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Abstract
Private actors play an increasing role in mediating the relationship between States and noncitizens and even in creating or perpetuating exclusions associated with noncitizenship. This paper offers a way to analyse the forms of engagement of the for-profit private sector in migration control and asks what it means for how noncitizenship is constructed. It presents the private sector as acting like a buffer, altering whether and how individuals may engage with a State constructing what noncitizenship means within a State’s territory, and removing so-constructed individuals from a relationship with that State. It shows how this may occur directly or indirectly, explicitly or implicitly. The paper addresses two main concerns: the impact on the State-noncitizen relationship and whether there are some areas of the relationship between the State and the noncitizen that should not be so-delegated. It argues that privatised migration control raises problems for standard justifications of migration control and noncitizenship construction.
Acknowledgements
I would like to thank the anonymous reviewers and Katherine Tonkiss for their careful reading, insight and comments which have certainly improved this piece, though errors that remain are mine. I began work on this paper whilst in post as research fellow at the United Nations University Institute on Globalisation, Culture and Mobility (UNU-GCM).
Disclosure statement
No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author.
Notes
1. This view is widely defended, for example, Thomas Gammeltoft-Hasen and Ninna Nyberg Sorensen describe the ‘Migration Industry’ as complex, involving ‘both facilitation and the control of migration’ (Nyberg Sorensen and Gammeltoft-Hansen Citation2013, 4). Gammeltoft-Hansen’s Citation2013 monograph, meanwhile, is the first to demonstrate the impact of this privatised system as a whole upon the international asylum system.
2. This has been presented before, perhaps most famously by Khalid Koser (e.g. Khoser Citation2005).
3. For example, Mexico, US (Hernandez-León Citation2013, 27); Bangladesh, Japan/US (Mahmud Citation2012); Peru, Italy (Berg and Tamagno Citation2013); and others.
4. For a classic analysis of this structure, see the writings of Gallya Lahav, e.g. at Citation2006.
5. Mitsilegas disagrees, arguing that new forms of control are created (Citation2015).
6. Full list of countries with this requirement can be found on airline websites, e.g. Air Canada: http://www.aircanada.com/en/travelinfo/APIS/apis.html accessed 20/01/2015.
7. For detailed analysis of growing privatisation of immigration detention, see (Flynn and Cannon Citation2009); and (Flynn Citation2012, 64–5) for updated discussion.
8. For example, Starr Citation1988; Minow Citation2002, 29–35; Avant [on security] Citation2005, 23; Donahue Citation1989, 8 – government agencies are made up of private individuals.
9. Silverstein adds also financial contribution to political parties or policy initiatives (Silverstein Citation2000, 189).
10. For example, https://euobserver.com/justice/123711 [accessed 08/01/2015].
11. In this way, it is different from the dual constituencies commonly identified in other forms of privatisation: the receiving poor and the providing others (e.g. see Starr Citation1988).
12. Michael Flynn defines immigration-related detention as ‘the deprivation of liberty of non-citizens because of their status’, (Flynn Citation2012, 42–43). He emphasises that this must include ‘both criminal incarceration and administrative detention’, since ‘many countries – from Malaysia to Lebanon to Italy to the US – charge irregular migrants with criminal violations stemming from their status’ (Flynn Citation2012, 43–44). In this paper, the term ‘criminal detention’ is used to refer to detention that is not immigration-related, though allowing that some immigration-related detention may also take place on the basis of criminal proceedings (this follows the convention adopted by Flynn). There are two key considerations: the mode of construction of the detainee; and the theoretical nature of the detention.
13. Extensive examples from the UK perspective can be found, for example, in the many writings of Clare Sambrook, http://claresambrook.com accessed 21/01/2015.
15. For example, Logan charts prisons improved by privatisation (Logan Citation1996; though with emphasis on employee experience rather than conditions for inmates), while the Swedish government reportedly decided to remove their immigration detention system from private operators because of what the government considered to be unethical malpractice.
16. This is adapted from a version first presented and defended in (Bloom Citation2013, 5), but with an additional fifth category.