What is a refugee?

What is a refugee?

Bias in European Refugee Systems: Part II

This is part two of a four-part series on refugee systems in the European Union. Part one can be found here.
Can someone please tell me exactly what constitutes a refugee? Chowdhury (2024) defines refugees as people who are forced to flee their country and seek refuge in another. This definition seems straightforward however political climates and the country of origin play a role in how the public defines a refugee or asylum seeker.  As we will see, policy makers and government officials view the definition with many nuances.
Mickelsson (2025) goes a step further and includes three aspects of what he calls “promising victimhood”: security, economic performance, and cultural fit. Now one can start to see how refugees from one crisis might be viewed in a different light than those from another.  Security asks that the refugee be evaluated on the level of threat they would bring to the host country by being admitted.  Economic performance speaks to how much money the refugee might cost and/or contribute.  Finally, the cultural fit is where the most obvious discrimination can be seen - person is evaluated on whether (or not) they look, act, and conduct themselves the same way as the host country.
I have been using the terms refugee and asylum seeker somewhat interchangeably so far in this series.  Asylum seekers are those looking for protection from their home country.  Every refugees is considered an asylum seeker however not all asylum seekers will have their status legally determined to be that of a refugee.  There are people who flee because their life is in danger however the international community may not recognize their claims.  To note, both the Syrian Crisis and the Ukraine War asylum seekers have been classified as refugees.
If a person or family is granted asylum, what should they rightfully expect from their host country? The Status of Refugees, established in 1951, defines six rights to be granted to all refugees (Chowdhury, 2024) that provides insight to answer this question. Chowdhury (2024) continues by detailing these rights as:
  • being given the status of a refugee
  • to food
  • to shelter
  • to medical care
  • to personal security
  • to special care of women, children and the elderly
Those rights seem logical and minimal. For a refugee to successfully establish him or herself, having food, shelter, safety and medical services are vital. These rights don’t include the right to provide economic security, however. Allowing refugees to legally work in host countries can be perceived as taking away jobs from the native population.
Part three of the series will delve into the specific differences between how the Syrian refugees were treated versus the Ukrainian refugees.

Chowdhury, Nazmul Islam, “A Tale of Two Refugees: Disparities in the Treatment of Ukrainian and Non-Ukrainian Refugees in Europe.” ISAR Journal of Multidisciplinary Research and Studies, vol. 2, no. 11, 2024, pp. 13-19, Google Scholar, doi:0.2139/ssrn.4281762

Mickelsson, Tony Blomqvist. "Ukrainian Refugees’ Differentiated Treatment: A Critical and Systematic Review." Global Networks, vol. 25, no. 1, 2025, pp. 1-14, Google Scholar, doi:10.1111/glob.12502
Location: Austin, TX, USA

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