“Are the Current Migration Policies Operating in Europe and America Creating More or Less 
Security?”

In the contemporary era, migration debates dominate government agendas, public consciousness and academic discussions. In a world that is becoming increasingly globalized, and with the formation of regional and supranational institutions supposedly rendering national borders ever more obsolete, we now see a striking paradox manifesting. With the increasing porosity of global borders, we are witnessing the simultaneous tightening of national borders where the movement of certain human beings is concerned. Whilst transnational migration is by no means a recent phenomenon, discourse surrounding contemporary patterns has become increasingly preoccupied with its relation to security.

To address the question of whether current migration policies in the Transatlantic are creating more or less security, we shall first, discuss the securitization of migration through the Copenhagen School’s framework, specifically focusing on policy towards undocumented migrants, namely refugees and those seeking asylum. To better understand the creation of securitized discourses surrounding irregular migrants, we shall look specifically at the construction of migrants primarily as threats to societal security, as conceptualized by Barry Buzan (Buzan, 1991), namely the threat posed to the identity of the society. Having acknowledged the presence of securitization in contemporary migration discourses, we shall enter into a discussion concerning the legitimacy of the construction of undocumented migration as a security threat. In this way, we shall be able to address the motivations behind, and the implications of such an approach, not only on the security of the society, but also as it impacts the security of the migrant in question. This theoretical discussion shall be followed by an empirical analysis of the current policies concerned with preserving societal security in the European Union (EU), focusing solely, for the purpose of a more in depth analysis, on undocumented migration from outside the EU into EU territories, and addressing specifically the use of the Frontex border agency. Following this, we shall analyze the securitization of Mexican undocumented immigration into the United States of America, through the creation of the physical border between the two countries, and its impact on the security of both American society and the migrants themselves. Through the analysis of both European and American contexts, it shall be concluded that the decision to securitize the identity of society, and to position undocumented immigrants as threats, both undermines the core values of the democratic society itself, and also decreases the security of the migrant as a rights-bearing subject.

Constructing Migration as a Security Threat

In order to discuss the success of current migration policy in increasing security, it is crucial to understand the construction of the issue specifically as a security concern. Copenhagen School scholars, Barry Buzan, Ole Waever and Jaap de Wilde’s theory of securitization, conceptualized in, Security: A New Framework for Analysis (Buzan, Waever & de Wilde, 1998) offers a useful prism through which to view the construction of irregular migration as a security threat. According to the theorists, ““Security” is the move that takes politics beyond the established rules of the game and frames the issue either as a special kind of politics or as above politics” (Buzan, Waever & de Wilde, 1998, p.23). Their argument is, that through the use of language, (through what they refer to as the speech act); the securitizing actor may frame the issue as one that poses “an existential threat” to the referent of security (Buzan,Waever & de Wilde, 1998, p.24). It is through this process, that “the actor has claimed the right to handle the issue through extraordinary means, to break the normal political rules of the game” (Buzan, Waever & de Wilde, 1998, p.24). In their words, ““Security” is thus a self-referential practice, because it is in this practice that the issue becomes a security issue – not necessarily because a real existential threat exists but because the issue is presented as such a threat” (Buzan, Waever & de Wilde, 1998, p.24). In a time when politicians and public opinion appear to be mobilizing against the supposed rapid increase in migration from the global South to the North, the securitization of migration and migrant populations has begun to illicit increased attention from scholars across academic disciplines. It is easy to notice the apparent privileging of the state in securitization matters when it comes to the Copenhagen School. However, in Buzan’s People, States and Fear (Buzan, 1991), he introduces the concept of societal security as one of various referents of security that may be constructed as threatened, arguing that, “Whereas state security is concerned about threats to its sovereignty…societal security is concerned about threats to a society’s identity” (Waever, 1993 in Roe, 1997).

To the society, identity is crucial. Waever notes, in the same way that in the modern state system, the maintenance of sovereignty is fundamental to the state’s survival, to the society, “survival spells identity” (Roe, 1997). In this view, if the threat is not managed, the society itself will cease to exist (Waever, 2008, p.111). Waever notes that “The key to society is that set of ideas and practices that identify individuals as members of a social group” (Waever, 1993 in Roe, 1997). Citing Ole Waever, he suggests that, society is fundamentally about “the self-conception of communities and individuals identifying themselves as members of a community” (Waever, 1993 in Roe, 1997). Here we may identify that it is societal identity that is characterized as the referent of security; existentially threatened by an influx of socially and culturally different influences that supposedly do not ‘belong’ to the self-conceived community in question.

National identity is a key tenet of the nation as an imagined community (Anderson, 1991 in Panić, p.31), and the very idea of migration is fundamentally challenging to what is often perceived as an existing (and preferred) cultural and social homogeneity. National cultures are based on inclusion and exclusion, namely through the definition of societal norms determining who is allowed in and who is not (Weiner, 1995, p.140). Migrants are often seen as violating these cultural norms, and are thus perceived as seeking to undermine the very foundation of the society, and therefore as threats to national unity and security (Weiner, 1995, p.140). This approach however, contributes to the reification of both visible and invisible borders, and creating or reinforcing existing conceptualizations of the immigrant ‘Other’ in society. The “massive presence of immigrants, designated as ‘Others’, in the national territory activates a process of re-definition of national identity. Immigrants disrupt the poetical and cultural order of the nation. They represent a threat to its ‘purity’ and ‘authenticity’” (Triandafyllidou, 2000, p.187). Due to this dominant ideology of seeking to reify the distinction between citizens and non-citizens, or native and migrant, we have now begun to see a transformation in the way that migration policy is formulated. Through the securitization of societal identity, we have witnessed a shift from accommodation and towards managing the exclusion of the immigrant Other (van Houtum, 2010, p.958). “Hence what we see is a constant border-work trying to separate the wanted from the unwanted, the barbarians from the civilised, and the global rich from the global poor in the territorial society” (van Houtum, 2010, p.958). Within this framework, “Immigration and refugee movements come to be seen as invasions necessitating strategic action along the lines of more traditional threat to national security” (Doty, 1998, p.77). It is from this perspective that we can see the rationale behind public policy responses to illegal migration, and understand the focus on migration as a dominant security issue.

At this point it is necessary to step back for a moment and ask why it is that contemporary discussions regarding migration center on concerns over security, whether it be national or societal? It seems that policy-makers, general publics and academics alike have become blinded by language. Why do we choose to (very uncritically) discuss, and formulate policy on undocumented migration primarily in terms of security and not in terms of, for instance, humanitarian crisis and responsibility? Didier Bigo has sought to address this question, and others, in his investigation of the relationship between migration and security. He investigates the securitization of migration, not in terms of a response to a danger, but as a threat, socially constructed by members of a ‘community of security professionals” (Bigo, 2001, p.121). He argues that it is their ability to shape national security discourses and agendas, that causes us to consider migration in terms of security, and not to view it through alternative lenses. Crucially, he notes that many international relations scholars and government officials, have bought into the idea that we can discuss migration concepts, like the ‘border’, ‘security’ and ‘identity’, as pure concepts (Bigo, 2001, p.142). Often overlooked when discussing migration and its implications for security, is a lack of awareness that “Migration “became a security issue when it was united and particular forms of institutional knowledge took over to create a web of meanings of securitarian resonance, thus enabling exceptional practices to become ‘solutions’ to a given problem” (Bigo, 2001, p.142). This is worth bearing in mind when we discuss policy towards migration.

An additional issue that we must consider when discussing the efficacy of migration policies is that the ‘security discourse’ is largely concerned with threats to national security, or to the security of societal integrity. Popular discourse surrounding illegal migration is rarely concerned with the impact of restrictive migration policies on the security of the migrant themselves. This is the key consideration that is regularly overlooked by policy-makers and in societal discourses. Although this is not the place for a comprehensive (and valuable) critique of the human security concept[1], its basic idea provides a useful reference point for reminding ourselves of the responsibilities states have to safeguard the human security of individuals. “Human security today puts people first and recognizes that their safety is integral to the promotion and maintenance of international peace and security” (Axworthy, 2001, p.20). This perspective is often lost in migration debates, given the focus on state-centric security studies (Castles and Miller, 2009, p.211), however, “International migrants often suffer insecurity; indeed, their insecurity should be a major focus on security studies” (Castles and Miller, 2009, p.211). As we shall see through our empirical case studies, undocumented immigrants are often exposed to extremely dangerous conditions in their attempts to cross borders. Their efforts are made significantly more difficult and dangerous as a result of increasingly restrictive migration policies, legitimized by the securitization of societal identity.

The Migration/Security Nexus in the European Union

The European Union as a regional project has provided what many would consider a model for regional integration and cooperation. However, with the euphoria associated with the initial integration process having long passed, one of the most hotly debated issues concerning the stability and durability of the EU, is that of migration. Though there has been equally vociferous discussion of the threats to state and societal security regarding the impacts of intra-European Union migration (namely concerning the apparent rise in legal economic migration from the Eastern European states, having recently joined the Union), here we shall discuss solely the linking of security concerns to illegal migration from external countries into the EU. The perception propagated by EU policy-makers and national media syndicates across the Union, is that there has been, in recent years, a dramatic rise in the number of immigrants seeking to enter the EU. Policy-makers have clearly linked this phenomenon to the security of the EU collectively, and to the security of individual member states. Mostly concentrated on concerns over the permeability of the EU’s southernmost borders; “Attention began to focus ever more sharply on the apparent threat of massive ‘south-north’ migration in to Western Europe from the Third World” (Collinson, 2000, p.301). The ongoing turmoil in the Maghreb region and the “rise of Islamic militancy and the outbreak of civil war in Algeria” (Collinson, 2000, p.301) combined with the events of September 11^th 2001 in New York, contributed to the heavy securitization of migration, and of undocumented migrants seeking to enter the European Union.

Concerns over illegal migration into the EU did not, however, find their origins so recently. “In the late 1960s and the 1970s immigration was increasingly a subject of public concern” (King and Williams, 1993; Hollifield, 1992 in Huysmans, 2006, p.65). Generally liberal and unrestrictive immigration policies in the EU were gradually replaced by more restrictive approaches, aimed at stricter migration control. According to Huysmans, initially “The restrictive policies were motivated by changes in the labour market and by a desire to protect the social and economic rights of the domestic workforce” (King and Williams, 1993, in Huysmans, 2006, p.65). By the mid-1980s however, a shift towards the politicization of immigration, particularly asylum claims, was becoming dominant (Miles and Thränhardt, DATE, in Huysmans, 2006, p.66). Illegal immigration, particularly the movement of refugees and asylum-seekers, began to be placed on a security continuum. “The security continuum is an institutionalized mode of policy-making that allows the transfer of the security connotations of terrorism, drugs traffic and money-laundering to the area of migration” (Huysmans, 2006, p.71). In this way, the discourse surrounding illegal migration has moved away from policy-making concerned with safeguarding human rights and states’ humanitarian responsibilities, and towards treating the phenomenon and immigrant individuals, as security threats and as criminals (Joly and Cohen, 1989 in Huysmans, 2006, p.71).

As previously discussed, issues of migration control and management result in the reification and solidification of external borders. Interestingly in the case of the EU, we have seen both the removal of national borders, alongside the simultaneous reification of external ones. “While it may be true that borders are losing much of their previous military and economic relevance, this process has been paralleled by ‘re-bordering’ practices in the field of immigration control, where states have jealously guarded their sovereign right to regulate who is allowed to cross their borders” (Andreas and Snyder, 2000; Andreas, 2003 in Kalm, 2008, pp.15-16). Evidentiary of this focus on consolidating the EU’s external borders when it comes to controlling immigration, is the relatively newly formed Frontex programme. “The European Agency for the Management of Operational Cooperation at the External Borders of the Member States of the European Union, known as Frontex…was established as an executive agency of the European Union (EU) on October 26, 2004″ (Human Rights Watch, 2011, p.10). Tasked with guarding the EU’s southern borders, the “Interception operations at sea, which Frontex coordinates, have been most visible. These operations can occur either in the territorial waters of a member state of the EU, in the open sea, or in the territorial waters of a third state” (Maas and Truong, 2011, p.71). Despite being widely criticized, Frontex’s budget has ‘grown exponentially’, from €6.2 million in 2004 to over €88 million in 2010 (Human Rights Watch, 2011, p.11), and the number of sea border joint operations it carries out is ever-increasing (Marin, 2011, p.475). Here we can clearly see that the Europeanization of migration policy has contributed to the securitization of migration “by integrating migration policy into an internal security framework, that is, a policy framework that defines and regulates security issues following the abolition of internal border control” (Huysmans, 2002, p.770).

The focus on keeping migrants out seems to be closely related to the perception of a threat that illegal migrants pose to life within the EU’s borders. “In recent years, migration from the Third World has placed the concept of cultural homogeneity under attack throughout Western Europe” (Weiner, 1995, p.47), with South-North migration being “reified as an…external danger for the survival of the national community or western civilization” (Huysmans, 2002, p.758). We see that through the dissemination of this ‘migration-as-threat’ ideology, the identity of the undocumented migrant becomes essentialized and comes be construed fundamentally, as a threat to the ‘European’ identity (a concept that is in itself contested). In this way, a clear process of Othering takes place. The sense develops, through securitized migration practices such as Frontex, that the European ‘Self’ must be separated from the migrant ‘Other’. This constructed perception is reinforced through the common usage, by politicians, policy-makers and in popular culture, of metaphors referring to illegal migrants and asylum-seekers as part of a migrant ‘invasion’ or ‘flood’ (Huysmans, 2006, p.79), threatening to overwhelm the stability of the Union.

We can see that the current Europeanization of migration policies has contributed to an understanding of migration as both a national and societal security problem. However, what is rarely considered when formulating migration policy is the potential effects of such policies on the security of the migrant seeking to enter the EU illegally or in order to claim refugee status or asylum. “[I]n identifying asylum and immigration as the threat, the greatest cost has been the diminution of protection and human security of refugee and asylum seekers by more sophisticated policies and practices to deter, regulate and remove them” (Zetter, 2014, p.32). It has to be noted that resulting from the increased fortification of the borders, mostly since the 1990s, it has been calculated that “almost 7,200 people died at Europe’s border between 1993 and 2006 – drowned in rivers or at sea, frozen to death or suffocated in the back of lorries” (Kalm, 2008, p.21). The initiation of Frontex has had the consequence of pushing potential migrants into more dangerous situations in order to avoid the increased surveillance surrounding the external borders. Human Rights Watch reported that, “Over the last decade, an estimated 20,000 people have died attempting to make the crossing. Last year was the deadliest on record, with more than 3,500 drowning or succumbing to hunger, thirst, or cold” (Ward, 2015). These facts do not however, seem to play into policy-making decisions regarding migration management.

A key and widely cited criticism of Frontex is the part it plays in violating the rights of potential migrants in transit to the EU. The international legal convention of non-refoulement dictates that it is illegal to send a refugee or suspected asylum-seeker back to a state in which it is suspected that they will face further violations of their basic human rights (UN High Commissioner for Refugees, 1994). Frontex’s practice of returning boats of migrants in the Mediterranean Sea to their place of origin or to other locations where their rights cannot be guaranteed, is a potential violation of this principle. Human Rights Watch notes instances of Frontex border guards apprehending migrants “that they knew would be held in facilities where the conditions were inhuman and degrading” (Human Rights Watch, 2011, p.48). Here the European Union risks violating their commitment to upholding European and International human rights legal standards, such as refugee rights enshrined in the European Convention on Human Rights and the 1951 United Nations Refugee Convention (Weinzierl, 2008 in Maas and Truong, 2011, pp.67-68). Securitized approaches to guarding the border such as Frontex, effectively allow European governments to reformulate refugee and asylum-seeker identities in ways that “legitimise narrower obligations and commitments to protection” (Zetter, 2014, p.22) and absolve them of responsibility for their well being.

The Migration/Security Nexus Along the US-Mexico Border

The United States of America has from a historical perspective been characterized by migration. As a nation built and populated by migrant populations, it is perhaps even more striking to see securitization taking place in contemporary policy. The fear of illegal immigration has taken hold throughout American society, and despite most illegal immigration in fact not being due to illegal border crossings, we see a clear preoccupation with finding a solution to this ‘problem’ through intensified securitization of the physical border between the USA and Mexico (Doty, 1998, p.77). Much of the rationale behind the securitization of the border stems from the impact of the 9/11 terrorist attacks in New York in 2001. Just five days previous to the attacks, Mexican President, Vicente Fox and then American president, George W. Bush Jr. planned out a “bipartisan framework for a comprehensive immigration agreement” (Mittlestadt et.al, 2011, p.2). The agreement included “stepped-up border enforcement, a temporary worker program, and legalization for most unauthorized Mexicans in the United States” (Mittlestadt et.al, 2011, p.2). Following the attacks, the plans were dismantled, with immigration policy becoming “viewed almost entirely through the prism of national security” (Mittlestadt et.al, 2011, p.1). President Bush noted in a statement from the White House in January 2002, that “America requires a border management system that keeps pace with expanding trade while protecting the United States and its territories from threats of terrorist attack, illegal immigration, illegal drugs, and other contraband” (Bush, 2002 in Martinez, 2009, p.12). The placement of illegal immigration on the security continuum, directly contributed to the development of restrictive and aggressive policies concerning the US-Mexican border. As “increasingly restrictive policies at the federal, state, and local levels” took place, a key development in the conceptualization of the permeability of the border as a potential security threat appeared when the administration of immigration was moved from the Department of Justice to the Department of Homeland Security (Martinez, 2009, p.2).

Though 9/11 was not the first time migration came to be presented as a security threat[2], it has proven apparent that “if there has been one constant in both pre- and post-9/11 public discourse on national security, it has been the alleged threat to the nation…posed by Mexican immigration and the growing number of Americans of Mexican descent in the United States” (Martinez, 2009, p.2). Mexicans are currently the largest immigrant nationality in the United States, constituting 29.8% of the US immigrant population as of 2009 (US Census Bureau, 2009 in Brick, Rosenblum, 2011, p.15). In addition to being “the largest group of legal permanent immigrants” (Brick, Rosenblum, 2011, p.17), it is also estimated that roughly sixty percent of all unauthorized immigrants to the United States come from Mexico (Brick, Rosenblum, 2011, p.17). The Mexican-origin population has subsequently been singled out and characterized as an existential threat to the survival of ‘American’ society. Resulting from the transferal of responsibility for migration management to the Department of Homeland Security, the sphere of migration has become increasingly criminalized, with efforts to seal the border clearly targeting undocumented immigrants crossing the borderlands as threats to societal security, most of whom are Mexican. According to Jason MacGregor Ackleson, “The US-Mexico international border is…the ultimate symbolisation of the ‘us’-‘other’ schema because it structures both social, political, and territorial space” (Ackleson, 2002, p.167). The idea of Othering the Mexican migrant is central to understanding the attempts at protecting societal security in the US. Through discourses which constitute Mexicans seeking to illegally cross the border as ‘invaders’ (Ackleson, 2002, p.193), American national identity is reinforced and mobilized against the ‘external Mexican Other’ (Paasi, 1996 in Ackleson, 2002, pp.166-167). Samuel Huntington, for example, famously wrote of Mexican immigration in the following terms: “The invasion of over 1 million Mexican civilians is a comparable threat [as 1 million Mexican soldiers would be] to American societal security, and Americans should react against it with comparable vigor” (Huntington, 2000 in Martinez, 2009, p.2). Mexican illegal immigrants are thus characterized as an existential threat, with the border therefore being identified as a site of legitimate militarization and surveillance (Martinez, 2009, p.8).

However, here it is important to pause and question the terms on which these threats are based. The concerns voiced over the US’ societal security need to be challenged, since without doing so, we are assuming that ideas of ‘American’ society and identity are pre-existing, fixed concepts, which they are not. “The ‘imagined community’ of American civic national identity is a constructed entity rather than a somehow naturally occurring evolution” (Ackleson, 2002, p.193). The perception of the homogeneity of American society is “sustained through a particular narrative” (Ackleson, 2002, p.193); and one that is constituted in part by the securitization of incoming undocumented migrants and the US-Mexico border.

Taking the idea of the social construction of identity and societal insecurity further, in the case of US-Mexico immigration securitization, it is crucial to identify the roots of such securitization. Here we can draw on Didier Bigo’s conceptualization of the community of security professionals as the creators of these security discourses. As previously discussed, he argues that security is essentially manufactured by security agencies, and this argument is assumed by Josiah Heyman in his analysis of the US-Mexico border. Having identified that there is no publicly available evidence to suggest that a single terrorist has entered the United States by crossing the border from Mexico, he highlights the networks of security professionals that contribute to and benefit from the construction of Mexican immigrants as threats. “The first network” he argues, “is composed of corporate and bureaucratic entrepreneurs in the homeland security-industrial complex, who together with allied congressional representatives constitute the infamous “iron triangle” of budget allocation and public policymaking” (Heyman, 2008, p.319), and who benefit from the securitization and militarization of the border. Additionally he identifies the importance of “major corporate and central state elites” in seeking to “mediate and manipulate lower-order political impulses…for their strategic ends”; namely in order to gain an “ample, inexpensive, easily disciplined transnational or migrant labor force, preferably one easier to manage than unauthorized migrants” (Heyman, 2008, p.320).

So having considered the roots of the construction of Mexican immigrants as threats to national and societal security, it is now equally important to discuss the increasing insecurity of these migrants resulting from these increasingly restrictive border policies. It has recently become recognized that current border policing measures have significantly increased the risk to undocumented migrants seeking to enter the United States (Cornelius, 2001, p.667). Unfortunately, the heightened physical risks accompanying border crossings in this securitized environment, are in fact intended consequences of the border enforcement regime, and seek to in themselves discourage those intending to migrate illegally (Cornelius, 2001, p.667). The construction of the physical border between the United States and Mexico forces migrants to travel through more dangerous terrain in order to reach their destination, with most now passing through “outlying rural areas, where they expose themselves to life-threatening environmental conditions” (Cornelius, 2001, p.674). The increasing number of migrant deaths during crossings are evidence of this heightened risk. “From 1994 through mid-2001, approximately 1,700 deaths were reported to the Mexican Consulates along the Southwest border” (Cornelius, 2001, p.669); most of which were related to environmental causes such as hypothermia and dehydration (Cornelius, 2001, p.670). An additional hardship migrants face due to increased border surveillance, is an increase in the financial cost of the border-crossing. “Fees charged by coyotes – the professional people-smugglers who guide migrants across the border…have doubled, tripled, or even quadrupled” (Cornelius, 2001, pp.667-668). This leaves migrants to deal with both the perils of the journey, and the contractual debt assumed in their attempt (Heyman, 2008, p.316).

The irony of the securitization of illegal Mexican migration to the United States is that in reality, the American economy depends at least to some degree on their presence as an undocumented labor force. “Mexican immigrants contribute directly to the nation’s economic productivity, pay taxes, and are active consumers” (Martinez, 2009, p.14), and businesses continue to seek the cheap labor provided by undocumented migrants in their “domestic fields, gardens, and factories” (Ackleson, 2002, p.190). For this reason, it may be most accurate to conceptualize US border policy as a ‘symbolic political act’, that produces the appearance rather than the reality of law enforcement (Calavita, 1990; Calavita, 1994 in Heyman, 2008, p.321) in order to convince the general public that societal security is being preserved. Unfortunately, this ‘double act’ seems to increase the perceived security of societal identity at the expense of the security of the individual migrant seeking to escape poverty and violence in their home country.

Concluding Remarks

To conclude, we can see from this discussion that there are clear cases of securitization taking place in both the European Union and the United States of America when it comes to issues of migration; with discourses now focusing on controlling and restricting movement across borders. Looking specifically at the above case studies we are able to see that immigrant populations are increasingly being portrayed as threats the nation’s security both in physical and figurative senses. In an age of transnational terror threats, immigrants have become closely associated with terror-related risks to the state. Additionally, and significantly, however, immigrants have become synonymous with threats to societal security, namely the corruption of homogeneous and unified societies. Prospective immigrants are framed as the essential ‘Other’, threatening ethnic and cultural continuity; and positioned in opposition to the Western European/White American ‘Self’. Policies such as Frontex in the EU and the construction of the physical barrier between the USA and Mexico are evidentiary of attempts to increase societal security in a changing world. Such policies however, are having an increasingly detrimental effect on the security of the individual migrant. The effects of such policies dramatically increase the risk to the migrant during and after their border-crossing attempt. As has been shown through the empirical case studies, government attention to this seems to be lacking. Both the EU and the USA are supposedly built on the foundations of respect for basic freedoms. In the case of the EU, the issue of external migration represents “a test to assess [the] EU’s practical adherence to its founding values of respect for human dignity, freedom, democracy, equality, the rule of law and respect for human rights” (Marin, 2001, p.470). In America, the issue also highlights the need to conduct national security policies “without sacrificing immigrant rights or undermining national unity” (Kerwin, 2005, p.751). Contemporary policy towards undocumented migration appears to focus exclusively on societal and national security enhancement, but pays little attention to migrant concerns. However, if migration policies begin to reflect a respect for fundamental human rights, it is quite possible that insecurity may be reduced for both society and migrant.

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Endnotes

[1] See Roland Paris, Human Security: Paradigm Shift or Hot Air? 2001

[2] See Kevin R. Johnson and Bernard Trujillo, Immigration reform, National Security After September 11, and the Future of North American Integration, 2007

Written by: Kristiana Eleftheria Papi
Written at: University of St Andrews
Written for: Dr. Faye Donnelly
Date written: April 2015

Further Reading on E-International Relations

• The Construction and Implementation of Migration Practices in Europe and America
• Migration in the European Union: Mirroring American and Australian Policies
• Humanitarianism and Securitisation: Contradictions in State Responses to Migration
• China’s Instrument or Europe’s Influence? Safeguard Policies in the AIIB
• Brexit and Beyond: How Security Threats are Constructed
• Racism and the Politics of Fear at the US-Mexico Border