Sub-Saharan leaders in Morocco’s migration industry: activism, integration, and smuggling

ABSTRACT

The migration industry includes governments and private companies wanting to control and limit human mobility, but also nonstate actors who help facilitate it. This article addresses the multiplicity of roles that Sub-Saharan migrant activists and community leaders play in Morocco’s migration industry. The article draws on ethnographic research conducted in 2018 among 39 sub-Saharan activists and community leaders and 4 Moroccan activists throughout the Kingdom. I argue that while activists and community leaders are front line defenders of migrants’ rights, they are also caught up in the migration industry that emerged after the National Strategy for Immigration and Asylum (SNIA) was implemented in 2014. They attempt to enter the humanitarian aid or migration control sectors of the industry, but are often prevented from extracting monetary value from it due to racial discrimination. Migrant leaders turn to using their social capital to facilitate border crossings for other migrants in exchange for financial compensation. These activists and community leaders are instrumental in the mobility apparatus in Morocco as without them other sub-Saharan migrants would not have the information, networks, or support to access aid to stay in the country or continue their journey to Europe.

KEYWORDS:

• Migration
• Morocco
• sub-Saharan Africa
• activism
• development
• smuggling

Acknowledgements

Part of this project was supported by the U.S. Department of State under the Fulbright Grant. I would like to thank the editors of this special edition, Leslie Gross-Wyrtzen and Lorena Gazzotti for reviewing the article. I would also like to thank Rubén Hernández-León for providing feedback.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Correction Statement

This article has been republished with minor changes. These changes do not impact the academic content of the article.

Notes

1 The author has capitalised Black in keeping with recent changes in conventions on capitalisation.