Abstract

LOIS-GONZALEZ, Rubén C.; GARCIA DELGADO, Francisco Javier; FELICIDADES GARCIA, Jesús  and  DE LA ROSA MARTINEZ, María. Geographical origin of asylum seekers and international protection concessions in Spain between 2008 and 2018. Rev. Geog. Amer. Central [online]. 2021, n.66, pp.226-265. ISSN 2215-2563.  http://dx.doi.org/10.15359/rgac.66-1.9.

In 2018, UNHCR numbered 40 million internally displaced persons, 25.4 million refugees and 3.1 million international asylum seekers (UNHCR-Spain, 2018), effectively equating to the largest refugee crisis since World War II. The flow of displaced individuals, mainly from south to north and from east to west, and across international borders, has increased in the past two decades whilst legislation changes occur in the receiving states as a response to limit the right of asylum and refugee reception, as is the case in EU member states. Restrictions, factors and multiple causes (war, discrimination, population persecution, etc.), not only has generated the displacement of applicants from their countries of origin, but has also modified the nature of concession of international protection. In Spain, it is possible to analyze, through official sources (i.e. Ministry of the Interior), the trend in evolution of the countries of origin as stated in asylum applications and international protection concessions filed during the period 2008-2018, thus facilitating the formulation of correlations between causes and internal and external factors. As a whole, changes of the country of origin of applicants are evidenced as a consequence of the expansion of armed conflicts (Syria, Iraq), institutional crises (Venezuela), restrictions imposed by traditional asylum countries (El Salvador, Honduras), and also the shift in reception preferences emerging in Spain as receiving state.

Keywords : International protection; Refugees; Immigration; Spain; Asylum.

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