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Negotiating safe pathways

Partners: Molly Fee (UCLA)

Funded by: Luskin Center for History & Policy at UCLA

FMRN member: Claire Higgins

Project description: This project will examine a safe pathway for asylum seekers and refugees known as ‘in-country processing’, and its use within the United States Refugee Admissions Program over the past four decades.

In-country processing enables people who are in refugee-like situations – but who have not yet crossed an international border – to apply for entry into the United States as refugees while they are still in their home country (for example, by submitting an application at an embassy).

Using archival research and qualitative interviews with key stakeholders, the project will shed light on an often-overlooked humanitarian tool and bring this historical analysis to bear on scholarly and public debate about the contemporary global challenge of displacement.

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Protected entry procedures in history and international refugee law

Funded by: Australian Research Council

FMRN member: Claire Higgins

Project description: This project aims to investigate how states have permitted asylum seekers to safely cross international borders and access protection as refugees. Using rigorous qualitative historical research methods, and a refugee law-based analysis, the project intends to examine the history of protected entry procedures used by governments in Australia, the United States, Canada, and Italy, with a view to clarifying the operations and outcomes of these procedures in relation to international refugee law obligations. In an era of record forced migration, this timely and original comparative history of safe access to asylum will advance scholarly knowledge about refugee law and policy.

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