Regional Focus: United States

Short pieces:

The Escalating Threat of Third Country Deportations (The Asylumist Blog, July 2026) [text]

FIFA World Cup 2026: Americans Welcomed the World Despite Restrictive Immigration Policies (Immigration Impact Blog, July 2026) [text]

An immigration law error in the court’s asylum decision threatens immigration courts (SCOTUSblog, July 2026) [text]

Key Trump Deportation Strategies: Removing, Replacing, and Pressuring Immigration Judges (Just Security, July 2026) [text]

Trump’s New Anti-Legal Immigration Rules Target Students, Spouses of US Citizens (CATO At Liberty Blog, July 2026) [text]

US: Haitians Set to Lose Protections, Risk Return to Violence (HRW, July 2026) [text]

- See also related article in The New Humanitarian and post on Immigration Impact.

Why It’s Wrong to Involuntarily Mobilize Reserve JAGs for Immigration Cases (Just Security, July 2026) [text]

- Note: JAGs = Judge Advocates General

**Visit the Americas Migration Brief and ImmProf Blog for more extensive round-ups of news and publications.**

Reports:

Agents of Chaos and Cruelty: How the Trump Administration's National Deportation Policing Force Has Attacked American Communities (ACLU, July 2026) [text]

Immigration Militarization, WashU Law Legal Studies Research Paper, no. 26 (Washington Univ. in St. Louis, June 2026) [text]

Journal articles:

"Albanians from Kosovo in the United States: To Stay, Migrate, or Return," Journal on Migration and Human Security, OnlineFirst, 9 July 2026 [open access]

"Comparative Visions for a U.S. Group-Based Asylum Proposal," Columbia Human Rights Law Review, vol. 57, no. 3 (2026) [full-text]

"Estimates of the Size and Composition of the Undocumented Immigrant Population in the U.S. in 2024," Journal on Migration and Human Security, OnlineFirst, 16 July 2026 [full-text]

"Third-Country Deportations: Legal and Ethical Problems," Journal on Migration and Human Security, OnlineFirst, 17 July 2026 [full-text]

"The Trump Effect: US Immigration Policy and Transit Migrants in Central America," Journal on Migration and Human Security, OnlineFirst, 12 July 2026 [full-text]

Multimedia:

“My Freedom was Taken from me.” Exposing Trump’s Shady Third Country Deportation Deals, Forced from Home Podcast Series, no. 6 (Refugees International, June 2026) [access]

Related posts:

- Regional Focus: United States - Pt. 1 (7 July 2026)

- Regional Focus: United States - Pt. 2 (7 July 2026)

Regional Focus: Europe - Pt. 2

New open access books:

From arrival to settlement: Vulnerabilities of asylum seekers and refugees in Europe (Neodemos Association, Feb. 2026) [open access]

- "The new open-access ebook produced as part of the AVRAI (Assessing the Vulnerability of Refugees and Asylum Seekers in Italy) project addresses [the meaning of vulnerability]. Rather than taking vulnerability for granted, the book invites readers to rethink it as a dynamic and relational condition, emerging at the intersection of individual characteristics, social environments, and institutional responses. In doing so, it challenges both emergency-driven humanitarian frameworks and the rigid policy classifications that dominate the European context."

Migration as Anchorage: Ethnography of a Palestinian Family in London (Berghahn Books, Dec. 2025) [open access]

"On a temporary visit to London, a Palestinian family found themselves unable to return to Gaza during Israel’s 2008 war on their city. Understanding their stay in London as an act of ‘anchoring’, the family opened a Palestinian café and sought to make their lives – as individuals, as a family and as a community – viable in the face of uncertainty. By following the stories of various family members as they struggled to recreate a sense of home, this moving ethnography introduces the concept of anchorage as a novel lens to understand migration, home and place, highlighting the fluidity, temporariness and serendipity of these experiences."

Working the Dutch Asylum Apparatus: An Ethnography of Suspicious Compassion and State Power (Berghahn Books, March 2026) [open access]

- "Since the 1970s, the recurring discourse of a ‘refugee crisis’ in Europe has affected border strategies that create a context of suspicion and criminalise asylum applicants. This book examines how the Netherlands engages with the arrival of certain (often illegalised) travellers and the asylum procedure, a tense liminal space and time that ensures decisions of inclusion and exclusion. Dutch asylum procedure is a peculiar legal procedure that gathers different people and sensitivities together to make swift, life-altering decisions for those applying for protection. Based on an extensive ethnography, this book reveals the ways in which suspicious compassion in Dutch asylum pervades an objective decision-making practice."

Journal articles:

"Anti-refugee Violence and Social Marginalization of Refugees: Evidence from Germany," International Migration Review, OnlineFirst, 24 Feb. 2026 [open access]

"Camp studies trapped in the camp? Re-articulating recent Greek history through the camp as a productive device," Political Geography, vol. 124 (Jan. 2026) [open access]

"Doing Agency through Personal Networks: The Case of Ukrainian Forced Migrants in Romania," Global Networks, vol. 26, no. 2 (April 2026) [open access]

"The European Union as a humanitarian border: the production of vulnerability in the New Pact on Migration and Asylum," Space and Polity, Latest Articles, 24 Feb. 2026 [open access]

"HIV self-testing awareness among African refugee male sex workers in Italy: A mixed-methods study," PLoS One 21(2): e0343441 (Feb. 2026) [open access]

"Motus Internus: Narrative Turning Points and the Intragroup Emergence of Dehumanizing Ideologies Among Migrants," International Migration Review, OnlineFirst, 2 March 2026 [open access]

- Focuses on Italy.

"Multidimensional effects of conflict-induced violence on wartime migration decisions: evidence from Ukraine," Journal of Peace Research, vol. 62, no. 6 (Nov. 2025) [open access]

"Networked Migrants and De-Networked Policies—Examining the Nexus of Migration Regimes and Experiences Through a Relational Lens," Global Networks, vol. 26, no. 2 (April 2026) [open access]

"Racialised deservingness and peripheral whiteness: the case of Albanian asylum seekers in Britain," Journal of Ethnic and Migration Studies, Latest Articles, 18 Feb. 2026 [open access]

"Translating ‘legitimate’ violence in deportation: a bottom-up relational approach to EU policy norms in practice," Journal of Ethnic and Migration Studies, Latest Articles, March 2026 [open access]

Related post:

- Regional Focus: Europe - Pt. 1 (4 March 2026)

Regional Focus: Europe - Pt. 1

Opportunity:

Debate: Fortress Europe 2.0? The New EU Migration Pact, London, 24 March 2026 [info]

Short pieces:

EU Council gives final greenlight to new EU asylum measures (InfoMigrants, Feb. 2026) [text]

- "The Council of the European Union has now formally adopted the first EU-wide list of safe countries of origin, to be used in asylum application cases, as well as a revision of the safe third countries concept."

Major overhaul of asylum system introduces 30-month refugee leave under ‘core protection’ model (EIN, March 2026) [text]

- Focuses on the UK.

Neither innovative nor smart: externalisation as a migration policy path of human rights risk (COE Commissioner for Human Rights, Feb. 2026) [text]

**For much more news and info on the latest developments, check out the ECRE Weekly Bulletin.**

Reports:

Country Guidance: Explained (EU Agency for Asylum, Feb. 2026) [access]

Forced displacement from Ukraine: The potential role of migration in Ukraine's future reconstruction (Danish Institute for International Studies, Feb. 2026) [text]

Guidance Note on Albania (UNHCR, Feb. 2026) [text]

Latest Asylum Trends 2025: Annual Analysis (EU Agency for Asylum, March 2026) [text]

Observations on the new EU returns framework (COE Commissioner for Human Rights, March 2026) [text]

Practical Guide on Access to the Asylum Procedure (EU Agency for Asylum & Frontex, Feb. 2026) [text]

- See also related leaflet, poster and pocketbook.

Racial Logics of Irregular Migration in Europe: Policy, Perception, and Precarity (I-CLAIM, Feb. 2026) [text]

Related post:

- Regional Focus: Europe (18 Feb. 2026)

Regional Focus: Europe - Pt. 2

Journal articles:

"Beyond the far-right: an ethnographic approach to cultural and institutional grievances in migration-centred mobilisations in Cyprus and Greece," Journal of Ethnic and Migration Studies, Latest Articles, 31 Jan. 2026 [open access]

"'The Concept of a Better Life': The Transit of Bangladeshi Migrants to the Schengen Area via Central and Eastern Europe," Population, Space and Place, vol. 32, no. 1 (Jan. 2026) [open access]

"Conspiracy Beliefs and the 'Us Versus Them' Mentality: Identity Threat and Attitudes Toward Ukrainian Refugees in Slovakia," Journal of Applied Social Psychology, Early View, 25 Jan. 2026 [open access]

"(Im)permanent Settlement: Protracted Displacement and Secondary Movement Experiences of Syrian Refugees from Turkey to Austria," Social Sciences, vol. 15, no. 2 (Jan. 2026) [open access]

"International refugee norm sabotage: An analysis of anti-migration groups in the UK," British Journal of Politics and International Relations, vol. 28, no. 1 (Feb. 2026) [open access]

"Migrant deservingness as an emerging concept: Unveiling public views on asylum seeker settlement through conjoint analysis," International Journal of Intercultural Relations, vol. 111 (March 2026) [open access]

- Focuses on Belgium.

Mondes & Migrations, no. 1352 (Jan. 2026) [open access]

- Themed issue on "Sous-traiter les frontières," with a dossier on "L’Union européenne et les États d’Afrique face aux migrations: coopération ou impasse?"

"Politicising safety and racialised and gendered criminalisation: Political agenda-setting and the case of Albanian asylum-seekers in the UK," British Journal of Politics and International Relations, OnlineFirst, 20 Jan. 2026 [open access]

"Testing the liberal borders of the EU: (De)Constructing the right of asylum through informality," Political Geography, vol. 126 (April 2026) [open access]

- Focuses on the Italian-Slovenian border. 

Related post:

- Regional Focus: Europe - Pt.  1 (4 Feb. 2026)

Thematic Focus: Human Trafficking & Smuggling

Short pieces:

The Attorney–Smuggler Analogy: Parallel Economies of Mobility at the US–Mexico Border (Border Criminologies Blog, Nov. 2025) [text]

The discursive construction of Albanian migrants and the erosion of modern slavery protection (Border Criminologies Blog, Dec. 2025) [text]

- Focuses on the UK.

The Global Alliance to Counter Migrant Smuggling reinforces its commitments in its second Conference (European Commission, Dec. 2025) [text]

Reports:

Decriminalizing Migrant Smuggling (SSRN, Aug. 2025) [text]

- Focuses on the US.

How Smuggling Really Works: Drivers, Operations, and Impacts (Mixed Migration Centre, Dec. 2025) [access]

- Follow link for report and recording of related panel discussion.

Protecting the Vulnerable: An IRC Brief on Displacement and TIP in Central Africa (International Rescue Committee, Nov. 2025) [text]

Strengthening Responses to Migrant Smuggling (UN Network on Migration, Dec. 2025) [access]

Journal articles:

"From Engagement to Co-Production: Lived Experience and Research for Policy on Modern Slavery and Human Trafficking," Journal of Human Trafficking, Latest Articles, 7 Dec. 2025 [open access]

"Fugitive Junctures: Life-Seeking, Route-Finding and the Mobile Ensemble at Kenya's Borders," Transactions of the Institute of British Geographers, Early View, 19 Dec. 2025 [open access]

"Human Trafficking: Challenges and Innovative Approaches for Research, Policy and Practice," Journal of Criminal Law, OnlineFirst, 21 Jan. 2026 [free full-text]

- Introduction to forthcoming special issue.

"The lived experiences of Ethiopian women trafficked to the Middle East: Departure motives, gender-specific trauma, and coping strategies," Journal of Migration and Health, vol. 13 (2026) [open access]

"Trust at Work: Lessons Learned from Co-Researchers Who Have Experienced Human Trafficking," International Journal of Qualitative Methods, 24 Dec. 2025 [open access]

Related post:

- Thematic Focus: Human Trafficking & Smuggling (10 Nov. 2025)

Regional Focus: Europe - Pt. 1

Blog posts & press:

Germany: Finding housing as a refugee – an obstacle course (InfoMigrants, Sept. 2022) [Pt. 1] [Pt. 2] [Pt. 3]

The UK-Rwanda asylum deal indicates a failure to make human rights a reality (Africa at LSE Blog, Sept. 2022) [text]

Ukraine war: why Russians fleeing conscription should be treated as refugees (The Conversation, Sept. 2022) [text]

"What a far-right government in Italy means for asylum seekers and migrants," The New Humanitarian, 28 Sept. 2022 [text]

Why are so many Albanian asylum claims succeeding if the country is so “safe and prosperous”? (Free Movement Blog, Sept. 2022) [text]

Reports:

Between inclusion and exclusion: Protection under EU law for Russians refusing to perform military service, Policy Brief, no. 3 (Protect Project, Sept. 2022) [text]

- See also related blog post.

Long-term Protection in Europe Needed for Ukrainian Refugees (Clingendael, Sept. 2022) [text]

Nationality-Based Bans from the Schengen Zone: Dissecting a Populist Proposal and Its Unlawful Implementation by Poland and the Baltic States, Working Paper, no. 160 (COMPAS, Sept. 2022) [text]

Quo Vadis EU Asylum Reform? Stuck Between Gradual Approach, (Mini)-Package Deals and Instrumentalisation (ECRE, Sept. 2022) [text]

Responding to Ukraine’s Displacement Crisis: From Speed to Sustainability (International Crisis Group, Sept. 2022) [text]

Related post:

- Regional Focus: Europe - Pt. 1 (22 Sept. 2022)

- Regional Focus: Europe - Pt. 2 (22 Sept. 2022)

Regional Focus: Europe

Note: Coverage relating to the invasion of Ukraine is provided in separate posts here and here.

Blog posts & press:

Briefing: the (sorry) state of the UK asylum system (Free Movement Blog, March 2022) [text]

Echoes of the Past in Europe's Two-Tier Approach to Refugees (Refugee Research Online, March 2022) [text]

Everyday Violence and Resistance in Europe’s ‘Migration Management’ during the Covid-19 Pandemic (Border Criminologies Blog, Feb.-March 2022) [access]

- Blog series "dedicated to ten unique research and practice-inspired blog posts exploring everyday violence and resistance at Europe’s borders." Check the "see also" menu on the right for posts.

Frontex leaders concealed pushbacks, watchdog reports (InfoMigrants, March 2022) [text]

The Legal Obligation to Recognize Russian Deserters as Refugees (Just Security Blog, March 2022) [text]

Post-Pandemic Cooperation between Africa and Europe: Five Ways to Improve the Partnership on Migration and Mobility (African Arguments, March 2022) [text]

New open access books/book chapters:

Coping with Migrants and Refugees: Multilevel Governance across the EU (Routledge, March 2022) [info]

- "This book provides a comparative overview of asylum seekers’ reception throughout Europe by adopting a theoretical framework based on an analytical approach to the notion of multilevel governance (MLG)." Five chapters are open access; follow the link above or this OAPEN link (scroll to the bottom of the page) to access them.

Identifying Security Logics in the EU Policy Discourse: The "Migration Crisis" and the EU (Springer, Feb. 2022) [open access]

- This volume "investigates the complexity and the modalities of securitization of migration and border control at the EU level. It discusses and compares how different EU institutions and agencies have been deploying different logics of security, e.g. humanitarianism or management of risk, while framing increased migratory flows and so called migration crisis as a security problem."

Reforming the Common European Asylum System: Opportunities, Pitfalls, and Downsides of the Commission Proposals for a New Pact on Migration and Asylum (Nomos, 2022) [open access]

- "Timely and profound collection of high-quality contributions, written by experts from across Europe, on the ongoing policy debate on the reform of Common European Asylum System. ...The edited volume allows readers to understand the complex rules and to identify overarching challenges defining European asylum policy at this juncture."

"The solidarity constitution in the EU: refugees and asylum as litmus test," Chapter in Law, Solidarity and the Limits of Social Europe: Constitutional Tensions for EU Integration (Edward Elgar, 2022) [open access]

Journal articles:

"The Albanian Migration to Greece and the Refugee Crisis of 2015 from the Greek Perspective," Studia Europejskie = Studies in European Affairs, vol. 25, no. 3 (2021) [open access]

"Before the Convention: The Spanish Civil War and Challenges for Research on Refugee History," Refugee Survey Quarterly, Advance Articles, 25 Feb. 2022 [open access]

"Explaining attitudes toward refugees and immigrants in Europe," Political Studies, vol. 70, no. 1 (2022) [postprint]

Nordic Journal of International Law, vol. 91, no. 1 (Feb. 2022) [contents]

- Special issue on "Nordic Visions of International Migration and Refugee Law." The introduction and two articles are freely available.

"Reflections on mental healthcare for an asylum seeker population caught in limbo on the Greek island of Samos," BJPsych International, First View, 4 March 2022 [open access]

*"Transnational welfare within and beyond the nation-state: civil society responses to the migration crisis in Greece," Journal of Ethnic and Migration Studies, vol. 48, no. 3 (2022) [open access]

Related posts:

- Regional Focus: Europe - Pt. 1 (25 Feb. 2022)

- Regional Focus: Europe - Pt. 2 (25 Feb. 2022)

Regional Focus: Europe - Pt. 2

Journal issue:

European Journal of Migration and Law, vol. 23, no. 4 (Dec. 2021) [contents]

- Special issue on "Schengen, Free Movement and Crises." The editorial and three articles are open access.

Journal articles:

"The 2015 EU-Africa joint Valletta action plan on immigration: A parable of complex interdependence," International Migration, Early View, 21 Dec. 2021 [open access]

"African Asylum Seekers in Europe: The Interplay between Foreign Aid and Governance in Origin Countries," Open Economies Review, Latest Articles, 28 Dec. 2021 [open access]

"Albanian Returned Asylum-Seekers: Failures, Successes and What Can Be Achieved in a Short Time," Journal of Balkan and Near Eastern Studies, Latest Articles, 20 Dec. 2021 [abstract]

- See also earlier related book chapter.

"Considerations for COVID-19 management in reception centers for refugees, asylum seekers and migrants, Spain 2020," International Journal of Infectious Diseases, In Press, 21 Dec. 2021 [open access]

"The Control of Migration Flows in the Central Mediterranean Sea: Insights from Recent Italian Practice," Peace & Security = Paix et Sécurité Internationales, no. 9 (2021) [open access]

"Euro-Mediterranean Experiences on Management of Migration Governance," Peace & Security = Paix et Sécurité Internationales, no. 9 (2021) [open access]

"Exploring the Migration Process of Iranian Asylum Seekers in Europe: A Case of Serbia and Bosnia and Herzegovina," Journal of Borderlands Studies, Latest Articles, 17 Dec. 2021 [ResearchGate]

"From Law’s Discourse on Refugees to Refugees’ Discourse on Law," Redescriptions, vol. 24, no. 2 (Dec. 2021) [open access]

"'I Turned to Things That Mean More to Me': Unpacking the Activist Trajectories of Syrians in Oslo," Journal of Immigrant & Refugee Studies, Latest Articles, 20 Dec. 2021 [open access]

"Local responses to hostility to new asylum seeker centres in Norway," International Migration, Early View, 21 Dec. 2021 [open access]

"Refugees unwelcome: Narcissistic and secure national commitment differentially predict collective action against immigrants and refugees," International Journal of Intercultural Relations, vol. 86 (Jan. 2022) [free full-text]

"Vulnerability and its implications: some comments in the light of the Strasbourg case law concerning asylum seekers," Espaço Jurídico Journal of Law, Ahead of Print, 17 Dec. 2021 [open access]

"'What is Truth?' Negotiating Christian Convert Asylum Seekers’ Credibility," ANNALS of the American Academy of Political and Social Science, vol. 697, no. 1 (2021) [open access]

Related post:

- Regional Focus: Europe - Pt. 1 (6 Jan. 2022)

Thematic Focus: Human Trafficking

Publications:

"Journal of Law & Social Policy, vol. 8, no. 2 (2013) [full-text]
The Asylum Claim for Victims of Attempted Trafficking,"

Evaluation of the Effectiveness of Measures for the Integration of Trafficked Persons (IOM, 2013) [text]

"From the Horn of Africa to the Middle East: Human Trafficking of Eritrean Asylum Seekers across Borders," Anti-Trafficking Review, no. 2 (Sept. 2013) [open access text]

"Human Trafficking, Asylum and the Problem of Protection," Chapter 13 in The Ashgate Research Companion to Migration Law, Theory and Policy (Ashgate, March 2013) [info] [Google preview]
- Note: The author recently gave a lecture on this subject at Griffith University in Australia.

"Risk Factors for Mental Disorders in Women Survivors of Human Trafficking: A Historical Cohort Study," BMC Psychiatry, 13:204 (Aug. 2013) [open access text]

Seventh Circuit Victory Advances Gender-Based Asylum (Center for Gender & Refugee Studies, Aug. 2013) [text]
- Reports on a decision holding "that gender may define a particular social group, and recognizes that women fleeing sex trafficking may be eligible for asylum based on membership in such a group."

"A Sex Trafficking Victory that Shows Just How Broken the System is," New Republic, 29 Aug. 2013 [text]

New project:

NO TRATTA –National Observatory on Trafficking among Refugees and Asylum Seekers; Training, Tools and Awareness, Cittalia-Fondazione Anci Ricerche, Rome [info]
- See also info in Italian.

Tagged Publications.