Detention of Asylum-Seekers: Comparison of the Asylum and Detention Practices in United States and Sweden

Refugees are both an urgent humanitarian issue and the subject of much political debate in the U.S. and Europe. This research paper compares and contrasts the asylum process in US and Sweden. It analyzes the similarities and differences in their refugee policies and how asylumseeker rights are undermined or supported in the detention centers. The research discusses the historical origin of the contemporary asylum/immigration policies, international standards on detention, their implication, and key contemporary policy trends in US and Sweden. The selection of US and Sweden was not random. Both countries are highly influential in different ways in shaping global policies toward refugees. Both have faced a recent upsurge in incoming refugees; however, they have adopted different approaches to the asylum process. It also focuses on detention policies and conditions and their implications for the ability of refugees to fully exercise in practice their rights to asylum.