Examining hidden coercion at state borders: why carrier sanctions cannot be justified

Abstract

Sanctions placed upon airlines and other operators transporting persons without the required paperwork are called 'carrier sanctions'. They constitute a key example of how border control mechanisms are currently being outsourced, privatized, delegated, and moved from the border itself to new physical locations. These practices can lead to a phenomenon referred to in this paper as 'hidden coercion'. This paper argues that, while hidden coercion is commonplace in the reality of migration policy in most states, it is so far neglected in theoretical discussions of state coercion. Moreover, the discussion of carrier sanctions demonstrates that this neglect is problematic, since hidden coercion is not justifiable even within a framework that legitimizes state border coercion.

Security Blurs

“…No one ever really knows who is involved in producing border security in the different sites and how strongly they influence the procedures according to their variegated agendas. This is a predicament for both authoritative agencies on various levels, for NGOs wishing to protect human mobility and privacy rights (Bloom & Risse 2014) and for individuals trying to make their way through the security assemblage.…”

Immigration detention and juxtaposed border controls on the French north coast

“…Rather, as Barbero (2018: 1) suggests, it facilitated ‘a police managed model of internal borders’, which blurred the boundaries between immigration and criminal control (Van der Woude and Van der Leun, 2017; van der Woude, 2018). It similarly elided administrative law and punishment by establishing carrier penalties for transporting irregular migrants (Bloom and Risse, 2014; Delmas-Marty and Teitgen-Colly, 1992: 8; Scholten, 2015). These administrative penalties, which were mirrored in British law (first by the Immigration (Carriers’ Liability) Act 1987, 9 then by the 1999 Immigration and Asylum Act 10 ), led directly to the system of juxtaposed controls.…”

Immigration Enforcement and Domination

“…Dispersion makes it difficult to address discretion and make people accountable toward whom they affect. It is made much more intractable by the fact that immigration enforcement is externalized : it is increasingly extraterritorial and transnational, using foreign governments and businesses such as airlines (Bloom and Risse 2014), often with the explicit goal of depriving immigrants and refugees of due process rights that they would acquire if they reached receiving states’ territory (Gammeltoft-Hansen and Sørensen 2013). 14 For example, Australia has recruited Cambodia to accept refugees (Crothers, Penh, and Farrell 2015), the United States provides Mexico with financial support to police its Southern border to prevent Central American children from seeking asylum (Wilson and Valenzuela 2014), and Morocco acts in coordination with the European Union (EU) and Spain to send back Sub-Saharan Africans (Human Rights Watch 2014).…”