Child Migration in the US and Spain: Towards a Global Border Regime?

Abstract

In The New Politics of Immigration, Professor Catherine Dauvergne proposes that as migration policies converge at the global level, the traditional difference between settler societies and former European colonies is becoming irrelevant. To test this argument, this article addresses the impact of externalization, militarization, detention and deportation on unaccompanied migrant children along the southern Spanish and US borders. I conclude that the combined used of these strategies is designed to keep all unwanted migrants away from the physical border of the state, regardless of their background, and prevents children from accessing specific protections. Current border policy in these two countries shows the primacy of national security concerns over human rights and supports Dauvergne's argument that distinctions between former colonies and settler societies are disappearing. The evidence considered here points towards an increasingly restrictive and punitive global border regime, but one with regional variations.

La notion de “mobilité” ou la sélection des migrants internationaux: l’exemple canadien

“…Afin de réduire le nombre de migrants non sélectionnés économiquement (illégaux, réfugiés humanitaires, demandeurs d'asile), la coopération internationale de contrôle des frontières et la brutalité envers les sans-papiers se sont accrues depuis 1990 (Mountz, 2010;Jones, 2016;Dauvergne, 2016;Maillet et al, 2018;Migreurop, 2018;Vives, 2020), du fait aussi des attentats de 2001. Le contrôle prend diverses formes: murs physiques et murs intelligents (Paik, 2020;Vallet, 2017;Topak et Vives, 2018); Entente des Tiers Pays Sûrs USA/Canada, 2002; surveillance aérienne et maritime SIVE/Espagne, 2002 (Vives, 2017) Frontex, 200420 Règlement de Dublin III (nº 604/2013, Parlement Européen et Conseil) sur l'examen des demandes d'asile (Scherrer, Guittet et Bigo, 2010;Withol de Wenden, 2013: 9); externalisation de la surveillance des frontières, des routes de migration et des zones de transit; expulsions (Atak, 2011;Hiemstra, 2019) et détentions en camp ou prison (Loyd et Mountz, 2018;Conlon et al, 2017;Migreurop, 2016).…”

Spanish geography at contemporary times. State of the question (1972-2022)

“…This is the case, for example, of Sebastián Cobarrubias, who has worked, among other questions, on migration routes and the role of security forces in controlling these movements (Casas-Cortés, Cobarrubias and Pickles, 2014) and providing a critical vision of the cartographies of European organizations that manage the routes of migrants (Cobarrubias, 2019). Settled for years in Canada, Luna Vives continues to direct her gaze to the peninsular context, analysing, for example, immigration control policies in the Canary Islands (Vives, 2017) and the effects of outsourcing, militarization, and the detention and deportation of unaccompanied minors, in a comparative study conducted in Spain and the United States (Vives, 2020).…”

A New Politics? Symposium on Dauvergne’s The New Politics and the End of Settler Societies

“…In a second article, Vives revisits two central characteristics of the New Politics —what Dauvergne calls the “mean‐spiritedness” towards racialized migrants and the convergence between former European colonial states and settler states—in a poignant description of the impact of border enforcement policies affecting unaccompanied and separated migrant children in Spain and the US (Vives, 2020). After clarifying the situation of unaccompanied and separated migrant children, Vives documents the operation of the four policy instruments at the core of the global border regime: externalization, militarization, detention and deportation.…”

“…Despite variations, she documents a considerable amount of convergence in the deployment of these instruments across the United States and Spain. This instrument convergence amounts to a deplorable similarity in outcomes: they negatively affect “children's conditions for migration and their access to protection.” (Vives, 2020: 8). Vives concludes that states increasingly focus on national security instead of the protection of human rights, even for the most vulnerable, making “current border policy particularly ‘nasty’,” (Vives, 2020: 10), following Dauvergne’s (2016) diagnostic.…”

“…Across the world, common developments include the following: the growth of displacement and the unprecedented size of the world refugee population; the increased reliance on temporary migration and the sophistication of immigrant selection mechanisms; and the rise of nativist social movements and official discourses about immigrant exclusion based on ethnicity and religion (e.g. Hogan & Haltinner, 2015;Winter & Previsic, 2017;Vives, 2017;Stasiulis, 2017;Helbling & Kalkum, 2017;Côt e-Boucher, 2017;Boucher & Gest, 2018). Canada, Australia and the United States, despite their geographic positions and political differences, are not exempt from these trends.…”