Ruud Koopmans: The Asylum Lottery: The Challenges of Refugee Policy Making

The European asylum system has become a lottery: Geographical
location, money, fitness, and sheer luck on the dangerous land and
sea routes determine who makes it to the border, can apply for
asylum, and immigrate. This is not the way to help those most in
need, and it creates numerous problems for Europe in terms of
integration. The complex web of restrictions and regulations around
the right to asylum is a symptom of a refugee policy that rewards
people who make it to Europe's borders. Those who don't make it are
left behind. But Europe is not doing itself any favors with this
system. In his talk, Ruud Koopmans uses concrete cases and
statistical data to describe why the current system makes
integration more difficult, threatens internal security,
strengthens right-wing populism, divides Europe, and makes it
dependent on autocrats who open or close their borders to Europe
according to their own whims. The so-called refugee crisis of 2015
is proving to be a home-grown crisis of asylum policy. Koopman’s
review, based on several years of research, concludes with a
pragmatic proposal on how we can regain control through generous
humanitarian admissions combined with curbing irregular immigration
– so that asylum policy does not remain a life-threatening lottery
game. Ruud Koopmans is Director of the Research Unit Migration,
Integration, Transnationalization.