Is Immigration Really a Security Issue? The Ukrainian Paradox, Militarization of Mediterranean Sea, and Question of the Refugee.
Title photo from EuroMed Monitor, “Five Migrants Per Hour Drowning In Mediterranean Sea,”
Introduction: Argument and Essay Overview
Humans have migrated for as long as we have lived, and from a historical viewpoint, it is crucial to globalization and evolution. What was at one point treated as a respected political practice has now shifted to a security issue. However, immigration at its roots is still a political issue, it is only through the discourse and practices of European states and international institutions that it has become framed and manifested into a security issue. This has been done through propagating harmful rhetoric in the media and political discourse, and by implementing practices that restrict protected immigration, such as the militarization of the Mediterranean Sea and criminalization of asylum seeking. Debates in academic literature on the migration security nexus center around migration as a traditional security issue for states and a contemporary humanitarian issue for individual migrants. This essay will look at both, but ultimately argue that implementing better policies for the latter will result in easier governing for the state. I will explore this argument by first looking at immigration as a political issue and the historical debates around it, then analyze immigration as a modern security issue and the perceived threat that has been associated with it. Secondly, this essay will look at the discourse and practices of European states and international institutions that have contributed to this migration security nexus. Lastly, I will summarize the findings of this essay to make the argument that European states and organizations have manifested immigration into a security issue, and not that it simply transformed from a political issue.
“A Libyan coast guardsman stands on a boat during the rescue of 147 immigrants attempting to reach Europe off the coastal town of Zawiyah, 45 kilometres west of the capital Tripoli, on June 27, 2017. Photo: Taha Jawashi/AFP/Getty Images”
Immigration as a Political Issue: Addressing Historical Debates Around Immigration.
Immigration as a political issue has historically been a respected practice in which migrants are regarded as skilled workers and migration can be seen as a positive contribution to the economy throughout different times in history. Migration has traditionally been used by states during labor shortages and times of inflation to gain skilled foreign workers to stimulate the economy. Not only does migration help the host countries, but it can in turn help develop countries that are producing migrants, as Borrell argues, “To start, safe and legal migration is beneficial for everyone: migrants help address labour market needs and drive economic growth in their countries of destination...Migrants also support families and communities at home. In 2022 alone, low and middle-income countries received $626 billion in remittances, according to the World Bank.” To understand immigration as a political issue, one must understand the root causes of immigration and leaders should be working to mediate these issues. The root causes of immigration can include fleeing war and violence, persecution, and inhospitable environments; the majority of migration is not voluntary. Those fleeing economic inequality and searching for better job opportunities are simply one small factor in a much wider complex issue. However, despite this, many of the political conversations today are centered around this small population of migrants. This is because immigration as a security issue today is framed as a threat to states and communities instead of being respected and acknowledged for its positive contributions. Furthermore, while migrants can be portrayed as an indirect threat to the economy, now they are also portrayed as a direct threat to national identity and security.
Immigration as a Security Issue; a Threat to Identity, Economy, and Safety; National Security.
Immigration as it has manifested into a security issue focuses on three threats: the threat to national identity, the economy, and safety of citizens. While there have always been historical debates on the effectiveness of immigration to boost the economy and assist in times of financial hardships for states, these new threats present themselves in a different way. Particularly centered around a “us versus them,” othering of migrants. The main arguments for each threat are as followed:
Immigration as a threat to identity: concern around the mixing of cultures and increase in diversity, centered around a desire to preserve national identity.
Immigration as a threat to the economy: debates around job competition, claims of immigrants stealing welfare benefits.
Immigration as a threat to civilian safety and national security: as seen through xenophobic and racist rhetoric, “othering” of refugees as terrorists and criminals to justify new legislation.
To deconstruct these arguments, firstly let's consider immigration as a threat to the economy. As mentioned above, there is a concerning growing sentiment around framing migrants as job competition and stealing jobs from native citizens. Furthermore, there have been increasingly more accusations that immigrants have no desire to work and would rather take advantage of welfare systems, both arguments are untrue. “Immigration may increase competition for existing jobs in certain occupational sectors, but it can also create new jobs. This is because there is not a fixed number of jobs in the economy (the so-called “lump of labour fallacy”) ...Several studies have examined whether immigration leads to higher unemployment or lower wages among existing workers, and most have found either small or no effects.” Not only is there not enough evidence to prove that immigrants steal jobs from native workers, but more accurately migrants fill the gaps when there are labor shortages in certain fields, taking the jobs that native workers don’t want. Addressing the argument that migrants take advantage of welfare systems, research has found that welfare as a political issue is actually used to control immigration on the basis of it being a security issue. Migrants, especially non protected migrants who move for economic purposes, typically must wait years to be eligible for welfare benefits, despite being more vulnerable to poverty and economic inequality in their host country (Lafleur, J.-M. and Vintila, D. (2020))
Secondly, let’s briefly analyze immigration as a threat to identity and safety and then compare it to the discourse and practices of European states and institutions. A common argument in modern political discourse against immigration is that migrants are a threat to national identity. While migrants do inherently increase cultural diversity in their host communities, there is also increasing debate around integration of these migrants. On one hand, integration does ease the concerns of those worried about immigration threatening national identity, on the other, it is simply unfair to ask migrants to leave behind their culture and adopt a new one simply to be accepted. An important distinction now needs to be made between the types of migrants. While most migrants who move for economic purposes are not given exclusive rights under international law, other immigrants, such as refugees and asylum seekers, are entitled to protections. This distinction is rarely acknowledged in the political discourse and practices of European states. Furthermore, discourse from many European states, and practices implemented and authorized by international organizations such as the European Union or United Nations, further propagate the threat of immigration on civilian safety and national security.
Harmful Rhetoric of Migrants in European Political Discourse.
As mentioned above, the most important distinction to make is between voluntary migrants and refugees/asylum seekers. In recent years, and especially since the 2015 “refugee crisis,” harmful rhetoric criminalizing and stigmatizing refugees has entered political discourse, and arguably has led to practices that further manipulate migration. In many of these discourses, this distinction is not made. Dehumanizing language is used to describe migrants and refugees alike, and furthermore, refugees as their own group are discriminated against based on origin. One example of this is the blatant hypocrisy used to justify accepting Ukrainian refugees, but not those from other wars, such as Syria or Afghanistan. For example, the Bulgarian Prime Minister Kiril Petkov recently claimed, "These (Ukrainians) are not the refugees we are used to…These people are Europeans…These people are intelligent, they are educated people…This is not the refugee wave we have been used to, people we were not sure about their identity, people with unclear pasts, who could have been even terrorists." Petkov is not the first to make this claim, refugees and asylum seekers from non-European countries are much more likely to be stigmatized and denied rights to migrate because of rhetoric such as this. Two reasons for this are growing xenophobia and nationalism in the West, which promotes othering of non-native citizens and residents. Unlike for Ukrainians in 2021, refugees who fled in 2015 were denied any sort of Temporary Protection Directive from the European Union, despite fleeing similar violences. This highlights a direct hypocrisy in how Europe treats migration from inside the EU versus outside, propagated by othering non-EU refugees as criminals or even terrorists.
Statistics on Ukrainian Temporary Protection Directive, Eurostat, 2022
A second way that European states and institutions have manifested migration as a security issue is through the concept of burden sharing. Used to describe the effects of immigration on host countries and as a practice to divide the “burden” of refugees and other migrants, the simple language used results in anti-immigration sentiment, despite as identified above, migrants can be a benefit to host economies. Perhaps if the language used by European leaders and international organizations was changed to highlight migrants skills and diversity, including that of refugees and asylum seekers, in a more positive light around boosting the economy and diversity, and less spoken of as a burden and a threat to safety, then immigration could return to a focus of politics instead of security.
Practices: Militarization of Mediterranean Sea and Criminalization of Asylum Seeking
Lastly, let's look at some of the practices implemented in Europe as a response to migration as a security issue. Since 2015, Mediterranean crossings have become increasingly militarized. Coast guards are made to arrest smugglers and deport asylum seekers. Refoulement is an illegal practice where migrants, specifically refugees and asylum seekers, are sent back to a country, typically their country of origin, where they will likely face persecution. Scholars have identified further discrimination of these migrants who utilize the Mediterranean Sea to seek asylum. Kinacloglu argues, “Land migrants usually receive refugee rights and get access to asylum, the ease of which can vary depending on the specific group the migrant belongs to, Ukrainians vs non-Ukrainians, or skilled vs unskilled. In contrast, those intercepted in the high seas or in the territorial waters of a state are either pushed back or sent back to their original countries regardless of their need for—and legal right to—protection.” Through various border and maritime operations, such as Frontex operations off the coast of Italy and Greece, there is much debate around the effectiveness of these practices. For example, there is little research into what happens to individual migrants after these instances of refoulement, but it is likely not a good deterrent to migration as it doesn’t address the root causes of such. “This development can also be seen in the military 'Operation Sophia' run on the coast of Libya, which received additional support from NATO. This operation trains Libyan coastguards who have a reported history of violence against refugees.” Military operations, such as Operation Sophia, should not be utilized against asylum seekers. Not only do they further persecute internationally protected groups, but they further perpetuate violence against such vulnerable groups. The overwhelming majority of migrants crossing the Mediterranean are crossing through Libya, where refugees have claimed they continue to face violence, including kidnapping, torture and extortion.
Simply put, these are not migrants looking to steal jobs or commit crimes, in fact, these are refugees and asylum seekers who are fleeing such violence they are often accused of. Additionally, these same operations are used to criminalize asylum seeking, with arrests of human trafficking or smuggling of anyone who attempts to assist those in crossing the Mediterranean. Such practices further propagate the idea that refugees and asylum seekers are choosing such migration, and that they are criminals needed to be kept out of Europe.
Conclusion
Migrants immigrate for several reasons: economic opportunity, fleeing persecution, war, violence, inhospitable climates, all of which are entitled to different rights and some more than others. Political discourse from European states and international organizations rarely makes this distinction clear, leading to harmful rhetoric and misinformation about refugees and asylum seekers. This discourse has led to different anti-immigration practices in Europe, particularly the militarization of the Mediterranean Sea and criminalization of asylum seeking. The international community must do better when speaking about migration and be careful not to further stigmatize groups that have already felt persecution. It can do this by recognizing migrants as positive contributions to host countries, being sure to not participate in harmful rhetoric in political discourse, and by holding European states and organizations accountable that are committing illegal practices such as refoulement and dangerous military operations. Possibly then migration can return to being a political issue, respected in international politics, and used to help vulnerable groups and countries alike, instead of being labeled a burden and manifested as a security issue.
Disclaimer: This blog was taken by an essay written by myself, Alyssa Hockett, at Aberystwyth University in 2024, and revised for publishing on here January 2024.
