Asylum Is Unavailable : Absence and Absurdity at the Digital Border

Between 2014 and 2022, asylum seekers on mainland Greece had to initiate claims by calling the government on Skype, yet their calls were rarely answered. Written in Athens alongside asylum applicants as they called and called without reply, this book uncovers an eight-year human rights abuse that has never been documented. Stephen Damianos exposes how a mundane telecommunications platform became a powerful instrument of exclusion and erasure, immersing readers in Kafkaesque abandonment. Advancing the concept of “digital pushback,” he demonstrates how governments increasingly use unspectacular tools to generate spectacularly violent realities with little to no accountability. Asylum Is Unavailable provides a vivid portrait of human suffering and an urgent warning about embracing technology at the expense of humanity.