Asylum shopping is a term for the practice by some

asylum seekers An asylum seeker is a person who leaves their country of residence, enters another country, and makes in that other country a formal application for the right of asylum according to the Universal Declaration of Human Rights Article 14. A pers ...

of applying for asylum in several states or seeking to apply in a particular state after traveling through other states. It is used mostly in the context of the

European Union The European Union (EU) is a supranational union, supranational political union, political and economic union of Member state of the European Union, member states that are Geography of the European Union, located primarily in Europe. The u ...

and the

Schengen Area The Schengen Area ( , ) encompasses European countries that have officially abolished border controls at their common borders. As an element within the wider area of freedom, security and justice (AFSJ) policy of the European Union (EU), it ...

, but has also been used by the

Federal Court of Canada The Federal Court of Canada, which succeeded the Exchequer Court of Canada in 1971, was a national court of Canada that had limited jurisdiction to hear certain types of disputes arising under the Parliament of Canada, federal government's Canadi ...

. Refugees and asylum-seekers are protected by international convention under the principle of

non-refoulement Non-refoulement () is a fundamental principle of international law anchored in the Convention Relating to the Status of Refugees that forbids a country from deporting (" refoulement") any person to any country in which their "life or freedom woul ...

, which establishes that a country cannot force someone seeking refuge to return to a country of origin if the person is likely to be persecuted there. The Dublin Convention covering the

stipulates that asylum seekers are returned to the country where their entry into the union was first recorded, and where they were first fingerprinted. Another objective of this policy is to prevent ''asylum seekers in orbit'', i.e., to prevent the continual transfer of asylum seekers between countries trying to get others to accept them. One of the objectives of the

Police and Judicial Co-operation in Criminal Matters The area of freedom, security and justice (AFSJ) of the European Union (EU) is a policy domain concerning home affairs and migration, justice as well as fundamental rights, developed to address the challenges posed to internal security by coll ...

is to prevent so-called "asylum shopping."

European law European Union law is a system of Supranational union, supranational Law, laws operating within the 27 member states of the European Union (EU). It has grown over time since the 1952 founding of the European Coal and Steel Community, to promote ...

, the Dublin Regulation, does not require that asylum seekers have their asylum claim registered in the first country they arrive in, but that the decision of the first EU country they apply in is the final decision in all EU countries. However, among some asylum seekers, fingerprinting and registration is vehemently resisted in countries that are not asylum-seeker friendly. For example, some people seek to apply for asylum in Germany and Sweden where a more serious approach to welfare and integration support is taken, and fundamental rights are more likely to be met. Some asylum seekers reportedly burned their fingers to avoid fingerprint record control in Italy so that they could apply for asylum in a different country. The fingerprint record, known as the Eurodac system, is used to intercept multiple or false asylum claims. In Ireland, two-thirds of asylum seekers whose applications failed were found to be already known to the British border authorities, a third of the time under a different nationality, such as Tanzanians claiming to be fleeing persecution in Somalia.

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Asylum Shopping Refugees Right of asylum Immigration to the United Kingdom Refugees in Europe Refugees in the United Kingdom Political pejoratives fr:Droit d'asile dans l'Union européenne#Asylum shopping it:Diritto d'asilo nell'Unione europea#Asylum shopping

See also

References