Outsourcing Migration Policy

Specialists and academics in the field of immigration often complain that human migration is a global or regional phenomenon that is usually dealt with on a national level.  The regulations and enforcement mechanisms of national immigration laws are generally considered clumsy tools for managing international migration flows.  No academic conference on modern migration passes without a discussion of the state as an appropriate or inappropriate level of analysis.  Beyond academic debate, it is becoming clear that states are increasingly sharing the responsibility for their migration policies with other actors, both state and non-state.  This reality is at odds with the popular nationalist discourses used in most countries to justify and promote immigration laws. 

One telling example has been the European Union (EU) effort to secure bilateral agreements with neighboring non-EU countries, conscripting them into enforcing EU immigration policy.  This outsourcing of immigration enforcement to North Africa has ostensibly had a negative impact on human rights and the treatment of migrants moving from Africa to the EU.  These treaties often induce under-resourced countries to implement rudimentary immigrant control schemes.  These systems foster abuse in the form of inadequate detention conditions, access to legal recourse, social benefits and healthcare among others.  For example, UN Special Rapporteur on the human rights of migrants, Prof. François Crépeau, found that bilateral cooperation between Italy and Libya was heavily geared toward curbing migration to Italy.  He found that training and funds superficially dedicated to high seas rescue were also being used to increase interdiction of EU-bound migrants.  He found that given the poor record of human rights abuses against migrants in Libya, no intercepted migrants should be returned to that country against their will.  In his visit to Turkey, Prof. Crépeau, found that the focus on securitizing the border and reducing irregular immigration came at the expense of human rights concerns.

However, this type of “migration diplomacy” conducted by European states extends well beyond bordering states.  Since 2006 for example, the Spanish government has signed agreements Mauritania, Gambia, Guinea, Senegal, Mail, Cape Verde and Niger among others.  These agreements link development and migration and tend to focus heavily combating irregular migration through readmission agreements and strengthening emigration controls in the countries of origin.  On both the EU level as well as the individual state level, Europe is externalizing its borders and outsourcing the enforcement of its migration policy.

Another formal arrangement demonstrating the outsourcing or off-shoring of international border enforcement is the Australia-Papa New Guinea “Regional Resettlement Arrangement.”  This agreement, discussed in more detail in an earlier post, essentially designates PNG as the off-shore detention facility for individuals seeking asylum in Australia.   The UNHCR has said that the agreement “raises serious, and so far unanswered, protection questions”.   The Australian government lauds the agreement as a meaningful step to reduce the flow of migrants taking to the sea to seek asylum in Australia.  A similar trend is underway in the United States with regard to the southern border, however, marked by far less coordination or formal negotiation.  Mexico has been reforming its immigration laws, revising its visa categories and attempting to control irregular transmigration to the United States as well as bolstering human rights protections for migrants.  However, the Mexican government has been carrying out raids, paralleling those in the US and EU, to apprehend irregular migrants from Central America.  Such raids, carried out along well-known routes of north-bound migration, suggest an externalization of the US-Mexico border.  At a time when net migration from Mexico to the US has reached zero, Central Americans now represent the fastest growing segment of the Latin American immigrant population in the US.  As the Mexican government seeks to pivot away from the narco-migrant dialectic of its diplomatic relationship with the US, recasting Mexico’s role as border enforcement collaborator may be a beneficial alternative.

In all of the examples given above, the principal actors have been states.  However, the outsourcing of migration policies also involves non-state actors.  One of the most important has been the airlines.  One of the principal methods of entry for irregular immigrants in developed countries is to enter legally on a visa and then overstay.  Thus, controls at ports of entry, particularly airports, are a key aspect of border enforcement for these countries.  Migration laws in migrant destination countries are converging and imposing fines on airlines who allow passengers to board who do not have proper entry documents.  For example, in the US, the Customs and Border Protection agency requires airlines to transmit passenger information for all passengers on a given flight.  Failure to comply can result in fines of $5,000 for each infraction.  Examples of non-state actors taking on roles in immigration enforcement will likely multiply as states retrench under budgetary pressures.  As long as security and fear govern migration policy in the global popular consciousness, new actors and new revenue streams will spring up.  In the meantime, states will continue to seek methods of externalizing and “outsourcing” their immigration policies.