Abstract
Borders are central to the theory and practice of sovereignty. They establish the categories of citizen and alien. This is seen as a fundamental element of sovereignty: ‘The power to admit or exclude aliens is inherent in sovereignty and essential for any political community.’2 This conceptual abstraction is reified by such phenomena as border patrols and passports. Border patrols attempt to keep out the undesirables and passports help to regulate the temporarily desirables. Communities which are coterminous with the state are absolutized, and individuals who are not members are forgotten.
[O]ne could imagine borders being like
permeable cell walls allowing people to move
in and out freely until an equilibrium —
homeostasis — is achieved. Daniel Warner1
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Notes
Daniel Warner, An Ethic of Responsibility in International Relations, (Boulder, CO: Lynne Rienner, 1991): p. 128.
Joseph H. Carens, ‘Aliens and Citizens: The Case for Open Borders’, The Review of Politics, 49 (Spring 1987): p. 251.
Brian Barry ‘A Reader’s Guide’, in Brian Barry and Robert E. Goodin, eds, Free Movement: Ethical Issues in the Transnational Migration of People and Money, (University Park, PA: Pennsylvania State University Press, 1992): p. 3.
In fact, some of these measures can have the opposite effect, such as the US Immigration Reform and Control Act (IRCA) of 1986 which was supposed to reduce illegal immigration by putting sanctions on employers who hired undocumented workers, and which legalized previously illegal undocumented workers. As the government recognized the reality and the necessity (in terms of the need for inexpensive labour) of the movement of undocumented people across its borders, it actually created the conditions for even greater movement. See Jeffrey S. Passel, Frank D. Bean, and Barry Edmonston, ‘Undocumented Migration Since IRCA: A Overall Assessment’, in Jeffrey S. Passel, Frank D. Bean, and Barry Edmonston, eds, Undocumented Migration to the United States: IRCA and the Experience of the 1980s, (Lanham, MD: University Press of America, 1990): p. 263. More recently, the US Attorney General, Janet Reno, seemed to recognize the government’s inability to effectively control illegal immigration: ‘The bottom line is: we will not reduce the flow of illegal immigrants until these immigrants find better jobs in Mexico.’ ‘Reno Says No Reduction of Illegal Immigrants’, Reuters [Online], (7 October 1993), Available: Nexis.
Gil Loescher, Refugee Movements and International Security, (London: Brassey’s for the International Institute for Strategic Studies, 1992): p. 9
United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees, The State of the World’s Refugees: The Challenge of Protection (hereafter referred to as UNHCR), (New York: Penguin Books, 1993): pp. 1–2
United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees, The State of the World’s Refugees: In Search of Solutions, (New York: Oxford University Press, 1995): pp. 40, 248; UNIE R, REFWORLD [Online], Available: http://www.unhcr.ch/refworld/refbib/refstat/1996/table0l.htm. Figures are for 1 January of the stated year.
However, as figures from the US Committee for Refugees show, there is actually a higher percentage of those in a refugee-like situation in Jordan, where one out of three in the country are Palestinians, who do not fall under the mandate of UNHCR but rather under the UN Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees in the Near East. Loescher, p. 72; UNHCR, REFWORLD; US Committee for Refugees, World Refugee Survey —1996, (Washington, DC: US Committee for Refugees, 1996): p. 7.
Marjolein Brink, Mutiara Pasariboe, Philip Muus, and Lieke Verstrate, ‘Reception Policies for Persons in Need of International Protection in Western European States’, Research Project Commissioned by the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR), Centre for Migration Research, Department of Human Geography, University of Amsterdam, (October 1993): p. 33; Doris Meissner, ‘Managing Migrations’, Foreign Policy, 86 (Spring 1992): pp. 69–70.
US Committee for Refugees, World Refugee Survey - 1993, (Washington, DC: US Committee for Refugees, 1993): pp. 63–4. In fact, in January 1994, Kenyan President Daniel Arap Moi declared that refugees had ‘engaged in acts of lawlessness’ and were a threat to the country’s security, and he called for some of them to be moved to other countries. ‘Moi Tells UN to Move Refugees in Kenya to Other Countries’, Agence France Presse [Online], (19 January 1994), Available: Nexis.
David A. Martin, ‘Effects of International Law on Migration Policy and Practice: The Uses of Hypocrisy’, International Migration Review, 23 (Fall 1989): pp. 548–9.
Howard Adelman, ‘Refuge or Asylum: A Philosophical Perspective’, Journal of Refugee Studies, 1(1 1988): p. 10.
Tim Golden, ‘U.S. Blockade of Workers Enrages Mexican Town’, The New York Times [Online], (1 October 1993): 3, Available: Nexis.
Oscar J. Mart’nez, Troublesome Border, (Tuscon: University of Arizona Press, 1988): p. 134.
Sebastian Rotella, ‘Texas Border Crackdown Stems Tide, Raises Tensions’, Los Angeles Times, [Online], (2 October 1993): p. 1, Available: Nexis.
Operation Gatekeeper ‘Starts’, The Associated Press [Online], (1 October 1994), Available USENET: clari.news.immigration; B. Drummond Ayres, Jr., ‘Flow of Illegal Aliens Rises as the Peso Falls’, The New York Times, (4 February 1995): p. 6; Golden
Glenn F. Bunting, ‘Plan for National Guard At Border Gains Support’, Los Angeles Times [Online], (19 October 1993): p. 3, Available: Nexis
Howard LaFranchi, ‘America Puts Up Chain-Links Along a Once-Friendly Border’, The Christian Science Monitor [Online], (13 February 1996), Available: http://www.csmonitor.com
Sam Walker, ‘Beefier Border Patrol Hasn’t Weakened Allure of a US Job’, The Christian Science Monitor [Online], (12 December 1996), Available: http://www.csmonitor.com.
Marc Sandalow, ‘INS Chief Says Illegals’ Goal Isn’t Welfare’, The San Francisco Chronicle [Online], (30 October 1993): p. 1, Available: Nexis.
The draft Convention on the Crossing of External Frontiers has yet to be signed by all the member states, although it may be superceded by other EU-wide provisions. Demetrios G. Papademetriou, Coming Together or Pulling Apart: The European Union’s Struggle with Immigration and Asylum, (Washington, DC: Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, 1996): pp. 24–7, 39–47, 95–7.
See also Elspeth Guild, The Developing Immigration and Asylum Policies of the European Union: Adopted Conventions, Resolutions, Recommendations, Decisions and Conclusions, (The Hague: Kluwer Law International, 1996). The US and Canada have also concluded a draft agreement regarding asylum claims. Under this agreement, any asylum seeker who makes a claim in one country after entering the other must be returned to the first country where the asylum claim will be heard. When it was first negotiated it was not signed as a result of pressure from NGOs in both countries, and it is not clear exactly when it will go into effect.
See Alan Dowty, Closed Borders: The Contemporary Assault on Freedom of Movement, (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1987): 213–14.
‘German Gov. And Church At War’, The Associated Press [Online], (14 May 1994), Available USENET: clari.news.conflict. For a comprehensive look at US policy for the four decades after World War II see Gil Loescher and John A. Scanlan, Calculated Kindness: Refugees and America’s Half-Open Door, 1945 to the Present, (New York: The Free Press, 1986).
James C. Hathaway, ‘The Emerging Politics of Non-Entrée’, Refugees, (December 1992): p. 41.
For an overview of refugees’ rights and state compliance with those rights, see James C. Hathaway and John A. Dent, Refugee Rights: Report on a Comparative Survey, (Tornoto: York Lanes Press, 1995).
The Immigration Act of 1990 specifically created a ‘temporary protected status’ for those who fled their countries because the situation in the country was too dangerous, including armed conflict and environmental disaster. Osuna and Hanson in World Refugee Survey -1993, p. 42. See also Bill Frelick and Barbara Kohnen, ‘Filling the Gap: Temporary Protected Status’, (Washington, DC: U.S. Committee for Refugees, 1994).
James C. Hathaway, ‘Reconceiving Refugee Law as Human Rights Protection’, Journal of Refugee Studies 4 (2 1991): p. 115.
United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees, A New Approach in the Horn of Africa: The Preventive Zone Concept, (July 1992).
Charles Beitz, ‘Bounded Morality’, International Organization, 33 (Summer 1979): p. 420.
Michael Walzer, ‘The Distribution of Membership’, in Peter Brown and Henry Shue, eds, Boundaries: National Autonomy and its Limits, (Totawa, NJ: Rowan and Littlefield, 1981): p. 32.
Karl Schoenberger, ‘Cascadia’ Borders on the Future’, Los Angeles Times [Online], (1 November 1993): p. 1, Available: Nexis.
Mark Gibney, Strangers or Friends: Principles for a New Alien Admission Policy, (Westport, CT: Greenwood Press, Inc., 1986): p. 9.
Aristide R. Zolberg, ‘The Next Waves: Migration Theory for a Changing World’, International Migration Review, 23 (Fall 1989): p. 425.
Daniel Warner, in Daniel Warner and James Hathaway, ‘Refugee Law and Human Rights: Warner and Hathaway in Debate’, Journal of Refugee Studies, 5 (2 1992): p. 164.
This is similar to the principle of international distributive justice. See Beitz, ‘Bounded Morality’, pp. 416–22; Charles R. Beitz, ‘International Distributive Justice’, in Steven Luper-Foy, ed., Problems of International Justice, (Boulder: Westview Press, 1988): pp. 27–54.
For an in-depth study of how one particular community - the city of Miami - changed as a result of immigration see Guillermo J. Grenier and Alex Stepick III, Miami Now! Immigration, Ethnicity, and Social Change, (Gainseville, FL: University of Florida Press, 1992). As the editors point out in the introduction: ‘The history of Miami since the early 1960s has been affected thoroughly by one particular phenomenon - immigration. In fact, the latter half of the twentieth century can be divided into two basic parts: before the immigrants and after the immigrants (p. 3).’
‘German Gov. And Church At War’. During 1993 about 40,000 people were deported, compared 12,000 in the previous year. See also Stefan Telöken, ‘The Domino Effect’, Refugees, (December 1993): pp. 38–40; ‘Germany Tightens Laws on Asylum’, Facts on File World News Digest [Online], (3 June 1993), Available: Nexis.
US Committee for Refugees, World Refugee Survey - 1994, (Washington, DC: US Committee for Refugees, 1994): pp. 134–7. In fact, USCR concludes that: ‘Practical difficulties in administration and contrary court decisions suggested that Germany would continue to host a sizeable number of refugees for the foreseeable future (136).’
For a discussion of what Rainer Bauböck calls ‘transnational citizenship’, see Rainer Bauböck, Transnational Citizenship: Membership and Rights in International Migration, (Brookfield, VT: Edward Elgar Publishing Company, 1994).
On the evolving notion of European citizenship, see Yasemin Soysal, Limits of Citizenship: Migrants and Postnational Membership in Europe, (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1994)
Antje Wiener, Building Institutions: The Developing Practice of European Citizenship, Dissertation, Department of Political Science, Carleton University, 1995.
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© 1998 Kurt Mills
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Mills, K. (1998). Permeable Borders: Human Migration. In: Human Rights in the Emerging Global Order. International Political Economy Series. Palgrave Macmillan, London. https://doi.org/10.1057/9780230373556_4
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