Queer Credibility in the Homonation-State: Interrogating the Affective Impacts of Credibility Assessments on Racialized Sexual Minority Refugee Claimants

Abstract

This article critically appraises Canadian Immigration and Refugee Board decision-making that imposes burdens on diverse sexual orientation and gender identity and expression refugee claimants of colour to prove that they are queer according to homonationalist interpretations of queerness. This article examines decisions clustered around historical developments in the reception of racialized sexual minorities, including Canada (AG) v Ward, which made sexual minority refugee claims possible; Bill C-31, the immigration and refugee policy motivated by national security interests in the post-9/11 era; and 2017 guidelines designed to dispel misunderstandings about refugee claimants' sexuality. Across this history, credibility assessments of refugee claims have undergone significant recalibrations, yet continue to reflect homonationalist values.

Refugee Status Determination in Canada: Ensuring Procedural Fairness at the Immigration and Refugee Board

“…(Mulé, 2020;Bhuyan et al, 2016). Indeed, since decision-makers are Canadian citizens and are likely to have been raised within a western setting, their ideals, understandings, and practices might differ from a claimant who grew up in South America or Asia (Rinaldi, 2019;Cameron, 2018;Rousseau et al, 2002).…”

Timescapes in Public Policy – Constructing the “Victim of Trafficking”

“…The incorporation of narratives such as N's into official guidance increases the likelihood of others providing similar narratives will be recognised as credible. Those not providing one of these normative narratives are likely to be identified as an attempted fraud; class, gender and sexuality are all implicated as differentiating characteristics in the extant literature on the role of hegemonic narratives on credibility assessments (Rinaldi & Fernando, 2019;Wikström & Johansson, 2013). However, The change in the structure of the law, with the repeal of earlier acts as they are replaced by the single Modern Slavery Act 2015, implicates time as framing the policy field and the responses of public agents.…”

Liberation Nation? Queer Refugees, Homonationalism and the Canadian Necropolitical State

“…Under section 3.1, the David Murray guidelines acknowledge that, "Depending on factors such as race, ethnicity, religion, faith or belief system, age, disability, health status, social class and education, individuals with diverse sexual orientation and gender identity expressions recognize and act on these expressions differently" (p. 69) This nuanced, intersectional 'guideline' also recognizes that the harms experienced by diverse SOGIE refugees may be compounded and unique as the result of the confluence of racial or ethnic identity with sexual orientation or gender identity expression. It is still too early to determine the effectiveness of the guidelines, but recent research by Rinaldi and Fernando (2019) indicates that there have not been any substantial changes in IRB decision making processes, which continue to apply stereotypes when processing (and rejecting) diverse SOGIE applications. This is not all that surprising, given that the state refugee apparatus is still predicated on separating 'real' from 'fake' refugees through a quasi-juridical process administered by a bureaucratic regime invested in both securitizing borders despite the acceptance of a new highly delimited form of sexual citizenship premised upon specific assemblage of socio-cultural, racial, and economic characteristics.…”