Czechia findings presented at the conference "Current Issues in Refugee and Immigration Law"

On 13 November 2025, the Office of the Public Defender of Rights hosted a two-day conference titled “Aktuální otázky uprchlického a cizineckého práva” (Current Issues in Refugee and Immigration Law). The event brought together a diverse group of participants, including judges, government officials, ombudsman specialists, academics, NGO lawyers, and international experts, to reflect on key developments in migration, asylum, and foreigners’ law in the Czech Republic and across Europe.

The program addressed a wide range of topical issues such as labour migration, cross-border employment, recent trends in administrative and judicial case law, and the practical implications of the EU Pact on Migration and Asylum for police work, legal assistance providers, and integration services.

A highlight of the first day was the presentation by Adéla Souralová from the Masaryk University team of the AspirE project, titled “Stát reguluje, čas utíká: Časová nejistota a vietnamské neformální migrační infrastruktury" (The State Regulates, Time Flows: Temporal Uncertainty and Vietnamese Informal Migration Infrastructures).

Drawing on a rich set of materials, including interviews, focus groups, network mapping, video diaries, and policy analysis, the presentation explored how Czech migration policy shapes Vietnamese migration at both community and individual levels. The research demonstrated that securitised approaches to migration can unintentionally reinforce closed, informal infrastructures within the Vietnamese community, producing a “securitisation cycle” in which heightened state control increases mistrust and dependence on intermediaries.

At the individual level, the findings highlighted how migrants navigate pervasive temporal uncertainty embedded in migration governance. Whether waiting for decisions, postponing major life choices, or adjusting daily routines to bureaucratic timelines, migrants continuously seek stability and agency in an environment defined by unpredictable time horizons. The study underscores that migration policy regulates not only access to territory, but also migrants’ relationship to time, with significant implications for work, family planning, and personal security.

The full conference, including the session featuring AspirE’s presentation, is publicly available on YouTube (in Czech): https://www.youtube.com/live/Z7TFB29XpC8