Who Are Asylum Seekers and What's the Process? A Look at Why 27 Passengers Stayed Back in France | Explained

A Nicaragua-bound flight carrying 303 passengers, mostly Indians, was allowed to resume its journey three days after they were detained by the French authorities at an airport near Paris over suspected “human trafficking.”

The charter plane carrying 276 passengers landed in Mumbai on Tuesday, while two dozen passengers have stayed back and sought asylum in France. The passengers include 20 adults and five minors and their applications would be processed at the Paris airport.

But what is an asylum, how it is different from a migrant or a refugee and what are the conditions for seeking asylum in Europe. News18 take a look at these key questions:

Who is an Asylum Seeker?

As asylum seeker is a person who has left their country and seeking protection in another country due to persecution and human rights violations in their country, according to Amnesty International.

An asylum seeker is, however, not a refugee and is waiting to receive a decision on their asylum claim. Asylum is a fundamental right and an international obligation for countries, as recognised in the 1951 Geneva Convention on the protection of refugees.

How Asylum Seekers Differ from Migrant and Refugee?

While asylum seekers move from one country to another fearing persecution or unlawful detention, a refugee is a person who are forced to flee their country in fear of persecution and serious human rights violations.

Refugees, who have a right to international protection, have no choice but to leave and seek safety outside their country because their government cannot or will not protect them.

Asylum-seekers, on the other hand, are people whose request for refugee status, or asylum, is being processed.

Migrant, on the other hand, are people staying outside their country of origin, who are not asylum seekers or refugees. However, there is no internationally accepted legal definition of a migrant.

International Laws Regarding Asylum Seekers

The rights of migrants, refugees and asylum seekers are protected by several international law, irrespective of how and why they arrive in a country. Some of the laws listed for protecting them are:

Article 14 of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights states that everyone has the right to seek and enjoy asylum from persecution in other countries.

The 1951 UN Refugee Convention (and its 1967 Protocol) protects refugees from being returned to countries where they risk being persecuted.

The 1990 Migrant Workers Convention, which protects migrants and their families

Regional Refugee law instruments (including 1969 OAU Convention, 1984 Cartagena Declaration, Common European Asylum System and Dublin Regulation)

Asylum Seekers: Where They Come From and Where They Go?

The first-time asylum seekers are concentrated in a few European countries including Germany, the UK, Sweden, Italy and France. In the UK, the number of asylum seekers has increased from 42,000 in 2019 to 75,000 in 2023.

According to UNHCR, Europe, including Turkey, hosted more than one-third (36 per cent) of all refugees globally by the end of 2022.

The asylum seekers mostly come from countries afflicted by war and civil conflict, such as Afghanistan, Iraq, Nigeria, Pakistan and Syria.

What is the Process of Seeking Asylum

In case of Europe, the European Union has adopted various rules to manage legal migration flows, process asylum requests and return illegal migrants. In order to apply for asylum, a person must first go to the prefecture and apply for an asylum-seeker’s residence permit.

An asylum application can be lodged either on the territory of the country, from a detention centre or at the border. In all the three cases, a Border Guard officer is responsible for accepting and transferring the request to the Head of the Office for Foreigners.

The application form needs to be filled and submitted along with other documents including photographs, information and documents about the conditions under which the person entered the country and itinerary since leaving the country of origin.

A person may apply for asylum even if they do not have a passport, visa or identity documents. But in this case the person will have to make a written declaration of your name, affiliation and marital status.

A regular asylum procedure has four possible outcomes:

– The applicant is granted refugee status

– The applicant is granted subsidiary protection

– The application is rejected

– The proceedings are discontinued

In the last two cases, the authority informs the Border Guard about the outcome, subsequently allowing for return proceedings to be initiated. In case of rejection, an applicant may appeal against the decision and the Refugee Board handles the appeal against first-instance negative decisions.

The efficiency of the asylum application varies substantially among EU countries. Till 2020, the average time taken to process applications was eight months. Germany’s processing time is around nine months, but it can take much longer in some other countries like Austria (17 months) and Belgium (17.5 months).