Justification by the US and India for their border controls against illegal immigration

ABSTRACT

The US and India have strengthened their borders against illegal immigration. However, the two states have striking differences with respect to their border control methods. The US strengthened its Mexican border through fences and militarization. In sharp contrast, even though India fenced some parts of its border, it has relied on shooting practices which have resulted in the deaths of thousands of Bangladeshi immigrants. Drawing upon Narrative Policy Analysis (NPA), this paper identifies patterns in justification strategies regarding border control against illegal immigration in the US and in India. The findings indicate that in the US, border control was justified by the restoration of law at the border. To the contrary, in India, border control was associated with arbitrariness. The majority of Indian policymakers encourage arbitrary border practices by adopting the view that ‘any method’ is legitimate to curb illegal immigration from Bangladesh.

KEYWORDS:

• Illegal Immigration
• Border Control
• Justification Strategies
• US
• India

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author.

Notes on contributor

Lacin Idil Oztig holds a PhD in Political Science from the University of Tubingen. She worked with Prof. Dr. Thomas Diez on the thesis titled ‘Why do Border Guards Shoot? An Explanation of Shoot to Kill Policies which Target Illegal Border Crossers'. She currently works at the Department of Political Science and International Relations, Yildiz Technical University, Istanbul. Her research interests include Middle East politics, border studies, human rights, democratization and foreign policy crises.

Notes

1. Even though some US border agents were involved in shooting illegal immigrants, these incidents are different from shoot to kill practices employed at the Indian‒Bangladeshi border. First, most of them were in self-defence. For official statistics on the use of force by border agents and assault on border agents, see US Customs and Borders Protection, CBP Use of Force, http://www.cbp.gov/newsroom/stats/cbp-use-force.

Differing from Indian border agents who have impunity, US border agents who are involved in arbitrary practices are imprisoned. In 2011, the Justice Department imprisoned a border agent for improperly lifting the arms of a 15-year-old drug smuggling suspect while handcuffed at the border. The Justice Department ruled that it caused a deprivation of the teenager’ constitutional right to be free from the use of unreasonable force (see The Washington Times, 2011).

For the imprisonment of US border agents involved in shooting incidents, see WND (2006).