‘Leaving Afghanistan! Are you Sure?’ European Efforts to Deter Potential Migrants through Information Campaigns

2016 ◽  
Vol 9 (2) ◽  
pp. 57-68 ◽  
Author(s):  
Ceri Oeppen

Policymakers in Europe are currently under pressure to both lessen the number of incoming asylum-seekers and ‘irregular migrants’ and address the humanitarian crises occurring at Europe's border crossings. Increasingly, we see an externalization of Europe's border controls, as migration management policies try to stop migrants before they even arrive in Europe. One form of externalized control is information campaigns, discouraging would-be migrants and asylum-seekers from leaving their countries of origin. Such campaigns intend to inform potential migrants about the difficulties of settling in Europe and the dangers of being smuggled. As such, these campaigns aim to both discourage migration and present that discouragement as a means of protecting people from financial and bodily risk. I examine the use of information campaigns in Afghanistan, and ask why they are continued, when ethnographic work with Afghans suggests that the campaigns are unlikely to be believed. I argue that these information campaigns are symbolic, fulfilling the need of policymakers to be seen to be doing something, and also – and more ominously – serve a role of shifting responsibility for the risks of the journey onto Afghans themselves, rather than the restrictive border regimes of the EU.

Author(s):  
Violeta Moreno-Lax

This chapter identifies the content and scope of application of the EU prohibition of refoulement. Following the ‘cumulative standards’ approach, the analysis incorporates developments in international human rights law (IHRL) and international refugee law (IRL). Taking account of the prominent role of the ECHR and the Refugee Convention (CSR51) as sources of Article 19 CFR, these are the two main instruments taken in consideration. The scope of application of Articles 33 CSR51 and 3 ECHR will be identified in turns. Autonomous requirements of EU law will be determined by reference to the asylum acquis as interpreted by the CJEU. The main focus will be on the establishment of the territorial reach of EU non-refoulement. The idea that it may be territorially confined will be rejected. Drawing on the ‘Fransson paradigm’, a ‘functional’ understanding of the ‘implementation of EU law’ standard under Article 51 CFR will be put forward, as the decisive factor to determine applicability of Charter provisions. The implications of non-refoulement for the different measures of extraterritorial control considered in Part I will be delineated at the end.


Subject The regulation on work permits for 'foreigners under temporary protection'. Significance A government regulation published on January 15 aims to facilitate legal work for the huge Syrian refugee community. It reflects Turkey's growing acceptance that the refugees will not go home soon, if at all, and must be included in society. It comes as Turkey is being pressed by the EU to stem the inflow of Syrian and other refugees and migrants. Impacts Many Syrians in Turkey will remain unable to support themselves adequately, requiring continued humanitarian support. To absorb the Syrians more fully, Turkey's economy and society need to be stronger and more equitable as a whole. Migration-management policies need to be sensitive to migrant's varied circumstances and motivations.


2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
Jasper Tjaden ◽  
Felipe Dunsch

In response to mounting evidence of the dangers of irregular migration from Africa to Europe, the number of information campaigns designed to raise awareness of the potential risks has rapidly increased. Governments, international organizations and civil society organizations implement a variety of campaigns to counter misinformation spread by smuggling and trafficking networks. The evidence on the effects of such information interventions on potential migrants remains limited and largely anecdotal. More generally, the role of risk perceptions for the decision-making process of potential irregular migrants is rarely explicitly tested while the concept of risk pervades conventional migration models, particularly in the field of economics. We address this gap by providing causal evidence of the effects of a peer-to-peer information intervention on the perceptions, knowledge and intentions of potential migrants in Dakar, Senegal, using a randomized controlled trial design. The results show that – three months after the intervention – peer-to-peer information events about risks increased potential migrants’ subjective information levels, raised risk perceptions; and reduced intentions to migrate irregularly. We found no substantial effects on factual migration knowledge. We discuss how the effects may be driven by the trust and identification-enhancing nature of peer-to-peer communication.


Südosteuropa ◽  
2019 ◽  
Vol 67 (3) ◽  
pp. 304-327
Author(s):  
Veronika Bajt

Abstract Detention, expulsion and deterrence have become the predominant policy response to migration. It is reported that it is becoming increasingly difficult even to claim asylum in the EU. All states restrict border access, but immigration is criminalized most stringently in cases of asylum. Noting how many national jurisdictions are adopting ever more restrictive immigration control systems, the author discusses the recent criminalization of migration in Slovenia. The country’s former internal Yugoslav boundary became the European Union’s Schengen border in 2007, and what was a permeable demarcation between Slovenia and Croatia up to 1991 has now become a hard border, subject to securitization and surveillance. The author explores the policy-making surrounding the symbolic construction of Slovenia as an EU member state which has been charged with the role of Schengen border defender. She shows how this shift has become apparent in Slovenia’s immigration management policies, administrative practices, and political discourse.


2021 ◽  
Vol 16 (3) ◽  
pp. 77-95
Author(s):  
Augustin Nguh

With the ongoing Covid19 pandemic, the adoption of policies and measures restricting mobility can be observed all over the world. This paper notes that the relationship between migration and development is circular and complex, embracing both negative and positive impacts. It explores the enactment of migration management policies that favour development at home (Africa) to prevent migration, with the trade-offs of security concerns. The paper finds these policies and measures to have failed and proposes what can be done to ensure a better Africa-European Union (EU) migration management.


2020 ◽  
Vol 38 (7-8) ◽  
pp. 1429-1446 ◽  
Author(s):  
Ioana Vrăbiescu

The French police and Romanian forces seek to identify, surveil and control Romanian citizens who are suspected to be ‘irregular migrants’ or ‘criminals’ in France. The two states sealed a bilateral agreement to deploy Romanian police forces on French territory: twice a year Romanian uniformed officers patrol next to the French police, whereas liaison officers work throughout the year in several French police units. Policing its own citizens on another state territory becomes part of police work in the EU, a police model encouraged and criticized at the same time. This article engages in debates on geographies of policing and cross-national policing in the context of EU citizens’ deportation. It problematizes the ‘imagined’ and ‘fictional’ in nation, state and police work instead of the claimed management, control, and law enforcement. It scrutinizes the role of performativity in the work of Romanian and French joint police forces. It documents cultural organization of the police in France and Romania, and it empirically explores personal positions in Franco-Romanian police forces working together in the Paris region. This article aims to evidence the cultural, social and institutional dynamics within transnational policing played out against the background of a bilateral mission.


Author(s):  
Erlend Paasche ◽  
May-Len Skilbrei ◽  
Sine Plambech

This article deals with how return programmes for rejected asylum seekers and irregular migrants construct and create vulnerabilities. Few studies have explored the role of assistance provided through such programmes for the sex worker returnees and victims of trafficking who return through them. Even fewer holistically examine a return programme through data elicited in both destination and origin locations, before and after return. That is what we aim to do in this article. We first look at the legal-bureaucratic construction of vulnerability in a host state, Norway, and the systemic logic of its efforts to return victims of trafficking. We then look at how returnees narrate their experiences of and perspectives on vulnerability upon return to their country of origin, Nigeria. This study, together with the broader research within this field, indicates that flaws in programme implementation can in fact exacerbate vulnerabilities rather than help returnees overcome them.


2013 ◽  
Vol 3 (3) ◽  
pp. 56-85 ◽  
Author(s):  
Emma Carmel ◽  
Regine Paul

This article examines how the EU regulates the rights of migrants as a matter of regional-level governance, and with what implications. To expose the differential logics behind the governance of migrant statuses by the EU, we compare the regulation of 12 legal categories of migrants, across three dimensions of rights: civil, economic, and social. We find that while asylum seekers are unequivocally subject to the most conditional regulation of rights, at the other end of the hierarchy, EU citizens' rights are subject to caveats and ambiguity. The allocation of diverse statuses to migrants privileges different kinds of rights for different categories of migrants, and does not construct clear hierarchies of rights or statuses. This complex stratification of migrant rights highlights the important role of EU-level regulation in generating a migrant rights regime, with substantive implications for migrants entering and living in the European Union.Spanish Este artículo examina cómo la Unión Europea (EU) regula los derechos de los migrantes como una cuestión de gobernanza a nivel regional, y sus consecuencias. Para exponer las lógicas diferenciales detrás de la gobernabilidad de los estatus migratorios de la UE, los autores comparan la regulación de doce categorías legales de migrantes, a través de tres dimensiones de derechos: civiles, económicos y sociales. Un notable hallazgo es que mientras los solicitantes de asilo son inequívocamente sujetos a la regulación más condicional de sus derechos, en el otro extremo de la jerarquía, el estatus de los derechos de los ciudadanos de la UE está supeditado a advertencias y ambigüedad. Para otras categorías de migrantes reguladas por la UE no se observaron jerarquías claras en ninguna de las dimensiones de los derechos, y la asignación de diversos estatutos a los inmigrantes es tal que instituye una compleja estratificación que privilegia diferentes tipos de derechos para las diferentes categorías de migrantes. La emergente estratificación compleja de los derechos de los migrantes en la gobernanza europea, tiene implicaciones más amplias para los derechos de los migrantes dada su articulación con la normatividad coexistente de los Estados miembros. French Cet article examine comment l'UE réglemente les droits des migrants à l'échelle régionale et ce que cela implique. Afin d'exposer les logiques différentielles qui se situent derrière la gouvernance des statuts des migrants par l'UE, nous souhaitons ici comparer la réglementation de douze catégories légales de migrants, à travers trois dimensions des droits de l'homme: civils, économiques et sociaux. Nous constatons que les demandeurs d'asile sont sans conteste soumis à la réglementation la plus conditionnelle des droits l'homme tandis que, de l'autre côté de l'échelle, les droits de l'homme des citoyens de l'UE font l'objet de circonspection et d'ambiguïté. Pour ce qui est des autres catégories de migrants réglementées par l'UE, on n'observe de hiérarchies précises dans aucune des dimensions des droits de l'homme et la répartition des divers statuts de migrants représente une stratification complexe dans laquelle sont privilégiés les différents types de droits pour les différentes catégories de migrants. Cette stratification complexe des droits des migrants souligne le rôle important que joue la gouvernance de l'Union européenne dans la conception d'un régime des droits des migrants et les implications significatives qu'elle a sur les migrants qui entrent et vivent dans l'Union Européenne.


2021 ◽  
Vol 23 (4) ◽  
pp. 431-456
Author(s):  
Julien Jeandesboz

Abstract Can national authorities perform systematic checks on persons engaged in cross-border travel in the Schengen area without these checks being considered as border checks or as having an equivalent effect to border checks? The present article investigates a specific set of measures that involve the harnessing of “new technology” to enact systematic controls on persons traveling across the internal borders of Schengen states, through the processing of Passenger Name Record (PNR) data and in the framework of the EU PNR Directive. It argues that PNR data processing should at the same time be understood as part of the alternatives to border checks available for Member States to regulate cross-border mobility in the Schengen area and as a standout among these measures. PNR data processing challenges the existing legal framework of Article 23(a) of the Schengen Borders Code (SBC) as well as the assessment framework developed by the CJEU in its relevant case-law, not because it contravenes Schengen rules, but because it stretches and overflows them. Ultimately, PNR data processing puts into question the very understanding of what checks performed in relation to the act or intention of crossing a border actually stand for or whether controls related to border crossings can be characterised as border controls.


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