Refugee roulette refers to arbitrariness in the process of

refugee A refugee, conventionally speaking, is a displaced person who has crossed national borders and who cannot or is unwilling to return home due to well-founded fear of persecution.

status determinations or, as it is called in the

United States The United States of America (U.S.A. or USA), commonly known as the United States (U.S. or US) or America, is a country Continental United States, primarily located in North America. It consists of 50 U.S. state, states, a Washington, D.C., ...

asylum Asylum may refer to: Types of asylum * Asylum (antiquity), places of refuge in ancient Greece and Rome * Benevolent Asylum, a 19th-century Australian institution for housing the destitute * Cities of Refuge, places of refuge in ancient Judea ...

adjudication. Recent research suggests that at least in the United States and

Canada Canada is a country in North America. Its ten provinces and three territories extend from the Atlantic Ocean to the Pacific Ocean and northward into the Arctic Ocean, covering over , making it the world's second-largest country by to ...

, the outcome of asylum determinations largely depends upon the identity of the particular adjudicator to whom an application is randomly assigned, and that the resulting disparities in rates of granting asylum are problematic. On the other hand, some commentators state that a good deal of disparity is inevitable and that refugees and their advocates must "learn to live" with "unequal justice". Others report that the amount of disparity diminished after 2008. The original study that coined the term "refugee

roulette Roulette is a casino game named after the French word meaning ''little wheel'' which was likely developed from the Italian game Biribi''.'' In the game, a player may choose to place a bet on a single number, various groupings of numbers, the ...

" presents an empirical analysis of decision-making at all four levels of the asylum process, namely the asylum office of the

Department of Homeland Security The United States Department of Homeland Security (DHS) is the U.S. federal executive department responsible for public security, roughly comparable to the interior or home ministries of other countries. Its stated missions involve anti-ter ...

, the immigration courts of the

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, the

Board of Immigration Appeals The Board of Immigration Appeals (BIA) is an administrative appellate body within the Executive Office for Immigration Review of the United States Department of Justice responsible for reviewing decisions of the U.S. immigration courts and cert ...

, and the

United States Courts of Appeals The United States courts of appeals are the intermediate appellate courts of the United States federal judiciary. The courts of appeals are divided into 11 numbered circuits that cover geographic areas of the United States and hear appeals f ...

, between 2000 and 2004. The authors argue that their findings reveal an unacceptable level of disparities in grant rates, noting that the asylum adjudicators studied heard large numbers of cases from the same country in the same location over the same period of time. The study concludes with recommendations for reforming the immigration adjudication system. In a 2008 study of immigration court decision-making between 1994 and 2007, the United States

Government Accountability Office The U.S. Government Accountability Office (GAO) is a legislative branch government agency that provides auditing, evaluative, and investigative services for the United States Congress. It is the supreme audit institution of the federal gover ...

found that "the likelihood of being granted asylum varied considerably across and within the mmigration courts studied" The findings of the original "Refugee Roulette" study were reported as the lead story on the front page of ''

The New York Times ''The New York Times'' (''the Times'', ''NYT'', or the Gray Lady) is a daily newspaper based in New York City with a worldwide readership reported in 2020 to comprise a declining 840,000 paid print subscribers, and a growing 6 million paid ...

'' on May 31, 2007. The study was also reported in the ''

Atlantic Monthly ''The Atlantic'' is an American magazine and multi-platform publisher. It features articles in the fields of politics, foreign affairs, business and the economy, culture and the arts, technology, and science. It was founded in 1857 in Boston, ...

'' and many other media outlets, including the ''

Atlanta Journal-Constitution ''The Atlanta Journal-Constitution'' is the only major daily newspaper in the metropolitan area of Atlanta, Georgia. It is the flagship publication of Cox Enterprises. The ''Atlanta Journal-Constitution'' is the result of the merger between ...

'', the ''

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'', the ''

Dallas Morning News ''The Dallas Morning News'' is a daily newspaper serving the Dallas–Fort Worth area of Texas, with an average print circulation of 65,369. It was founded on October 1, 1885 by Alfred Horatio Belo as a satellite publication of the ''Galvesto ...

'', and the ''

Miami Herald The ''Miami Herald'' is an American daily newspaper owned by the McClatchy Company and headquartered in Doral, Florida, a city in western Miami-Dade County and the Miami metropolitan area, several miles west of Downtown Miami.Georgetown University Law Center The Georgetown University Law Center (Georgetown Law) is the law school of Georgetown University, a private research university in Washington, D.C. It was established in 1870 and is the largest law school in the United States by enrollment and ...

, Judith Resnik, and

Cass Sunstein Cass Robert Sunstein (born September 21, 1954) is an American legal scholar known for his studies of constitutional law, administrative law, environmental law, law and behavioral economics. He is also ''The New York Times'' best-selling author ...

. It was also discussed in a decision of the

United States Court of Appeals for the Fourth Circuit The United States Court of Appeals for the Fourth Circuit (in case citations, 4th Cir.) is a federal court located in Richmond, Virginia, with appellate jurisdiction over the district courts in the following districts: * District of Maryland ...

. The study has been cited by the

American Bar Association The American Bar Association (ABA) is a voluntary bar association of lawyers and law students, which is not specific to any jurisdiction in the United States. Founded in 1878, the ABA's most important stated activities are the setting of aca ...

's Commission on Immigration and the

Appleseed Foundation The Appleseed Foundation is a nonprofit social justice network of centers in the United States and Mexico. History Appleseed was founded in 1993 by members of Harvard Law School's class of 1958 at their 35th reunion. From the outset Appleseed wa ...

, among other organizations. A similar study of the Canadian asylum adjudication system was subsequently published. The term "refugee roulette" continues to be used by the popular media to describe arbitrariness in asylum adjudication.

References

External links

The authors of the original "Refugee Roulette" study in the United States
Jaya Ramji-NogalesAndrew I. SchoenholtzPhilip G. Schrag
{{DEFAULTSORT:Refugee Roulette Right of asylum in the United States

See also

References

External links