The problem with asylum-seeker dispersal

Based on research in Hull, this article considers whether initial failings of national dispersal policy were merely transitional. Declining rates of ‘drift’, whereby asylum seekers voluntarily leave dispersal sites, suggests that this may be so. However, I argue that dispersal policy is unlikely to work in places like Hull that are relatively economically depressed and ‘monocultural’. The best that can be hoped for is that asylum-seekers experience a reasonable quality of welfare during their usually short stay. In this respect, a good deal more still needs to be done. Three key issues are considered: social networks; social tensions; and support systems. Particular criticism is reserved for the continuing practice of ‘contracting out’ to the private sector

Biological dispersal · Criticism · Hull · Mythology · Political science · Population · Refugee · Social Welfare · Sociology · Welfare · Work (physics · Demography · Engineering · History · Law · Migration and Labor Dynamics · Migration, Health and Trauma · Migration, Refugees, and Integration