The Asylum‐Integration Paradox: Comparing Asylum Support Systems and Refugee Integration in The Netherlands and the UK
| Author | Jenny Phillimore,Linda Bakker,Sin Yi Cheung |
| Published date | 01 August 2016 |
| DOI | http://doi.org/10.1111/imig.12251 |
| Date | 01 August 2016 |
The Asylum-Integration Paradox: Comparing
Asylum Support Systems and Refugee
Integration in The Netherlands and the UK
Linda Bakker*, Sin Yi Cheung** and Jenny Phillimore***
ABSTRACT
This article explores the impact of asylum support systems on refugee integration focusing on
the UK and the Netherlands. Both have adopted deterrent approaches to asylum support. The
Dutch favour the use of asylum accommodation centres, segregating asylum seekers from the
general population. The UK disperses asylum seekers to housing within deprived areas,
embedding them within communities. Both countries have been criticized for these practices,
which are viewed as potentially anti-integrative: something of a paradox given that both pro-
mote the importance of refugee integration. We analyse national refugee integration surveys in
both countries and provide original empirical evidence of negative associations between
asylum support systems and refugees’health, which differ in relation to mental and physical
health. The integration and asylum policy implications of these findings are discussed.
INTRODUCTION
The rise in the number of individuals seeking asylum has attracted a great deal of political, policy
and public attention over the past two decades. Across Europe (EU27), asylum applications rose
from 200,000 in 2006 to 320,000 in 2012 (Eurostat).
1
With the ongoing crisis of asylum systems
in Europe, states have found themselves torn between their obligations under the 1951 Convention
relating to the Status of Refugees to confer refugee status on those with a well-founded fear of per-
secution, and increasing concerns about the costs of supporting refugees, and the impact of swel-
ling numbers upon social cohesion. While attempts to agree a common European asylum and
refugee policy have largely been resisted, most EU countries have separately developed both
asylum and integration policies.
The UK and Netherlands share many common features in their response to asylum seeking. Both
offer a rhetoric that portrays their nations as having a long history of offering sanctuary, being tol-
erant of difference and, until recently, supporting multiculturalism (Vertovec and Wessendorf,
2010). As a consequence of increasing numbers of asylum seekers, however, both countries have
witnessed the emergence of negative popular and media attitudes towards them, with arrivals being
portrayed as falsely claiming they had been persecuted in order to access housing, benefits, and
employment, and in doing so taking advantage of allegedly generous welfare states. Despite the
lack of evidence about asylum seekers being attracted by welfare provision (Robinson and Segrott,
* Erasmus University Rotterdam, the Netherlands
** Cardiff University, UK
*** University of Birmingham, UK
doi: 10.1111/imig.12251
©2016 The Authors
International Migration ©2016 IOM
International Migration Vol. 54 (4) 2016
ISS N 00 20- 7985 Published by John Wiley & Sons Ltd.
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