In Canada and the United Kingdom, migrants are sometimes confined in prison-like settings. In Malta, they’re held in converted military barracks. Like so many others, these countries have come to rely on imprisonment to enforce their immigration laws. Indeed, I recently reviewed a book that provides an excellent overview of immigration imprisonment tactics in fifteen countries. This blog’s readers know full well how pervasive this phenomenon is in the United States. With over 400,000 people confined every year by ICE, we count the world’s largest immigration prison population (without even [...]
Policing and humanitarianism in migration control
Every day for years on end the story repeats itself. People fleeing their homelands in search of opportunity or survival lose their lives en route. The developed world—from Australia to the United States—bemoans the lost lives. We observe moments of silence, take pity on the dead, and skewer the smugglers who profit from clandestine migration. Rarely do we look inward to ask how our own policies lead to death. In Crimes of Peace: Mediterranean Migrations at the World’s Deadliest Border (2015), anthropologist Maurizio Albahari refuses to let us sit comfortably in our condemnation of others [...]
Pushing Europe to protect migrant workers
By Alan Desmond As we approach the 25th anniversary of the UN International Convention on the Protection of the Rights of All Migrant Workers and Members of Their Families (ICMW), Migrants Matter, a group of postgraduate students and young professionals concerned with the treatment of migrants in Europe, is calling on Dimitris Avramopoulos, the EU Commissioner for Migration, Home Affairs and Citizenship, to support ratification of the ICMW by EU Member States. Adopted by the UN General Assembly on 18 December 1990, the ICMW is one of the ten core international human rights instruments. [...]
Creating & Policing Migrant Illegality in Europe
Distressing news reports from Europe keep coming in. A dozen migrants died here trying to make their way from Africa, a few hundred there. Italy claims it’s outmatched and needs European Union support. Spain says it’s interested in a humanitarian response. Meanwhile, I imagine the ghost of Muammar Gaddafi wryly admonishing its former European powers with an “I told you so” years after warning that his fall would mean Libya would no longer apply a heavy hand to keep migrants in Africa. Lost from this conventional account are the many people who are directly engaged in the migration process. [...]
Crimmigration in the European Union: The case of immigration detention
By Izabella Majcher For over a decade U.S immigration scholars and practitioners have observed a growing convergence between criminal justice and migration control systems. Regular posts at the crImmigration.com blog document the spread of this phenomenon in the U.S. This post, which builds on the author’s Global Detention Project working paper “Crimmigration” in the European Union through the Lens of Immigration Detention, aims to give some insights into how the phenomenon of crimmigration has influenced the European Union (EU) legal system. Arguably, immigration detention represents the [...]