Who’s really at the border? The protection gap Pacific states cannot ignore

There is a persistent assumption shaping policy and law-making, not just regionally but globally. It’s the notion that building protection systems – for refugees, asylum seekers, stateless persons and others fleeing harm – creates security risk rather than reducing it.

The fear that formal protection systems act as a ‘pull factor’, opening the door to unmanageable influxes and system misuse, reflects a wider regional reluctance to formalise protection frameworks.

After almost 15 years designing, strengthening and implementing asylum and protection systems globally, I posit that this assumption has it backwards – the security risk fear has been running the wrong way.

What happens without a protection system?

Consider this scenario. A young woman arrives in a Pacific Island State holding documents that don’t appear to be her own. She is frightened and unwilling to speak. Is she a refugee? Stateless? A trafficking survivor? A national security concern? Why is she so afraid?

Authorities face a dilemma. Without impartial, trauma-informed interviewing techniques, unconscious bias fills the vacuum. Without protection-sensitive procedures, officials cannot build the trust needed to uncover her true identity and circumstances. Without integrated frameworks connecting refugee protection, statelessness, trafficking, border management and national security, the state is blind.

In my experience working on the frontlines of these systems, this scenario is a daily reality.

It’s not just a protection problem. It is a national security issue. If this woman is treated as a security threat rather than a survivor, the state loses intelligence about those who really pose a risk – such as the trafficker who exploited her. And her hostile encounter doesn’t stop others from seeking safety, it simply leads them to hide their own identities, having been warned that telling the truth is not safe.

In 2018, the Vanuatu Government identified 101 Bangladeshi nationals trafficked to the country. Without integrated identification frameworks, the risk of misclassification – and of losing critical intelligence about the traffickers responsible – became a reality.

Vanuatu subsequently adopted a National Action Plan (NAP) to Combat Trafficking in Persons, noting that this “case highlighted substantial gaps in the country’s legal framework, policies, and operational procedures, particularly in relation to the identification and support of victim-survivors”. The NAP also acknowledged what protection practitioners know well: refugee, asylum-seeker and trafficking profiles often overlap, and treating them as siloed categories is itself a gap.

How protection systems work – and why they matter

A functioning protection system gives a state accurate knowledge of who is on its territory and why. It screens arrivals, registers identities – a direct anti-fraud and national security measure – and conducts Refugee Status Determination (RSD) to probe identity, travel history, reasons for fleeing and security concerns. Critically, the system  applies the 1951 Refugee Convention’s provisions that deny protection to those who pose a genuine danger to national security.

The question is not whether states have a legal basis to act. It is whether they have the will and practical tools to do so. Vanuatu, a non-signatory to the 1951 Refugee Convention, has nonetheless legislated RSD procedures. Other states can also adopt and develop existing national immigration frameworks to screen in those who qualify and screen out those who do not.

The Pacific context: displacement is rising as support shrinks

By mid-2025, 117.3 million people were forcibly displaced – more than one in every 70 people on Earth. By the end of 2024, the Asia-Pacific region hosted 17.3 million people displaced by conflict, persecution and accelerating climate impacts.

The Pacific region has seen a steady increase in asylum seeker arrivals, reflected in growing regional dialogue – including through the Pacific Immigration Development Community (PIDC) and the first UNHCR Regional Workshop on Building State Asylum Systems at the 2025 PIDC Regular Annual Meeting in Tonga. States including Fiji continue to develop and strengthen their asylum systems and capacity development initiatives for officials.

But international support has sharply declined. UNHCR’s 2025 budget of $10.6 billion was only 23 per cent funded by mid-year, leaving up to 11.6 million refugees and others forced to flee at risk of losing humanitarian assistance and eroding investment in  strengthening asylum systems globally. Funding stands at roughly the same level as 2015 – when half as many people were displaced. With support retracting across the Asia-Pacific region, the pressure falls directly on states.

Often missing from these discussions is the global responsibility-sharing imperative, underscored by the 2018 Global Compact on Refugees and Global Compact on Migration. There is a geography to these arrivals that cannot be separated from the policy question. For most people to reach a Pacific island’s international gateway –  usually by air – they must first transit through a major hub such as Australia, New Zealand or Singapore. Building Pacific systems in isolation, without complementary international cooperation frameworks, leaves the final link in that chain, the Pacific border, bearing the full weight of responsibility.

Australia’s offshore processing policy demonstrates how domestic border policies also reshape movement flows. Individuals no longer able to reach Australia’s shores are rerouted toward small island states in the hope of onward travel. This was seen in 2014, when 35 asylum seekers from India and Nepal arrived in the Federated States of Micronesia, after smugglers promised them passage  to Australia, New Zealand or the United States.

Australia’s own domestic system, while well-resourced and anchored in comprehensive frameworks, continues to struggle to correctly identify and respond to who arrives at its border. Operation Sovereign Borders – protection blind by design – has intercepted, returned and externalised the processing of individuals without any systematic assessment of who they are or what they are fleeing. It has been widely condemned as a grave violation of international law. The legacy of Australia’s offshore processing policy in Nauru and Papua New Guinea has only deepened the hesitation to build protection systems regionally across host communities and governments alike.

The choice ahead

Since 2023, UNHCR has advocated for a ‘route-based approach’ to mixed movements – coordinated interventions along main routes across countries of origin, asylum, transit and destination. The Pacific sits along several migration routes and while arrival numbers are relatively minor, the current approach means the region is operating as though in isolation.

The Boe Declaration on Regional Security affirms an expanded concept of security encompassing human security, humanitarian concerns and the rule of law. The 2050 Strategy for the Blue Pacific Continent commits to people-centred governance. Protection systems are the practical mechanism through which both are delivered.

A state that cannot distinguish a refugee from an irregular migrant or from a genuine security threat is not governing with clarity or sovereignty. It is governing with a blindfold.

The states most exposed to security risk are not those who build protection systems, but those that do not.

When external systems retract, internal systems must expand. Protection is not a concession to security risk. It is the architecture through which states achieve it – and the Pacific cannot afford to leave that gap open.

Sarah Mansour is an Australian immigration and refugee lawyer, former UNHCR Protection Officer for the Pacific, and the Founder and Principal Consultant of Sarah Mansour Consulting (SMC). The views expressed in this article are her own and do not necessarily reflect those of the consultancy firms she leads.

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