MIGRANTS AND REFUGEES: CONCEPTUAL REFLECTIONS

Apart from the existing legal definitions, the simple distinction between (politic) refugees and (economic) migrants is getting more difficult to maintain. Restrictive refugee and migration legislations are strong related with what different experts have called the asylum- migration nexus. The creation of multiple administrative categories of protected people; non recognized refugees; the incorporation of refugees to illegal networks of migration; economic migrants trying to enter a country through refugee status; etc. colla-borate to the confusion of the realities. Recent social changes are also a challenge to legal definitions derived from the 1951 Geneva Convention, which are described as excessively restrictive by different actors.