La politique britannique de dispersion des demandeurs d’asile depuis 1999 : l’exemple de la ville de Glasgow

Abstract

This paper shows that the punitiveness of the British immigration and asylum policy aims at deterring asylum seekers from coming to the United Kingdom. Since 1999 the successive British governments have devised a very tough legal framework which enforces the circulation of asylum seekers and their conditions of living. On the one hand, the case study of Glasgow shows that the policy of dispersal of asylum seekers has been highly instrumental in driving them towards destitution and homelessness. On the other hand, it puts forward evidence of a specific way of dealing with asylum seekers in Scotland fuelled by the city’s urban and social history as well as the political and institutional tensions generated by the devolution of some powers to the Scottish Parliament since 1999.

Keywords

• asylum seekers
• refugees
• dispersal
• Scotland
• Glasgow