THE LAB
Haven: the Asylum Lab is a project designed to preserve, share and analyse obscured data surrounding immigration and border issues worldwide. Based at University of Toronto Scarborough, Professor Alison Mountz created the project with three aims: to serve as physical lab space for working with immigration- and border-related data, to host an online data catalogue for protecting and disseminating these data and to establish a broader, public network for working with such data.Through data curation, preservation and best practises in data management, the lab provides a literal Haven for immigration- and border-related data.
Data
The data menu allows access to our growing data catalogue, which come in two forms: datasets and “data drops”. Datasets include data on specific immigration and border issues, whereas data drops include both such data as well as a variety of related resources surrounding the dataset itself. Each month, Haven will release a new data drop in conjunction with researchers on important topics in immigration and border issues, such as asylum seeking and refugees, immigration detention, irregular border crossings and deportation and expulsion, among other things.
Participate
You can participate in the Haven network by sharing your own data, become part of the Haven network by affiliation, or you can join a smaller community of conversations about immigration data. You can also visit the lab to use Haven’s resources.
Learn
You can parse the data and learn more about immigration related data by listening to our podcasts, watching our webinars on methods and methodologies, and reading other materials. Haven’s purpose in sharing these resources is not only to promote shared data, but to move to incorporate wider publics into understanding, using and telling stories with them.
THE TEAM
Alison Mountz
Professor, Department of Human Geography
University of Toronto
Interests: political geographies of migration and displacement, border studies, geographies of detention, political asylum, and war resistance, island studies
Alison researches how people cross borders, access asylum, survive detention, resist war, and create safe havens. She advises student research on migration and displacement, borders, and political and feminist geographies.
Kira Williams
Coordinating Data Scientist, Department of Human Geography
University of Toronto
Interests: borders, migration, political geography, methodology, statistics
Kira’s research focuses on illegalised migration, borders, and methodology, with special attention to analysing how states deploy space to alter the physical, social, and political spaces of international migrants.
Ana Visan
PhD Candidate
Balsillie School of International Affairs
Interests: borders, technology, migration, security, human geography
Ana’s research explores the ramifications of how governments, in particular the European Union’s and its member states governments, use technological tools for the surveillance of external borders.
Kate Motluk
PhD Candidate
University of Toronto
Interests: forced migration, externalization, refuge, islands, detention, and carceral control
Kate conducts research on a number of issues related to forced migration and carceral control. She is particularly interested in the spatial relationships and dynamics that drive mobility and immobility. Prior to graduate school, Kate worked in the refugee non-profit sector in Toronto.
Artin Khiabani
Undergraduate Student
University of Toronto
2025 Jackman Scholars-in-Residence Cohort
Interests: access to justice, refugee status determination (RSD), and procedural fairness
Artin’s research examines the procedural and substantive fairness of Canada’s RSD system, with a particular focus on the role of legal aid in shaping access to justice for asylum seekers. Prior to joining Haven as a Research Assistant, he was a 2025 Jackman Scholar with the Lab.
THE NETWORK
Rachel Elisha Marcelline
Undergraduate Student
University of Toronto
2026 Jackman Scholars-in-Residence Cohort
Interests: externalization, security, burden sharing
Rachel is currently conducting oral story research on the lived experiences of individuals crossing the Canada–US border. Working with community partners, she is working on sharing these stories through public platforms to inform public understanding of migration and asylum-seeking policies.
Ali Emanuel Castillo Armijos
Undergraduate Student
University of Toronto
2026 Jackman Scholars-in-Residence Cohort
Interests: migration policy, political geography, human right, social mobility, inequality
Ali’s research examines how institutional design shapes inequality, social disparities, and policy outcomes in labor markets and education. As an immigrant, he focuses on social mobility across racialized and immigrant communities.
Ellie Liu
Undergraduate Student
University of Toronto
2026 Jackman Scholars-in-Residence Cohort
Interests: mental health, migration, and social support systems
Ellie is a fourth-year undergraduate student at the University of Toronto, specializing in Mental Health Studies. She will be pursuing a Master of Social Work, with a focus on the connections between mental health and migration.
Solène Korah
Undergraduate Student
University of Toronto
2026 Jackman Scholars-in-Residence Cohort
Interests: refugees, migration laws, border policies
Solène is passionate about the intersection between art and advocacy, researching for and executing projects that allow social justice issues, such as refugee externalization, to be highlighted through a creative lens.
Nyx Zhu
Undergraduate Student
University of Toronto
2026 Jackman Scholars-in-Residence Cohort
Interests: refuge, gender inequality, sociology of culture
Nyx specializes in International Development Studies and minoring in Sociology. She is interested in qualitative research and oral history.
Riko Fujii
Undergraduate Student
University of Toronto
2025 Jackman Scholars-in-Residence Cohort
Interests: migration, refugees, human rights, security
Riko is a third year student majoring in Political Science and Global Development Studies at the University of Toronto. An an immigrant herself, she is extremely passionate about global migration issues, increasing tensions in the narratives of immigrants, and their protection of rights.
Annabel Liu
Undergraduate Student
University of Toronto
2025 Jackman Scholars-in-Residence Cohort
Interests: criminal justice and law, carceral control, detention, intersectionality
Annabel is a graduating fourth-year student in Criminology and Sociology at the University of Toronto. She is interested in exploring the interactions between law and carceral control, particularly the power relations that legitimize remand systems.
Ishaeya Bajaj
Undergraduate Student
University of Toronto
2025 Jackman Scholars-in-Residence Cohort
Interests: literature, government, political migration, and asylum
Ishaeya co-created an accessible toolkit to help asylum seekers crossing the Canada-U.S. Border. She explores political asylum and border studies through a literature, psychological, and public policy research lens.
Nagata Aptana
Undergraduate Student
University of Toronto
2024 Jackman Scholars-in-Residence Cohort
Interests: migration patterns, environmental displacement, environmental geography, data engineering
Nagata is a computer science student with an interest in reliable ways to process big data under computational constraint. He helped process ad-hoc raw data during his term with Haven.
Noelle Gomes
MPH Candidate
Dalla Lana School of Public Health (DLSPH)
2024 Jackman Scholars-in-Residence Cohort
Interests: public health, health promotion, health of marginalized communities (including women and racialized populations, e.g., South Asian women, racialized immigrants)
Noelle’s work as an MPH student involves using an intersectional and social determinants of health approach to research the health inequities experienced by marginalized populations in Ontario, and developing evidence-informed program proposals and evaluation plans.