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ABSTRACT
Migration scholarship has thus far largely neglected the role of aircraft in both (irregular) migration and state policies aimed at controlling migration. Drawing inspiration from the field of strategic studies, where ‘airpower’ has been a key theoretical concept, this article explores the role of aerial assets in states’ migration control efforts. The article discusses three main dimensions of the use of airpower in controlling migration: the increasing resort to aircraft for border enforcement purposes – or what can be referred to as ‘vertical border policing’ –, states’ tight monitoring of the aerial migration infrastructure, and the use of aircraft in migrant return operations. As a core element of state power, it is airpower’s key features of reach, speed and height which have made it a particularly useful migration control instrument.
Disclosure statement
No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author.
Notes
1. Other relevant works which have discussed the relationship between aircraft and migration (and which will be referred to below) include Peter Adey (Citation2014) on aerial mobility, Chandra D. Bhimull (Citation2017) on the relationship between air travel, empire and diaspora, or Lukasz Olipra, Pancer-Cybulska, and Szostak (Citation2011), Burrell (Citation2011) and Ioannis Limnios-Sekeris (Citation2015), who have analysed the relationship of migration and air travel between origin and destination countries.
2. Since 2013, more irregular migrants have been intercepted between border checkpoints at the EU’s sea (Mediterranean) borders than at its land borders (Frontex Citation2013).
3. Since its inception, Frontex has expanded massively, in terms of both financial and human resources. Between 2004 and 2020, its budget grew from about 5 million EUR to over 500 million EUR, and its staff from 45 to approximately 1,000. Current plans are to expand Frontex’s staff to around 10,000 officials.
4. This was the Hirsi Jamaa and Others v. Italy case, in which Italy had brought 24 Somalis and Eritreans, who had been intercepted by an Italian ship, back to Libya.
5. In this respect, there is a difference between European and US contexts, as the US Coast Guard currently does not face any legal restraints in carrying out such push back operations on the high seas.
6. At least 16 patrol boats are reported to have been provided by Italy to Libya, and several hundred Libyan Coast Guard officials trained by EU countries (Amnesty International Citation2020, 16).
7. Of the 146 rescue operations which were carried out in the Central Mediterranean between 1.9.2019 and 29.2.2020, the Libyan Coast Guard conducted 69, EU (Italian and Maltese) ships 25, NGOs 51, and one by a merchant ship (UN Security Council Citation2020, 2). The number of migrants intercepted and returned by the Libyan Coast Guard increased from 9,225 in 2019 to 11,891 in 2020 and around 15,000 during the first six months of 2021 (Amnesty International Citation2021, 22).
8. The severe mistreatment of migrants in Libya has been documented by numerous human rights organisation. For recent accounts, see Amnesty International (Citation2020, Citation2021). For some reflections on the potential illegality of such pull back operations, see e.g. Pijnenburg (Citation2018).
9. World Bank, Air transport, passengers carried, https://data.worldbank.org/indicator/IS.AIR.PSGR
10. For a discussion of how air travel is seen by prospective emigrants (from China and the Caribbean) as more ‘prestigious’ than travel by boat or on land, not only due to its faster speed but also because it is usually based on official paperwork, see Bhimull (Citation2017) and Chu (Citation2010).
11. The EU currently has around 500 immigration liaison officers deployed in over 100 third countries. While such officers are not only active at airports, but also e.g. in visa sections of diplomatic representations, the prevention of irregular travel by air constitutes their most important field of activity (European Commission Citation2018).
12. For a general discussion of the ‘weaponisation’ of migration, see Greenhill (Citation2010).
13. Calculations based on Frontex’s annual budgets.
14. One instance of overflight rights for a migrant return being denied is reported in the Irish Examiner (4.8.2011). However, such cases seem extremely rare.
15. In 2020, two thirds of migrants repatriated by Frontex return operations were flown on charter rather than regular flights (European Commission Citation2021c, 24).
16. For a general discussion of the externalisation of migration management, see e.g. Zaiotti (2016).
17. In this sense a certain continuity in the role of airpower in shaping north-south relations can be seen between the current resort to airpower by countries of the global north in preventing (and reversing) migration from the global south, and earlier uses of airpower by these countries in building their colonial empires (see Neocleous Citation2013).
18. Such diversion effects have been documented by Andreas (Citation2000) and Lutterbeck (Citation2006) for the US-Mexico border and the Mediterranean, respectively.
19. See Chu (Citation2010) for a discussion of another type of ‘diversion effect’ of states’ migration control efforts towards what she has called ‘paper routes’, i.e. the complex efforts by would-be immigrants to acquire the necessary documents – both through legal and illegal means – to travel from China to the US.
20. The important psychological impact of airpower (in warfare) was already highlighted by early airpower theorists such as Douhet 2019[Citation1921]], 17–20) or Seversky (1942, 10–12).