Outsourcing Border Control: Public Agency and Action in Migration

Abstract

Non-state actors are ubiquitous in effecting border control. Private security companies (PSCs) are involved in deterring prospective irregular migrants from reaching a border, apprehending them when they enter, and then detaining and deporting them. PSCs provide not only agents of border control but also the increasingly sophisticated technologies of surveillance and deterrence. Treating irregular migration as a security concern lends itself to the expanding use of PSCs – arguably, a way of framing irregular migration that is itself encouraged by PSCs. The global border security market is, by some estimates, expected to grow to 29 billion euros by 2022. At the other end of the spectrum of organisational sophistication are civilian gatekeepers: individuals tasked, by law and upon pain of penalty, with monitoring and reporting on migrants they encounter in the course of their work – as doctors, university professors, and employers. In between are myriad other individuals and entities – airline agents, charities, and supranational organisations – that are independent of the state but pressed into its service, enforcing its borders and realising its migration policies.