The Neoliberalized State and Migration Control: The Rise of Private Actors in the Enforcement and Design of Migration Policy

Abstract

Current migration debates often underestimate the structural transformation of the European state and its embrace of neoliberal competition state priorities. This article analyzes two important changes that flow form this mutation. Firstly, migration control efforts now involve private actors, especially transportation companies, but also private security companies. By devolving operational responsibility and imposing financial sanctions, airlines are forced to co-manage flows of “undesirable” migrants, such as refugees and asylum seekers. Secondly, employer associations are gaining increasing influence over economic migration design. The rhetorical link between competitiveness and liberalized economic migration policy successfully sways policy-makers. Employers provide the data and arguments that West European governments base their economic migration policy design on. They are represented in influential advisory councils and help co-manage migration flows considered of economic utility.

Notes

¹ Commenting on the introduction of carrier sanctions in the UK, then Home Office Minister Douglas Hurd stated that: “The immediate spur to this proposal has been the arrival of over 800 people claiming asylum in the three months up to the end of February” (H.C. Hansard, Vol. 122, col. 705).

² The 1820 US Act Regulating Passenger Lists (s. 4) required all captains of US-bound vessels to keep lists of their passengers. The duty of steamship owners to return non-admitted migrants at their own costs was enshrined in the 1902 Passengers Act.

³ The Australian 1958 Migration Act establishes in ss. 217 and 218 the obligation of owners of vessels to cooperate in the deportation of non-admitted foreigners. However, in most cases, the cost of this procedure is to be borne by the deportee himself (s. 210). An amendment, effective as of 1 November 1979 (s. 229), introduces outright fines for carriers found guilty of having carried non-admitted foreigners, though extenuating circumstances shall be considered, especially if the owner or person in charge of the vessel can demonstrate that s/he acted in good faith and was presented with documents that appeared to be valid at the point of embarkation.

⁴ “[o]perators shall take precautions […] that passengers are in possession of the documents prescribed by the States of transit and destination for control purposes. […] Contracting State and operators shall cooperate […] in establishing the validity and authenticity of passports and visas that are presented by embarking passengers” (Arts. 3.39 and 3.40).

⁵ The Italian quota system is deliberately used as a foreign policy tool to reward or punish non-EU countries for migration control efforts, including not only accepting deportees, but also active measures to detain transit migration from sub-Saharan Africa and South Asia. Albania, Tunisia, Romania and Morocco were thus rewarded and in the case of the latter punished for efforts at arresting trans-Mediterranean immigration (interview IT-GOV-1). In return, these “privileged countries” (paesi privelegati) were granted in 2000 annual quotas of 6000 labor migrants each, including one category for individuals seeking “insertion into the labor market”. That same year, the annual quota for non-EU labor migrants was set at 45,000. Egypt, Moldova, Nigeria and Sri Lanka have been added since. Cooperation with third countries has proceeded apace; bilateral training programs with Libya and the Maghreb countries entail the joint establishment of job training programs with considerable input from Italian companies who are subsequently free to recruit the graduates.