ABSTRACT
As 1 argued through the previous chapters, the activities of NGOs engaged in human rights advocacy, are located between the state practices of (law and administration), and the concrete manifestations which state practices have on individual lives. NGOs are more likely to be in direct contact with asylum seekers than the bureaucrats, members of the judiciary and politicians who represent the state. The state gathers the statistical data relating to numbers applying for protection, mode of arrival, recognition rates, and cost of processing, while NGOs
gather evidence of the impact of policy and processing procedures and of deportation and detention practices, on the lives of individuals through grass roots networks. These differences highlight in particular two tensions. First, between short and long-terrn planning and the responses of state and/or non-state agencies who deliver specific services and programmes. Second, the tension over what is perceived and communicated as being in the national interest of a state versus its international obligations. It is at the everyday leve! of 'practice' and social engagement, that the problems and fears associated with those seeking protection come to be articulated and retlected in administrative responses and legislative change.
