The human (in)security trap: how European border(ing) practices condemn migrants to vulnerability

Abstract

This article explores the experience of migrants at Europe’s borders and beyond building upon the notion of human security—or rather its antithesis insecurity—and looking at it afresh through the lenses of border studies. It introduces the concept of ‘human insecurity trap’ as a tool to grasp the insecurities and vulnerabilities of people-on-the-move and the different border(ing)s, barriers and confinements they stem from. The article argues that smuggling to and across Europe, as well as EU and MS policy apparatus, entraps migrants into a spiral of human insecurity which unfolds at different levels and borders: at sea, in the ongoing struggle between smugglers and EU counter-smuggling operations; at the state border, where bureaucratic limbo and the (mis)management of shipwrecked migrants and asylum-seekers variously contend and combine with populist anti-migrant discourse; and across the EU, as practices of ‘re-smuggling’ and ‘secondary movement’ compete with practices of mobility limits, returns and border closures.

The Vulnerability of Young Refugees Living in Reception Centres in Luxembourg: An Overview of Conditions and Experiences across Subjective Temporal Imaginaries

“…Moreover, the conditions of situational vulnerability in the lived experiences of migratory journeys are both incidental, as influenced by migration and border regimes regulating entry into Europe (Fontana 2022), and accidental, as the exact way in which each individual journey will unfold is partially unpredictable and fortuitous. Indeed, when Farah reached Greece at 16 years old with her mother and sister, she did not expect to continue her journey to Luxembourg alone, but the car where her mother and sister were hiding was stopped by the police on its journey to Italy, and hers was not: "When I arrived in Italy, I understood that my mother and my sister they were in Greece".…”

Aggravated Migrant Smuggling in a Transit Migration Context, Criminal Victimization under ECtHR Positive Obligations Case Law

“…Fontana outlines how bordering practices of EU Member States 'cast migrants into spaces of containment and vulnerability'. 253 Touching upon both smuggling practices and the constructed nature of vulnerability, Fontana provides an overview of the causes of death in secondary onward movements across the EU between 2014 and 2020. She concludes that when migrants find themselves contained into transit spaces without legal channels available to move onwards, they have no other possibilities but to resort to dangerous alternatives to cross borders which enhances significantly the risk of injuries and death.…”

Mind the gap! Organized hypocrisy in EU cooperation with Southern neighbor countries on international protection

“…By relying on intermediaries, the EU requires fewer resource commitments, yet direct engagement of third countries often has consequences in terms of legal liability. This can raise humanitarian concerns and lead to the creation of a 'vacuum of legal protection' (Fontana, 2022) regarding migrants and asylum seekers, who will not have the opportunity to legally access a safe territory. This mismatch between rhetoric and action is depicted by the term 'organized hypocrisy'.…”

“…The EU has thus developed a wide range of legal and political measures aimed at implementing international cooperation in this specific field, involving transit and origin countries in the EU's management of migration and asylum. This process is known as the ‘external dimension’ of the European MAP (Longo, 2022) and has so far been analyzed to understand EU migration governance (Huysmans, 2000; Lazaridis and Wadia, 2015; Moreno-Lax, 2018), or to explore the practices of external migration management in Europe (Bello, 2022; Fontana, 2022; Leonard and Kaunert, 2022; Panebianco, 2022a). Most of this literature has stressed that the ‘external dimension’ is mainly guided by the EU's will to shift responsibilities for migrants and refugees toward transit and/or origin countries and, sometimes, this involves agreements which do not comply with international and European standards of human rights.…”