Melanie Griffiths is a DPhil
candidate at Oxford University, with affiliation to the Institute of
Social and Cultural Anthropology, and the Centre on Migration, Policy
and Society. Her research is on the asylum system in the UK, with a
particular focus on refused asylum seekers and immigration detainees.
Her doctoral thesis is on truth, trust and identification and she has
also written on time and uncertainty in relation to migration. Her email
address is melanie.griffiths@sant.ox.ac.uk
Asylum
seekers and refused refugees are some of the most mistrusted persons in
British society, widely assumed to be manipulating the immigration
system. In 2008-10 I conducted 18 months of anthropological fieldwork
with asylum seekers living in Oxford or held in immigration detention,
as part of a PhD at the University of Oxford researching the asylum
system. The majority of the some 300 asylum applicants I spoke to were
at some point accused by the UK Border Agency (UKBA) of providing untrue
information about who they were and what had happened to them, or
requesting asylum when they had no valid claim under the Refugee
Convention. Such accusations are crucial, given that the notoriously
difficult decision to grant refugee status is often bond up in
assessments of the applicant’s honesty or ‘credibility’.
Rather than focus on the ‘traditional’
discussion about the truthfulness of asylum seekers however, I turn the
tables on assessments of confusion and incoherence in order to explore
how asylum applicants themselves experience, understand and explain the
bureaucracy they are embedded in. I argue that deception, uncertainty
and mistrust are as much characteristics of asylum seekers’ perspective
of the immigration system as the reverse. But whilst an asylum
applicant’s inconsistency is routinely interpreted as evidence of lying,
that of UKBA representatives is considered indicative of
inconsequential errors or even new versions of the ‘truth’.
A culture of disbelief
Many organisations and advocates have argued that there is a ‘culture of disbelief’ within the UKBA, meaning that asylum seekers are met with chronic suspicion and presented as liars or cheats. This has serious implications, given that being branded a liar tends to not only affect the outcome of asylum claims, but likelihood of being detained and ability to obtain legal representation.
Many organisations and advocates have argued that there is a ‘culture of disbelief’ within the UKBA, meaning that asylum seekers are met with chronic suspicion and presented as liars or cheats. This has serious implications, given that being branded a liar tends to not only affect the outcome of asylum claims, but likelihood of being detained and ability to obtain legal representation.
Entrenched suspicion and accusations of
deception and trickery are not only directed towards asylum seekers and
immigration detainees however. Rather, mistrust is experienced by and of
most persons involved in the refugee system, including asylum seekers
mistrusting the UKBA. For some, this tipped over into believing that the
authorities deliberately lied to them. Scores claimed that the UKBA
distorted reality in order to tarnish reputations.
Confusion and inconsistency
Mistrust
of the UKBA arises from an immigration system that is deeply confusing
and imbued with uncertainty, a high error rate and sometimes apparently
arbitrary decision-making. Working in this field, one frequently
witnesses mistakes made by the UKBA, from their use of multiple
different names or dates of birth for a person within a single letter,
to extremes such as confusing which individual has been deported or
incorrectly bestowing refugee status.
Mistrust
of the UKBA arises from an immigration system that is deeply confusing
and imbued with uncertainty, a high error rate and sometimes apparently
arbitrary decision-making. Working in this field, one frequently
witnesses mistakes made by the UKBA, from their use of multiple
different names or dates of birth for a person within a single letter,
to extremes such as confusing which individual has been deported or
incorrectly bestowing refugee status.
In addition to mistakes, people spoke of
UKBA decision-making as unfair and unfathomable. Release from
immigration detention for example often appears arbitrary or
inexplicable. People can be released suddenly and unexpectedly, only to
be promptly re-detained.
Contradiction and the irrational
At times however, my informants not only expressed the opinion that the immigration system was unpredictable and confusing, but that it was downright irrational. This included instances in which the UKBA held multiple, but incompatible, positions. Twice I knew individuals who were imprisoned for using false identity documents, whilst simultaneously the UKBA insisted that their ‘real’ identities were those on the false document. I spoke to a handful of people who had been refused refugee status because they had not committed identity offences, but had travelled with ‘real’ passports or visas, which was taken to prove that their government was not seeking them. I knew one man accused of absconding from the authorities at a time when he was working as a police informer and another when he was actually in prison.
At times however, my informants not only expressed the opinion that the immigration system was unpredictable and confusing, but that it was downright irrational. This included instances in which the UKBA held multiple, but incompatible, positions. Twice I knew individuals who were imprisoned for using false identity documents, whilst simultaneously the UKBA insisted that their ‘real’ identities were those on the false document. I spoke to a handful of people who had been refused refugee status because they had not committed identity offences, but had travelled with ‘real’ passports or visas, which was taken to prove that their government was not seeking them. I knew one man accused of absconding from the authorities at a time when he was working as a police informer and another when he was actually in prison.
New truths and unlevel playing fields
‘When immigration lie it is acceptable, but when I speak they call it deception. They have language for it.’ (detainee Roger)
‘When immigration lie it is acceptable, but when I speak they call it deception. They have language for it.’ (detainee Roger)
The article suggests that although trust
and honesty are issues central to the whole British asylum system, a
reductive emphasis on the honesty of asylum applicants overlooks wider
systemic uncertainty and mistrust. Asylum applicants feel that the
authorities make arbitrary and unfair decisions that they cannot make
sense of and that hinder their ability to know what to say and do. For
them, the state is not a powerful monolithic entity, but a collection of
administrators who are in permanent contradiction. That policymakers
and bureaucrats might make errors or unfathomable, inconsistent
decisions is not in itself surprising. However, two points make this
particularly pertinent in the context of the asylum and immigration
detention systems.
Firstly, for asylum seekers and
detainees, the immigration system is not simply a bureaucracy that they
are sometimes frustratingly forced to engage with. Rather, especially
for those incarcerated, it is one that frames their entire lives and in
which mistakes have serious repercussions for their immediate lives and
potential futures. Secondly, there is an irony in a system that is
itself imbued with error and confusion, placing such great primacy on
the truthfulness of asylum seekers, that narrative inconsistencies can
undermine the chances of a person receiving refugee protection. The
British asylum process operates under the assumption that ‘truthful’
applicants present their stories in a ‘coherent and consistent’ manner,
attributes that are often missing in the authorities’ own responses. As
such, asylum seekers are held to a higher standard of truth-telling than
those making decisions about their claims.
I
would go even further and suggest that the ‘truth value’ of UKBA
representatives is considered far greater than those subject to the
asylum and detention systems, allowing the former to insist on
particular versions of the ‘truth’, and threaten individuals who resist
it with criminal repercussion. This commonly includes disputes over the
nationality of failed asylum seekers, with individuals imprisoned for
not cooperating with removal to a country they insist is not their own.
Furthermore, errors made but denied by the UKBA can become a new version
of the ‘truth’, with applicants accused of deception if they do not
conform to them.
I do not suggest that asylum seekers do
not ‘lie’ (as problematic as that term is), merely that an examination
of the context in which they are embedded may help illuminate systemic
tensions and individual’s decision-making. In fact, lying cam even be
interpreted as a rational response to negotiating a complex and
inconsistent immigration system. The reality of my fieldsite was messy
and complicated and although I frequently encountered scenarios which I
knew involved untruths, my uncertainty as to where the ‘truth’ lay and
the nagging sense of irrationality that I often felt, was as much the
case in conversations with the UKBA as with asylum seekers.
This is a much shortened version
of the full article. The journal, Anthropology Today, however has
kindly provided open access to the article for six months. You can read
the full article here.
Please forward the article to
anyone you think would be interested. And if you would like to share
your thoughts, opinions or own experience then please do join the
discussion here.Bron: http://ncadc.org.uk/blog/2012/11/vile-liars-and-truth-distorters-truth-trust-and-the-asylum-system/
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