Screening for Asylum at Airports: The Implementation of the ‘Manifestly Unfounded’ Filter in France and Germany, 1980–2005

ABSTRACT This historical paper examines pre‐screening procedures for asylum‐seekers at Western European international airports during the period from the 1980s to the 2000s, with a particular focus on France and Germany as case studies. It highlights the tension between attempts to standardise the application of the ‘manifest unfoundedness’ criterion for asylum claims at the border through intergovernmental harmonisation efforts and the significant variations observed in how this criterion was implemented both between and within Member States of the European Community and later the European Union. By exploring these discrepancies, the paper emphasises the context‐dependent nature of enforcing asylum rules and the influence of local dynamics on the effectiveness of these norms. It begins by providing background on the refugee landscape in the 1980s and the prevalent desire among Western European policy‐makers to reduce the number of asylum‐seekers at the borders. The paper then discusses efforts to harmonise procedures and the adoption of a common, and soon distorted, yardstick pertaining to the ‘manifest unfoundedness’ of asylum claims. Furthermore, the article examines disparities in implementation across countries and within them, shedding light on differences in norms, procedures and institutional dynamics that led to divergent approaches at the local level.