Search

Begin New Search Topic Border Control

71. Unlocking Human Dignity: A Plan to Transform the US Immigrant Detention System

Publication Date:
06-2015
Content Type:
Journal Article
Journal:
Journal on Migration and Human Security
Institution:
Center for Migration Studies of New York
Abstract:
Unlocking Human Dignity: A Plan to Transform the US Immigrant Detention System addresses one of the most troubled features of the US immigration system and highlights the need for fundamental changes to it. The report comes six years since the inception of the Obama administration’s detention reform initiative. In the interim, the number of immigrant detainees per year has risen to more than 400,000, the administration has opened immense new family detention centers, and the overwhelming majority of persons in the custody of the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) have remained in prisons, jails and other secure facilities where they are subject to standards designed for criminal defendants and, in many ways, treated more harshly than criminals.
Topic:
Immigration, Prisons/Penal Systems, Border Control, Reform, and Homeland Security
Political Geography:
United States of America

72. Humanitarian Protection for Children Fleeing Gang-Based Violence in the Americas

Author:
Elizabeth Carlson and Ann Marie Gallagher
Publication Date:
06-2015
Content Type:
Journal Article
Journal:
Journal on Migration and Human Security
Institution:
Center for Migration Studies of New York
Abstract:
By the end of 2011, the US Customs and Border Protection (CBP) began to see a steady rise in the number of Unaccompanied Alien Children (UAC) from Central America, particularly from the Northern Triangle countries— El Salvador, Honduras and Guatemala—arriving to the US-Mexico border. The number of children entering the United States from these countries more than doubled during fiscal year (FY) 2012 and continued to grow through FY 2014. In FY 2013, CBP apprehended over 35,000 children. That number almost doubled to 66,127 in FY 2014, with Central American children outnumbering their Mexican counterparts for the first time. Research has identified high levels of violence perpetrated by gangs and drug cartels in the Northern Triangle countries and Mexico as a primary reason for this surge. Under the William Wilberforce Trafficking Victims Protection Reauthorization Act (TVPRA) passed with bi-partisan support in 2008, children from Central America cannot be deported immediately and must be given a court hearing.
Topic:
Political Violence, War on Drugs, Border Control, Children, and Trafficking
Political Geography:
Central America and United States of America

73. In Harm’s Way: Family Separation, Immigration Enforcement Programs and Security on the US-Mexico Border

Author:
Jeremy Slack, Daniel E. Martinez, Scott Whiteford, and Emily Peiffer
Publication Date:
06-2015
Content Type:
Journal Article
Journal:
Journal on Migration and Human Security
Institution:
Center for Migration Studies of New York
Abstract:
The Consequence Delivery System (CDS) is a suite of border and immigration enforcement programs designed to increase the penalties associated with unauthorized migration in order to convince people not to return (Rosenblum 2013). Despite its inauguration in 2011, many aspects of the CDS are not new. CDS does however, mark a shift from the deterrent strategy that, in the 1990s that relied heavily on the dangers of the natural terrain to dissuade unauthorized border crossers, to one that actively punishes, incarcerates, and criminalizes them. This article presents findings from the Migrant Border Crossing Study, a random sample survey of 1,100 recently deported migrants in six cities in Mexico conducted between 2009 and 2012. It examines the demographics and family ties of deportees, their experiences with immigration enforcement practices and programs under the CDS, and how these programs have reshaped contemporary migration and deportation along the US-Mexico border. The article covers programs such as criminal prosecutions of illegal entries under Operation Streamline, and the Alien Transfer and Exit Program (ATEP) or lateral repatriation program which returns immigrants to different locations from where they illegally entered. In relationship to these programs, it considers issues of due process and treatment of deportees in US custody. It also examines interior enforcement under Secure Communities, which, during the study period, comprised part of the overarching border security plan, and screened virtually everybody arrested in the United States against immigration databases.
Topic:
Crime, Demographics, Immigration, Border Control, and Reform
Political Geography:
Mexico and United States of America

74. The Lampedusa Border. Setting the plot around security and humanitarianism | La frontière Lampedusa. Mises en intrigue du sécuritaire et de l’humanitaire

Author:
Paolo Cuttitta
Publication Date:
09-2015
Content Type:
Journal Article
Journal:
Cultures & Conflits
Institution:
Cultures & Conflits
Abstract:
This paper presents the island of Lampedusa as the theatre stage on which the “border play” of immigration control is performed. The paper first introduces the performers and spectators of the play, outlining their roles and places with respect to the architecture of the theatre space as well as the dramaturgy of the play. Next, the paper analyses the five acts of the play, notably examining the time period in which each of them transpires and the most marking or spectacular events. Each act is analysed with regard to its dominant narratives. The war against irregular migration is waged and justified in resorting to two different narratives: one being security, and the other humanitarian. On the Lampedusa stage, while both narratives take turns commanding the scene, they both are in fact always present. The two rhetorics are intertwined with one another, and together they contribute to constituting and strengthening the policies and practices of migration and border control.
Topic:
Security, Humanitarian Aid, Immigration, Border Control, and Borders
Political Geography:
Europe, Italy, and Lampedusa

75. Recurring Border Crises: Permanent Exception in Spain | Récurrence de la crise frontalière : l’exception permanente en Espagne

Author:
Lorenzo Gabrielli
Publication Date:
09-2015
Content Type:
Journal Article
Journal:
Cultures & Conflits
Institution:
Cultures & Conflits
Abstract:
This article analyses the “bordering” process in Spain, notably with regard to its relation to ever-reoccurring “migration crises” at certain areas of the border. More specifically, it addresses the ways in which a structural phenomenon such as illegal immigration is politicized and managed as “exceptional” at the Spanish border. To better understand this dynamic, it analyses, on the one hand, the case of Ceuta and Melilla as pivotal sites of the execution of emergency, and, on the other hand, the Canary Islands as a temporary hotspot. Then, it decodes the elements hidden by the Spanish “bordering by crises” approach and its consequences. In particular, it exposes the way in which emergency management produces a de facto state of exception and excess at segments of the border carrying particular symbolic significance. Finally, it addresses the reasons behind this constant emergency management, namely asking whether emergency management provides an escape from the constraints imposed by fundamental and basic rights.
Topic:
Migration, Governance, Border Control, and Borders
Political Geography:
Europe, Spain, and Canary Islands

76. Lesbos, the Island of Barriers. Migration and Containment at the Greece-Turkey Border | Lesbos, l’île aux grillages. Migrations et enfermement à la frontière gréco-turque

Author:
Laurence Pillant and Louise Tassin
Publication Date:
09-2015
Content Type:
Journal Article
Journal:
Cultures & Conflits
Institution:
Cultures & Conflits
Abstract:
Based on two separate studies in sociology and geography, this article emphasizes the effects of “armour-plating” borders in the European Union through a focus on the confinement measures used on migrants at the Greece-Turkey border. Analysing both the construction and contention of detention centres on Lesbos Island, this paper shows that migration control is situated in a myriad of formal as well as informal sites, therefore going beyond the walls of official centres and sanctioning the immobilization or locking up of migrants. Consequently, this article places official detention centres and spaces created by civil society in a wider continuum. While the latter provide an alternative form of detention, in extending and reproducing logics of confinement, in the end, they too build barriers.
Topic:
Migration, Sociology, Border Control, Refugees, and Geography
Political Geography:
Europe, Turkey, and Greece

77. Exploring New Ways to Provide Enduring Strategic Effects for the Department of Defense

Author:
Clark A. Murdock and Samuel J. Brannen
Publication Date:
04-2014
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
Center for Strategic and International Studies
Abstract:
A CSIS study team led by senior adviser Clark Murdock and senior fellow Sam Brannen undertook an eight-month study to explore new "ways" of using U.S. military power to achieve enduring strategic effects. As the defense budget decreases over the coming decade, and with defense strategic priorities of the United States taken as a constant, the CSIS study team sought to identify new approaches, reflect on U.S. lessons l earned from historical cases, consider international defense best practices, and examine potentially transferrable approaches from the private sector to achieve defense strategic ends. Insights from the study were shared throughout the process with the sponsoring OSD Strategy Office in support of its role in the 2014 Quadrennial Defense Review (QDR).
Topic:
Defense Policy, Military Strategy, and Border Control
Political Geography:
United States and North America

78. Regional Organizations and Sanctions Against Members: Explaining the Different Trajectories of the African Union, the League of Arab States, and the Association of Southeast Asian Nations

Author:
Elin Hellquist
Publication Date:
01-2014
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
The Kolleg-Forschergruppe (KFG)
Abstract:
The Organization of African Unity (OAU), the League of Arab States (Arab League), and the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) were all established as post-colonial projects with the explicit aim to safeguard state borders and shield sovereign governments from external interference. Yet, their approaches to regional interference in domestic affairs have with time taken on different trajectories. This working paper traces the present diversity in regional approaches to negative sanctions against members back to formative events in the early days of regional cooperation. All three organizations had to confront political problems of substantial regional weight at an early stage: the OAU the apartheid regimes in Southern Africa, ASEAN the Vietnam War, and the Arab League the creation of the state of Israel. The analysis demonstrates that the concepts of the region the organizations articulated as they dealt with these problems continue to inform present positions on involvement in domestic affairs.
Topic:
Regional Cooperation and Border Control
Political Geography:
Africa, Arabia, and Southeast Asia

79. Energy moves and power shifts: EU foreign policy and global energy security

Author:
Iana Dreyer and Gerald Stang
Publication Date:
02-2014
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
European Union Institute for Security Studies
Abstract:
Energy security has climbed the list of EU energy and foreign policy priorities in the last decade. This process was accelerated by the shock of the 2006 and 2009 disruptions in Russian gas supply through Ukraine, and by the new possibilities offered by the Lisbon Treaty. Efforts have been directed at interconnecting national gas and electricity markets, diversifying energy suppliers and promoting rules-based energy trade in the wider European neighbourhood. The EU's primary energy security goals are to reduce the strategic dependence of individual member states on single external suppliers and to ensure that energy markets are liquid, open and functioning according to stable market rules rather than power logics. Yet energy security also needs to be balanced against environmental and economic competitiveness concerns.
Topic:
Economics, Energy Policy, International Trade and Finance, and Border Control
Political Geography:
Russia, Europe, and Ukraine

80. Extreme Violence and the Rule of Law: Lessons From Eastern Afghanistan

Author:
Rachel Kleinfeld and Harry Bader
Publication Date:
04-2014
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
Carnegie Endowment for International Peace
Abstract:
The international community's approach to building the rule of law in situations of extreme violence can be improved. These contexts demand a strategy that reduces the strength of armed nonstate groups and restores stability so governance-building activities can take hold. Lessons from a program implemented by the Natural Resources Counterinsurgency Cell (NRCC) in Afghanistan can help inform a more holistic strategy.
Topic:
International Cooperation, Terrorism, Armed Struggle, Bilateral Relations, and Border Control
Political Geography:
Afghanistan