration debates.

Bachelor Thesis from the year 2017 in the subject Politics - Other International Politics Topics, grade: B, Malmö University, course: International Migration and Ethnic Relations, language: English, abstract: This study examines the political-parliamentary discourse surrounding the 2016 Swedish temporary immigration policy with a focus on political construction of asylum seekers. Both the propositional parliamentary paper and debate were put to analysis using Critical Discourse Analysis in order to find out themes ad constructions that manifests political discourse of asylum seekers. It is argued the political-parliamentary discourse surrounding the 2016 temporary immigration policy within the propositional parliamentary paper and debate served to negatively affect the image of asylum seekers via their construction as something negative through the use of words associated with ‘them’: overload and strain on the asylum and social system, threat to integration system, threat to national security, economic burden, queue jumpers, liars, criminals, and morally deviant. This is deemed to contribute to the ‘Othering’ as projection of characteristics is created through marking asylum seekers in a different language of the deviance negative other. This can result to stereotypes, exclusion and marginalisation of asylum seekers, thus diminishing their right to protection.

Today, Australia’s response to asylum-seeking ‘boat people’ is a hot-button issue that feeds the political news cycle. But the daily reports and political promises lack the historical context that would allow for informed debate. Have we ever taken our fair share of refugees? Have our past responses been motivated by humanitarian concerns or economic self-interest? Is the influx of ‘boat people’ over the last fifteen years really unprecedented? In this eloquent and informative book, historian Klaus Neumann examines both government policy and public attitudes towards refugees and asylum seekers since Federation. He places the Australian story in the context of global refugee movements, and international responses to them. Neumann examines many case studies, including the resettlement of displaced persons from European refugee camps in the late 1940s and early 1950s, and the panic generated by the arrival of Vietnamese asylum seekers during the 1977 federal election campaign. By exploring the ways in which politicians have approached asylum-seeker issues in the past, Neumann aims to inspire more creative thinking about current refugee and asylum-seeker policy. ‘Klaus Neumann has written a humane, engrossing book imbued with the awareness that in telling the history of Australia, one tells the story of immigration. Immigrants – always resisted, always blasted by invective and ever essential to our society and polity – show us ourselves through the heroic journeys of ancestors, the recurrent frenzies of resistance, right up to our present parlous state as the most supposedly tolerant intolerant society on earth. But if you think you’ve read all this before, you should know Neumann has brought to this book a novelty of approach, a freshness of perception, that means all the others have been mere preparation.’—Tom Keneally

Refugees are on the move around the globe. Prosperous nations are rapidly adjusting their laws to crack down on the so-called "undeserving." Australia and Canada have each sought international reputations as humanitarian do-gooders, especially in the area of refugee admissions. Humanitarianism, Identity, and Nation traces the connections between the nation-building tradition of immigration and the challenge of admitting people who do not reflect the national interest of the twenty-first century. Catherine Dauvergne argues that in the absence of the justice standard for admitting newcomers, liberal nations instead share a humanitarian consensus about letting in needy outsiders. This consensus constrains and shapes migration law and policy. In a detailed consideration of how refugees and others in need are admitted to Australia and Canada, she links humanitarianism and national identity to explain the current shape of the law. If the problems of immigration policy were all about economics, future directions would be easy to map. If rights could trump sovereignty, refugee admission would be straightforward. But migration politics has never been simple. Humanitarianism, Identity, and Nation is a welcome antidote to economic critiques of immigration, and a thoughtful contribution to rights talk. It is a must-read for everyone interested in transforming migration laws to meet the needs of the twenty-first century.

At a time when thousands of refugees risk their lives undertaking perilous journeys by boat across the Mediterranean, this multidisciplinary volume could not be more pertinent. It offers various contemporary case studies of boat migrations undertaken by asylum seekers and refugees around the globe and shows that boats not only move people and cultural capital between places, but also fuel cultural fantasies, dreams of adventure and hope, along with fears of invasion and terrorism. The ambiguous nature of memories, media representations and popular culture productions are highlighted throughout in order to address negative stereotypes and conversely, humanize the individuals involved.

An acclaimed historian examines postwar migration's fundamental role in shaping modern Europe Migration is perhaps the most pressing issue of our time, and it has completely decentered European politics in recent years. But as we consider the current refugee crisis, acclaimed historian Peter Gatrell reminds us that the history of Europe has always been one of people on the move. The end of World War II left Europe in a state of confusion with many Europeans virtually stateless. Later, as former colonial states gained national independence, colonists and their supporters migrated to often-unwelcoming metropoles. The collapse of communism in 1989 marked another fundamental turning point. Gatrell places migration at the center of post-war European history, and the aspirations of migrants themselves at the center of the story of migration. This is an urgent history that will reshape our understanding of modern Europe.

Media pundits, politicians, and the public are often skeptical or ambivalent about granting asylum. They fear that asylum-seekers will impose economic and cultural costs and pose security threats to nationals. Consequently, governments of rich, democratic countries attempt to limit who can approach their borders, which often leads to refugees breaking immigration laws. In Refuge beyond Reach, David Scott FitzGerald traces how rich democracies have deliberately and systematically shut down most legal paths to safety. Drawing on official government documents, information obtained via WikiLeaks, and interviews with asylum seekers, he finds that for ninety-nine percent of refugees, the only way to find safety in one of the prosperous democracies of the Global North is to reach its territory and then ask for asylum. FitzGerald shows how the US, Canada, Europe, and Australia comply with the letter of law while violating the spirit of those laws through a range of deterrence methods-first designed to keep out Jews fleeing the Nazis-that have now evolved into a pervasive global system of "remote control." While some of the most draconian remote control practices continue in secret, Fitzgerald identifies some pressure points and finds that a diffuse humanitarian obligation to help those in need is more difficult for governments to evade than the law alone. Refuge beyond Reach addresses one of the world's most pressing challenges-how to manage flows of refugees and other types of migrants-and helps to identify the conditions under which individuals can access the protection of their universal rights.