Security at the Border? The Lived Experiences of Refugees and Asylum Seekers in the UK

Paper Title

Security at the Border? The Lived Experiences of Refugees and Asylum Seekers in the UK

Publication Info

• Topic area: Human-Computer Interaction (HCI) and migration studies focusing on border technologies and their impact on refugees and asylum seekers.
• Keywords: Refugees, asylum seekers, border technologies, immigration systems, HCI, everyday security, participatory design, biometric systems, hostile environment, surveillance.

Background and Problem

• Problem / challenge: Refugees and asylum seekers face significant challenges navigating increasingly automated and opaque border control systems, which often exacerbate feelings of insecurity, alienation, and dehumanisation. Existing research has not sufficiently explored the long-term impact of these encounters on their sense of belonging and everyday security.
• Significance: Understanding these lived experiences is critical for designing more humane border technologies and immigration systems that respect human dignity and foster trust, while addressing broader societal implications of surveillance and control.
• Motivation and related work: Prior studies in HCI and migration have examined digital border infrastructures and their role in surveillance, exclusion, and hierarchy creation. However, these studies often focus on post-arrival experiences or the technical aspects of border systems, leaving a gap in understanding the intersection of initial border encounters and their long-term effects on refugees and asylum seekers.

Solution

• Proposed approach: A qualitative study combining participant observation at a UK-based charity and semi-structured interviews with asylum seekers, refugees, and caseworkers to document their experiences with UK border control technologies and immigration systems.
• Novelty:
  1. Demonstrates how initial border encounters shape long-term feelings of insecurity and alienation.
  2. Highlights the role of caseworkers as mediators in navigating opaque systems and restoring agency.
  3. Proposes trauma-informed and participatory design interventions to improve border technologies.
  4. Expands HCI scholarship by connecting border technologies to everyday security and lived experiences.
• Procedure and key techniques:
  • Conducted a three-month field study (June–August 2024) at a charity supporting immigrants in London.
  • Observed daily interactions between caseworkers and clients, focusing on immigration-related tasks.
  • Conducted semi-structured interviews with six asylum seekers/refugees and six caseworkers, capturing their perspectives on border technologies and immigration systems.
  • Employed reflexive thematic analysis to identify patterns and themes across the dataset.

Results

• Concrete findings:
  • Refugees and asylum seekers often described border screening technologies (e.g., biometric scans) as confusing, invasive, and dehumanising.
  • Feelings of alienation and insecurity persisted long after the initial border encounter, shaping their interactions with immigration systems and daily lives.
  • Caseworkers played a critical role in explaining and humanising these processes, but their ability to mitigate harm was limited by structural constraints.
• Advantage over baselines: This study bridges gaps in existing HCI and migration research by focusing on the experiential and emotional dimensions of border encounters, rather than solely technical or post-arrival aspects.
• Experiments / evaluation: The study relied on qualitative methods, including participant observation and interviews, to capture nuanced insights into the lived experiences of refugees and asylum seekers. Themes were derived through iterative coding and collaborative analysis.
• Limitations and future work:
  • Single-site fieldwork limits generalisability; future studies should explore diverse settings.
  • Language mediation by caseworkers may have shaped participant narratives.
  • Short study duration restricted the ability to capture evolving dynamics over time.
  • Calls for participatory design approaches to include refugees and caseworkers as co-creators of border technologies.

Summary

This paper investigates how refugees and asylum seekers experience UK border control technologies and immigration systems, revealing feelings of confusion, fear, and dehumanisation during initial encounters. These experiences have long-term impacts on their sense of security and belonging. Caseworkers play a vital role in mediating these systems, but their efforts are constrained by structural limitations. The study proposes trauma-informed and participatory design interventions to improve border technologies, emphasizing multilingual accessibility, emotional sensitivity, and survivor-centred approaches. By centring lived experiences, the paper contributes to HCI scholarship on digital border infrastructures and their societal implications.