Pro-asylum Advocacy in the EU: Challenging the State of Exception

Introduction. This chapter explores examples of how pro-asylum advocates challenge the harsh measures used to punish those who try to enter or reside in the EU illegally, taking examples from The Netherlands and the UK. We explore organized resistance to the ‘3-Ds’, which are so typical of EU-wide migration policies: destitution, detention and deportation. Together these are the backbone of policies of deterrence. Sections 2 and 3 explore how ‘global apartheid’ and the ‘state of exception’ within the EU connect. Giorgio Agamben (2005) first theorized the “state of exception” and Kohler, “global apartheid” (1978). The state of exception is the regional context for pro-asylum advocacy work, and global apartheid is the global context within which the EU-wide state of exception can be understood (Webber 2000; Migreurop 2009). In section 4, the ‘shared injustice frames’, or common worldviews, of pro-asylum advocacy networks in the EU, are briefly explored. Section 5 presents examples of pro-asylum advocacy work from the UK and the Netherlands. These examples draw on our own background experience and research. We explore how two pro-asylum advocacy organizations, one a loose network, the other a small NGO, have tried to organize to protect those seeking sanctuary against the 3-Ds. The right not to be deliberately made homeless, not to be imprisoned at will, and not to be forcibly expelled to dangerous countries, are thus the main focus of these organizations, and of section 5. In section 6, we briefly explore some positive recent developments, such as the ‘sanctuary campaign’ in the UK, but also how resistance to deterrence policies has had to go ‘underground’ in the face of criminalization in both the EU and elsewhere, such as Canada (Fekete 2009; Nyers 2003).

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