The third AFAR Policy Brief calls for asylum policies that engage with the underlying moral foundations behind perceptions of fairness towards both asylum seekers and host societies, to build lasting public support.
In the second policy brief published under the Algorithmic Fairness for Asylum Seekers and Refugees (AFAR) Project, researchers Dr. Lenka Dražanová and Professor Martin Ruhs of the European University Institute (EUI) examine how the public in Germany and Italy perceives fairness in asylum decision-making. Drawing on large-scale, nationally representative survey experiments, they show that citizens care deeply about fairness both towards asylum seekers and towards their own countries. The study highlights that public perceptions of fairness are shaped by underlying moral intuitions, underscoring the need for asylum policies that address moral as well as practical concerns.
Asylum decision-making is one of Europe’s most contested policy areas, yet public views of fairness in this process remain poorly understood. The findings presented in this policy brief show that citizens value both procedural fairness—ensuring asylum seekers’ rights to legal representation and appeal—and distributive fairness that considers the impacts on host communities —ensuring fair responsibility-sharing among EU member states and the possibility to impose an annual limit on the number of applications. Public disagreement about asylum policy is not only about political preferences or self-interest but also reflects people’s different moral foundations, such as care and loyalty.
Sustainable asylum policy must therefore engage with both fairness dimensions: fairness vis-à-vis asylum seekers and fairness vis-à-vis host country residents. Policymakers should strengthen procedural safeguards across the EU and make them more visible to the public to enhance legitimacy among citizens whose moral values emphasise humanitarian norms. At the same time, they should integrate distributive fairness into asylum governance, recognising citizens’ concerns about equitable responsibility-sharing and community impacts.
The brief concludes that effective and sustainable asylum policies must resonate with the moral sensibilities of the public. Policymakers and advocates should develop communication strategies that bridge different moral perspectives—highlighting both the rights of asylum seekers and the responsibilities of institutions and societies towards them, while also highlighting reciprocity and societal cohesion. Addressing fairness concerns in morally grounded ways is essential for building long-term public support for asylum and refugee protection.
The 4-year Algorithmic Fairness for Asylum Seekers and Refugees (AFAR) project is a collaborative research initiative hosted at the Centre for Fundamental Rights from 2021 to 2025. Funded by the Volkswagen Foundation through its Challenges for Europe programme, AFAR brings together six institutions across Europe to explore the fairness of automation and decision-making in migration and asylum governance.