Comparing the Detention of Asylum Seekers in the UK and the US

Guest post by Stephen Meili, University of Minnesota Law School. In this post, Stephen discusses his research on comparative approaches to the detention of asylum seekers in the United Kingdom (UK) and the United States (US). He is particularly interested in the way that media portrayals of, and public opinion towards, asylum seekers may affect public policy.

Having recently spent a year on sabbatical in England, I became fascinated with the way in which the British press demonizes asylum seekers. In the first two weeks of January 2014 alone, headlines like these appeared in British tabloids:

Asylum seekers cost taxpayers £100,000 a DAY: 2,000 refugees with no right to remain in Britain have been claiming handouts and free housing for more than a year.

More asylum seeker chaos of foreign athletes after our Olympic legacy - Britain is facing an asylum hang­over from the Olympics with dozens of foreign athletes refusing to leave.

The so-called ‘broadsheets,’ usually considered more moderate and respectable, were not immune, with TheTelegraph proclaiming that:

‘Destitute' asylum seekers had iPads and luxury goods, says report by government auditors.

'…judges reflect popular imagination. Sometimes deliberately, sometimes just because they read the papers like everybody else…. And sometimes they explicitly say that they consider that it’s their duty to respond to public concerns. Which is a kind of judicial way of saying I read the Daily Mail. It is a judicial way of saying that I read the media and I’m freaked out by all that I’m reading.'

'Absolutely, no doubt at all that

In the UK, between 2009 and 2012 alone, 55,000 asylum seekers were detained. Moreover, in the UK, the percentage of asylum seekers who were detained was 65.5 per cent, a significantly higher rate than in the US during roughly the same period (46.9 percent). Asylum seekers also constitute a higher portion of the total detainee population in the UK than in the US. In the years between 2009 and 2012, asylum seekers made up about half of the immigrant detainee population in the UK, while the US rate for a similar (though not identical) period was less than 2 percent. Of course, the latter comparison may say more about the US’s unprecedented emphasis on detention and deportation of undocumented immigrants in general than it does about its attitude toward asylum seekers in particular.

In any event, it seems that the UK detains asylum seekers far more readily than does the US. One possible explanation for this discrepancy is the apparent greater hostility toward asylum seekers in the UK, both within the media and the public generally. But, of course, the simple number of asylum seekers detained tells only part of the story. The more intriguing question, and one I plan to address through empirical research in both countries, is the comparative duration and conditions of that detention. While the UK’s detention policy may affect a larger portion of asylum seekers than in the US, the contours of that policy and its impact on asylum seekers may be on a par with the US.

One of the intriguing aspects of this kind of comparative research is the interplay between media coverage, public opinion, and public policy. How much does one of these factors affect the others? As those scholars who have addressed this vexing question would attest, there is no easy answer, but it’s a question I plan to address in the context of the detention of asylum seekers in the UK and the US.

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How to cite this blog post (Harvard style):

Meili S (2014) Comparing the Detention of Asylum Seekers in the UK and the US. Available at: http://bordercriminologies.law.ox.ac.uk/comparing-the-uk-and-the-us/ (Accessed [date]).