For governments the world over, the subject of immigration is a double-edged sword. Immigration policies have the potential to rally some voters whilst alienating others. In the lead-up to the May 2015 UK General Election the political and public rhetoric on immigration is, predictably, growing increasingly firm. While the aim is to paint a picture of a government that is capably and confidently tackling weak spots in the management of migration, what is less evident is the particularly detrimental impact of this rhetoric upon the asylum system, particularly in the area of decision-making known as the ‘credibility assessment’.
The challenge of assessing ‘credibility’ in asylum
In the UK and around the world it is well known amongst those working in refugee protection that assessing the “credibility” of an asylum applicant’s claim is an extremely challenging task. Decision-makers are expected to gather and consider as much relevant evidence as they can in order to determine which aspects of an asylum applicant’s claims about past and present events (‘past’ being an experience of torture, ‘present’ being gay, for example) they can accept. This is even before they go on to assess, based on what they accept of the claim, whether the individual may be at risk of persecution if returned to their country of origin.
