Failed Refugee Claimants: Negotiating Rights, Security and Citizenship

Individuals and groups engage discursively in relationships and negotiations as they try to structure and influence the social space where they live. This engagement further constructs the social space through the use of concepts, objects and subject positions. This study examines the representation and construction of failed refugee claimants by the Canadian newsprint media. Through the use of the moral panic as envisioned by Stephen Cohen and others, the study employs critical discourse analysis to reveal complex struggles in the Canadian refugee system through the discursive activity of the government, nonprofit agencies and social networks. The study concludes that a moral panic has occurred in the Canadian refugee system and has resulted in the enactment of a new Canadian refugee system through the passing of the Balanced Refugee Reform Act Bill C-11), Protecting Canada’s Immigration Act (Bill C-31) and the Faster Removal of Foreign Criminals Act (Bill C-43).