ABSTRACT Rising public scrutiny has put immigration detention systems under pressure to defend their decision‐making practices. The Canada Border Services Agency (CBSA) has drawn attention in this area, largely due to its partnerships with correctional agencies. Critics challenge CBSA's framework for placing noncitizens in these facilities, characterizing its risk assessment practices as opaque, arbitrary, and subjective. To address these concerns, CBSA commissioned us to develop an empirical tool for guiding immigration detention decisions—spanning conditional release to security classification level within detention. We surveyed 92 CBSA employees using mixed methods to gain their insights and ensure the operational utility of our tool. Top‐rated risk factors for decision‐making were criminal/compliance history, mental health, cooperation, identity concerns, and behaviour. We also identified misconceptions about standardized risk tools, the need for a streamlined assessment process, gaps in mental health guidance, operational decision‐making barriers, and opportunities for enhanced training. This study provides a foundation for developing an operationally useful tool that will improve the transparency and defensibility of CBSA's immigration detention decisions.
ABSTRACT This study applies the perspectives of relationality and temporality to investigate how overseas Chinese students made their return decisions during the COVID‐19 pandemic. Analysis of qualitative data obtained from 56 returning Chinese students during the pandemic indicates that their return decisions were relational and temporal: embedded in their familial and romantic relations and intertwined with their life trajectories of migration–education–employment. Identifying three types of return, namely hurried, predetermined, and thoughtful, during the pandemic, the study reveals the nuanced relational–temporal dynamics of the risks, opportunities, and emotions negotiated and contested between the students and their families and intimate partners during the crisis.
ABSTRACT The decadal transition in the Indian politico‐legal stance on refugees, from a human rights tilt to national security concerns, invites a close examination. India maintains a theoretical safe distance from the international legal framework on refugees by not acceding to the 1951 Refugee Convention, while on the ground, it extensively engages—politically and judicially—with refugee‐related domestic legal issues. In the absence of a dedicated legal framework, the refugees, categorised based on temporalities and spatialities, face a highly unpredictable executive and judicial discretion. The present work critically examines the validity of three purported claims that India frames as ‘obstacles’ in enacting refugee‐specific legislation, using a mixed method design—combining doctrinal analysis of Indian jurisprudence, Parliamentary questions, statutory law and Executive Policy Rules along with a review of demographic data and securitization aspects to draw some hints as real‐world inferences on the actual impact caused by refugees.
