Border Controls in Europe: Policies and Practices Outside the Law. (1st April 2014)

• Record Type: Journal Article
• Is Part Of: State crime. Volume 3:Number 1(2014)
• Page Start: 4
• Page End: 28
• Publication Date: 2014-04-01
• Subjects: forced migration -- border control -- securitization -- extra-legality; State crimes -- Periodicals; Political crimes and offenses -- Periodicals; Political crimes and offenses; State crimes; Periodicals; 364.13
• DOI: 10.13169/statecrime.3.1.0004
• Languages: English
• ISSNs: 2046-6056

Abstract

Abstract : The forced migrant 1 to Europe is hostage to a tight "migration-security nexus", 2 their conversion into a globally ubiquitous "illegal" presence facilitated by the incorporation of the global security industry into the region's system of external border controls. The European Union 3 not only outsources its border control activities to private security concerns (as well as third-party states), but also consults them on the direction of its policies, adopting their discourse and practices. It is using their expertise to meld member states' border technology into an apparatus of detection and deterrence that stretches far beyond the region to intercept forced migrants long before they reach its borders. The agencies that patrol on Europe's behalf outside its geopolitical boundaries also operate outside national legal structures, without regard to international human rights or refugee rights. Under cover of the privatization and securitization 4 of its immigration and asylum regime, the European Union acts with impunity in a parallel world of extra-legal 5 practices.