Let Me Be a Refugee: Administrative Justice and the Politics of Asylum in the United States, Canada, and Australia

249 Pages·2014·1.859 MB·English

by  Rebecca Hamlin

Let Me Be a Refugee

Let Me Be a Refugee
Administrative Justice and the Politics
of Asylum in the United States,
Canada, and Australia
REBECCA HAMLIN
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Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Hamlin, Rebecca, author.
Let me be a refugee : administrative justice and the politics of asylum in the United States, Canada, and
Australia / Rebecca Hamlin.
pages cm
Summary: “This book compares the refugee status determination (RSD) regimes of three popular asylum
seeker destinations. Despite similarly high levels of political resistance to accepting asylum seekers, because
administrative justice is conceptualized and organized differently in every state, they vary in how they draw
the line between refugee and non-refugee”—Provided by publisher.
ISBN 978–0–19–937330–7 (hardback) — ISBN 978–0–19–937331–4 (paperback) 1. Asylum,
Right of—United States. 2. Asylum, Right of—Canada. 3. Asylum, Right of—Australia.
4. Refugees—Legal status, laws, etc.—United States. 5. Refugees—Legal status, laws, etc.—Canada.
6. Refugees—Legal status, laws, etc.—Australia. 7. Administrative procedure—United States.
8. Administrative procedure—Canada. 9. Administrative procedure—Australia. I. Title.
K3268.3.H36
2014 325'.21—dc23
2014003746
9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1
Printed in the United States of America
on acid-free paper
To Rev. Harry J. Almond
(1918–2007)
He cared deeply about the world’s conflicts and worked to heal wounds.
He never questioned his granddaughter’s desire to get a PhD,
and always read my work with a pencil in hand.

CONTENTS
Acknowledgments ix
List of Abbreviations xiii
PART I ■  THE PUZZLE OF ASYLUM POLITICS 1
 1. Let Me Be a Refugee
CHAPTER 3
 2. Building a Cross-National Comparison of RSD
CHAPTER
Regimes
13
 3. “Illegal Refugees” and the Rise of Restrictive
CHAPTER
Asylum Politics
32
PART II ■  THREE RSD REGIMES COMPARED 63
 4. Courting Asylum: The Judicialization of RSD in the
CHAPTER
United States
65
 5. The “Cadillac” Bureaucracy: RSD in Canada
CHAPTER 84
 6. The Battle of the “Bouncing Ball”: RSD in
CHAPTER
Australia
101
PART III ■  THE DIFFERENCE AN RSD REGIME MAKES 119
 7. Asylum for Women: Reading Gender into the
CHAPTER
Refugee Definition
121
vii
viii Contents
 8. Escaping the People’s Republic of China: Chinese
CHAPTER
Asylum Claims in Three RSD Regimes
143
 9. Complementary Protection in a Complicated
CHAPTER
World
160
PART IV ■  CONCLUSIONS 179
 10. Asylum Seeker Blues and the Globalization of
CHAPTER
Law
181
Appendix: List of Interviews 195
Notes 199
References 211
Index 225
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
I became forever fascinated by the refugee experience during my first post-college
job, working with a consortium of Mutual Assistance Associations in the refugee
resettlement neighborhood of Uptown, Chicago. I got to know families from
China, Vietnam, Cambodia, Laos, Ethiopia, Iraq, Bosnia, and El Salvador, many
of which had escaped war, persecution, and terrible traumas. My admiration for
those with the resilience and bravery to start over in a new place, regardless of
whether or not they are labeled as refugees, motivates and inspires all my work.
My interest in refugees and asylum seekers propelled me to Berkeley,
California, for graduate school, where it was a delightful surprise to discover
I not only respected and admired the intellectual capabilities of the people
I met, I found friendship of the finest caliber again and again. I am grateful to
the Institute of Governmental Studies for housing me, and for the camarade-
rie of Boris Barkanov, Naazneen Barma, Jennifer Bussell, Rebecca Chen, Thad
Dunning, Brent Durbin, John Hanley, Dave Hopkins, Amy Lerman, Manoj
Mate, Michael Murakami, Jessica Rich, and Regine Spector. I also cannot imag-
ine my years at Berkeley without the intellectual support and collegiality of
the Interdisciplinary Immigration Workshop, the members of which have read
many iterations of my work as it progressed. I thank them all, but I am most
indebted to Ming Hsu Chen, Els de Graauw, Shannon Gleeson, Ken Haig, and
Phil Wolgin for their insightful feedback as well their ongoing friendship.
Of course, it is not just the graduate students that make Berkeley a special
place. The faculty, too, are people of extraordinary capabilities and great warmth.
As dissertation co-chairs, I could not imagine a better combination than Robert
Kagan and Gordon Silverstein. Although they have different styles, Bob and
Gordon share a generosity of spirit for which I have been grateful many times
over the years, and both of them have been present with advice, insight, and
encouragement throughout the life of this project. Bob’s attention to detail,
knack for practical advice, and penchant for parsing out complex concepts is the
ix