Arrival

5. Being recognised

Francesco: When did you request asylum ? Kaleb: Asylum…What is it ?

This was the beginning of my conversation with Kaleb, a young asylum seeker who arrived in Italy more than five years ago and whose procedure to receive a final asylum request’s outcome has not yet concluded. Achieving protection in Italy is not an easy process. It is a long and complex journey requiring a high level of skills and knowledge that sometimes even professionals working in related fields struggle to acquire due to bureaucratic ambiguities and system’s arbitrariness. Grasping such knowledge, however, is not automatic and information providing or legal counselling are not always guaranteed. As discussed in previous chapters, the process of recognition represents a meaningful dimension in which the state’s politics manifest and interweave in conditioning the lives and options of those who need to be “recognised” in order to achieve protection. As reported in Chapter 3, the main sources of uncertainty in contexts of migration can be represented by imperfect or lack of knowledge and future’s unpredictability (Williams and Baláž, 2012:168; Horst and Grabska, 2015:5). In this chapter I disclose how lack of information providing, confused knowledge regarding the recognition procedure and assessment criteria ambiguity and constant change may enhance experiences of uncertainty and frustration in asylum seekers’ lives.

Protection and, in case of denial and appeal, by the Supreme Court of Cassation (Programma integra, 2015).

The Procedure Decree states that the Territorial Commission's interviews to the applicant must take place within thirty days after having received the application and the assessment made during the three following working days, extendible to a maximum of nine months in case of general issues (ASGI, 2021a). The standard procedure’s schedule, however, is almost never respected. There are arbitrary and unknown periods of waiting before the hearing and judgment, which may change according to each case without necessarily communicating related reasons and timing. Ken, a professional working in the reception system, reported experiences which highlight the ambiguity and arbitrariness of Commission’s procedures and timing:

Ken: Sometimes it happens that maybe someone arrives and after a year and a half or two years they call him to go to Commission and it happens that maybe there is another one that after four years wasn’t called at all. We continue to urge the request but they [asylum seekers] say: "No ! Seen ?! The other did it! " And it is not known why the other did it.

In the meanwhile, asylum seekers may begin their journey through the various levels of the reception system where they experience an indefinite waiting for the Commission’s hearing and outcome production in which multiple different informations regarding Commission criteria of assessment overlap, enhancing senses of confusion and uncertainty.

The Territorial Commission for the Recognition of International Protection’s hearing and judgment are one of the most important passages of the recognition process. The Commission’s outcome represents the first assessment of the asylum request based on the applicant story and border-crossing reasons. Personal histories are crucial for the request assessment and outcome’s production, therefore, their description is vital to achieve protection. Asylum seekers’ knowledge regarding features and importance of these procedures before their arrival, however, is most often limited. Russel, former asylum seeker now working as a professional in reception-related activities, reported how much he didn’t know regarding asylum procedures before his arrival:

Russel: Anyway, before arriving I knew that if one arrives there are, you know, one has to be judged, anyway, but I didn't know what documents, what kind of documents they gave, like asylum or subsidiary or humanitarian grounds or special cases. I did not know this.

Moreover, arrival and the beginning of the recognition process is not commonly accompanied with the provision of adequate explanations regarding procedures and the bureaucratic path that asylum seekers need to undergo. Scholars studying these dynamics (e.g. Caprioglio, Ferri, Gennari, 2018;

D’Angelo, 2018), have pointed out a structural lack of guidance during the first phases of the reception process. This dynamics became evident in this study as well. Micheal, former asylum seeker now working as an information and legal counselling provider, reported a meaningful account regarding information providing during preliminary phases of reception procedures:

Micheal: Information must be given at the right times, when these people arrive at the place of disembark. […] There are hundreds coming to Lampedusa. These [hotspots]

are detention centres in which refugees that arrive stay for a period [of time] or are deported and what they [asylum seekers] say there does matter. These places do not have, unfortunately they do not have…They have mediators working with the border police and that is all. Those are not people providing information.

The initial phases of the reception process are often characterised by a lack of knowledge regarding asylum seekers’ current situation and the imminent future. Also professionals working in related fields recounted experiences which significantly underline the severity of these dynamics:

Patrizia: Before someone gives you a space to explain things to you a very long time goes by. It's not that you arrive, disembark in Italy and they welcome you and explain everything to you. No.

Carol: They take your finger prints and then you go.

The results of inadequate information providing and consequent imperfect knowledge are meaningful. In fact, in order to achieve protection, an active participation in reporting consistent personal narratives is required especially during the initial phases of recognition and reception processes. Without adequate information regarding procedure and the current situation, asylum

seekers are likely to commit mistakes or report inconsistencies which will be critical for the further development of the asylum request procedure.