Drawing on various sources (United Kingdom, Canada, Belgium, and Italy), and updating Gumperz's crosstalk notion, this study examines how the problematic nature of asylum proceedings for refugee recognition in Western nation-states. can be traced back to the nature of late-modern communication, marked by its asymmetrical power, several communicative agents with rivalling agendas, multilingual and hybridized speech, and creolized interaction forms. Every year thousands of displaced people seek the protection of various European countries by filing asylum claims, which are examined by national commissions. This paper explores how the problematic nature of these encounters can be traced to the nature of late-modern communication, characterized as it is by asymmetrical power, multiple communicative agents with competing agendas, multilingual and hybridized talk, and creolized forms of interaction.