URU, Alm.del - 2011-12 - Bilag 185: DIIS Policy Brief: "The Migration Industry and Future Directions for Migration Policy"

Migration has become business, big business. Over the lastfew decades a host of new opportunities have emerged thatcapitalise on migrants’ desire to move as well as on govern-ments’ attempts to manage migratory flows. Across theglobe we are witnessing a wide assembly of actors whoseexistence depends on money paid either to facilitate or toconstrain migration mobility – specialised transportationcompanies, visa facilitation agencies, labour recruiters,security contractors, human smugglers and NGOs. Thebusinesses involved in this migration industry range fromsmall migrant entrepreneurs using their own experienceto assist others making the journey, to big multinationalcompanies who compete in the booming market of govern-ment contracts to carry out migration management. Thecommercialisation of international migration is evident atevery step of the migratory process and takes place in virtu-ally every country of emigration, transit and immigration.As such, the migration industry is not only an importantphenomenon in and of itself, it also fundamentally impactsmigratory flows and governments’ attempts to manage orregulate migration.The migration industry

PolIcy recommendaTIons1. a better understanding of thecurrent commercialisation of all formsof international migration and the newbusiness opportunities that constitutethe migration industry is needed ifcurrent migration flows are to beproperly comprehended.2. Governments should be aware of thepotential unintended consequences ofcurrent immigration and border policiesin terms of sustaining and nurturingparts of the migration industry.3. Governments must regulate the out-sourcing of migration functions carefullyto ensure migrants’ rights and avoid ademocratic deficit.4. a distinction between migration indus-try actors and migrants must be upheldwhen addressing migration-securityconcerns to avoid the criminalisation ofinternational migrants and asylumseekers moving irregularly.

DIIS polIcy brIefprompts a number of questions that have so far receivedonly limited attention. What determines the emergenceand disappearance of particular markets and migration in-dustry actors? What is the impact of different parts of themigration industry on migration patterns and networks?And what is the significance of the migration industry inregard to government policies and attempts to regulate mi-gration?Understanding the dynamics at play is by no meansstraightforward and the different components of the mi-gration industry equally create complex interplays. An in-creasing number of businesses are working to secure bothhighly skilled and unskilled migrants access to travel andwork abroad. At the other end of the spectrum private se-curity companies and airlines are key actors in manningborder checkpoints and preventing unwanted migrantsfrom entering. Yet, the facilitation industry and the con-trol industry are interlinked since tightened immigrationpolicies and hardened migration control are likely to driveup the profitability of human smuggling and of corruptionamong border guards and agencies with the know-how toensure visas or other means of legal migration.What’s old, what’s new?

However, other migration industry actors work in veryclose connection with governments that are actively out-sourcing migration management functions and may belinked to functions carried out entirely within one coun-try, such as operating detention centres. In addition, yetmore non-state actors may become involved in the migra-tion industry for reasons other than (solely) financial gain.A growing number of NGOs, social movements, faith-based organisations and migrant networks may thus beseen to engage in what has been termed ‘the rescue indus-try’, e.g. running ‘information centres’ that focus on therisks involved in irregular migration, philanthropic andsocial projects rescuing trafficked women and minors,providing religious sanctuary or taking out governmentcontracts to run asylum centres or provide counselling todeportees. Putting all this together suggests that the mi-gration industry includes a wide array of non-state actorswho provide services that may both facilitate and constraininternational migration.reshaping global migration governance?

The migration industry as such is not a new phenome-non. For centuries migrants have encountered both facili-tation and control actors as well as exploiters and rescuersduring their voyages. However, today’s migration indus-try has become more deeply embedded in the currentmigration regimes in several ways. Social networks andtransnational linkages mean that the contemporary mi-gration industry inevitably emerges as part of any estab-lished migratory movement. At the same time compleximmigration legislation, barriers to legal immigration andrestrictive asylum policies continue to fuel both agenciesfacilitating legal immigration and human smugglers. Inaddition, the pervasiveness of neoliberal governance hasresulted in the outsourcing and privatisation to NGOsand private contractors of everything from guest workerschemes to the running of asylum centres and the car-rying out of forced deportations. In several ways govern-ments thus actively sustain and fund large parts of themigration industry.multiple actors involved

Secondly, it is important to appreciate the continued linkbetween the migration industry and government policies.While some actors, for example transportation companiesor human smugglers, appear to operate entirely independ-ent of government involvement, statist structures such asimmigration policies, labour market regulation, visa re-quirements, border control etc almost always remain anessential backdrop for understanding how these migrationindustry actors emerge and function.The essential role of the state becomes even more visiblewhen considering cases where labour immigration agen-cies are organised as quasi-governmental agencies or ope-rate under government licenses. Last but not least, the useof private security companies, contractors and NGOs tocarry out anything from border security to running asylumcentres not only significantly blurs the line between publicand private but also raises a number of questions as to theimpact of the migration industry on government policiesthrough knowledge, standard-setting, lobbying and lock-in effects. The pervasiveness of the migration industry,from contractors to entrepreneurs, both formal and infor-mal, may thus well end up fundamentally reshaping globalmigration governance.The migration industry and markets

Scholars and policymakers have for quite some timeacknowledged the existence of the migration industry, butmainly focused on the parts that facilitate migration – inparticular irregular migration. These include labour recruit-ers and contractors, moneylenders, travel agents, trans-portation providers, legitimate and false paper providers,smugglers, formal and informal remittance and courierservice owners, and lawyers and notaries involved in legaland paralegal counselling. All offer services for profit andare routinely regarded as actors who disrupt orderly migra-tion management.

Finally, the migration industry should be seen within thewider political economy shaping both migratory patternsand government responses. The privatisation of migrationmanagement is intimately related both to the politicisationof immigration and to the governmental paradigm of newpublic management. Labour immigration agencies tend tooperate in larger frameworks of labour market policies andeconomic structures. Even the informal migration industrytends to be closely linked to legal and political structures inthe countries of destination and origin. Understanding the

The FacIlITaTIon IndusTryThe first sub-category of the migrationindustry consists of the individuals, net-works and companies who look to profitfrom assisting migrants. These include a widevariety of actors from migrant entrepre-neurs to the big corporations operating,for e.g., labour immigration schemes inclose cooperation with governments. Italso includes clandestine businesses frominternational human smuggling rings tolocal border and visa officials temptedto make a little money on the side.‘Camionetas’ is the common name for thevarious courier services, transportation compa-nies or passenger vans that shuttle between theUnited States and Mexico. A key feature of suchoperations is their combination of multiple ser-vices (e.g. transportation of a small number ofpassengers, delivery of remittances and ship-ment of parcels destined for household con-sumption and local sale).These services areoften established by entrepreneurial migrants,tapping into the needs of fellow internationalsojourners. Some of them, specialising indomestic destinations in the United Statesor Europe, appear to assist undocumentedmigrants in circumventing border controls.

From individual migrant entrepreneurs to internationalorganisations, migration industry actors are exercising in-fluence and authority at all levels of the migratory process.The migration industry in all its guises is here to stay. Yetso far this fundamental commercialisation of migrationhas received relatively little attention from policymakers.However, as the migration industry significantly shapesmigration flows, this ought to be prompting governmentsto reassess migration policies in terms of both how to in-tervene and of which interlocutors to address in any at-tempt to manage migration.At the practical level, taking account of the migration indu-stry is likely to mean reorienting and adjusting policies ina range of areas. This may include forging closer coopera-tion with migration industry actors to ensure more order-ly access for different kinds of labour migrants. It may in-clude targeting humanitarian or development assistance tovulnerable migrant groups and/or communities with highout-migration rates. It means regulating the current out-sourcing of migration functions more carefully to avoid ademocratic deficit and accountability gap. And it meansbetter understanding the current market for irregular mi-gration in order to combat exploitation and corruption.

The migration control industry is linkedto the growing privatisation of hithertogovernmental tasks relating to deportation,detention and border control. As a result,companies in this area are experiencingrapid growth. Boeing’s contract to set uphigh-tech border surveillance along theUnited States–Mexico border runs atUS$.5 billion and involves more than 00sub-contractors. Florida-based Geo Group –one of GS’ main competitors – operatesmore than 7,000 detention beds in theUnited States, including the Guantanamodetention centre where migrants inter-cepted in the Caribbean are transferred.G4S, or Group 4 Securicor as it used to beknown, is the world’s largest security companyemploying more than 625,000 people in morethan 120 countries. In recent years an increasingpart of G4S activities deal with migrationmanagement. The company operates immigra-tion detention centres in Australia and theUnited Kingdom, and carries out passengerscreening and profiling at European airports.In the United States G4S operates a fleet ofcustom-built fortified buses that serve as mobiledetention centres and deportation transportationfor illegal migrants caught along the UnitedStates–Mexico border. Until 2010 G4S held theexclusive contract to carry out forced removalsfrom the United Kingdom. That contract was lostwhen Jimmy Mubenga, an Angolan national, diedwhile in the hands of G4S guards on a plane atHeathrow airport – a case that has opened alarger debate about the consequences of out-sourcing migration management in terms ofpublic accountability and migrants’ rights.

The rescue industry consists of the increas-ing number of NGOs, humanitarian organi-sations and migrant associations involved inmigration management. These perform verydifferent tasks that may both facilitate mi-gration (e.g. providing shelter or transporta-tion) and constrain migration (e.g. conduc-ting campaigns that warn against the dangersof irregular migration). At the same time, thisset of actors may be linked closely to govern-ment cooperation, as in the cases of NGOsrunning asylum centres and of the IOMfacilitating voluntary return migration.Yet,in many other instances, migration associa-tions or humanitarian organisations operateentirely outside, or even in opposition to,government involvement. Common to thisgroup of migration industry actors seemsto be that they are driven by motives otherthan merely commercial gain.Since 1984 the Danish Red Cross has beenrunning more than 350 accommodation centresfor asylum seekers in Denmark. The Danish Re-fugee Council has a contract with the DanishMinistry of Immigration and Integration to pro-vide counselling for migrants awaiting return andto operate post-return integration programs inthe country of origin.

FurTher readInGNinna Nyberg Sørensen and Thomas Gammeltoft-Hansen coordinate an international research network titled “The Mi-gration Industry and Markets for Migration Management”. The present policy brief is based on their forthcoming editedvolume,The Migration Industry and the Commercialisation of International Migration,(Routledge, October 2012).See www.routledge.com/books/details/9780415623797The opinions expressed in this policy brief are those of the authors alone and do not necessarily reflect the official opinion of theDanish Institute for International Studies.dIIs ¶ danIsh InsTITuTe For InTernaTIonal sTudIesStrandgade 56, DK-0 Copenhagen, Denmark ¶ tel: +5 69 87 87 ¶ Fax: +5 69 87 00 ¶ e-mail: [email protected] ¶ www.diis.dk