Hemming Close: A Comparative Analysis of Turkish and Colombian Refugee Regularization Policies

• In Event: Migration Policies

Abstract

Refugee migration and regularization are among the most contested topics of global politics, attracting both scholarly and practitioners’ attention. Existing analyses often rely on overly simplistic assumptions that right-wing governments are purely anti-immigrant, and so less likely to implement refugee regularization, and so fail to analyze the complex political landscape of regularization policies. Focusing on Colombia and Türkiye, we show that right-wing governments can strategically appropriate elements of international refugee law, such as documentation, status, and protection, to consolidate sovereign authority rather than to expand legal protection. By creating national regularization regimes that emulate key features of the international system without formally invoking refugee law, these governments reframe protection as a discretionary act of governance. This mechanism, identified through a comparative analysis of Colombia and Türkiye, shows how Global South states can use refugee policy to advance political legitimacy and state control while maintaining the appearance of compliance with international norms.

Authors

• Sevin Gulfer Sagnic, University of California-San Diego

• Andrés Sebastián Besserer Rayas, El Colegio de Mexico