To bring awareness to Refugee Week UK 2024, each day we will be sharing a blog post by MSc students on the Forced Displacement and Refugees course in the LSE Department of International Development. For a complete listing of Refugee Week events or to get involved, check out the Refugee Week website. You can also check out seasons 1 to 3 of the LSE ID ‘Refugee Realities’ podcast on Spotify and Apple music.
Since the 1990s, migration in Europe has increasingly been viewed through the lens of border security. Politicians have framed migration as a ‘threat’ through alarmist discourse, leading to the rollout of new security measures and collaborations. This shift in rhetoric has translated itself into policy through the development of digital border technologies like EUROSUR and the militarization of border operations, exemplified by EUNAVFORMED’s Operation Sophia. While these measures supposedly aim to control migration, they have resulted in heightening risks for migrants by expanding opportunities for smuggling, criminalizing NGOs involved in search-and-rescue, and contributing to a growing border security industrial complex.
Digital border surveillance systems like EUROSUR are clear examples of how Europe has maintained close control and monitoring of migrant movement. Introduced in 2013, EUROSUR connects Member States and the European border agency FRONTEX in a collective information-sharing environment. This security network leverages an array of technological systems and databases from both national and European monitoring devices to construct a detailed situational image of Europe’s borders. Officially, EUROSUR has three main goals: fighting irregular migration, combating cross-border crime, and contributing to the rescue of migrant lives at sea. In practice, however, EUROSUR data is not used for rescue interventions. Rather, the system works as a data repository for generating risk analyses: national authorities are required to assign an ‘impact level’ of risk to incidents at their external borders. This risk management approach has become a core justification for the extensive surveillance practices across the Mediterranean.
Beyond digital surveillance, the involvement of military actors in Frontex-led border control operations has intensified securitizing efforts in the Mediterranean. After Italy’s Mare Nostrum maritime operation ended in November 2014, Frontex launched Operation Triton, which was later complemented by Operation EUNAFORVMED-Sophia in June 2015. Operation Sophia departed from past coordinated military actions among Member States and security actors, which typically addressed more “traditional” security threats. By deploying visible military assets in maritime interventions, it framed migration as a threat requiring an exceptional militarized response. Designed as an anti-smuggling operation under the EU’s Common Security and Defense Policy, Operation Sophia marked the EU’s first large-scale military venture in migration management. While the first phase entailed dispatching military assets in the operational area and gathering intelligence on smugglers’ business models, the second and third phases consisted of destroying smuggling boats and arresting suspect smugglers. Backed by both EU and UN resolutions, the operation’s mandate empowered military personnel not only to surveil and conduct search-and-rescue missions, but also take coercive action against targeted smuggling vessels within the territorial waters of third countries. The defence nature of the operation implied that EUNAVFOR ships’ position were classified for security reasons, making them invisible in the geo-localization system used by the Italian Maritime Rescue Coordination Centre (MRCC). This further limited their involvement in SAR operations. By using visible military assets for maritime interventions, Frontex and Member states have entrenched the perception of migration as a security issue requiring a militarized response.
Rather than reducing the number of “irregular” migrants in Europe, enhanced border control, exemplified by operation Sophia, has paradoxically increased opportunities for smugglers. Operation Sophia’s militarized presence has resulted in illegalized migration networks shifting their mode of operation from large vessels to unstable rubber dinghies, which accounted for more than 70% of boats leaving Libya coast in 2016. This shift has participated in doubling the mortality rate among migrants in the Mediterranean from 1.98% in 2017 to 4.78% in 2019, indicating that increased monitoring under EUROSUR does not result in lower death rate. The indirect nature of these deaths, concealed by the Mediterranean seascape, makes it difficult to assign direct responsibility to the EU and its Member States. Hardships at sea, in this case, form part of a deliberate state strategy concealed within the harsh realities of the natural environment. Given the increasingly perilous border-crossing environment, the securitization of migration has led to the alarming criminalization of rescue operations, reducing the critical presence of NGOs in the Mediterranean and allowing potential human rights violations to occur unchecked.
The rise in crossings via smaller vessels, undetectable by satellite radar or EUROSUR reporting, has driven a call for more advanced security technologies. The perceived failure has created a market for increasing demands, cementing the rise of a border security industrial complex. By commodifying refugee movement into data points and vectors of risk, EUROSUR has become a content provider for an enlarged surveillance apparatus and benefitted Europe’s border security industrial complex. Lobbing efforts for EUROSUR have brought the defend industry into the development of these systems, linking together new agencies and enhancing information flows between them. As a result, each failure in existing controls only fuel demand for more security measures, perpetuating this industrial complex.
As Europe extends its securitization of migration, it’s clear that these policies do more to entrench the challenges they aim to resolve. Despite being championed by security agencies as enhancing surveillance, they fail to address the root causes of migration and intensify risks for migrants forced to undertake more hazardous journeys. In parallel, the symbiotic relationship between security actors and the border security industrial complex perpetuates a demand for security measures. The securitization of migration manifests as a self-perpetuating dynamic, contributing to a spiralling securitization in the EU.
The views expressed in this post are those of the author and do not reflect those of the International Development LSE blog or the London School of Economics and Political Science.
Featured image credit: Unsplash
