[Vocabulary] Difference between "Refugee" and "an asylum seeker"

[maral55]

Hello,

I found these meaning for the two words. So I am wondering if the difference is about how the person enters the foreign country?

1. Refugee :A person who flees to a foreign country or power to escape danger or persecution.

2. An asylum seeker: a person who applie to live in a forein country because they are trying to escape political or religious persecution.

 

[bhaisahab]

Hello,

I found these meaning for the two words. So I am wondering if the difference is about how the person enters the foreign country?

1. Refugee :A person who flees to a foreign country or power to escape danger or persecution.

2. An asylum seeker: a person who applie to live in a forein country because they are trying to escape political or religious persecution.

It's not really about the method of entry, it's about the intention to stay permanently or not. An asylum seeker is someone who wants to stay permanently in the host country, a refugee may intend to return home when it's safe to do so.

 

[tedtmc]

It's not really about the method of entry, it's about the intention to stay permanently or not. An asylum seeker is someone who wants to stay permanently in the host country, a refugee may intend to return home when it's safe to do so.

I do not think the difference lies in the intention to stay permanently in the host country or not. It has more to do with the reason for seeking refuge. Refugees usually leave for political or economic reasons whereas asylum seekers tries to escape victimization by the government. You find that refugees who have settled in the host country hardly return to their country of origin.

Also, refugees leave in large number for a common purpose e.g. the Vietnamese refugees(boat people) in the mid 70's left their country to escape the Communist government or the Bosnian refugees who escaped from the Serbs in the 90's. Asylum seekers are individual cases e.g. former Thai Prime Minister Thaksin who sought asylum in England from persecution by government in power.

 

[emsr2d2]

In the UK at least, an asylum seeker is someone whose application for asylum is still under consideration. If that application is successful, they then become a recognised refugee.

As a more general term, though, refugee would mean someone who has had to flee their own country for any of a multitude of reasons, rather than having chosen to emigrate.