Matching Items (3)
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Description
During the 1980s hundreds of thousands of Central American refugees streamed into the United States and Canada in the Central American Refugee Crisis (CARC). Fleeing homelands torn apart by civil war, millions of Guatemalans, Nicaraguans and Salvadorans fled northward seeking a safer and more secure life. This dissertation takes a

During the 1980s hundreds of thousands of Central American refugees streamed into the United States and Canada in the Central American Refugee Crisis (CARC). Fleeing homelands torn apart by civil war, millions of Guatemalans, Nicaraguans and Salvadorans fled northward seeking a safer and more secure life. This dissertation takes a "bottom-up" approach to policy history by focusing on the ways that "ground-level" actors transformed and were transformed by the CARC in Canada and the United States. At the Mexico-US and US-Canada borders Central American refugees encountered border patrol agents, immigration officials, and religious activists, all of whom had a powerful effect on the CARC and were deeply affected by their participation at the crisis. Using government archives, news media articles, legal filings and oral history this study examines a series of events during the CARC. Highlighting the role of "ground level" actors, this dissertation uses three specific case studies to look at how individuals, small groups, and a border town transformed and were transformed by the Central American Refugee Crisis. It argues that (#1) the CARC deeply affected the lives of those who participated in it, and (#2) the actors' interpretation and negotiation of, as well as resistance to, refugee policy changed the shape and outcomes of the Central American Refugee Crisis.
ContributorsRosinbum, John (Author) / Hoerder, Dirk (Thesis advisor) / Stoner, Lynn (Thesis advisor) / Menjivar, Ceclia (Committee member) / Arizona State University (Publisher)
Created2014
Description
Immigrants, refugees, asylum seekers. Three words describing the same group of people. Individuals seeking a better, safer life.

Western media is focused right now, in 2016, on the humanitarian crisis from the Middle East to the European Union; just like two years ago it was centered on the huge numbers

Immigrants, refugees, asylum seekers. Three words describing the same group of people. Individuals seeking a better, safer life.

Western media is focused right now, in 2016, on the humanitarian crisis from the Middle East to the European Union; just like two years ago it was centered on the huge numbers of unaccompanied minors immigrating into the United States from Central America. Media changes its focus but problems do not end with a change of headlines.

Unaccompanied minors are the most vulnerable population looking for asylum. This study looks at two different immigration flows of unaccompanied minors: one from the Middle East going to the European Union; and the other one from Central America to the United States.

This research finds similarities and differences between these two flows of migrant children related to the reasons why they leave their countries of origin, their experiences during the trip to the destination countries, the asylum process, the legal status of these children and how these minors are perceived by societies in the destination countries. Using a human rights law framework, this thesis will explore the continuum of violations of human rights that these children endure on their journey from their origin countries to their destination states.

Through interviews with former and current direct providers of unaccompanied minors seeking asylum, previous scholarly work, documentaries and news articles on the subject, it will make clear that these two flows of children fleeing to different destinations have much more in common than what may be initially perceived.

This emergent, exploratory and inductive qualitative research will bring light to asylum law and question why the social responsibility to protect children seems to skip the most vulnerable ones: unaccompanied minors seeking asylum.
ContributorsTomasini, Maria Lujan (Author) / Luna, Ilana (Thesis advisor) / Vargas, Carlos (Committee member) / Cuadraz, Gloria (Committee member) / Arizona State University (Publisher)
Created2016
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Description
Though LGBT people have been able to seek asylum in the United States since the ‘90s, they still face a multitude of challenges upon arrival in the US as well as in their application process, leaving an air of uncertainty for many whether they will be successful in their cases.

Though LGBT people have been able to seek asylum in the United States since the ‘90s, they still face a multitude of challenges upon arrival in the US as well as in their application process, leaving an air of uncertainty for many whether they will be successful in their cases. This thesis seeks to understand these challenges and how they relate to the perception of identities of LGBT asylum seekers, especially as it relates to Western stereotypes of gender and sexuality. To examine these issues, this thesis includes in-depth interviews with four officials who work closely with asylum seekers to incorporate their input on the asylum system as a whole and how the system impacts LGBT asylum seekers. Based on the analysis of court cases and supplementary qualitative data, this thesis aims to reveal the implications of relying on “consistency” as evidence of credibility based on the stereotypes and how this can harm LGBT asylum seekers as well as others outside of the LGBT community. Finally, this thesis proposes an intervention to alleviate these challenges not only for those in the LGBT community but for everyone seeking asylum in the US and suggests a new framework for how to understand and communicate identities of asylum seekers without limited definitions of their sexual identities or stripping them of autonomy.
ContributorsCordwell, Cailan Rose (Author) / Lee, Sangmi (Thesis advisor) / Wheatley, Abby (Committee member) / Goksel, Nisa (Committee member) / Arizona State University (Publisher)
Created2023