Border Security Policies Research Articles

A European narrative of border externalisation: the European trust fund for Africa story

ABSTRACT This paper examines European narratives regarding border externalisation within the context of the European Trust Fund for Africa (EUTF). It seeks to understand how the EU shapes its discourse on African migration, recommends solutions, and evaluates outcomes. As the latest and most comprehensive instrument for externalising migration management, the EUTF offers abundant source material to comprehensively analyse the EU institutional narrative since the 2015 Valletta Summit. Furthermore, with its official conclusion, it presents a unique opportunity to track the complete evolution of EU policy narratives on border security, treating the EUTF as a story with a beginning, middle, and end. This paper relies on publicly accessible documents produced before, during, and after its implementation to uncover the underlying story shaping EU border externalisation. It aims to contribute to research on policy narratives related to migration and security, shedding light on the role of knowledge production in shaping border security policies. Moreover, it contributes to studies on policy narratives by proposing to couple Narrative Policy Framework approaches that look at the structure (setting, characters, plot, moral), with interpretative and critical approaches that focus on the content by uncovering the ideas, values, and assumptions on which such narratives are based.

Globalization and Proliferations of Small Arms and Light Weapons in Nigeria: The Productive Precursors to the Security Challenges in North-Eastern Nigeria

The Nigeria North-East geopolitical zone which comprises of Adamawa, Bauchi, Borno, Gombe, Taraba and Yobe States has provided save haven for all forms of insurgents and criminal groups, including Boko Haram, the Islamic States in West African Province (ISWAP), armed banditry, Fulani herdsmen militancy, kidnapping for ransom, cattle rustling and armed robbery. There is also the problem of increased proliferation of Small Arms and Light Weapons (SALW) encouraged by the porous nature of the land borders in northern part of the country, yet, the government seem comatose. It is on this premise that this study asserts that Globalization and proliferation of SALW are precursors for the security challenges in North-East, Nigeria. Descriptive analysis was adopted and qualitative method of data collection was utilized in this study. The study finds out that the adversaries of the Cold War protagonists, the defunct Soviet Union (USSR) and United States of America (USA), advanced the progress of SALW proliferation in Nigeria, which in turn favored the terrorist groups in Northern part of the country. Also, there has been relentless onslaught of criminal activities and other overlapping security challenges since the Cold War era in the country ranging from banditry and kidnapping for ransom, insurgency of Boko Haram and Islamic States in West African Province (ISWAP), armed robbery and ritual killings, among others. The study recommends that the peace process in northern Nigeria should be sustained. There should be better border security policy and local policing of the communities in the Nigeria northeast geopolitical zone.

Security, Migration and Immigration Control Policies in the United States, 2018-2022.

This article aims to analyze the results of the border security policy agendas of the federal governments of the United States and Mexico, as well as the consequences of migration management, in terms of integrating various aspects such as everyday coexistence in the northern and southern borders of Mexico reflected, among other things, by documented transit; as well as the historical sequence of migrant detentions at different borders in Mexico and in the southern United States. The 2022 US electoral process heightened a nationalist vision that fostered a policy of greater migration control, reflected in a higher number of undocumented migrant detentions.

Russian border security: trends of post-soviet transformation

After the disintegration of the USSR, Russia confronted the task of reforming its border security policy, which had previously emphasized stringent control over both inbound and outbound cross-border movements. This challenge was further compounded by the unprecedented management of 13 thousand kilometers of newly established borders with other states of the former Soviet Union. This article examines the evolving trends in Russian border security policy, encompassing the management of these new borders, endeavors to integrate Russia’s border security spaces with those of its post-Soviet allies, and the impacts of geopolitical expansionism. The transformation of Russian border security policy has yielded mixed results. On one hand, Russia has effectively embraced modern approaches to cross-border flow management. On the other hand, the scope of issues covered by Russia’s border security agenda remains extensive, encompassing geopolitical fears and other issued that cannot be managed effectively by the agencies tasked with routine border management.

The Trump era and counter migrant smuggling: a new geopolitical order on the US–Mexico borders?

ABSTRACT The Trump administration decided to pursue a different set of policies toward Mexico compared to the previous administrations. Immigration and border security policies toward Mexico and the southern US border constituted a significant pillar of Trump’s “America First” concept. Due to the intensification of US immigration and security policies on the border, migrant smuggling increased significantly during the Trump era. However, there is little evidence of the impact that these policies had on the Mexican counterpart. What are the effects of Trump’s immigration and border security policies on the US–Mexico borderline? Drawing on qualitative data from interviews with high-profile Mexican officials, this article aims to explore the intersection of the impact that Trump’s policies had on the US–Mexico border and the migrant smuggling activities from the Mexican perspective.

"failing forward": freedom of movement reforms in the European Union during crises

The article addresses the reforms of border security, migration and asylum policies in times of recent crises in the European Union. The author turns to the analysis of the refugee crisis and closing borders during pandemic in the framework of the «failing forward» approach, which combines the ideas of both liberal intergovernmentalism and neofunctionalism. Describing the process of reforming the Schengen Border Code and the Dublin Regulation, the article demonstrates how the Commission’s ambitious initiatives to promote communitarian method of governance were reduced in the Council to a minimum common denominator. These decisions contributed to the temporary settlement of migration and border security problems, which were aggravated by crisis. They promoted the process of European integration to a certain extent, but did not guarantee from future events of force majeure. The cases of refugee crisis and pandemic allow to prove the author’s argument that a new Schengen reform was required to legitimize restrictions of citizens' trips. Concentrating on the analysis of this new reform, the author comes to conclusion that the EU's choice of an intergovernmental way of Schengen governance does not ensure success in case of a new crisis. Thereby the logic of “failing forward” will be reproduced with a high probability.

The fight against drugs and border security policy in Turkey

Border gates are the main places where the economic and security interests of the countries are protected, and the entrances and exits to the country are kept under control. Governments determine different border policies based on their administrative structures and security threats on their borders. It would be shallow to talk about physical security alone regarding border security. Smuggling activities, terrorism, and the fight against drugs constitute important threat areas within border security. Due to its geopolitical position, Turkey has an important place in the international illegal drug trade. Within the scope of this study, the fight against narcotic crimes at the borders was evaluated in the context of Turkey's border security policy, and the relevant policies were discussed from the perspective of the process analysis approach. As a result of examples and examinations, the issues that cause confusion and weakness in Turkey's border security policy are mentioned.

National Security Policies of Nigeria and Benin Republic as Strategies for Curbing Cross-border Crimes

This study interrogates the constantly changing nationalsecurity policies of Nigeria and Benin Republic in responseto the cross-border security threats that are currently ravagingthe two West African countries. The common focus in extantliterature is on the diverse transnational organised crimes,with little or no attention paid to the manner in which thesecurity threats have substantially shaped the national securitypolicies of the two states. The study is guided by criticalhuman security theory. Data was collected from primarysources; 13 interviews were conducted in Nigeria and BeninRepublic, which were complimented by direct observationsat the Nigeria-Benin borders. Some data were also derivedfrom secondary sources, and the analysis of data generatedwas essentially qualitative, using descriptive and contentanalyses. Findings show that the security policies of bothcountries are encapsulated in an array of different documentsand that they are, essentially, reactions to the constantlyevolving security threats. The study calls for theharmonisation of border security policies of the twoneighbouring countries in order to successfully rein in oncross-border criminal cartels.

Forced migration management and politics of scale: how scale shapes refugee and border security policy

ABSTRACT This article shows how politics of scale influence states’ conceptions and performances of asylum-seeker and refugee responsibility and risk. The resettlement and border security initiatives that result have dramatic consequences for the forcibly displaced, shaping their experiences in displacement based on who they are, where they are and how they got there. Using Australia’s refugee, asylum-seeker, and border externalization policy from 1976 through 1999 as a case, I document the Australian Government’s embrace of the idea that proximity engendered special responsibilities to ‘regional’ asylum-seekers, yet that over time the Government came to reject ‘the regional’ as a unique scale of responsibility, replacing it with ‘the global’. The article also demonstrates how social contexts influence conceptions of risk and obligation and become codified into moral geographies of forced migration management; embodied and territorialized through programmes of refugee resettlement, border militarization and externalization.

Where is the justice in EU anti-trafficking policy? Feminist reflections on European Union policy-making processes

In this article, we reflect on our personal experience of acting as ‘independent academic experts’ in an European Union (EU) policy forum, to reflect on how the EU utilises gender to legitimise certain policy discourses in combating sex trafficking. Starting from our personal experience, we draw on wider feminist research on gender expertise and on Fraser’s new reflexive theory of political injustice, to consider how the EU structures debates in this area to determine ‘who’ is entitled to speak and be heard on this issue. In a context in which sex trafficking policy intersects with a variety of competing agendas on – among other things – law and order, organised crime, immigration, asylum and border security policy, our argument will suggest that the exclusion of critical feminist voices and lack of alternative perspectives permits much scope for continuing inequality and injustice.

“Journey into hell […where] migrants froze to death”; a critical stylistic analysis of European newspapers’ first response to the 2019 Essex Lorry deaths

In the early hours of October 23rd, 2019, 39 people were found dead in a refrigerated lorry in Grays, Essex, UK. This case attracted media interest across the world; in the 48-h period after the story broke, reporting on this discovery extended to newspapers not just in the UK, but also across Europe. This study uses elements of Critical Stylistics (Jeffries 2010) to analyse and compare first response articles published by European dailies in relation to the event at Grays, to address the nature of this reporting. We found that linguistic choices tend to dramatise what happened, criminalise victims, and even presume the driver’s innocence, with the international criminal network he is presupposed to be part of remaining only speculated on. Though there are attempts to distribute some accountability to governments and policies, as well as structural systemic factors such as war and poverty, responsibility for these factors tends to be diffused, and hence unallocated, this helping ultimately justify draconic law enforcement and border security policies. By highlighting linguistic trends and underlying ideologies which we in turn question, we address the need to tend to the structural causes of such transnational people movement-related crime (i.e. trafficking and smuggling) and shift accountability to governments.

European Borders in Turbulent Times: The Case of the Central Mediterranean ‘Extended Borderland’

This article presents one of the most salient aspects of the migration crisis in the EU, namely the turbulent management of external borders, and analyzing it in the case of the central region of the Mediterranean Sea. The study is focused on risks and threats to the security of the European Union and its member states, particularly Italy, posed by negative aspects of migratory flows and accompanying phenomena such as migrant smuggling, trafficking in human beings, drug smuggling or document frauds. For this purpose, a concept of ‘extended borderland’ is applied as particularly suitable for analyzing border-security policies and actions undertaken by the European Union. The argument developed in this article is that the Central Mediterranean area has been converted into an extended borderland where conventional systems, methods and tools of border management are superseded by spatial taming created by international actors acting through joint maritime operations.

Violence and Migration on the Arizona-Sonora Border

2010 was a significant year for immigration issues along the United States-Mexico border. In April, Arizona signed the most extreme law against undocumented immigrants. In August, 72 hopeful migrants were massacred in Tamaulipas by alleged drug traffickers, and the Arizona desert claimed a record 252 lives in fiscal year 2010. These events were part of the trend that began with border militarization in the mid-1990s and escalated in the wake of 9/11, resulting in the extremely violent character of the undocumented border crossing experience. This is manifest, not only in the frequent reports of abuses by various actors along the border, but also in the consolidation of undocumented migration with the trafficking of narcotics. The authors have documented many cases of robbery, kidnapping, physical abuse, rape, and manipulation by drug traffickers. In this article, we discuss these different manifestations of violence by understanding both the structural constraints that create and characterize violence, as well as the individual reactions to the factors. The authors propose the conceptualization of “post structural violence” as a manner of enhancing the discussion of agency within and as a reaction to the structural conditions generated by border security and immigration policy.

From towers to walls: Trump’s border wall as entrepreneurial performance

The pledge to build a “great”, “beautiful” southern border wall was a cornerstone of Donald J. Trump’s 2016 presidential election campaign. This paper analyzes Trump’s border wall project as an example of performative statecraft, suggesting that the wall works better rhetorically, than as a barrier against unauthorized cross-border movement. Identifying Trump’s performative statecraft as “entrepreneurial”, we argue that his border wall discourse differs from that of earlier presidents in the way Trump meshes the performance of the border wall as a protective device with his own performance as an entrepreneur and developer. Trump’s border wall discourse accentuates his personal skills as an entrepreneur, and makes these skills relevant to his key campaign promises: to “Make America Great Again”, and defend the nation against transnational crime. Despite Trump’s radical reformulation of US asylum policy, enhanced pursuit of unauthorized immigrants, termination of Obama-era programs like Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA), and disturbing but short-lived family separation and ‘Zero-Tolerance’ detention scheme, the border security policies of President Trump are not as novel as his promotional campaigns would have us believe. In fact, Trump’s border control strategies have continued many of the measures introduced by earlier presidents. The novelty of the Trump presidency lies in the strong focus on the new US–Mexico border wall, and fervent attention to the physical attributes and instrumental functions of the wall. Much more than a fence, Trump’s proposed border wall is a grand, awe-inspiring monument to national security, and to Trump’s entrepreneurial statecraft. It also works as a visual aide for Trump’s plan to “Make America Great Again”. Border walls stand as testimony to the power of the state, and the determination of those who defend it. Trump’s border wall would be no exception.

Normative and Legal Bases of Personnel Management of the State Border Guard Service of Ukraine

The concept of «staff of the State Border Guard Service» is structured. It is substantiated that the main document guiding the development of personnel management in the State Border Guard Service is the Development Strategy of the State Border Guard Service of Ukraine, which aims to ensure effective implementation of state border security policy and protection of Ukraine’s sovereign rights in its exclusive (maritime) economic zone.
 The analysis of the legal framework of personnel management of the State Border Guard Service shows that the service in the state border protection units has great social and state significance and is regulated by a number of legislative acts.
 It is established that the distinctive features of professional activity of State Border Guard Service staff in relation to the goals, objectives and results of work are the conditionality of goals and objectives of official activity by the social order of society and their enshrinement in laws, military statutes and orders. The study of normative acts and guiding documents. The Law of Ukraine «On the State Border Guard Service of Ukraine» provided an opportunity to find out that to ensure the inviolability of the state border of Ukraine State Border Guard Service performs law enforcement, special and defense functions.
 It is substantiated that the personnel of the State Border Guard Service are subjects of public administration, which are endowed with state-authoritative powers and the ability to activate the apparatus of state coercion. Their performance of official functions is connected with the granting of state authority.
 It is determined that military service in the State Border Guard Service, as well as in the Armed Forces and other military formations of Ukraine, formed in accordance with the laws of Ukraine, is a civil service of a special nature. The peculiarity of the relationship between the servicemen of the State Traffic Police is that they are assigned responsibilities, which are determined by the statutes and advisers of the Armed Forces of Ukraine.
 The official nature of the activities of the border service is manifested in the fact that the border service by its activities provides protection of the interests of the state at the state border. Ensuring these interests of the state is carried out through the implementation of functions and competencies of border authorities, which for them as state bodies are defined by the state in the legislation governing the activities of the Border Guard Service in the field of state border protection.
 It is established that as an independent type of service, the border service has, in addition to legal, and organizational difference from other types of services, which is manifested in the restriction of service outside the system of border authorities. The special nature of the service is explained by the specificity of the subject of its conduct, the area of public relations, which is managed on behalf of the state by this service, ways and methods of its implementation. This requires the introduction of a system of special ranks, the establishment of uniforms and other distinctive features. Thus, there are all signs of special service activities.

Absent and present: Biopolitics and the materiality of body counts on the US–Mexico border

As the deaths of undocumented migrants expose the violence of border security policies around the globe, a complicated politics emerges between bodily death and the ways in which the migrant association of decedents (dis)appears in vital records – even as many migrants physically disappear during their border crossings. What happens between death and bureaucratic disappearance after a migrant body is discovered? How does the overwhelming material presence of migrant death, someone who dies through an unnecessary and excruciating process like drowning or dehydration during a border crossing, become not-a-migrant? This article considers these questions by exploring the materiality of body counts at the nexus of biopolitics, forensic anthropology, and material culture studies. To probe the process behind migrants’ seemingly systematized bureaucratic postmortem disappearance, this ethnographic case study of local postmortem investigations of migrant deaths at the US–Mexico border examines practices around burial or cremation and body discovery.

Covering Migration—in Africa and Europe: Results from a Comparative Analysis of 11 Countries

ABSTRACT While the issue of migration has heavily impacted on public debates in the Global North, much less is known about coverage of migration in the Global South. This pilot study sets out to de-westernize the discussion, by analyzing and comparing news coverage in migrants’ destination countries and countries of origin. The study’s focus is on media coverage of migration from Africa towards Europe. The paper builds upon prior studies on the coverage of migrants and refugees. A consortium of African and European researchers has conducted a comparative content analysis of migration coverage in 22 opinion-leading newspapers in six European and five sub-Sahara African countries. The study has retrieved 1,512 articles which have appeared in 2015/16. The topic was much less salient in African countries, with only 175 articles found in the African news outlets under study. Coveragein the European destination countries was dominated by domestic issues like border security and migration policy, but also paid attention to the actual migrants—who received much less coverage in the sending countries. Coverage of migration in African media was more negative and focused on disasters at sea. Both African and European media ignored the causes of migration.

Turkey’s Border Security Policy Against Non-State Actors (2016-2019)

This paper aims to explain Turkey's border security policy in dealing with non-state actors in Northern Syria. Turkey's policy was carried out after five years of involvement in the Syrian crisis and one month after a failed coup attempt. This study uses the theory of securitization by Buzan that explains the existence of threat and vulnerability factors faced by the state in anarchic international structures. The research method used in this study is a qualitative method with the type of causality analysis. This paper found that threats and vulnerabilities pushed Turkey to launch a series of military operations as border security policies to rid North Syria of ISIS and PKK/PYD/YPG militias to control the adverse effects caused by the presence of non-state actors such as civilian and military casualties, property damage, as well as instability and disintegration. The border security policy confirms the increasingly important role of Turkey in the region while demonstrating Turkey's consistency in pursuing national security interests even outside its territory

Migration, Border Security, and New Forms of Resistance in the Age of Trump*

The present article analyzes the responses to US border security policies and particularly US immigration policy by activists, migrants, and progressive actors during the Trump era. It explains new forms of popular resistance in the US and south of its border, as well as their effects in national politics, policies and geopolitics. This analysis focuses on migrant caravans and related protest movements. Finally, this article provides preliminary explanations of such phenomena that include considerations of geopolitics, philanthropy, and the plausible utilization of counterinsurgency tactics.

European migration security moral dilemma: case study of migration flows between 2015 and 2019

 Whenever any state’s sovereignty is threatened, its first instinct is to protect itself. In 2015, the European Union was in the spotlight, recording unprecedented numbers of migrants, and as a result, refugee camps deteriorated to deplorable conditions. Illegal migration was perceived as a security threat in Europe, and member-states were forced to take measures that compromise the very foundation of the European Union. Suddenly, their policies were fuelled with anti-immigration sentiments; anti-immigration operations and agreements between the EU and migrants’ countries of origin were conducted and signed, as well as tougher border security policies were put in place, including fences. This resulted in record-low numbers of illegal migration by 2019. This article will analyze European Union’s foreign policy on illegal migration between 2015 and 2019, while underscoring the extreme measures that some states within the EU took to mitigate migration. This research highlights the moral dilemma posed by many Human Rights Organizations, putting into question Europe’s moral compass and values. A conclusion is made that in the matters of security, states are willing to take a moral backseat in order to safeguard its security and position in the global system.