Finding Safe Passage: Analyzing Juvenile Asylum Determinations in the United States and the European Union

Abstract

What explains the disparities between receiving status in juvenile asylum determinations, and what factors are most conducive to a child’s being granted a form of status or residency? In theory, there should be no variation — asylum law is supposed to be implemented uniformly and fairly across all jurisdictions. This should be especially true for unaccompanied child migrants, among the most vulnerable of migrant populations. Yet, the empirical evidence demonstrates that this is far from the case. Homogeneity in law in the United States and the European Union has not been matched by consistency in asylum grant rates. This thesis examines the implementation of asylum protections for unaccompanied child migrants by conducting a quantitative analysis of three elements hypothesized to be predictive of asylum determinations: the location of adjudication, the nationality of the applicant, and the provision of legal representation for the applicant. This quantitative analysis has several key findings: variation between receiving states and asylum adjudication sites is observed at a statistically significant level in both the United States and European Union. In the United States, Salvadoran children are the most likely to gain asylum. In the European Union, Syrian children are the most likely. Lastly, legal representation has a strong relationship with higher grant rates in the United States but not the European Union. The thesis concludes with by discussing its policy implications and the growing humanitarian crisis of unaccompanied child migration.