Accessing the Border: The Mobility Rights of Asylum Seekers with Precarious Status

The mobility rights of migrants have been presented as universal and non-discriminatory in United Nation declarations, protocols and conventions. These inherent rights are often placed in opposition to states’ sovereign right to control their borders. The international refugee regime has faced challenges to the defence and advocacy of human rights. The right to seek asylum has faced questions of security, and terrorism. Politicians have successfully re-framed asylum seekers as active ‘threats’ to the social, cultural and economic security of the state and campaign to enforce the protection of the state. By de-linking the border from the territorial boundaries of the state, Canadian officials have excluded, deterred and halted the movement of asylum seekers seeking refuge in Canada, adding to the surmountable geographic barriers the state holds to resettlement.