Managing Expectations: Impacts of Hostile Migration Policies on Practitioners in Britain, Denmark and Sweden

Abstract

The acknowledgement that asylum systems across Europe are “hostile environments” for migrant groups has increased in academic and practitioner consciousness, particularly in the aftermath of the 2015 refugee reception crisis. However, although the impacts of socio-political hostilities on migrants are well documented, little has been written about the implications of border restrictions on practitioners working with refugee populations. This article expands the focus of hostilities to consider the variable impacts of intensified bordering practices on this group. Based on qualitative research which included 74 interviews undertaken across Britain, Denmark, and Sweden (2016–2018), it outlines the experiences of practitioners working with refugee populations. It highlights that increasingly restrictive or punitive approaches to immigration have had multiple negative effects on practitioners working in this sector. This has potential for longer term negative impacts on practitioners, but also—importantly-refugee populations who require various forms of legal aid, or social and psychological support.

The Impossibility of Home: Displacement and Border Practices in Times of Crisis

“…The French government under President Emmanuel Macron has accompanied aggressive policing tactics with a politics of fear, exacerbating and exploiting Islamophobic sentiments and conflating immigrants with terrorists and criminals. Canning (2021) looks at the effects of hardening border practices and policing within Britain, Denmark and Sweden on lawyers, psychologists and others working with asylum seekers and refugees. She finds a number of predictable effects, of secondary trauma, compassion fatigue and burn-out, but more concerningly, her work also finds a weakening of trust in the state and state institutions.…”