Let me be a refugee: Asylum seekers and the transformation of law in the United States, Canada, and Australia

International law provides nations with a common definition of a refugee, and with guidance on how asylum seekers who ask for refugee protection should be treated. Yet, the processes by which countries determine who should be granted refugee status look strikingly different, even across nations with many institutional, cultural, geographical, and political similarities. This dissertation compares the refugee status determination policies and procedures of three popular asylum seeker destinations - the United States, Canada, and Australia. The project uses a combination of in-depth elite interviews, courtroom observation, and case analysis to demonstrate that cross-national differences matter both in terms of procedural justice and in terms of raw acceptance rates. Two in-depth case studies of gender-based asylum claims, and claims based on Chinese population control policy illustrate that the impact of these cross-national differences is more acute for the growing number of asylum seekers whose claims do not naturally fit within the refugee definition.;Striking cross-national variation in refugee status determination outcomes occurs despite a convergence in border control policies across these three countries. In response to public hostility towards asylum seekers, over the past two decades, the United States, Canada, and Australia have all dramatically increased their efforts to divert asylum seekers from reaching their shores and lodging claims that must be processed. However, once asylum seekers cross the borders of these nations, they access different sets of rights, depending on which borders they cross. These rights have less to do with political debates over admission and border control policy, and more to do with larger inter-branch turf battles and general debates about administrative due process and the scope of judicial review. Thus, the relative power, independence, and expertise of the administrative decision-making agency determines the outcome of important immigration questions while international law and domestic immigration politics often take a back seat.