Liza Schuster is a Senior Lecturer in the Department of Sociology at City University, London. She is currently working on a study of migrants in transit, and also works on migration, asylum and racism in Europe.

Recent articles

Once again, the European Union has rejected the opportunity to correct some of the worst abuses on its territory and instead will introduce a Returns Directive that institutionalizes the worst practices. And yet the UK will not sign - although in some respects it needs to be restrained most.

Today’s utopia is tomorrow’s realism. Keeping alive the possibility of a free migration, “open borders” policy is an investment in everyone’s future.

People fleeing to Europe to seek protection against human rights abuses are trapped in a further cycle of degradation. With a panoply of controls, states ignore or circumvent existing conventions across the continent. How then can the rights of asylum-seekers be defended?