Assessing asylum claims: a critical investigation of the key factors influencing UK Home Office administrators in their decision-making processes

评估庇护申请：对影响英国内政部管理人员决策过程的关键因素进行严格调查

• 批准号: 2408746
• 金额: --
• 依托单位: University of East Anglia
• 依托单位国家: 英国
• 项目类别: Studentship
• 财政年份: 2020
• 资助国家: 英国
• 起止时间: 2020 至 无数据
• 项目状态: 已结题
• 来源: https://gtr.ukri.org/projects?ref=studentship-2408746
• 关键词: Assessing; asylum; claims; critical; investigation

This research explores the decision-making of 'street-level bureaucrats' assessing asylum applications in the UK. It sets out to create new understanding of Home Office institutional culture and the extent and exercise of discretionary powers by administrators.The introduction of restrictive immigration policies in the UK has been accompanied by the reframing of immigration law under the banner of crime and an increased criminalisation of migration (Aliverti, 2012). The 1971 Immigration Act first placed restrictions on rights afforded by the 1951 Convention (Gill and Good, 2019), and successive legislative measures informed the Immigration Act 2016 wherein a hostile environment for irregular migration became official government policy and made the preferred solution for asylum seekers repatriation, not resettlement (Hambley, 2019; Thomaz, 2018). Responsibility for assessing asylum claims lies with UK Visas and Immigration and constitutes multiple interactions with 'street-level bureaucrats' whose work is shaped by huge caseloads, shifting goals and inadequate resources and yet wield substantial discretionary authority (Lipsky, 1980). Data demonstrates that the total number of successful asylum applications in the UK has been trending negatively. Concurrently, the percentage of appeals awarded has increased steadily and, when taken in combination, these findings suggest the rationale behind rejections often fails to withstand the appeals process. This poses a question - what are the decision-making processes used by Home Office administrators?Research QuestionsWhat are the key factors influencing Home Office administrators in their decision-making processes?How do Home Office administrators understand 'credibility'?How much discretion do Home Office administrators have and how is this exercised?The research will follow a mixed-method design analysing secondary data in the form of official statistics and also generating primary data. Observations will first be carried out in the exploratory stage at Immigration Tribunals through adopting the role of an 'unobtrusive observer'. Following this, a questionnaire will be disseminated amongst Home Office administrators to generate quantitative as well as qualitative data. A sample of individual administrators will then be selected from which detailed qualitative data will be collected through semi-structured interviews. It is acknowledged that securing research access might prove difficult. Should this prove to be the case then observations will be accompanied by a discourse analysis of a sample of HO rejection letters.Quantitative and qualitative analyses will be used. Descriptive statistics will be drawn from baseline data on successful applications in the UK and to summarise the data from the questionnaires. Field notes from Immigration Tribunals will be collated to present a descriptive narrative of events. This, in combination with the data from the Likert scale and open-ended questions on the questionnaire, will inform the semi-structured interview schedule. Transcriptions from semi-structured interviews will be analysed thematically and include a process of coding to expand upon relevant themes and develop categories or 'analytic schema'. A document analysis of a sample of Home Office rejection letters will be used to explore the mechanisms for decision-making by Home Office caseworkers, by following an inductive and interpretive tradition.This is an original project developing a new theoretical approach and applying criminological theory to the asylum decision-making process. This micro-level analysis, drawing directly upon the experience of those assessing asylum claims in the UK, can highlight most accurately the decision-making processes and help develop an understanding of why an increasing number of appeals are being upheld at immigration tribunal.

这项研究探讨了在英国评估庇护申请的“街头官僚”的决策。它旨在创造对内政部机构文化以及行政人员自由裁量权的范围和行使的新理解。英国引入限制性移民政策的同时，也在犯罪的旗帜下重新制定移民法，并增加了对移民的刑事定罪（Aliverti，2012）。1971年《移民法》首先对1951年《公约》规定的权利进行了限制（吉尔和古德，2019年），随后的立法措施为2016年《移民法》提供了信息，其中，对非正常移民的敌对环境成为政府的官方政策，并成为寻求庇护者遣返的首选解决方案，而不是重新安置（汉布利，2019年;纳兹，2018年）。评估庇护申请的责任在于联合王国签证和移民局，并与“街头官僚”进行多次互动，这些官僚的工作受到大量案件、不断变化的目标和资源不足的影响，但却拥有相当大的酌处权（Lipsky，1980年）。数据显示，在联合王国成功申请庇护的总人数一直呈下降趋势。与此同时，裁定的上诉比例稳步上升，综合来看，这些调查结果表明，驳回的理由往往经不起上诉程序。这就提出了一个问题--内政部管理人员使用的决策过程是什么？影响家庭办公室管理人员决策过程的关键因素是什么？家庭办公室管理员如何理解“责任”？内政部管理人员有多大的自由裁量权，如何行使？这项研究将采用混合方法设计，分析官方统计数字形式的二手数据，同时生成原始数据。首先，在移民法庭的探索阶段，将通过扮演“不引人注目的调解人”的角色进行观察。此后，将在内政部管理人员中分发一份调查问卷，以生成定量和定性数据。然后将选出一批行政人员，通过半结构化访谈收集详细的定性数据。人们承认，确保获得研究资料可能很困难。如果事实证明是这样的话，那么观察将伴随着对HO拒绝信样本的话语分析。定量和定性分析将被使用。描述性统计将从英国成功申请的基线数据中提取，并总结问卷调查中的数据。将整理移民法庭的现场记录，以描述事件。这与Likert量表的数据和问卷上的开放式问题相结合，将为半结构化访谈时间表提供信息。半结构化访谈的结果将按主题进行分析，并包括一个编码过程，以扩展相关主题并开发类别或“分析方案”。通过对内政部拒绝信样本的文件分析，将探讨内政部个案工作者的决策机制，遵循归纳和解释传统，这是一个原创项目，开发了一种新的理论方法，并将犯罪学理论应用于庇护决策过程。这种微观层面的分析，直接借鉴了那些评估在英国的庇护申请的经验，可以最准确地突出决策过程，并有助于了解为什么越来越多的上诉被维持在移民法庭。