Mixed Migration Flows and Transnational Governance Networks

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1 Anna Triandafyllidou Professor and Director of the Cultural Pluralism Research Area, Global Governance Programme European University Institute (EUI), Florence, Italy Mixed Migration Flows and Transnational Governance Networks The Lampedusa Dilemma : Global Flows and Closed Borders. What should Europe do? EUI, Florence Anna.Triandafyllidou@eui.eu November 2014 INTRODUCTION The EUI Forum on Migration, Citizenship and Demography is a joint initiative by the four departments of the EUI, the Robert Schuman Centre for Advanced Studies and the Max Weber Programme. It brings together critical analysis, informed debate and policy recommendations from the wider field of citizenship and democracy, demography, migration and asylum governance, and the management of cultural diversity. Professor Anna Triandafyllidou is the Scientific Organiser of the Forum s Inaugural Event: The 2014 Conference on the Lampedusa Dilemma. This paper elaborates on the new modes of governance emerging today in the field of asylum and irregular migration, at the transnational level. Taking stock of recent scholarly debates which outline the multi-layered nature of migration governance and the emergence of global governance structures 1 I am looking at the emergence of transnational governance networks which bring together international organisations, states, civil society and even smuggling networks into a common governance network. These networks are organised in a way that compartmentalises the governance of irregular migration and asylum based on the assumption that there can be a neat separation and distinction between asylum seeking and migration flows. Such assumption is actually unrealistic. Responding to the Lampedusa Dilemma requires acknowledging the reality of mixed flows and the role of new actors that profit from denying such reality, and intervening to shape this governance in ways that take into account the mixed nature of the flows. Policy experts and scholars from a variety of disciplines will share their views on migration governance, human rights, asylum-seeking and international protection, as well as irregular migration. The Lampedusa disaster of October 2013 demonstrates the dramatic events taking place in the Mediterranean area which require urgent, forward-looking and well-thought out responses.

2 Page 2 IRREGULAR MIGRATION: A COMPLEX REALITY AND A SHIFTING POLICY CATEGORY At the turn of the millennium, irregular migration and its implications, such as human smuggling or informal employment, emerge as inherent features and challenges of globalisation. However, concerns about irregular migration seem to grow faster than the phenomenon itself. The causes of irregular migration broadly lie in the intersections between people s search for better life prospects, labour market demands, and restrictive immigration controls. This is of course no news in the study of international migration and yet there is something qualitatively different today by comparison to, say, a century ago: alongside an increase in international population movements, globalisation forces produce an ever-increasing set of restrictions to the very same human mobility they trigger. 2. Undocumented migration at the turn of the twentieth century emerges as a structural feature of modern society. Rather than an exception or social pathology, undocumented migration at the turn of the twentieth century emerges as a structural feature of modern society. In its political dimension, undocumented migration is a product of immigration controls and immigration law in receiving nation states. In its economic dimension, it is propelled by an increased demand for specific types of work and for low-cost, flexible and unprotected labour. The legal categories defining migrants in destination countries are rather complex, fluid, and often overlapping. Irregularity is not an end-state, neither an on-off condition 3. It rather entails an entire spectrum of categories involving various combinations of residence status and work arrangements and their compliance to national laws. The dynamic character of legal status becomes obvious when we consider extensive regularisation schemes or amnesties that erase irregularity. But it is also exemplified in the term befallen illegality which refers to those cases where migrants who have managed to obtain legal stay and work status, shift back to irregularity because of their inability to prove formally that they are employed and hence renew their stay permits. Legal status depends not simply on individual circumstances or strategies, neither solely on conditions of entry, but crucially on changes in immigration policy and employment-related developments. MIXED FLOWS: IRREGULAR MIGRATION, ASYLUM SEEKING, AND SMUGGLING NETWORKS Imposing increasing restrictions to legal migration risks initiating a vicious circle: it generates the incidence of irregular migration, increasing the risks and costs undertaken by migrants and their dependence on smuggling networks, which turn to more sophisticated methods to avoid controls, and providing reasons for even more restrictions. In addition, irregular migration routes and smuggling activities in particular blur further the distinction between different categories of people, notably economic migrants, asylum seekers and those in-between who move for both economic and political reasons.

3 Page 3 The Migration-Asylum Nexus In their attempt to flee towards safety, refugees may undertake irregular moves and resort to smugglers, while migrants with primarily economic motives may resort to asylum routes in the hope of gaining legal stay 4. In both legal approaches and public imagination, the lines between economic migrants and refugees are increasingly blurred 5. Although international agencies, such as such as the UNHCR or the EU High Level Working Group on Asylum and Migration, have acknowledged the migration-asylum nexus, the interrelationship between forced, semi-forced and voluntary migration challenges conventional assumptions in policy-making. Effectively mixed migration flows are primarily associated with the agendas in (western) destination countries, reflecting concerns over irregular migration and border controls as well as unfounded asylum claims and the return of asylum seekers whose claims have been rejected. 6 Apart from situations where refugees and other migrants move alongside each other making use of the same routes and means of transport and engaging in the services of the same smugglers, having close links in transit countries and similar experiences in destination ones, mixed migration may also refer to the changing character of movement 7 along the way. It thus features at all stages of the migration process: the root causes leading people out of their countries may be mixed, as well as people s motivations to move, while motivations may change over time. Furthermore, it is not always clear whether the root causes of movement, or the primary motivations of a migrant, are in fact either completely forced or fully voluntary. Upon arrival, it can be quite problematic to distinguish between asylum seekers and irregular migrants People who are seeking asylum and who would qualify as refugees or as people in need of international protection are often fleeing their country of origin with fake passports (in order to evade persecution) and lack the necessary documents (e.g. a visa) to enter their first safe destination country. In addition they may use the services of smuggling networks in their effort to escape from their country of origin. Upon arrival, it can be quite problematic to distinguish between asylum seekers and irregular migrants (the main distinction between the two being that the former are fleeing persecution and are in need of protection while the latter are moving mainly for economic reasons). Actually the reason is not only the unauthorized entry of either into the destination country s territory but also the general blurring of the distinction between asylum seekers and economic migrants today. People fleeing for instance from Bangladesh or Pakistan or India mainly for economic reasons may have been pushed to emigrate also for political reasons (because they belong to a lower caste or they supported the wrong party or originate from the wrong clan of families). Any empirical or theoretical research on the governance of irregular migration and asylum that aims to provide some sound policy advice needs to take into account the fluidity of these categories, so as not to misconstrue the phenomena under study. THE GOVERNANCE OF IRREGULAR MIGRATION AND ASYLUM International migration has become gradually the subject of a global governance framework albeit in a flexible, informal and consultative way as

4 Page 4 characterised by the work of the Global Commission on International Migration (GCIM) in the mid-2000s and later by the Global Forum on Migration and Development since 2007 and ongoing to this day, after the conclusion of the High Level Dialogue of 2013 under the auspices of the UN. There is no formal institutionalised framework for the governance of international migration in the way for instance that it exists for trade or indeed health (World Trade Organisation (WTO) and World Health Organisation (WHO)). Institutions like the International Organisation for Migration (IOM) while transnational in nature are mainly service providers depending on individual states for their services. And indeed while the IOM at the time of its creation in the 1950s had a larger structural budget, it currently depends mostly on project money and hence individual countries are its clients. The governance of international migration cuts across the work of several of the other areas like international trade or for instance international labour where the International Labour Organization (ILO) seeks to play an important role in regulating migrant labour at the transnational level. By contrast to international migration, asylum is formally regulated by international law instruments and through the work of the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR). It has a specialised UN agency and a near universally ratified treaty (the Geneva Convention of 1951) that constraints state choices and their discretion in matters of admission. The same is true however for migrant smuggling and trafficking in human beings which are regulated by the UN Palermo Protocols of 2000 and pertain to the area of action of the United Nations Office for Drugs and Crime (UNODP). We may argue therefore that in both asylum and migrant smuggling/trafficking we have a formal multilateralism framework and strong institutions of transnational governance, unlike in the area of international migration. This compartmentalisation of the governance structure of the wider area of irregular migration (including migrant smuggling and trafficking in human beings) and asylum does not help addressing the situations on the grounds as flows are mixed and people arriving without proper documents at a country s borders may be victims of trafficking, users of smuggling services, irregular migrants or asylum seekers or a combination of these at the same time. Irregular migrants, asylum seekers and smuggling networks have however a common nodal point where they meet : the border, and more specifically the (unauthorised) border crossing. Irregular migrants, asylum seekers and smuggling networks have however a common nodal point where they meet : the border, and more specifically the (unauthorised) border crossing. While this moment of entry where a person seeks to enter a country and is apprehended (or indeed may be apprehended once already in the country s territory) is regulated mainly by national law on migration and asylum, the issue is of relevance for international (and EU) law too (particularly as regards asylum seeking) both directly, as regards the country s obligations towards that person, but also indirectly by the mere fact that these mixed flows are caused and shaped by transnational phenomena. Following from the above reflections on the close inter-relationship among irregular migration, asylum and criminal activities such as migrant smuggling or human trafficking, and on the need for an analytical perspective on their governance I am coining the term transnational governance networks to

5 Page 5 make sense of the new actor constellations emerging in the field of migration and asylum governance, to serve state interests but eventually acquiring a role beyond states. TRANSNATIONAL : PRIVATE, NOT FOR PROFIT AND INTERNATIONAL ACTORS The notion of transnational governance networks is necessary to capture two elements that characterise irregular migration and asylum seeking today: first, the intermediate, informal, non-state actors and their role in the whole process as facilitators of the movement; second, the emerging and ever increasing role of international actors such as the IOM or indeed the UNHCR in these phenomena. Migrants and asylum seekers obtain information and raise resources through formal and informal networks that are both nationally based but which also span across state borders including immigrants at destination, employment brokers, travel agencies, citizens of the destination and transit countries at various roles (as employers, transporters, NGO volunteers providing social support or legal assistance). Transnational social networks form the actual links between countries of origin and destination. Such links may comprise of three sets of elements: technical means (e.g. transport connections), resources (information and money to utilise transport), and political-legal regulations (e.g. passports and visas). Various kinds of brokers and institutions - including smugglers - arranging migration routes and border crossings emerge as new intermediate structures, as structural complements to migrant networks, indicating that interpersonal ties are not the only means to penetrate international borders 8. In addition the reception of international migrants and asylum seekers involves a range of civil society and private (for profit) stakeholders at the receiving countries which develop a network and business logic of their own. Cooperatives of social workers, local NGOs, national branches of international NGOs, or cooperatives providing translators in lesser known languages of Asia and Africa, find a new expanded field of work where their contribution is not only valued but indispensable. Small or indeed large companies that provide security services to reception/detention centres, catering or cleaning firms meet a whole new area of public procurement contracts that increase their business. The arrival of thousands of asylum seekers or migrants at the shores of Greece and Italy or at the refugee reception centres of Sweden and Germany generate a demand for a whole series of professionals and employees (ranging from doctors and paramedics, to social workers, translators, cleaners, catering and security officers) that then develop their own interest in the field. These actors and stakeholders along with the international organisations discussed above as well as state authorities take part in transnational governance networks. Regulation of international migration is increasingly shifting from an area of state The regulation of international migration is increasingly shifting from an area of state sovereignty to an area of interdependence and forced cooperation 9. Geiger and Pecoud point to three types of international

6 Page 6 sovereignty to an area of interdependence and forced cooperation organisations that regulate the related fields of migration and asylum in compartmentalised ways: the ILO for the regulation of labour migration, the UNHCR concerning asylum and refugees, and the IOM. They also point to the elusive character of these international organisations and their indeterminate character as they partly embody state interests and state funding but at the same time acquire a logic of their own whose purpose is the ongoing expansion of their activities as well as their own logic and administrative culture. This ambiguity of international organisations is readily observed in intergovernmental processes like the GFMD where state governments keep the upper hand but where international organisations such as those mentioned above and a certain transnational elite of experts floating around these events become essential parts of the process in providing consultancy to governments, connecting the dots, putting government officials in touch, preparing draft documents on which state delegations are then called to agree. The agenda mobilised by international organisations concerning international migration and asylum may be a positive and proactive one appreciating migration as a normal phenomenon, pointing to positive synergies between migration and development and triple win situations as well as inviting states to adhere to universal principles of fundamental rights. However at the same time this construction of a global governance discursive framework serves their own needs as it puts the centre-state as core actors in this fundamentally transnational process. Recent research by Anne Koch and Oleg Korneev 10 show how certain policy fields are elevated to priority areas for regulation as they offer an area of activity for transnational governance institutions such as the IOM and the UNHCR. Koch s study concentrates on the governance of return (voluntary, assisted and forced). Indeed IOM is heavily implicated in projects that assist states in returning undocumented migrants to their countries of origin and this has become a main area of project activity for the organisation in the last ten years. The UNHCR on the other hand has progressively also incorporated return of rejected asylum seekers as a priority area that is a key component to the overall asylum system and to the effective handling of the interface between asylum and international migration. Korneev convincingly argues that IOM has actually become a bureaucracy with its own interests and rather than a mere implementing agency it has become an actor in and for itself which now mediates the cooperation between Russia and the EU in matters of readmission. The IOM has become a key-stakeholder in policy transfer and cooperation in this field somehow emancipating itself from its own funders, notably the states. Scheel and Ratfisch 11 further add to the findings of Koch and Korneev showing how the UNHCR operations in Morocco and Turkey presume that the distinction between asylum seekers and irregular migrants is set in stone and crystal clear. They thus prioritise the expeditious return of rejected asylum seekers as part of their activities becoming themselves also part of the migration management and effectively disregarding the mixed character of flows outlined above and well documented in the migration literature.

7 Page 7 CONCLUDING REMARKS The transnational governance networks involve actors with fundamentally opposed interests: states that seek to regulate migration, asylum, and labour; employment agencies; smugglers; NGOs providing social support to migrants and their families; private companies of translation, cleaning or catering services; security firms; international organisations seeking to expand regulation but simultaneously make themselves indispensable in the process. Indeed it is this mixed and contradictory character of the actors involved in these transnational governance networks that makes them both interesting and important. These networks point to the fluidity and dynamic character of international migration and asylum flows today. These networks are the mirror of the mixed character of the flows and of the difficulty to disentangle them. EU policy development for the governance of irregular migration and asylum seeking requires acknowledging the complexity of the challenge of limiting and controlling population flows seeking to distinguish between people in need of international protection and economic migrants. It also requires acknowledging the new transnational and mixed public-private governance context and regulating the involvement of the different actors rather than outsourcing the governance of irregular migration and asylum to international organisations or civil society or indeed private actors, as if they only are neutral facilitators of policy implementation. The EU needs to closely monitor the work of all actors and stakeholders involved in terms of policy objectives, efficiency and democratic legitimacy. The interests and logics of international organisations, private actors and civil society stakeholders, and their activities should come under systematic scrutiny rather than being taken as fundamentally benign, neutral or in the public interest. Acknowledging this would carry us a step forward in addressing the Lampedusa dilemma. Disclaimer: The views and opinions expressed in this paper are those of the authors and do not necessarily reflect those of the EUI s Forum, its constituent parties or scientific directors and organisers.

8 Page 8 ENDNOTES 1 Kunz, R. Lavenex, S. and Panizzon, M. (2011) (eds) Multilayered Migration Governance. The promise of partnership, London: Routledge; Betts, A. (2012) (ed) Global Migration Governance, Oxford: Oxford University Press. 2 Bommes, M. and Sciortino, G. (2011) In lieu of a conclusion: steps towards a conceptual framework for the study of irregular migration, in M. Bommes and G. Sciortino (eds) Foggy Social Structures: Irregular Migration, European Labour Markets and the Welfare State, Amsterdam: Amsterdam UP, pp , this quote from p Bommes and Sciortino, op. cit., p Koser, K. (2010) Dimensions and dynamics of irregular migration, Population Space and Place, 16, 3, ; Van Hear, N. with R. Brubaker and Th. Besa (2009) Managing mobility for human development: the growing salience of mixed migration. UNDP, HDR; Research Paper 2009/20. 5 Dauvergne, C. (2004) Sovereignty, migration and the rule of law in global times, Modern Law Review, 67, 4, Van Hear et al. (2009) op. cit. 7 Van Hear et al. (2009), pp, 9-10 and Van Liempt, I. (2007) Navigating borders. Inside perspectives on the process of human smuggling into the Netherlands, Amsterdam: Amsterdam University Press, p Geiger, M. and Pécoud, A. (2014) International Organisations and the Politics of Migration, Journal of Ethnic and Migration Studies, 40, 6, Koch, A. (2014) The Politics and Discourse of Migrant Return: The Role of UNHCR and IOM in the Governance of Return, JEMS, 40, 6, ; Korneev, O. (2014) Exchanging Knowledge, Enhancing Capacities, Developing Mechanisms: IOM s Role in the Implementation of the EU-Russia Readmission Agreement, JEMS, 40, 6, Scheel, S. and Ratfisch, P. (2014) Refugee Protection Meets Migration Management: UNHCR as a Global Police of Populations, JEMS, 40, 6,

9 Page 9 MORE ABOUT THE EUI FORUM ON MIGRATION, CITIZENSHIP AND DEMOGRAPHY Scientific Directors Mission Statement Professor Joseph H. H. Weiler, President of the EUI Professor Brigid Laffan, Director of the Robert Schuman Centre for Advanced Studies, EUI The EUI Forum on Migration Citizenship and Demography is a 2-year programme ( ) that brings together professors, senior fellows, post-doctoral researchers and PhD students from the four EUI departments, the Robert Schuman Centre for Advanced Studies and the Max Weber Programme, over a set of themes of common expertise and interest. Building on a wealth of academic publications, policy papers, conferences and workshops, produced by EUI scholars in the wider field of citizenship and democracy, demography and migration management, cultural diversity and ways to address it, the Forum offers critical analysis, informed debate and policy recommendations. Topics to be addressed by the Forum activities in the form of Oxford debates, policy workshops and academic conferences include: The management of cultural and religious diversity in Europe at times of intensified globalisation trends and increased migration flows Balancing demographic and labour market challenges. How to build an effective and efficient migration and migrant integration policy in Europe? Upholding our asylum commitment in an increasingly volatile geopolitical framework: Ethical and political considerations. EU law and policy on migration and asylum: Fit for purpose for 2030? Europe: a continent of emigration, immigration and mobility. Past experiences, present challenges and future trends. FORUM website