Reconsidering the Problem of ‘Bogus’ Refugees with ‘Socio-economic Motivations’ for Seeking Asylum

Abstract

‘Bogus’ asylum seekers are widely alleged to be ‘abusing’ the UK’s system, whilst similar perceptions exist more widely among industrialized host states. This article examines physical mobility for the purpose of claiming asylum, and whether it is meaningful to claim that the UK asylum route is being misused or abused by ‘bogus’ refugees with ‘socio-economic motivations’. It examines procedural and definitional challenges to existing framings of the ‘right’ and ‘wrong’ forms of asylum mobility, and tests assumptions behind what it means to be ‘bogus’ or ‘genuine’ with reference to original empirical data. This article asks how different asylum mobilities are contested and made meaningful at the ‘gate’, presenting a challenge to such framings to reconsider the nature of what ‘problem’ exists.

Keywords:

• Refugee status determination
• asylum seekers
• prevention
• restriction
• moral panic

Acknowledgements

The author would like to thank the ESRC for its support, grant number PTA-026-27-1990.