Asylum seeker

An asylum seeker or asylum-seeker is a person who leaves their country of residence, enters another country, and makes in that other country a formal application for the right of asylum according to the Universal Declaration of Human Rights Article 14. A person keeps the status of asylum seeker until the right of asylum application has concluded.
The relevant immigration authorities of the country of asylum determine whether the asylum seeker will be granted the right of asylum protection or whether asylum will be refused and the asylum seeker becomes an illegal immigrant who may be asked to leave the country and may even be deported in line with non-refoulement. Signatories to the Universal Declaration of Human Rights create their own policies for assessing the protection status of asylum seekers, and the proportion of asylum applicants who are accepted or rejected varies each year from country to country.
The asylum seeker may be simultaneously recognized as a refugee and given refugee status if their circumstances fall into the definition of refugee according to the Convention relating to the Status of Refugees or regionally applicable refugee laws—such as the European Convention on Human Rights, if within the European Union.
The terms asylum seeker, refugee and illegal immigrant are often confused. In North American English, the term asylee is used both for an asylum seeker, as defined above, and a person whose right of asylum has been granted.

Asylum and protection

The right of asylum according to the Article 14 of Universal Declaration of Human Rights:
Asylum seekers who have committed crimes against peace, a war crime or a crime against humanity, or other non-political crimes, or whose actions are contrary to the purposes and principles of the United Nations, are excluded from international protection. This asylum right is also included in 1951 Convention Relating to the Status of Refugees and 1967 Protocol Relating to the Status of Refugees. As of 1 July 2013, there were 145 parties to the 1951 Refugee Convention and 146 to the 1967 Protocol. These states are bound by an obligation under international law to grant asylum to people who fall within the definition of Convention and Protocol. Persons who do not fall within this definition may still be granted refugee according to the refugee definitions of 1951 Convention Relating to the Status of Refugees and the 1967 Protocol Relating to the Status of Refugees and persons who fall within this definition are called Convention refugees and their status is called Convention refugee status. Complementary forms of protection exist depending on country if the person falls within other refugee definitions.
The practical determination of whether a person obtains the right of asylum or not is most often left to certain government agencies within the host country. In some countries the is done by the UNHCR. The burden of substantiating an asylum claim lies with the claimant, who must establish that they qualify for protection.
In many countries, country-of-origin information is used by migration officials as part of the assessment of asylum claims, and governments commission research into the accuracy of their country reports. Some countries have studied the rejection rates of their migration officials making decisions, finding that individuals reject more applicants than others assessing similar cases—and migration officials are required to standardise the reasons for accepting or rejecting claims, so that the decision of one adjudicator is consistent with what their colleagues decide.

Subsidiary protection status

is an international protection for persons seeking asylum who do not qualify as refugees. It is an option to get asylum for those who do not have a well-founded fear of persecution, but do indeed have a substantial risk to be subjected to torture or to a serious harm if they are returned to their country of origin, for reasons that include war, violence, conflict and massive violations of human rights. The Universal Declaration of Human Rights and European Union law have a broader definition of who is entitled to asylum.

Temporary protection visa

s are used to persons in Australia who applied for refugee status after making an unauthorised arrival. It is the main type of visa issued to refugees when released from Australian immigration detention facilities and they are required to reapply for it every three years.

Statistics of asylum decisions

In the past 2 decades the number people applying for asylum every year varied between 0.6 and 2.8 million.
Outcomes of asylum applications 2000-2023 according to UNHCR:

Year	Total	Asylum Granted	Other Protection	Rejected	Otherwise closed
2023	2,498,303	612,908	210,910	581,725	1,092,760
2022	2,057,838	535,551	181,210	584,481	756,596
2021	1,422,047	381,074	114,406	528,552	398,015
2020	1,381,088	350,791	108,794	542,999	379,044
2019	1,730,880	446,842	123,555	664,540	494,663
2018	1,647,261	351,123	148,849	633,046	514,242
2017	2,006,176	483,885	248,316	753,286	520,689
2016	2,844,805	564,859	335,016	604,795	1,340,135
2015	1,647,628	443,658	237,475	500,805	465,690
2014	1,393,642	277,959	336,783	429,690	349,210
2013	880,516	213,642	72,597	375,408	218,869
2012	913,275	210,828	50,902	436,913	204,849
2011	768,675	172,467	43,714	359,759	192,043
2010	730,596	174,983	47,676	355,271	152,667
2009	762,119	229,008	50,615	321,589	161,411
2008	706,269	156,297	63,889	325,688	154,869
2007	644,001	149,460	60,051	260,306	174,206
2006	692,537	141,358	50,711	306,655	193,757
2005	829,228	153,057	51,197	361,864	263,110
2004	891,175	128,182	51,212	445,057	266,665
2003	1,002,084	146,358	49,099	522,096	285,406
2002	1,010,251	161,926	62,105	524,552	261,728
2001	946,486	169,283	79,652	452,180	245,155
2000	1,090,296	203,350	93,392	543,111	249,475

The percentage of women among asylum seekers to Europe from 2008 to 2018 was 31%, which could be explained by factors including gender inequality in origin country and economic incentives.

Status determination processes

Group determination

Asylum seekers may be given refugee status on a group basis. Refugees who went through the group status determination are also referred to as prima facie refugees. This is done in situations when the reasons for seeking refugee status are generally well known and individual assessment would otherwise overwhelm the capacities of assessors. Group determination is more readily done in states that not only have accepted the refugee definition of the 1951 Convention, but also use a refugee definition that includes people fleeing indiscriminate or generalized violence, which are not covered in the 1951 Convention.

Individual assessment

For persons who do not come into the country as part of a bigger group, individual asylum interviews are conducted to establish whether the person has sufficient reasons for seeking asylum. Meanwhile, high numbers of asylum seekers necessitate governments to provide machine learning systems to assist both asylum seekers and immigration officers in performing fair and just assessments.

Appeals

In many countries, asylum applicants can challenge a rejection by challenging the decision in a court or migration review panel. In the United Kingdom, more than one in four decisions to refuse an asylum seeker protection are overturned by immigration judges.

Rights of asylum seekers

Whilst waiting for a decision asylum seekers have limited rights in the country of asylum. In most countries they are not allowed to work and in some countries not even to volunteer. In some countries they are not allowed to move freely within the country. Even access to health care is limited. In the European Union, those who have yet to be granted official status as refugees and are still within the asylum process have some restricted rights to healthcare access. This includes access to medical and psychological care. However, these may vary depending on the host country. For instance, under the Asylum Seekers Benefits Act in Germany, asylum seekers are outside primary care and are limited to emergency health care, vaccinations, pregnancy and childbirth with limitations on specialty care. Asylum seekers have greater chance of experiencing unmet health needs as compared to the general German population. Asylum seekers also have greater odds of hospital admissions and at least one visit to a psychotherapist relative to the German general population.