tag:theconversation.com,2011:/africa/topics/frontex-14242/articlesFrontex – The Conversation2023-07-20T14:21:28Ztag:theconversation.com,2011:article/2096062023-07-20T14:21:28Z2023-07-20T14:21:28ZMigrant deaths at sea: the real blame lies with policies created by European states<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/538292/original/file-20230719-15-p8gmk7.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">
</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">Photo by Oliver Weiken/picture alliance via Getty Images</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>On 15 June, the overcrowded fishing trawler Adriana sank on its illicit journey from <a href="https://www.reuters.com/world/europe/how-migrant-tragedy-unfolded-high-seas-off-greece-2023-06-15/">Libya to Italy</a>, drowning hundreds of men, women and children. In response, states have expressed <a href="https://edition.cnn.com/2023/06/14/europe/migrant-ship-sinks-greek-coast-intl/index.html">shock</a> and <a href="https://www.bbc.co.uk/newsround/65915500">sadness</a>, and have moved to prosecute smugglers associated with the journey. </p>
<p>Greece, under whose watch the tragedy occurred, declared three days of mourning and <a href="https://www.euronews.com/2023/06/15/nine-survivors-arrested-as-hope-fades-for-migrants-aboard-boat-that-sank-near-greece">arrested nine</a> of the survivors, charging them with human trafficking. In Pakistan, where <a href="https://www.nation.com.pk/17-Jun-2023/298-pakistanis-feared-dead-12-others-rescued-as-greece-hunts-for-migrant-shipwreck-s-survivors">hundreds</a> of the victims originated, <a href="https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2023/6/18/pakistan-arrests-suspected-traffickers-after-refugee-boat-tragedy">10 suspected traffickers were arrested</a>. </p>
<p>Some survivor <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2023/07/01/world/europe/greece-migrant-ship.html?unlocked_article_code=oDtotndtZ9K3TCDE179QR2OzggQbtBT5z4zm6NVDgGkDtoZWkZLGmDIiLkDqQZH8vlQxHPOIYIqoj6N3UmMsE-rJ-HVRgdzIZW0LncXx3VFzmMwcg6EU-NVDrdsuMntKfxGjrPwemgR1bnxojqDpbqJvkfbMjPjyvJMGyDNCubMY3bb0ZgCsOalmWlWIlpl9_LmGMa_Zp2GuUTdpTFQPbtl60opMTNpmIyLr-AX1TwT7cxZFaVCpvwIoG3fek4ncOv89Ni1fQhoB6z9urfPPcTWCjE_hpPAzlqWlClp8L3eO7GVm9j4KMXJcnk_fbVUZYEF9e8hsJeTR3XXD9UcuFWPa&smid=url-share">accounts</a> have turned the spotlight on the actions of the Greek coast guard. At one point, its officers attached a rope to the Adriana, possibly with the intention of towing it, and possibly contributing to <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/global-development/2023/jul/10/greek-shipwreck-hi-tech-investigation-suggests-coastguard-responsible-for-sinking">capsizing it</a>.</p>
<p>I am a scholar with a focus on the development of international law and legal institutions in the practice of transitional justice. My view is that the focus on smugglers, or even the action and inaction of the Greek coast guard, distracts from the real cause of migrant deaths in the Mediterranean: the deliberate policies set in place by European states and supported by the European Union. </p>
<h2>Diminishing legal protections for migrants</h2>
<p>In the wake of the massive population flows accompanying the second world war, European states enacted the <a href="https://www.unhcr.org/about-unhcr/who-we-are/1951-refugee-convention">1951 Refugee Convention</a>. This document obliges state signatories to recognise and protect “refugees” and to grant them social welfare rights on par with citizens. As enacted, this law is quite protective, serving as a legal shield for vulnerable people.</p>
<p>The shield always had holes. For example, not all migrants qualify as refugees, who must face a “well-founded fear of persecution”. This category focuses on political, rather than social, harms; starvation and economic tragedy generally do not qualify. </p>
<p>New holes are appearing. A foundation of the 1951 convention is the state obligations against “refoulement” or pushing refugees back into harm’s way. Long considered as fundamental, this obligation is no longer unassailable. Over the past several years, a pattern of pushbacks has emerged. The Greek coast guard and the EU border agency Frontex have been caught <a href="https://www.pbs.org/newshour/show/migrants-left-adrift-at-sea-after-boat-pushback-from-greek-coast-guard">putting migrants out to sea</a>. In May 2022, the director of Frontex <a href="https://www.schengenvisainfo.com/news/head-of-frontex-resigns-following-reports-of-migrant-pushbacks/">resigned</a> after a <a href="https://www.spiegel.de/international/europe/frontex-involved-in-illegal-pushbacks-of-hundreds-of-refugees-a-9fe90845-efb1-4d91-a231-48efcafa53a0">report</a> showed Frontex was involved in hundreds of illegal pushbacks.</p>
<p>These actions should be understood as symptomatic of state illegality. States have deliberately adopted policies that make refugee movement deadly. For example, states have closed legal land and air routes via visa schemes and <a href="https://www.liberties.eu/en/stories/why-refugees-do-not-take-the-plane/16316">stiff penalties for airlines</a> carrying incorrectly documented passengers. This drives migrants towards dangerous crossings. </p>
<p>Individual court cases often recognise state illegality, years after the fact. In December 2022, a court in Rome found the Italian coast guard and navy <a href="https://www.proasyl.de/en/pressrelease/landmark-court-ruling-on-2013-shipwreck-italian-coast-guard-and-navy-responsible-for-deaths-of-268-refugees/">guilty of manslaughter and negligence</a> in the 2013 death of 268 people in a shipwreck off Lampedusa. The two individual defendants were <a href="https://www.infomigrants.net/fr/post/45203/italy-statute-of-limitations-ends-childrens-shipwreck-case">acquitted</a>, however, because the claims against them were time-barred. </p>
<p>Likewise, a <a href="https://www.amnesty.org/en/latest/news/2012/02/italy-historic-european-court-judgment-upholds-migrants-rights/">2012 judgment by the European Court of Human Rights</a> found Italy responsible for human rights violations against migrants committed by the Libyan coast guard. <a href="https://www.publicinternationallawandpolicygroup.org/lawyering-justice-blog/2020/4/23/ss-and-others-v-italy-sharing-responsibility-for-migrants-abuses-in-libya">A 2018 filing before that same court</a> alleges ongoing deadly treatment by Italy and Libya. The judgment is still awaited. </p>
<p>Activists have asked the <a href="https://theconversation.com/migration-in-the-mediterranean-why-its-time-to-put-european-leaders-on-trial-120851">International Criminal Court</a> and the <a href="https://www.front-lex.eu/">Court of Justice of the European Union</a> to review European treatment of migrants. Yet even if these powerful courts take on these cases, they can only do so much. As long as each case is treated as a potentially prosecutable individual incident rather than as part of an illegal aggregate horror, preventable loss of life will continue.</p>
<p>The Mediterranean is now <a href="https://www.statista.com/chart/19035/estimated-migrant-deaths-by-world-region/">regarded as the world’s deadliest place for migrants</a>. Since 2014, states have <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/world/2014/oct/31/italy-sea-mission-thousands-risk">ceased rescue operations in the Mediterranean</a>. States now perform <a href="https://reliefweb.int/report/world/criminalization-search-and-rescue-operations-mediterranean-has-been-accompanied-rising">border protection instead</a>. States have also shut down private rescue operations, by <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/world/2018/nov/20/italy-orders-seizure-aquarius-migrant-rescue-ship-hiv-clothes">impounding boats on trumped up charges</a> and <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/global-development/2021/mar/04/refugee-rescuers-charged-in-italy-with-complicity-in-people-smuggling">criminally prosecuting NGO workers</a> as human traffickers. As the NGO Médecins Sans Frontières <a href="https://www.commondreams.org/news/2018/12/07/europe-condemns-people-drown-forcing-msf-ship-cease-migrant-rescue-missions">states</a>, </p>
<blockquote>
<p>Not only has Europe failed to provide search-and-rescue capacity, it has also actively sabotaged others’ attempts to save lives. </p>
</blockquote>
<h2>Weakening rule of law</h2>
<p>The 1951 Refugee Convention was only one of a series of European rule of law projects designed to recognise and protect human rights following the devastation of the second world war. As I describe in my recent book on <a href="https://www.chathamhouse.org/2022/04/justice-laboratory-international-law-africa">international law in Africa</a>, these legal projects took seriously the threat that states pose to individuals, both within and outside their borders, and sought to address this danger by binding states to supranational laws. </p>
<p>This structure – rule of law above the state via an international rule of law system – is the model advocated for African states emerging from colonialism, and for any and all developing states engaging in global politics and commerce.</p>
<p>But European states are renouncing key elements of this rule of law structure via the illegality of their policies towards migrants. European states’ repudiation of legal responsibilities challenges rule of law norms in the international system. This in turn weakens that system as a model for states seeking to normalise rule of law internally.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/209606/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Kerstin Bree Carlson does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>Deliberate policies set in place by European states and supported by the European Union lead directly to migrant deaths.Kerstin Bree Carlson, Associate Professor International Law, Roskilde UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1946642022-11-30T11:10:15Z2022-11-30T11:10:15ZAre European welfare systems accessible to foreigners?<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/495917/original/file-20221117-25-ncwaip.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=0%2C0%2C5472%2C2318&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">A railway station in Milan.</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://pxhere.com/en/photo/226359?utm_content=shareClip&utm_medium=referral&utm_source=pxhere">Creative commons</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>Since the “refugee crisis” in 2015 <a href="https://www.econstor.eu/bitstream/10419/181257/1/dice-report-2017-4-50000000000857.pdf">precipitated the rise of the far right in Europe</a>, debates on the impact of migration on welfare states have raged across the continent. It is hardly surprising, therefore, that EU- and non-EU migrants alike still struggle to access welfare benefits in their European countries of residence. This is despite the fact that immigrants are more exposed to vulnerability. In 2019, 45% of non-EU citizens and 26% of citizens of other EU member states were at risk of poverty or social exclusion, compared to 20% of national citizens, according to <a href="https://ec.europa.eu/eurostat/statisticsexplained/index.php?title=Migrant_integration_statistics_-_at_risk_of_poverty_and_social_exclusion">Eurostat</a>.</p>
<p>As social scientists of the Centre for Ethnic and Migration Studies (<a href="https://www.cedem.uliege.be/">CEDEM</a> at the University of Liège, we were curious to see how immigrants’ access to benefits might vary between EU member states. Backed by the European Research Council, our project has spawned a <a href="http://www.migrationwelfare.uliege.be/comparative-findings/">database</a> and <a href="https://www.fass.uliege.be/cms/c_5831986/en/do-immigrants-have-an-easy-access-to-welfare-in-europe">three books</a> that identify the conditions that immigrants – Europeans and non-Europeans alike – must meet to access benefits in areas such as healthcare, employment, old-age, family, and social assistance.</p>
<p>Throughout the project we were in touch with dozens of Senegalese, Tunisian and Romanian migrants and their relatives in different European cities, as well as with civil servants and NGOs involved in helping them secure benefits. Our research draws three big lessons.</p>
<h2>Welfare policies in the EU are “transnationalising”</h2>
<p>Looking at the welfare policies in 40 European and non-European countries, we found significant similarities in the way states deal with migrants. As a rule of thumb, the principle of habitual residence – whereby one has to officially live in the member state where s/he seeks welfare support – remains widely adopted. This means that individuals moving abroad are likely to lose access to the benefits in their home countries.</p>
<p>However, our research also found that this principle has undergone two significant <a href="https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-51241-5_1">changes</a>. First, certain types of benefits continue to be accessible after individuals emigrate. In the area of pensions, for instance, all EU member states allow retirees to continue receiving their contributory pensions abroad if they decide to emigrate and only eight countries (Bulgaria, Czechia, Hungary, Italy, Latvia, Luxembourg, Poland, Spain) limit the number of destination states in which the pension can continue to be received.</p>
<p>Recent <a href="https://ec.europa.eu/social/main.jsp?catId=849">EU legislation on social security coordination</a> and a batch of bilateral social security agreements between European and non-European states have accelerated this process. We found that Tunisia, for instance, has signed <a href="https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-51237-8_23">13 bilateral social security agreements</a> with European and North African states (Algeria, Austria, Belgium, Egypt, France, Germany, Italy, Libya, Luxembourg, Morocco, the Netherlands, Portugal and Spain) that aim to guarantee the equal treatment of their citizens in these destination countries’ welfare systems. For Tunisian immigrants working in Belgium or France, this means that periods of activity in the home country can be taken into consideration for the calculation of benefits paid by their country of residence. Similarly, immigrants can also —in cases of emergency mostly— have medical expenses incurred during short trips in their homeland covered by the social security system of their country of residence.</p>
<p>Second, European countries are developing innovative programmes – so-called <a href="https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-51245-3_1">diaspora policies</a> – in which institutions such as consulates that are traditionally not in charge of social protection help nationals abroad deal with social risks. For example, Romanian and Spanish consulates tend to have <a href="https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-51245-3_24">social attachés</a> that inform and assist citizens abroad in claiming social benefits in their country of residence and in their home country.</p>
<p>This is also the case for certain non-EU nations, whose consulates can serve as gateways for their citizens to receive the support of European welfare states. In our research, we observed the administrative process through which widows of Senegalese migrant workers can access a survivors’ pension from the Spanish welfare state. From these developments, we argue that European welfare states are undergoing – in different ways – a <a href="https://doi.org/10.17645/si.v10i1.4701">process of transnationalisation</a> that is characterised by a series of adjustments of their social protection policies to adapt to both incoming and outgoing migration flows.</p>
<h2>Weaponising welfare policies for migration control</h2>
<p>A second lesson is that welfare policies are increasingly used to control migration, even in a context of intra-EU mobility where EU citizens are easily able to settle in other member states. For instance, it is not uncommon for European countries to deny nationality or residence permits extension for foreigners who are perceived to represent a “burden” on the welfare system. Our database shows that in the <a href="https://public.tableau.com/app/profile/nccr.on.the.move/viz/shared/WF7ZKTT92">vast majority of member states</a>, the take-up of social assistance by non-EU immigrants can negatively affect the renewal of their residence permits, their applications to citizenship or their right to reunite with their families.</p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/497627/original/file-20221128-14-ctbtk8.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/497627/original/file-20221128-14-ctbtk8.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=455&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/497627/original/file-20221128-14-ctbtk8.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=455&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/497627/original/file-20221128-14-ctbtk8.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=455&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/497627/original/file-20221128-14-ctbtk8.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=572&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/497627/original/file-20221128-14-ctbtk8.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=572&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/497627/original/file-20221128-14-ctbtk8.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=572&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">In most European states, claiming benefits can diminish migrants’ chances of being able to settle down in their host country.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://public.tableau.com/app/profile/nccr.on.the.move/viz/shared/WF7ZKTT92">Daniela Vintila, Jean-Michel Lafleur (2021). MiTSoPro Policy Survey on Migration, Transnationalism and Social Protection</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Belgium was one of the countries where this practice has been observed. Over the past decade, the government has withdrawn the residence permits of <a href="https://doi.org/10.1177/0038038518764615">15,000 EU migrants</a> on the grounds of representing a “burden” on public finances. In our fieldwork with EU citizens affected by such practices, we noted the gap between the perceptions of EU citizens who believe that their right to free movement is unconditional and the behaviour of welfare authorities who increasingly view immigrants as “undeserving” of support. Overall, these practices indicate the increasing intersection between migration and social policies in different parts of Europe.</p>
<h2>No migrant is an island</h2>
<p>In our interviews with immigrants across different European cities, we observed a difference between rights “on paper” and rights “in practice”. Although migrants may be eligible for social benefits in their host country, barriers often remain – for example, a lack of understanding of the welfare system, limited knowledge of the language of the country, lack of documentation about prior social contributions, or even discrimination by civil servants. All can make it challenging for migrants to take up their rights.</p>
<p>This is particularly true for transient and more precarious immigrants who are unfamiliar with the specificities of the welfare system of their country of residence. For instance, we show in a <a href="https://hdl.handle.net/2268/296801">forthcoming paper</a> that Romanian migrants in Germany are confronted with a vast industry – so-called “welfare brokers” – enabling them to access their welfare rights. These range from lawyers, consulting firms to trade unions or migrant community organisations.</p>
<p>Overall, we found that welfare states in countries of residence and origin still treat immigrants and emigrants differently than they do their own citizens. Despite the good intentions of many administrations, individuals’ legal status, nationality, financial and educational resources still determining uptake.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/194664/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>This article is based on results of the project "Migration and Transnational Social Protection in (post-)Crisis Europe" (MiTSoPro). led by Jean-Michel Lafleur. This project has received funding from the European Union’s Horizon 2020 research and innovation programme under grant agreement No 680014</span></em></p>Immigrants claiming benefits in their European host countries have lesser chances of securing residency permits and citizenship, research shows.Jean-Michel Lafleur, Associate Director, Centre for Ethnic and Migration Studies / Coordinator of IMISCOE, Université de LiègeDaniela Vintila, Associate coordinator and senior network officer of IMISCOE (International Migration Research Network) , Université de LiègeLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1931312022-11-10T10:14:55Z2022-11-10T10:14:55ZOut of sight, out of mind: Europe’s increasing pushback against migrants<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/492865/original/file-20221101-19-tcdese.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=0%2C26%2C5898%2C3549&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">The migrant centre on the Greek island of Samos is surrounded by three layers of fence and barbed wire. According to authorities, it is designed to host up to 3,000 people, of which 2,100 will have a “controlled access” and 900 will be in detention waiting to be sent back to Turkey (21 July, 2021).</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">Evgenia Chorou/MSF</span>, <span class="license">Fourni par l'auteur</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>Lying a few kilometres off the Turkish coast, a series of Greek islands remain on the frontline of increasingly militarised attempts to limit the arrival of migrants and asylum seekers to the European Union. The often unseen and largely ignored treatment of those seeking shelter, whether pushed back to Turkey or incarcerated in isolated camps for processing, compound their suffering and make a mockery of protections ostensibly provided under refugee law.</p>
<h2>Europe’s “pushbacks”</h2>
<p>Individuals and families who make landfall in Samos and Lesvos, often hiding from the authorities, are offered <a href="https://www.msf.org/fear-beatings-and-pushbacks-people-seeking-safety-greek-island-samos">emergency medical and psychological first aid</a> by teams from Médecins Sans Frontières/Doctors Without Borders. High levels of depression and post-traumatic stress disorder reflect both the experience that led to their making the high-risk journey to Europe, and the ordeal of the journey itself. Violence is common and survivors regularly report having been forcibly returned to Turkish waters. In recounting the dread of being pushed back yet again, a former patient said, “you feel like dying.”</p>
<p>The term <em>pushback</em> has been described by the <a href="https://www.ohchr.org/en/documents/thematic-reports/ahrc4730-report-means-address-human-rights-impact-pushbacks-migrants">UN Special Rapporteur on human rights of migrants</a> as measures that result in “migrants, including asylum seekers, being summarily forced back” without assessing their protection needs, to their point of crossing, be it land or sea. While this essentially covers deportation and refusal of entry, it should not be confused with the concept of <a href="https://international-review.icrc.org/articles/note-migration-and-principle-non-refoulement-icrc-2018"><em>refoulement</em></a>, which refers to the expulsion of an individual to a country where their life or freedom would be threatened. While <em>refoulement</em> is illegal under customary and international law, pushbacks occupy a judicial grey area.</p>
<p>The fact that pushbacks are taking place on Europe’s borders is no longer in question. German media recently made public a redacted but sufficiently <a href="https://fragdenstaat.de/dokumente/233972-olaf-final-report-on-frontex/">detailed report</a> by the EU’s fraud office outlining complicity on the part of the <a href="https://theconversation.com/eu-border-agency-frontex-accused-of-covering-up-human-rights-violations-in-greece-the-allegations-explained-192372">European Border and Coast Guard Agency</a> (Frontex) in the pushback of migrants from Greece to Turkey. Operating under the command of the Greek authorities, Frontex was deemed to have <a href="https://apnews.com/article/middle-east-greece-turkey-migration-8b4f22cab5fd705137985173069537bc">actively covered up pushbacks by the Greek navy</a> either by avoiding the area where they were taking place or simply not investigating.</p>
<h2>28,000 people adrift in the Aegean Sea</h2>
<p>That such actions represent an extreme danger for those desperate enough to risk the crossing into Greece is likewise not in dispute. The term <em>drift-backs</em> has also been used to describe this method of violent deterrence, essentially forcing migrants and asylum seekers into motorless rafts to drift on the currents back to the Turkish coast. <a href="https://forensic-architecture.org/investigation/drift-backs-in-the-aegean-sea"><em>Forensic Architecture</em></a> estimates that around 28,000 people have drifted across the Aegean Sea in a two-year period since the first case was documented in February 2020. Cynically effective, the Greek government has presented <a href="https://ecre.org/greece-systematic-pushbacks-continue-by-sea-and-land-as-meps-demand-eu-action-deaths-up-proportionate-to-arrivals-number-of-people-in-reception-system-reduced-by-half-mitarachi-still-not/">reduced arrivals</a> as a success, even as mortality has proportionally increased.</p>
<p>Given some of the more egregious approaches to manipulating migrant flows, and the very human desperation that drives them, the ascendance of pushbacks is sadly not alone as per shady practices. Other recent examples include Belarusian president Alexander Lukashenko’s facilitating the arrival of asylum seekers from the Middle East as a <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/2021/11/15/belarus-migrants-pawns-west/">retaliation over EU sanctions</a> and Morocco’s punishing Spain for providing medical care to the leader of the Sahrawi liberation movement by <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/2021/11/15/belarus-migrants-pawns-west/">“engineering” a surge of migrants into the enclave of Ceuta</a>. Libyan dictator Muammar Gaddafi was a master at securing political and economic concessions by <a href="https://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-111393">playing on European migrant fears</a>.</p>
<h2>Outsourced border controls in Turkey and Libya</h2>
<p>In the years that followed the 2015 arrival of 1.3 million asylum seekers, those same fears have led to the preferred EU approach of outsourcing border controls, including asylum applications when feasible. Despite these measures and the billions that have been paid to Turkey, people continue to risk their lives. In 2017, European states began <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/world/2021/nov/15/belarus-fortress-eu-refugees-sanctions-european-union">funding Libya’s coast guard</a>, even with well-documented concerns over treatment during Mediterranean interceptions and conditions in Libya itself. The stalled plan to send asylum seekers <a href="https://www.bbc.com/news/explainers-61782866">from the United Kingdom to Rwanda</a> is a striking example of rich countries attempting to pay their way out of shared responsibility for refugees. Preventing migrants from crossing over from a bordering country to Greece’s actively pushing them back is simply another step toward the militarisation of what is fundamentally a humanitarian issue.</p>
<p>Other heavy-handed measures have accompanied pushbacks. For those who manage to reach the island of <a href="https://reliefweb.int/report/greece/all-i-want-be-free-and-leave-life-samos-closed-controlled-access-centre">Samos</a>, transfer and detention in the Closed Controlled Access Centre awaits. Military-grade security measures are accompanied by lengthy legal procedures often resulting in the rejection of asylum claims and dehumanising experience for applicants. As for the process itself, much like pushbacks at sea both have become “a test ground for Europe” according to Christina Psarra, the general director of MSF-Greece.</p>
<h2>An increasingly hostile political climate</h2>
<p>Such deterrence and containment policies regrettably fall into the mundane and engender little debate in a highly polarised political environment. Search and rescue operations in the Mediterranean that were previously lauded are now <a href="https://www.manchesteropenhive.com/view/journals/jha/3/1/article-p28.xml">accused of colluding</a> with people smugglers, ports are regularly <a href="https://www.msf.org/over-500-survivors-board-geo-barents-urgently-need-port-safety">closed to overburdened boats</a> carrying rescued migrants, and <a href="https://www.amnesty.org/en/latest/campaigns/2020/03/free-to-help/">acts of solidarity are criminalised</a>. And a populist narrative of “Europe under threat” conveniently ignores those who are perishing unseen in <a href="https://forensic-architecture.org/investigation/drift-backs-in-the-aegean-sea">quasi-militarised zones</a> inaccessible to journalists and aid workers, or languishing in detention camps, outsourced or otherwise.</p>
<p>It is hardly a revelation to note that the granting of political asylum can be discriminatory, the preference for political dissidents from enemy countries over those fleeing conflict in the Global South being an obvious case in point. More recently, the <a href="https://www.fenixaid.org/articles/europes-selective-solidarity-the-emerging-double-standard-applied-to-those-seeking-safety-in-the-eu">double standards</a> displayed in the reception of Ukrainian refugees, what has been referred to as selective solidarity, is incomparable to the experience of those who arrive in Greece and elsewhere in Europe.</p>
<p>More broadly, the dilution of refugee law in Europe is part of a disturbing trend where international humanitarian obligations are ignored at will. Systematically and consciously endangering the lives of asylum claimants and refugees while leaning on the supposed “dangers” posed by economic migrants challenges our basic humanity.</p>
<p>Condemning criminal practices such as pushbacks is relatively straightforward given the loss of life, and the EU has done this through its own fraud office and more recently in a <a href="http://www.infomigrants.net/en/post/44039/council-of-europe-approves-antimigrant-pushback-report">report from the Council of Europe</a>. The bigger task is fixing a broken system that has spent millions of euros reinforcing the EU’s response to migration while paying off poorer states to manage the problem – this is especially distasteful given the <a href="https://www.unhcr.org/refugee-statistics/">small percentage of global refugees</a> actually residing in Europe. Dignified access to safe reception, protection and asylum procedures is the minimum required under international law. Europe has demonstrated this capacity in the past; unfortunately, the political will appears to have been forgotten, or worse.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/193131/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Duncan McLean ne travaille pas, ne conseille pas, ne possède pas de parts, ne reçoit pas de fonds d'une organisation qui pourrait tirer profit de cet article, et n'a déclaré aucune autre affiliation que son organisme de recherche.</span></em></p>In the wake of revelations on the EU’s failure to protect migrants, an MSF doctor details how those seeking to reach Europe’s shores are increasingly falling prey to violent deterrence methods.Duncan McLean, Senior researcher, UREPH-Médecins Sans Frontières, fellow, Science Po Toulouse, Sciences Po ToulouseLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1923722022-10-17T16:07:13Z2022-10-17T16:07:13ZEU border agency Frontex accused of covering up human rights violations in Greece – the allegations explained<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/489829/original/file-20221014-15-lx1yvu.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=68%2C37%2C3468%2C2317&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">A rubber dinghy arrives on a Greek island at night.</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://webgate.epa.eu/id/55628199">Dimitris Tosidis / EPA-EFE</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>A classified report by EU anti-fraud office Olaf has accused Frontex, the EU border agency, of <a href="https://www.independent.co.uk/news/frontex-ap-athens-turkey-greek-b2202276.html">covering up human rights violations</a> in Greece. The report was <a href="https://cdn.prod.www.spiegel.de/media/00847a5e-8604-45dc-a0fe-37d920056673/Directorate_A_redacted-2.pdf">made public by German media</a>. It comes after a months-long investigation into allegations that Greek border officials were conducting pushbacks – preventing people from exercising their right to claim asylum and returning them to another state or abandoning them at sea. </p>
<p>Pushbacks are difficult to prove, as the term is not defined in EU law, but in some circumstances can be a violation of international immigration and human rights law, as well as maritime law.</p>
<p>Frontex chief Fabrice Leggeri <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/world/2022/apr/29/head-of-eu-border-agency-frontex-resigns-amid-criticisms-fabrice-leggeri">resigned in April</a> after being investigated for the report, which concluded in spring 2022. Now, its publication reveals allegations that Frontex officials were involved in <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/global-development/2022/oct/14/eu-border-agency-frontex-human-rights-violations-report">covering up or not investigating</a> serious violations of fundamental human rights throughout 2020. </p>
<p>As part of my research, I have been working with humanitarian organisations on the Greek island of Samos for many years. For months, these groups have been calling on Frontex to leave Greece over alleged violations of international law. The revelations in the report add further urgency to these calls.</p>
<p>In July 2022, a group of seven humanitarian organisations active on Samos <a href="https://twitter.com/AdvocacySamos/status/1552600894432284674?s=20&t=3dnaIhzUXUz0MVVkWNsSzQ">called on Frontex</a> to trigger Article 46 of the <a href="https://eur-lex.europa.eu/legal-content/EN/TXT/?uri=CELEX%3A32019R1896">European Border and Coastguard Regulation</a>. This legal mechanism requires the Frontex executive director to cease operations or withdraw funding from its operations in a particular country if there are “violations of fundamental rights … that are of a serious nature or are likely to persist”. The organisations argue that alleged illegal pushbacks by the Greek coastguard meet that standard.</p>
<p>The UN refugee agency UNHCR has been <a href="https://www.europarl.europa.eu/news/en/press-room/20220624IPR33818/allegations-of-pushbacks-in-greece-the-minister-of-migration-in-parliament">tracking alleged incidents</a> of informal returns, recording almost 540 between January 2020 and June 2022. Journalists and humanitarian groups have also reported incidents at the Greek border where loss of life and <a href="https://www.spiegel.de/international/europe/death-in-the-aegean-eu-border-officials-accused-of-throwing-refugees-into-the-sea-a-19ba0711-eedb-4c10-82da-ca12f5e01936">other violations</a> of human rights allegedly occurred. </p>
<p>Using evidence from interviews, WhatsApp messages, office searches and official documents the Olaf report concludes that Frontex officials witnessed these serious incidents but often did not report them. One incident described in the report alleges that in April 2020, Greek coastguard officials rescued a group of migrants from a rubber boat on to one of their vessels. They then transferred them back onto the rubber boat and returned them to Turkish waters, where the migrants were left adrift without lifejackets.</p>
<p>The report alleges that Frontex downplayed or withheld information about this and other possible rights violations from its own investigative officer, and did not report witnessing pushbacks, fearing repercussions by Greek authorities. </p>
<hr>
<p>
<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/frontex-should-eu-agency-linked-to-thousands-of-deaths-from-border-pushbacks-be-responsible-for-migrant-safety-156542">Frontex: should EU agency linked to thousands of deaths from border 'pushbacks' be responsible for migrant safety?</a>
</strong>
</em>
</p>
<hr>
<p>In response, <a href="https://frontex.europa.eu/media-centre/news/news-release/statement-of-frontex-executive-management-following-publication-of-olaf-report-amARYy">Frontex said</a> that the activities alleged in the report were “practices of the past”, and that they will take measures to address them. Yet, according to humanitarian groups, the lack of serious incident reports submitted in the Samos region suggests that Frontex is not properly engaging with its own mechanism for reporting serious incidents. As one person on the ground told me:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>It is astounding that since [Frontex] was called upon to implement a credible mechanism, there has been no notable increase in the number of [serious incident] reports being submitted. The facts on the ground, widely reported by the media and civil society, about the violations and even risks of violations to fundamental rights, seem to fail to meet the standard of proof that Frontex is expecting. </p>
</blockquote>
<h2>Will Frontex leave Greece?</h2>
<p>Frontex said it has worked with Greek authorities on “an action plan to right the wrongs of the past and present”, but indicates it will continue to operate in Greece.</p>
<p>But there is precedent for Frontex ceasing operations within a country. In 2021, the Court of Justice of the European Union found that Hungary <a href="https://ec.europa.eu/commission/presscorner/detail/en/ip_21_5801">violated EU law</a> by blocking access to asylum at the Serbian border. </p>
<p>When the country failed to change its practices, Frontex <a href="https://www.politico.eu/article/eu-border-agency-frontex-suspends-operations-in-hungary-migration/">left Hungary</a>, saying that its work can only be successful if it is in line with EU laws. The decision to leave, however, came after many years of pressure by humanitarian groups and was only implemented following the court’s decision. </p>
<p>The court’s decision in Hungary relied on findings that the country’s activities were incidents of a “serious nature”. The question of what can be understood as an incident of serious nature is at the heart of calls for Frontex to now also leave Greece. </p>
<p>Humanitarian organisations argue that the incidents reported at Greece’s borders do indeed meet this requirement, but that Frontex is not properly engaging with the serious incident report process. The findings in the Olaf report also support this.</p>
<figure class="align-left ">
<img alt="A group of people holding a large white sheet reading STOP PUSHBACKS in red. Only their feet are visible below the sheet." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/490075/original/file-20221017-26-j2bvqr.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/490075/original/file-20221017-26-j2bvqr.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=1033&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/490075/original/file-20221017-26-j2bvqr.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=1033&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/490075/original/file-20221017-26-j2bvqr.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=1033&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/490075/original/file-20221017-26-j2bvqr.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=1298&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/490075/original/file-20221017-26-j2bvqr.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=1298&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/490075/original/file-20221017-26-j2bvqr.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=1298&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">An anti-pushback protest in Samos, June 2021.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Gemma Bird</span>, <span class="license">Author provided</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Frontex has said it will change, including by making its procedure to report fundamental rights violations “more robust”. It will, however, continue to operate in member states “when they need it most” – suggesting it has no plans to leave Greece.</p>
<p>The Olaf report is further evidence that incidents of a serious nature have occurred. It is the duty of the EU and all its member states to protect the rights of people fleeing persecution and war when they arrive at Europe’s borders. When those rights are not protected by a state, the organisations of the EU have a duty to demand better of that state, as they did in Hungary. </p>
<p>There is precedent for the European commission to put pressure on member states when it comes to treatment of asylum-seekers. In Hungary, when the country failed to comply with the court of justice’s ruling, the commission asked the court to <a href="https://ec.europa.eu/commission/presscorner/detail/en/ip_21_5801">impose financial penalties</a>. </p>
<p>The allegations in the Olaf report show that the commission should no longer thank Greece for being Europe’s “shield”, as the president of the EU commission Ursula von der Leyen <a href="https://ec.europa.eu/commission/presscorner/detail/en/statement_20_380">did in March 2020</a>. Instead, they should join with humanitarian activists in demanding that Greece respect the human right to claim asylum for people escaping persecution and war.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/192372/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Gemma Bird has and does work with a number of humanitarian organisations in Greece including Project Armonia and Samos Volunteers. </span></em></p>Humanitarian organisations have been calling on Frontex to leave the country for months.Gemma Bird, Senior Lecturer in Politics and International Relations, University of LiverpoolLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1565422021-05-10T10:50:39Z2021-05-10T10:50:39ZFrontex: should EU agency linked to thousands of deaths from border ‘pushbacks’ be responsible for migrant safety?<p>European member state security forces, supported by the European Border and Coast Guard Agency, known as Frontex, have pushed back around 40,000 refugees attempting to cross national borders during the pandemic, <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/global-development/2021/may/05/revealed-2000-refugee-deaths-linked-to-eu-pushbacks">according to an investigation</a> based on UN reports and records kept by NGOs. These actions have been linked to 2,000 migrant deaths, chiefly from boats taken back out to sea.</p>
<p>For more than a decade, researchers, UN agencies and NGOs have <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/global-development/2020/dec/23/black-book-of-thousands-of-migrant-pushbacks-presented-to-eu">documented these illegal pushbacks</a>. Now the European Anti-Fraud Office has launched an investigation into Frontex over claims that it is involved in <a href="https://www.politico.eu/article/olaf-opens-investigation-on-frontex-for-allegations-of-pushbacks-and-misconduct/">illegally preventing refugees and other migrants from entering the EU</a>. </p>
<p>The investigation follows calls from Members of the European Parliament for the resignation of the agency’s executive director, Fabrice Leggeri, after <a href="https://www.lighthousereports.nl/ourprojects/2020/4/5/borders-newsroom">evidence of pushbacks by Frontex</a> was published last year by the news organisation, Lighthouse Reports. The UN High Commissioner on Refugees and the UN Migration Agency have now joined those demanding the European Union <a href="https://www.iom.int/news/iom-calls-end-pushbacks-and-violence-against-migrants-eu-external-borders">stop pushbacks at its borders</a>.</p>
<p>Frontex’s budget is the largest of any EU agency, €544 million in 2021, and the agency <a href="https://corporateeurope.org/en/lobbying-fortress-europe">wields increasing power over EU border management</a>. Under the EU’s <a href="https://ec.europa.eu/info/strategy/priorities-2019-2024/promoting-our-european-way-life/new-pact-migration-and-asylum_en">New Pact on Asylum and Migration</a> policy, Frontex is set to receive increased funding and to <a href="https://www.europarl.europa.eu/news/en/press-room/20190410IPR37530/european-border-and-coast-guard-10-000-strong-standing-corps-by-2027">double its uniformed border force staff to 10,000</a>. Its scope of work will widen to include a leading role in the safe return of migrants deemed ineligible to stay in Europe.</p>
<p><div data-react-class="Tweet" data-react-props="{"tweetId":"1387309172233023488"}"></div></p>
<p>However, the European Parliament has just postponed discharging the appointed budget to Frontex pending investigations.</p>
<h2>What are pushbacks?</h2>
<p>Pushbacks are where refugees and migrants are forced back over a border – generally immediately after they crossed it – without consideration of their circumstances and without any chance to apply for asylum.</p>
<p>Pushbacks violate several laws, including the <a href="https://www.unhcr.org/uk/1951-refugee-convention.html">1951 Geneva Refugee Convention</a>, which states refugees cannot be returned to a country where they could be caused harm and the <a href="https://www.ecchr.eu/en/glossary/push-back/#:%7E:text=Push%2Dbacks%20are%20a%20set,arguments%20against%20the%20measures%20taken">European Convention on Human Rights</a>, which prohibits the collective expulsion of aliens.</p>
<p>Migrants are pushed back by Frontex, by local police and border guards or by people smugglers. This can happen at sea when boats are detected and brought back to the country of departure, or on land when refugees and other migrants are denied entry and forced back to the previous non-EU country, often violently. One Afghan woman from <a href="http://www.merit.unu.edu/publications/uploads/1575026666.pdf">our research</a> described her experience travelling from Bosnia to Croatia into Slovenia:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>We crossed the river to Slovenia, when we got there the police were waiting for us… The police there put us in the container and locked us in, all of our clothes were wet. We asked them to give us clothes but they didn’t. We were not even allowed to go to the toilet… All the families there, they were crying and begging that we walked for 12 days and all of our feet are injured, please let us stay and please send us to a camp. They told us that they cannot give us stay and we have to be sent back.</p>
</blockquote>
<p>She and the other families involved were collectively ejected from the EU without being able to claim for asylum.</p>
<p>There are consequences when refugees and other migrants are pushed back. Most obvious is the case of Libya, where the subsequent torture, starvation and death of returned refugees and other migrants <a href="https://www.migrationpolicy.org/article/once-destination-migrants-post-gaddafi-libya-has-gone-transit-route-containment">is widely known</a>. Pushing migrants back to these conditions is a clear contradiction of the EU’s founding values. Refugees and other migrants pushed back to safe countries, such as those who cross the Channel from France to the UK, face less dire consequences as they can claim asylum in France.</p>
<p>Pushbacks do not necessarily stop migration. My research found that <a href="https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/1369183X.2020.1804192?scroll=top&needAccess=true">refugees and other migrants often persevere</a> despite failed attempts. This is the case with Eritreans in Libya desperate to leave. And the majority of Afghans and Syrians we interviewed in Bosnia and Serbia saw no future for themselves in these countries, and continued trying to move onwards to the EU despite violent pushbacks.</p>
<h2>Increased powers for Frontex</h2>
<p>We should be alarmed that Frontex, an EU agency, is engaging in pushbacks. Some MEPs have said this, but reaction generally has been muted. In an era in which governments feel a pressing need to manage migration, refugees’ and other migrants’ rights often take a back seat to border management.</p>
<p>There is a need to ensure ethics and transparency in European institutions that hold a major responsibility in upholding justice. While the <a href="https://twitter.com/Tineke_Strik/status/1364143907966189568">Frontex Scrutiny Group</a> of the European Parliament begun in February is one means of oversight, the increase in Frontex’s powers has not been matched by greater transparency or accountability.</p>
<p>Given Frontex’s part in pushbacks, which violate international law and have caused the deaths of refugees and migrants, it is concerning that its expanded mandate would see Frontex given its own escort vessels, and be responsible for monitoring and recording returns of migrants and refugees to countries outside the EU. </p>
<p>When does a “return” cross the line into a pushback, and how will that line be drawn? How will fundamental rights of refugees and other migrants be protected when the agency responsible for upholding them is also complicit in breaching them?</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/156542/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Katie Kuschminder received funding from the European Union's Horizon 2020 research and innovation programme under the Advancing Alternatives to Migration Governance (ADMIGOV) project. </span></em></p>UN and NGO reports of ‘pushbacks’ at borders suggest 2,000 deaths linked to actions supported by EU border agency Frontex, yet EU plans to greatly expand its powers.Katie Kuschminder, Senior Researcher, Political Science, University of AmsterdamLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1469762020-10-13T16:28:25Z2020-10-13T16:28:25ZDispatch from a refugee camp during the COVID-19 pandemic<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/361767/original/file-20201006-24-10rvfoh.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=0%2C35%2C6000%2C3880&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Migrants, most of them wearing face masks to protect against the spread of COVID-19, gather outside the temporary refugee camp in Kara Tepe as they wait to depart from Lesbos for mainland Greece on Sept. 28, 2020. </span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">(AP Photo/Panagiotis Balaskas)</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>When the COVID-19 pandemic first appeared, and we were preoccupied with bread-baking and <em>Tiger King</em>, it was talked about as the great equalizer, a moment to bring us all together. </p>
<p>Yet as we enter the eighth month of this global crisis, it becomes increasingly clear that we’re hardly “in this together.”</p>
<hr>
<p>
<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/what-is-solidarity-during-coronavirus-and-always-its-more-than-were-all-in-this-together-135002">What is solidarity? During coronavirus and always, it's more than 'we're all in this together'</a>
</strong>
</em>
</p>
<hr>
<p>We recently returned from the island of Lesbos, the site of the latest tragedy within European borders — the <a href="https://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-54082201">burning of the Moria refugee camp</a>. We witnessed thousands of people being sequestered on a barren stretch of road without food or water, tear-gassed and then herded into a <a href="https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2020/9/18/after-moria-fire-refugees-decry-conditions-in-new-camp-on-lesbos">new camp hastily built</a> on the grounds of an old shooting range on a windswept peninsula. </p>
<p>We entered the camp with a group of journalists and saw first-hand the woefully inadequate living conditions, as well as a barbed-wire facility keeping suspected COVID-19 cases apart from everyone else. </p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="Tents are seen at dawn behind a fence." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/360105/original/file-20200926-24-k5iw19.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/360105/original/file-20200926-24-k5iw19.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=392&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/360105/original/file-20200926-24-k5iw19.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=392&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/360105/original/file-20200926-24-k5iw19.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=392&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/360105/original/file-20200926-24-k5iw19.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=492&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/360105/original/file-20200926-24-k5iw19.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=492&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/360105/original/file-20200926-24-k5iw19.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=492&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">The COVID-19 area of the Lesbos camp is seen at dawn.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">(Kenya-Jade Pinto)</span>, <span class="license">Author provided</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>If anything, COVID-19 was an afterthought at the camp. When your baby is sleeping on a flattened cardboard box and you have not had water for days, a global pandemic is a distant threat that pales in comparison to the everyday violence that is omnipresent. Yet there was a spectre of fear around the increasing COVID-19 numbers. It’s a threat that is impossible to combat when you have nowhere to wash your hands. </p>
<h2>COVID-19 weaponized</h2>
<p>We grappled with the ethics of travelling during a global pandemic. But because one of us is currently based in Athens and working on a long-term project documenting migration and surveillance technologies, we felt it was imperative to witness the building of a new detention facility that will serve as a testing ground for new technological interventions.</p>
<p>Already, the COVID-19 pandemic has been weaponized to justify <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2020/04/15/opinion/coronavirus-surveillance-privacy-rights.html">increasing surveillance mechanisms</a>, leading to potentially far-reaching human rights abuses for communities on the margins. </p>
<hr>
<p>
<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/coronavirus-contact-tracing-poses-serious-threats-to-our-privacy-137073">Coronavirus contact tracing poses serious threats to our privacy</a>
</strong>
</em>
</p>
<hr>
<p>Just recently, <a href="https://frontex.europa.eu">Frontex</a>, Europe’s border-monitoring agency, announced that it was piloting a new <a href="https://frontex.europa.eu/media-centre/news-release/frontex-to-launch-maritime-surveillance-by-aerostat-pilot-project-KzMGfe">aerostat maritime surveillance system</a>, using Greece as a testing ground. </p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="A small dinghy at sea with a larger boat in the background." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/362446/original/file-20201008-18-ucftxe.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/362446/original/file-20201008-18-ucftxe.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/362446/original/file-20201008-18-ucftxe.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/362446/original/file-20201008-18-ucftxe.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/362446/original/file-20201008-18-ucftxe.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/362446/original/file-20201008-18-ucftxe.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/362446/original/file-20201008-18-ucftxe.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Refugees and migrants arrive with a dinghy accompanied by Frontex vessels at the village of Skala Sikaminias, on the Greek island of Lesbos, after crossing the Aegean sea from Turkey in February 2020.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">(AP Photo/Micheal Varaklas)</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>The European Commission’s new <a href="https://ec.europa.eu/info/strategy/priorities-2019-2024/promoting-our-european-way-life/new-pact-migration-and-asylum_en">Migration Pact</a> reveals the European Union’s staunch refusal to stop criminalizing migration, its empowerment of Frontex, its insistence on locking people in far-away frontier camps and its failure to redistribute responsibility for migrants among EU member states.</p>
<figure class="align-right ">
<img alt="Graffiti reading 'EU, where are you?' on a white wall." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/360112/original/file-20200926-14-13k80f1.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/360112/original/file-20200926-14-13k80f1.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=450&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/360112/original/file-20200926-14-13k80f1.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=450&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/360112/original/file-20200926-14-13k80f1.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=450&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/360112/original/file-20200926-14-13k80f1.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=566&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/360112/original/file-20200926-14-13k80f1.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=566&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/360112/original/file-20200926-14-13k80f1.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=566&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Graffiti is seen in Lesbos.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">(Kenya-Jade Pinto)</span>, <span class="license">Author provided</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>We also witnessed the inaction of the international community during our time on Lesbos. </p>
<p>While local preoccupations with spiking COVID-19 numbers are understandable, and as existential fatigue sets as the pandemic endures, it’s telling that the pandemic is just one of the many layers that are making 2020 a very difficult year for so many migrants and refugees. </p>
<h2>Lost in nameless photos, numbers</h2>
<p>The stories of individual lives can get lost in nameless photos and numbers when reporting on international crisis of mammoth proportions. Yet many Canadians may have deep connections to the people still detained on Lesbos, particularly because more than 40,000 Syrian friends, neighbours and family members were <a href="https://www.canada.ca/en/immigration-refugees-citizenship/services/refugees/welcome-syrian-refugees.html">resettled to Canada in 2015-16</a>. Many of the people in Lesbos are Syrian.</p>
<p>Just imagine how terrifying it would be to be detained in bunk beds with strangers and no running water, monitored by an omnipresent government, with nowhere to wash, bathe or properly disinfect amid a pandemic that’s <a href="https://covid19.who.int/?gclid=Cj0KCQjw8fr7BRDSARIsAK0Qqr5F3Ph_6NZivzmRSl4zSuEvx4Li5L21IeltQikcguthOAA85iXXq3YaAgOvEALw_wcB">killed more than a million people</a> — and stuck in a violent migration system for years with no end in sight. </p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="The burned remains of a shelter in Moria camp, Lesbos" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/362448/original/file-20201008-24-1a40e37.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/362448/original/file-20201008-24-1a40e37.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/362448/original/file-20201008-24-1a40e37.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/362448/original/file-20201008-24-1a40e37.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/362448/original/file-20201008-24-1a40e37.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/362448/original/file-20201008-24-1a40e37.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/362448/original/file-20201008-24-1a40e37.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">The burned remains of a shelter in Moria camp, Lesbos.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">(Kenya-Jade Pinto)</span>, <span class="license">Author provided</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>COVID-19 is one of the many intractable and overwhelming problems facing the world today that can be overwhelming to contemplate. However, understanding how the pandemic is experienced around the world will bring us closer to the otherwise empty sentiment of “we’re all in this together.” </p>
<p>Looking beyond our own frame of reference allows us the opportunity to consider the deep connections among us all, tied together by the same virulent disease, a once-in-a-lifetime experience highlighting just how much we owe to each other as members of the global community. </p>
<hr>
<p>
<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/fire-destroys-moria-refugee-camp-another-tragic-wake-up-call-for-the-eus-asylum-policy-145899">Fire destroys Moria refugee camp: another tragic wake-up call for the EU's asylum policy</a>
</strong>
</em>
</p>
<hr>
<p>It’s becoming evident that things can and likely will get worse before they get better in refugee camps around the world.</p>
<p>While the answers are yet to be found, we must continue to ask the question: What does it mean to be in this ordeal together, when barbed wire, digital borders and policies that turn places of refuge into prisons keep us apart?</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/146976/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Petra Molnar is a fellow with European Digital Rights (EDRi). She receives funding from the Mozilla Foundation for this project.</span></em></p><p class="fine-print"><em><span>Kenya-Jade Pinto does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>In the middle of a windswept refugee camp in the aftermath of the burning of Moria, the COVID-19 pandemic is an afterthought.Petra Molnar, Associate Director, Refugee Law Lab, York University, CanadaKenya-Jade Pinto, Filmmaker in Residence, Refugee Law Lab, York University, CanadaLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1418222020-07-08T11:50:01Z2020-07-08T11:50:01ZBlack lives are being lost in the Mediterranean – but the world remains silent<p>A black <a href="https://www.infomigrants.net/en/post/25678/intercepted-and-returned-to-libya-a-common-fate-of-europe-bound-migrants">baby was born</a> on a boat on the Mediterranean Sea in late June. Its mother was trying to escape from Libya, together with 92 men and women. Help was on the way, with the <a href="https://mediterranearescue.org/en/news-en/93-people-rejected-including-one-woman-who-gave-birth-6-dead-its-yesterdays-story-june-26th/">Italian rescue vessel Mare Jonio</a> nearing the boat in distress, ready to rescue them to a place of safety in Europe. </p>
<p>But Libyan forces were quicker, intercepting the boat on Europe’s behalf and returning the migrants to the Libyan war zone against their will. Upon disembarkation, survivors spoke of six people who lost their lives during the odyssey.</p>
<p><div data-react-class="Tweet" data-react-props="{"tweetId":"1276768980758380544"}"></div></p>
<p>Official statistics record <a href="https://missingmigrants.iom.int/region/mediterranean">377 deaths so far in 2020</a> but these are rough estimates, and the true figure is certainly considerably higher. Even in known shipwrecks, of which there were three in the central Mediterranean just in June, numbers of deaths are often unclear. And as there are few official investigations into these shipwrecks, the number who die often remains unclear, leaving families and friends of the disappeared in endless cycles of hope and despair.</p>
<p>Despite the absence of data on the ethnicity of those who lose their lives at sea, <a href="https://missingmigrants.iom.int/region/mediterranean">statistics on migrant crossings</a> register that the vast majority of people originate from Sub-Saharan Africa, North Africa or South Asia.</p>
<h2>When black lives don’t matter at sea</h2>
<p>During a period when Black Lives Matter protests are reverberating around the world following the killing of George Floyd in Minneapolis, the silence around black lives lost at sea is astounding. </p>
<p>If the video footage of Floyd’s killing was not enough to reveal his cause of death, the <a href="https://content.govdelivery.com/attachments/MNHENNE/2020/06/01/file_attachments/1464238/2020-3700%20Floyd,%20George%20Perry%20Update%206.1.2020.pdf">independent medical examination</a> confirmed death by homicide: “Cardiopulmonary arrest complicating law enforcement subdual, restraint, and neck compression.” </p>
<p>The process of drowning is also cruel. <a href="https://www.springer.com/gp/book/9783540296560">In medical terms</a>, someone who drowns becomes hypercarbic, hypoxemic and acidotic. They experience circulatory arrest, multiple organ dysfunction and, in the absence of rapid intervention and resuscitation, death.</p>
<p>Actions taken by border guards at sea may be less visible than a police officer kneeling on a person’s neck – and are rarely caught on camera – but they are no less violent. </p>
<p>Over the past few months, European authorities have left hundreds of people <a href="https://euobserver.com/migration/148432">consciously in distress and adrift</a> at sea, merely <a href="https://eu-libya.info/">watching them from the sky</a>. Some have attacked vulnerable people and sabotaged their boats while <a href="https://www.dw.com/en/greece-refugees-attacked-in-the-aegean/a-53977151">wearing paramilitary-style masks</a>. Others have threatened people at sea <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/global-development/2020/may/20/we-give-you-30-minutes-malta-turns-migrant-boat-away-with-directions-to-italy">at gunpoint</a>, preventing them from landing, or left migrants in need offshore in the <a href="https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2020/07/italy-malta-reject-52-migrants-stranded-animal-cargo-ship-200706073633394.html">cattle cages</a> of a livestock cargo ship. </p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/346063/original/file-20200707-46-1f8n7q5.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/346063/original/file-20200707-46-1f8n7q5.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=450&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/346063/original/file-20200707-46-1f8n7q5.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=450&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/346063/original/file-20200707-46-1f8n7q5.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=450&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/346063/original/file-20200707-46-1f8n7q5.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=566&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/346063/original/file-20200707-46-1f8n7q5.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=566&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/346063/original/file-20200707-46-1f8n7q5.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=566&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Migrants on board the Talia livestock cargo ship that was refused entry to Italy and Malta.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Courtesy of Talia</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>European politicians such as the EU’s foreign affairs chief Josep Borrell <a href="https://euobserver.com/foreign/148528">expressed shock</a> about the “abuse of power” by the police in the US in the wake of Floyd’s killing. But they have remained silent on Malta’s <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/global-development/2020/may/19/exclusive-12-die-as-malta-uses-private-ships-to-push-migrants-back-to-libya">acts of non-assistance and push-backs</a> that cost at least 12 lives in April. They have also stayed silent on Malta’s mass incarceration of 425 vulnerable people in <a href="https://timesofmalta.com/articles/view/malta-commissions-fourth-tourist-boat-as-425-migrants-held-offshore.794873">floating detention centres</a> off Europe’s coast. And few politicians have spoken up against reports of <a href="https://www.spiegel.de/international/europe/videos-and-eyewitness-accounts-greece-apparently-abandoning-refugees-at-sea-a-84c06c61-7f11-4e83-ae70-3905017b49d5">systematic attacks</a> by Greek coastguards on migrant boats in the Aegean. </p>
<h2>Silence and impunity</h2>
<p>Deaths in the Mediterranean are the result of racist ways in which the rich countries of the north govern and police human movement, particularly those emerging from countries with ongoing conflict or severe poverty. The philosopher <a href="https://press.princeton.edu/books/paperback/9780691089904/we-the-people-of-europe">Étienne Balibar</a> once referred to these structural conditions of segregation as producing “global apartheid”.</p>
<p>It’s estimated that more than <a href="https://data2.unhcr.org/en/situations/mediterranean">19,000 lives</a> have been lost in the Mediterranean since 2014. Relatives of the dead and disappeared, as well as activist supporters, are desperately trying to <a href="https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/extra/vdb6u1mrrv/the-boat-that-disappeared">raise awareness</a> about this mass dying. They struggle, however, to be heard.</p>
<p>It is particularly revealing that, even in a moment of global attention on issues of racial inequality, certain lives – those who fall between global frontiers – are erased from public consciousness. Such erasure is the result of a deep-seated Western-centric imagination of what lives count or are <a href="https://www.versobooks.com/blogs/2339-judith-butler-precariousness-and-grievability-when-is-life-grievable">deemed worthy to grieve over</a> when lost. </p>
<p>Some social movements are beginning to make connections between systems of violence and segregation within nation states and those global ones that segregate between populations worldwide. In the US, calls to defund or even abolish the police are <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/local/behind-defund-the-police-and-abolish-ice-is-a-shared-hope-that-more-dads-make-it-home/2020/06/20/a8c0969a-b28a-11ea-8f56-63f38c990077_story.html">slowly connecting</a> to issues around migration control, including calls to defund and abolish <a href="https://www.ice.gov/">Immigration and Customs Enforcement</a>.</p>
<p>In Europe, similar calls, for example to defund and abolish the European border agency Frontex are rarely heard. Carola Rackete, captain of one of the ships run by the NGO Sea-Watch, says it’s <a href="https://twitter.com/CaroRackete/status/1274277333130772481">difficult to make the case to abolish Frontex</a> when “the majority of EU citizens don’t know that agency even exists, less so what they do”.</p>
<p>Such awareness, however, is desperately needed. The expiration of black and brown lives at sea must be connected to <a href="https://alarmphone.org/en/2020/07/06/also-in-the-central-mediterranean-sea-black-lives-matter/?post_type_release_type=post">Europe’s border practices</a> and policies, in the same way that Floyd’s death is being connected to racist policing in the US. In order to do so, however, we would first have to acknowledge that black and brown lives also matter at sea.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/141822/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Maurice Stierl receives funding from the Leverhulme Trust. He is affiliated with the activist network Alarm Phone. </span></em></p>Official statistics record 377 deaths in the Mediterranean in 2020, but the true figure is likely to be much higher.Maurice Stierl, Leverhulme Research Fellow, University of WarwickLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1378402020-05-13T10:30:16Z2020-05-13T10:30:16ZMigration: how Europe is using coronavirus to reinforce its hostile environment in the Mediterranean<p>“You have to understand,” Warsan Shire writes in her poem <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nI9D92Xiygo">Home</a>, “that no one puts their children in a boat, unless the water is safer than the land.” </p>
<p>But what do you do when not only the land of departure but also the land of arrival becomes unsafe?</p>
<p>In the middle of the COVID-19 pandemic, some European countries have begun to implement a new strategy to reject migrants travelling on precarious boats: declaring themselves unsafe. </p>
<p>On April 7, and for the first time in history, <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/world/2020/apr/08/italy-declares-own-ports-unsafe-to-stop-migrants-disembarking">Italy announced</a> that due to the health emergency, Italian harbours could no longer be considered “safe places” for migrant landings. Two days later, <a href="https://www.euractiv.com/section/justice-home-affairs/news/malta-says-it-can-no-longer-rescue-accept-migrants/">Malta followed suit</a>, stating it would be in the migrants’ own interest not to endanger their lives at sea. </p>
<p>As a result, hundreds of migrants have been stuck at sea in the past few weeks, somewhere between war-torn Libya and “unsafe” Europe. Some were eventually rescued by <a href="https://timesofmalta.com/articles/view/78-rescued-migrants-still-stranded-at-sea-on-cargo-ship.789971">commercial vessels</a> but <a href="https://timesofmalta.com/articles/view/second-captain-morgan-ship-chartered-for-120-more-migrants.790556">barred from entering</a> European harbours. Others were left adrift on flimsy boats.</p>
<p>One group of 63 people was stranded at sea when their engine failed them in the Maltese Search and Rescue zone in mid-April. European authorities were informed about their distress and for days Malta, and the EU border agency Frontex, <a href="https://www.avvenire.it/attualita/pagine/malta-svelato-il-nome-del-barcone-fantasma-e-frontex-accusa-gli-stati-li-abbiamo-informati-ma-soccorsi-spettano-a-loro">observed them from the sky</a>. With no help sent, some starved to death on board and others drowned, according to <a href="https://alarmphone.org/en/2020/04/16/twelve-deaths-and-a-secret-push-back-to-libya/?post_type_release_type=post">one of the survivors</a> who spoke to the activist network <a href="https://twitter.com/alarm_phone">Alarm Phone</a>: </p>
<blockquote>
<p>We shouted for help and made signs. Three people tried to swim to this big boat as it started moving away. They drowned. We made signs to the aircraft with the phones and we held the baby up to show we were in distress.</p>
</blockquote>
<p>Eventually, after days with no help, the Maltese authorities orchestrated a <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2020/04/30/world/europe/migrants-malta.html">secret operation</a> to push the migrants back to Libya, carried out by a small fleet of private fishing trawlers. During their involuntary journey back to Libya, three other individuals are reported to have died, bringing the total number of <a href="https://timesofmalta.com/articles/view/the-faces-and-names-of-a-migration-tragedy.788723?fbclid=IwAR2km5YE6EESadoUtMDrMlEaIUPgxjhrb3tanI-XBL0gXCNkApA9IG8-aSk">fatalities to 12</a>. </p>
<p>The UN High Commissioner for Human Rights expressed <a href="https://reliefweb.int/report/world/press-briefing-note-migrant-rescues-mediterranean-spokesperson-un-high-commissioner">deep concern</a>, and a Maltese NGO <a href="https://timesofmalta.com/articles/view/live-robert-abela-gives-press-statement.786281">triggered a criminal enquiry</a> against Malta’s prime minister, Robert Abela, over the deaths and the forced return of survivors to Libya. Responding to the accusations, Abela defended the government’s actions by alluding to its responsibility to ensure the health of “all the Maltese” through restrictions on immigration. </p>
<h2>Blame game</h2>
<p>In the aftermath of yet another catastrophic failure to prevent lives from being lost at sea, a familiar game of deflection has ensued, with EU institutions and member states rejecting responsibility. </p>
<p>Shifting blame to smuggling networks, though still a common strategy, has been complicated by revelations of Europe’s <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/world/2019/oct/04/human-trafficker-at-meeting-italy-libya-migration-abd-al-rahman-milad">close collaborations</a> with these very networks. </p>
<p>In the past, politicians have cited the <a href="https://deathbyrescue.org/">pull-factor theory</a>, which argues that the presence of NGO rescuers off North African coasts encourages migrants to make the journey across the Mediterranean. But this theory has also lost persuasive power given the fact that migrant departures are continuing despite the current <a href="https://www.dw.com/en/coronavirus-crisis-hampering-mediterranean-migrant-rescues/a-53168399">absence of NGOs</a> at sea due to the coronavirus crisis.</p>
<p>Without NGO rescuers left to blame, Malta accused the EU and its member states of failing to act, insisting that the new migrant arrivals were “<a href="https://www.reuters.com/article/us-europe-migrants-malta/malta-refuses-to-let-migrant-ship-dock-awaits-eu-deal-idUSKBN22D5ES">not Malta’s problem</a>”. </p>
<hr>
<p>
<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/libya-why-enforcing-an-arms-embargo-is-so-hard-130254">Libya: why enforcing an arms embargo is so hard</a>
</strong>
</em>
</p>
<hr>
<h2>United in migrant deterrence</h2>
<p>These deflections of responsibility and tensions between EU member states and institutions over migration have become commonplace. And yet, in reality, Europe is largely <a href="https://ec.europa.eu/home-affairs/sites/homeaffairs/files/what-we-do/policies/european-agenda-migration/20190306_managing-migration-factsheet-step-change-migration-management-border-security-timeline_en.pdf">united</a> in its efforts to militarise its border over the past five years. As I have argued in a <a href="https://academic.oup.com/ips/advance-article-abstract/doi/10.1093/ips/olaa007/5818334">recent study</a>, both EU member states and institutions have worked hand-in-hand to turn Europe into a hostile environment for migrants seeking protection. </p>
<p>The <a href="https://ec.europa.eu/home-affairs/sites/homeaffairs/files/what-we-do/policies/european-agenda-migration/20190306_managing-migration-factsheet-step-change-migration-management-border-security-timeline_en.pdf">European Commission</a> was not wrong to state in 2019 that in matters of border security: “We have made more progress in the space of four years than was possible in the 20 years preceding them.”</p>
<p><a href="https://www.amnesty.org/en/latest/news/2020/01/libya-renewal-of-migration-deal-confirms-italys-complicity-in-torture-of-migrants-and-refugees/">Agreements</a> with Libyan authorities, including <a href="https://www.clingendael.org/publication/impact-eu-migration-policies-central-saharan-routes">militia groups</a>, have led to the interception of tens of thousands of people at sea, often after being spotted in the air by the <a href="https://www.operationsophia.eu/about-us/">EU operation SOPHIA</a> or by Frontex. In this way, Europe has militarised its borders in full awareness of the systematic violation of migrants’ rights in Libya, including forms of rape and torture, that have been <a href="https://www.msf.org/mediterranean-escape-route-migrants-and-refugees-trapped-libya">documented for years</a>.</p>
<p>Every theatrical plea to the EU by a member state demanding more support distracts from this reality of a rapidly militarising European border that has dramatically brought down migrant arrivals. Despite characterisations of Mediterranean migration as an ongoing crisis, <a href="https://data2.unhcr.org/en/situations/mediterranean">data on migrant crossings</a> shows that 2020 could see the lowest number of arrivals in a decade.</p>
<hr>
<p>
<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/slave-auctions-in-libya-are-the-latest-evidence-of-a-reality-for-migrants-the-eu-prefers-to-ignore-88589">Slave auctions in Libya are the latest evidence of a reality for migrants the EU prefers to ignore</a>
</strong>
</em>
</p>
<hr>
<p>Italy and Malta’s declaration of their harbours as unsafe should not be viewed as an exceptional measure during an exceptional time but as part and parcel of continuous, and collectively European, efforts to reinforce anti-migrant deterrence measures. </p>
<p>Those languishing in Libyan torture camps or drowning off Europe’s coasts must regard deterrence in the name of “unsafe Europe” for what it is: yet another cynical way to keep them away and deprive them of safety, no matter the cost.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/137840/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Maurice Stierl receives funding from the Leverhulme Trust. He is a member of Alarm Phone. </span></em></p>Migrants have been left to die in the Mediterranean as Italy and Malta declared their harbours ‘unsafe’ in the middle of the coronavirus pandemic.Maurice Stierl, Leverhulme Research Fellow, University of WarwickLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1029192018-09-16T17:46:37Z2018-09-16T17:46:37ZMigrants: deaths in the name of law<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/235559/original/file-20180910-123134-hq6ccp.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=3%2C23%2C2650%2C1410&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Migrants in Sangatte, 2008.</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.flickr.com/photos/noborder/2428599367/in/photolist-4GBcYT-5FojB7-J88yoF-dnGpqq-dT26bo-329NFz-taRhr-2VmwF2-STo2zj-8Bfij2-XQYPCa-2VqXds-qknmCx-d9csqw-dKkSbQ-csECP3-29WAse4-JDNhan-Bup4KM-28EGzQG-p7QQqD-G63EWV-bHpHEB-pVbBMs-26W76NP-28T9ytQ-oBkCkr-"> No border Network/Flickr</a>, <a class="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/">CC BY-SA</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>Seventeen years later, the <a href="https://www.history.com/topics/9-11-attacks">2,996 people killed in the 9/11 attacks</a> continue to be mourned, while the 5 million people killed in the context of the <a href="https://www.cfr.org/interactives/global-conflict-tracker#!/conflict/violence-in-the-democratic-republic-of-congo">six-year conflict in the Democratic Republic of Congo</a> (1998-2003) are long forgotten outside the DRC itself.</p>
<p>The phenomenon of the hierarchisation of life in mourning has been masterfully brought to attention by <a href="https://www.amazon.fr/Precarious-Life-Powers-Mourning-Violence/dp/1844675440/ref=sr_1_4?ie=UTF8&qid=1534716492&sr=8-4&keywords=butler">Judith Butler</a>. However, little thought has been given to the way in which political and bureaucratic actors prioritise certain lives over others in their (non) decision-making. At first glance, bureaucracies seem to incarnate the <a href="https://archive.org/stream/MaxWeberEconomyAndSociety/MaxWeberEconomyAndSociety_djvu.txt">Weberian rationality</a>.</p>
<h2>Inequality of life</h2>
<p>The inequality of life is reflected in practices of risk analysis at state borders by European and American agencies such as the EU’s Frontex and the Immigration and Customs Enforcement agency (referred to as ICE) of the United States. For the latter, it is the protection of borders rather than the protection of lives that is the object of risk minimisation. According to the <a href="https://www.iom.int/news/migrant-deaths-remain-high-despite-sharp-fall-us-mexico-border-crossings-2017">International Organisation of Migration</a>, the number of migrants who died crossing the US-Mexican border increased from 2017 compared to 2016, despite a 44% decrease in border apprehensions. The IOM also reveals that the risk of migrants dying as they attempt to reach Europe is on the rise: <a href="https://blogs.prio.org/2018/07/record-deaths-at-sea-will-regional-disembarkation-help-save-lives/">from 4 in 1,000 in 2015 to 14 in 1,000 in 2016 and even a 24 in 1000 in 2018</a>. In both cases, while the number of migrants reaching the US and the European Union has decreased, the risk of migrants dying on their journey has increased. How can we understand this annual depreciation in human life?</p>
<p>A closer look at the framing of migrant deaths in the United States and the Mediterranean may provide some answers. Within this framing we can identify three dominant and interrelated rationalities of migrant deaths which allow states to relativise or even deny their responsibility for these “casualties”.</p>
<h2>Migrants’ death as unavoidable</h2>
<p>The first “policing” rationality presents migrants" deaths as the unavoidable consequence of legal disorder. Time and time again, from US president Donald Trump to European Commission president Jean-Claude Juncker, political leaders and international organisations argue that these deaths are the result of the criminal activities of smugglers who make profit out of human misery. Smugglers overcrowd makeshift boats and send migrants off on hazardous journeys toward European shores. For instance, the President of the European Commission <a href="http://europa.eu/rapid/press-release_IP-17-1882_fr.htm?locale=FR">Jean-Claude Junker</a> stated on July 4, 2017:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>“We must act to support Libya, to fight smugglers and to strengthen the control of our borders in order to reduce the number of people undertaking perilous journeys to reach Europe.”</p>
</blockquote>
<p>For these decision makers, the problem of migrant deaths is then due to this illegal, exploitative activity. According to this narrative, if we want to reduce migrant deaths we must eradicate smuggling. This view is <a href="https://www.palgrave.com/us/book/9783319701196">widely contested</a> by academics and civil society actors as ignoring the structural conditions that is to say the hardening border policies and the reduction of legal pathways, which render migrants increasingly dependent on smugglers if they wish to seek asylum in Europe. Accessing asylum structures in a European state almost always involves embarking on dangerous journeys and “breaking the law”. The legal mind-set is then conform to the belief that these fatalities are rooted in disorder and illegality. The phenomenon of migrant deaths in the Mediterranean could be resolved through the respect of law and order.</p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/233578/original/file-20180826-149475-1bqm05o.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/233578/original/file-20180826-149475-1bqm05o.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=293&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/233578/original/file-20180826-149475-1bqm05o.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=293&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/233578/original/file-20180826-149475-1bqm05o.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=293&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/233578/original/file-20180826-149475-1bqm05o.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=368&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/233578/original/file-20180826-149475-1bqm05o.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=368&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/233578/original/file-20180826-149475-1bqm05o.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=368&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Mediterranean, summer 2015.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.flickr.com/photos/dfmagazine/19863662131/in/photolist-wghsHi-4Ns1Cv-XkRxQA-RzwNow-d7j6N5-buuVxs-dZ1kcK-6caAEi-dKkRGN-agwg9R-27dfUAU-6BJHLe-bHpGra-dKkS6h-eaN8jt-Y1DdDG-6myFFB-bHpH3c-buuVzN-5xwe8b-buuUHq-ieT4fC-86xbJR-odguqL-277DPWu-2akRmoP-73yNgw-buuVmE-23ag67p-btw2qX-27f5xmY-6P3w3V-aFc5Lt-bHpJgF-zkF6s9-27gz3o9-86xcsk-buuWkJ-L8GpcV-sqFzXi-BWS927-gWxm4q-Lgk2bV-h8dJZ9-4GFwA7-vYen8f-pRmNJK-4m8j7C-7XLQzt-fDFCvb">Irish Defence Forces/Flickr</a>, <a class="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/">CC BY</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<h2>Bureaucratic rationality</h2>
<p>The second framing – bureaucratic rationality – removes responsibility of states from migrant deaths through the delegation of competences. Since the 2000s, Europe and the United States have been outsourcing migration management to <a href="http://journals.sagepub.com/doi/abs/10.1177/0010414000033002001">private actors and to third countries</a>.</p>
<p>While the UE has concluded agreements to contain migrants with states such as Turkey and Morocco with <a href="https://www.academia.edu/20749553/EU-Morocco_Cooperation_on_Readmission_Borders_and_Protection_A_model_to_follow_With_Carrera_S_Cassarino_JP_Den_Hertog_L_and_al._CEPS_2016_">poor human rights records</a>, the United States has delegated migrant detention to private actors such as <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/G4S">G4S</a> with an even more dubious record. This process of delegation is justified by arguments for efficiency and humanitarianism. Indeed, it is held that it is too risky for migrants to cross the Mediterranean or the Mexican desert, their well-being would be better served at “home”.</p>
<p>This delegation of competences also takes place inside the European Union notably through the <a href="https://openmigration.org/en/analyses/what-is-the-dublin-regulation/">Dublin regulation</a> (1997, 2003, 2013). This regulation obliges asylum seekers to register in the first European country they enter. This renders only a small number of EU countries responsible for the vast majority of asylum claims, notably Italy and Greece. In reality, this policy shifts responsibility to peripheral countries forming a cordon sanitaire. The large majority of European states can now justify their non-intervention by referring to legal rules like Dublin. The pretended rational division of competencies and responsibilities conceals from view the way in which European leaders have designed their own irresponsibility. With the comparable logic of appealing to a legal apparatus, <a href="https://www.google.fr/amp/s/amp.theguardian.com/us-news/2018/jun/20/donald-trump-rally-minnesota-family-separations-democrats-attack">Donald Trump</a> referred to American law in order to justify his irresponsibility in the separation of migrant children from their parents:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>“They are following the law. Kids are supposed to be separated from them. They are here illegally. They know it’s going to happen. I don’t understand what the problem is.”</p>
</blockquote>
<h2>Lack of resources</h2>
<p>The third framing – rationality of efficiency – is underpinned by the argument of a lack of resources. Some refer to the lack of jobs, others to the lack of appropriate reception structures. In 2015 <a href="https://www.rt.com/news/312963-slovakia-prefer-christian-refugees/">Slovakian</a> authorities even claimed that they were unable to receive Muslim migrants due to a lack of mosques.</p>
<p>As the argument goes, European countries only have a limited migration carrying capacity and cannot afford to host migrants with human decency. They refer to an imaginary tipping point in which American and European societies pass from social cohesion to economic, social, cultural and political chaos. As <a href="https://www.google.fr/amp/s/amp.theguardian.com/us-news/2018/jun/20/donald-trump-rally-minnesota-family-separations-democrats-attack">Trump</a> recently put it:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>“We can’t afford to support them. They’re flooding our own country and we can’t afford to take care of our elderly and children.”</p>
</blockquote>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/233577/original/file-20180826-149481-10royus.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/233577/original/file-20180826-149481-10royus.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/233577/original/file-20180826-149481-10royus.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/233577/original/file-20180826-149481-10royus.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/233577/original/file-20180826-149481-10royus.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/233577/original/file-20180826-149481-10royus.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/233577/original/file-20180826-149481-10royus.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">People marching in solidarity with migrants from Vintimiglia (Italy) to Paris, June 2018.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.flickr.com/photos/jmenj/27994724127/in/photolist-JDNhan-Bup4KM-28EGzQG-p7QQqD-G63EWV-bHpHEB-pVbBMs-26W76NP-28T9ytQ-oBkCkr-bx1pKv-oJ8nQ3-864SwS-28XNMan-28WhCrW-Vgaiwf-MgceE9-LmFQ9W-Xsy1D8-gWA9vu-w8zCQ3-4Ns1Hp-JHJhe6-4J38dg-b87bRX-TGmCQD-7X6Drz-W6W188-nmDLa1-JDNiy4-XgzScd-JDNikt-enGaaZ-buuVCm-27gfrD5-W1oS5N-h51z9Q-5tj7P2-UVSs6t-7UbMuV-XgzRcN-28eq2th-YopGkE-8JUqxH-W4tmxo-dmXMk8-dmXN1s-dALBpA-buuVv3-iTjSN1">Jeanne Menjoulet/Flickr</a>, <a class="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/">CC BY</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<h2>The law of <em>Homo economicus</em></h2>
<p>Are migrant deaths at the border preferable to such chaos? While this thinking does not refer to legal rules per se, it refers to the law of homo economicus, that is an individual whose behaviour is driven by a desire for profit maximisation.</p>
<p>These three rationalities reflect a unidimensional understanding of law as if law is not a matter of interpretation and can be unproblematically applied to a given situation. They share a total reliance on a system of rules and laws which purport to be neutral and deny a role for political agency. The German chancellor’s decision in 2015 to temporarily open the borders to migrants was criticised for not respecting the rules of European migration management.</p>
<p>Today’s “rulification” of migration management would make such a decision ever more unlikely. Problematising migrant deaths as collateral casualties caused by the necessary application of rules and laws enables European states and the US alike to frame their role in this tragedy as a passive one. A bit like the Greek statesmen referring to the oracle of Delphos in justifying going to war, American and European decision makers act as if they are compelled to depreciate individual migrants lives in the name of respecting supra-human law. Could American and European decision makers consider that migrants deaths, much like the tragedy of 9/11, are not casualties of natural forces but victims of human agency?</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/102919/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Shoshana Fine is migration coordinator at the European Council on Foreign Relations</span></em></p><p class="fine-print"><em><span>Thomas Lindemann ne travaille pas, ne conseille pas, ne possède pas de parts, ne reçoit pas de fonds d'une organisation qui pourrait tirer profit de cet article, et n'a déclaré aucune autre affiliation que son organisme de recherche.</span></em></p>Little thought has been accorded to the way in which political and bureaucratic actors prioritise certain lives over others in their (non) decision-making.Thomas Lindemann, Professor of International Relations & Political Science at L'École polytechnique, Université de Versailles Saint-Quentin-en-Yvelines (UVSQ) – Université Paris-Saclay Shoshana Fine, Research Associate at CERI Sciences Po, Sciences Po Licensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/796992017-06-20T04:42:20Z2017-06-20T04:42:20ZAre NGOs responsible for the migration crisis in the Mediterranean?<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/174497/original/file-20170619-12400-1ejb6fa.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Migrants are being rescued by members of the “Proactiva open arms” NGO, off the coast of the Island of Lesbos (Greece). </span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:20151030_Syrians_and_Iraq_refugees_arrive_at_Skala_Sykamias_Lesvos_Greece_2.jpg">Ggia/Wikimedia</a>, <a class="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-sa/4.0/">CC BY-NC-SA</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>2016 was an extraordinarily deadly year for migrants: 5,000 people perished in the Mediterranean Sea, vastly exceeding the death toll of <a href="http://www.liberation.fr/planete/2016/12/23/plus-de-5-000-migrants-sont-morts-en-mediterranee-en-2016-un-nouveau-triste-record_1537174">3,700 in 2015</a>. And in the first six months of 2017, more than <a href="http://www.lemonde.fr/international/article/2017/04/21/plus-d-un-millier-de-migrants-sont-morts-en-mediterranee-depuis-janvier_5115239_3210.html">1,000 deaths</a> have been recorded.</p>
<p>Year after year, we see the same dynamics at work. <a href="http://www.lemonde.fr/les-decodeurs/article/2015/09/04/comprendre-la-crise-des-migrants-en-europe-en-cartes-graphiques-et-videos_4745981_4355770.html">Migrants flee conflict and instability in the Middle East and Africa</a> trying to reach Europe. In order to avoid the land checkpoints established by European governments, they take their lives into their hands, setting off across the Mediterranean in makeshift boats, often operated by unscrupulous people smugglers.</p>
<p>This is not a recent tragedy; migrant advocate organisations have been recording the death toll of these people <a href="https://theconversation.com/compter-les-morts-aux-frontieres-qui-comment-pourquoi-59095">since the 1990s</a>. But now they don’t simply tally up the dead, they directly intervene by rescuing migrants at sea.</p>
<figure>
<iframe width="440" height="260" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/b65-5bRjS-s?wmode=transparent&start=0" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen=""></iframe>
</figure>
<p>It all started in 2014 with the discontinuation of the Italian navy’s <a href="http://www.lemonde.fr/les-decodeurs/article/2015/04/20/migrants-en-mediterranee-qu-est-ce-que-l-operation-triton_4619129_4355770.html">humanitarian and military operation Mare Nostrum</a>. The cost of the operation was too high for the Italian government, which was unable to convince its European partners to join its efforts.</p>
<p>The program was replaced by operation Triton, financed by the <a href="https://europa.eu/european-union/about-eu/agencies/frontex_fr">European Border and Coast Guard Agency (Frontex)</a>. But NGOs feared that the change would lead to the deaths of thousands of migrants: Triton has a lower budget than Mara Nostrum and only operates in a small section of the waters where boats are liable to sink.</p>
<p>Above all, Triton was <a href="http://www.lemonde.fr/europe/article/2016/04/21/ue-quels-moyens-pour-le-sauvetage-des-migrants-en-mediterranee_4906599_3214.html">primarily designed for border control</a>, rather than saving lives.</p>
<h2>Complex rescue missions</h2>
<p>Launched by a couple of Italian-American millionaires, the <a href="https://www.moas.eu/central-mediterranean">Migrant Offshore Aid Station</a> (MOAS) was the first private organisation of its kind to charter a boat. In 2015, Doctors without Borders (MSF, short for Médecins Sans Frontières) followed their lead, as did <a href="http://www.savethechildren.org/site/apps/nlnet/content2.aspx?c=8rKLIXMGIpI4E&b=9357115&ct=14921495">Save the Children in 2016</a>.</p>
<p>Across Europe, citizens came together to create new organisations such as <a href="http://www.liberation.fr/france/2017/06/05/klaus-vogel-coeur-en-stock_1574681">SOS Méditerranée</a>, <a href="https://sea-watch.org/en/project/about-us/">Sea Watch</a>, <a href="http://www.lifeboatproject.eu/">Life Boat Project</a>, <a href="http://sea-eye.org/en/gorden-isler-ueberlebenskampf-auf-mission-6/">Sea Eye</a>, <a href="https://jugendrettet.org/en/#news">Jugend Rettet</a> in Germany, <a href="http://bootvluchteling.nl/en/">Boat Refugee</a> in the Netherlands, and <a href="https://www.proactivaopenarms.org/es">Proactiva Open Arms</a> in Spain.</p>
<figure class="align-left ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/173373/original/file-20170612-7026-1bba9sg.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/173373/original/file-20170612-7026-1bba9sg.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=398&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/173373/original/file-20170612-7026-1bba9sg.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=398&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/173373/original/file-20170612-7026-1bba9sg.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=398&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/173373/original/file-20170612-7026-1bba9sg.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=500&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/173373/original/file-20170612-7026-1bba9sg.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=500&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/173373/original/file-20170612-7026-1bba9sg.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=500&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Operation Frontex personnel operate off the coast of Malta in March 2017.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.flickr.com/photos/minoritenplatz8/33244525080/">Austrian Federal Ministry for Europe, Integration and Foreign Affairs/Flickr</a>, <a class="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/">CC BY</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>The number of different authorities and organisations involved has made rescue operations more complex. Since <a href="http://www.imo.org/en/About/Conventions/ListOfConventions/Pages/International-Convention-on-Maritime-Search-and-Rescue-(SAR).aspx">maritime law states</a> that any vessel close to a boat in distress must come to its aid, the relevant maritime authorities coordinate rescue efforts for each zone. In the central Mediterranean Sea, it is most often the <a href="http://www.guardiacostiera.gov.it/">Italian coast guard</a>, part of the Ministry of Transportation, that grants NGOs permission to intervene.</p>
<p>But, in reality, it’s often the NGOs who find a sinking boat and contact the coast guard themselves.</p>
<p>Once the migrants are rescued, they are taken to an Italian port, under the authority of another government department (Ministry of the Interior), who selects their destination, registers them and directs them towards “ <a href="https://ec.europa.eu/home-affairs/sites/homeaffairs/files/what-we-do/policies/european-agenda-migration/background-information/docs/2_hotspots_fr.pdf">hotspots</a> ” – migrant centres set up by the European Union.</p>
<h2>Accessories to smugglers’ operations?</h2>
<p>In Italy, the role of NGOs in rescue operations has created controversy. In December 2016, the <a href="https://www.ft.com/content/3e6b6450-c1f7-11e6-9bca-2b93a6856354">Financial Times</a> highlighted Frontex’s frustration.</p>
<p>The European border force has reservations about sea rescue operations. In its opinion, letting migrants believe that all they need to do is take to the sea to be rescued and welcomed to Europe opens up the floodgates.</p>
<p>According to the British newspaper, Frontex has evidence that some NGOs are in contact with smugglers and direct them towards zones where migrants have the best chance of being rescued. In other words, they claim these NGOs are accomplices to human traffickers and are therefore guilty of the crime of <a href="http://www.la-croix.com/France/Immigration/Laide-migrants-constitue-elle-delit-2017-01-04-1200814589">assisting illegal immigration</a>.</p>
<figure>
<iframe width="440" height="260" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/ppcWwdVIEd0?wmode=transparent&start=0" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen=""></iframe>
</figure>
<p>The report led <a href="https://www.letemps.ch/monde/2017/05/14/ong-accusees-complicite-passeurs-mediterranee">Italian authorities to investigate</a>. In May 2017, the Italian senate’s parliamentary inquiry <a href="http://www.repubblica.it/cronaca/2017/05/16/news/migranti_commissione_difesa_stop_a_corridoi_ong-165587838/">concluded</a> that NGOs constitute a “pull factor” and that they should cooperate more with maritime police operations. The Catania chief prosecutor <a href="http://www.reuters.com/article/us-europe-migrants-italy-ngo-idUSKBN17Z260">nevertheless stated</a> that there was no proof of wrongdoing.</p>
<p>The Italian government itself is divided. While the minister for foreign affairs has denounced the NGOs, the prime minister has <a href="http://www.lastampa.it/2017/04/29/italia/cronache/ong-gentiloni-preziose-ma-magistratura-vada-avanti-blog-di-grillo-non-lasciamo-solo-zuccaro-gYzleg28Lze1sdUiNHf9JP/pagina.htm">thanked rescuers</a> for their help, and the coast guard says it supports “politically neutral” maritime activities.</p>
<p>International organisations have also taken a stand. The UN High Commission for Refugees <a href="http://www.huffingtonpost.it/2017/05/01/lonu-difende-le-ong-internazionali-amin-awad-unhcr-se-aves_a_22063194/">defended the NGOs</a>, while the <a href="http://www.rainews.it/dl/rainews/articoli/migranti-frontex-trafficanti-sfruttano-obbligo-slavataggio-55d0f020-dc9c-431b-85b2-e1d32ed5ec52.html">International Organization for Migration</a> gave partial support to Frontex’s arguments, while highlighting the importance of saving lives in the Mediterranean.</p>
<h2>Saving lives or controlling immigration?</h2>
<p>On June 9 2017, researchers Charles Heller and Lorenzo Pezzani published the report <a href="https://blamingtherescuers.org/">Blaming the Rescuers</a>. Using empirical evidence, it refuted Frontex’s claims and pointed out that the border force also accused operation Mare Nostrum of encouraging illegal immigration.</p>
<p>Yet the end of the Mare Nostrum operation, far from limiting fatalities, led to an increase in deaths. In the 2016 <a href="https://deathbyrescue.org/">report</a> Death by Rescue, these same researchers measured fatalities during Mediterranean crossings, comparing the number of people lost at sea with the number of people who reached Europe. They showed that it was far more dangerous to migrate during the Triton operation than Mare Nostrum. Increases in fatalities and the risk of death during a crossing are therefore not due to the presence of rescuers but rather to the lack of rescue operations.</p>
<p>These reports accuse Frontex of ending the Mare Nostrum operation knowing that it was saving lives. They also claim that it is now doing the same thing with NGOs, attempting to get rid of them knowing full well that their absence would make the journey riskier.</p>
<p>The debate highlights contradictions in European migration policies, which are creating a “prohibition effect”. If it is impossible to procure something legally (access to Europe), demand shifts to the riskier back market, profiting unscrupulous intermediaries.</p>
<p>Strengthening border control, especially on land, <a href="http://www.rfi.fr/afrique/20170418-migrants-plus-europe-hausse-le-ton-plus-le-marche-favorise-passeurs">automatically results in risky boat journeys</a> and therefore a rise in the number of deaths at sea. And the humanitarian aim of saving lives inevitably runs up against government efforts to control immigration.</p>
<h2>The issue of legitimacy</h2>
<p>Behind the controversy lies the question of legitimacy. Who has the right to intervene and come to migrants’ rescue?</p>
<p>Frontex defends the right of governments to control their borders and exercise sovereignty. NGOs have another perspective: if national governments are unable to uphold certain fundamental rights, such as the <a href="http://www.coe.int/fr/web/human-rights-convention/life">right to life</a>, civil society must intervene.</p>
<p>This philosophy is nothing new. State inaction is also the reason many NGOs have become involved in the fight against poverty, for instance, and the defense of minorities. What is different is its application to questions of sovereignty, which is normally reserved for nation states.</p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/173371/original/file-20170612-3104-1raovk.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/173371/original/file-20170612-3104-1raovk.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=450&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/173371/original/file-20170612-3104-1raovk.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=450&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/173371/original/file-20170612-3104-1raovk.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=450&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/173371/original/file-20170612-3104-1raovk.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=566&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/173371/original/file-20170612-3104-1raovk.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=566&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/173371/original/file-20170612-3104-1raovk.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=566&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">The Italian coast guard saves migrants in the central Mediterranean Sea.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.flickr.com/photos/masonotarianni/15457011095/">Maso Notarianni/Flickr</a>, <a class="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/">CC BY-NC-ND</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>To an extent, the crisis in the Mediterranean enables NGOs to challenge state control over borders. And it’s understandable that this creates resistance. But if governments wish to defend their monopoly, they should find better arguments than those put forward by Frontex.</p>
<p>Greater solidarity in Europe would help avoid situations like the one that led to the discontinuation of the Mare Nostrum operation. Following the <a href="http://eur-lex.europa.eu/legal-content/HU/ALL/?uri=celex%3A41997A0819(01)">Dublin Convention</a>, countries such as Greece and Italy are continuously at the front line, which is neither fair nor sustainable.</p>
<p>In this context, we can see the limits of the current political approach to migration, founded on an obsession with security and a denial of fundamental rights.</p>
<p>With calm weather conditions ideal for sea crossings, the northern summer is almost upon us. The migration debate is only just beginning and it brings with it the need for a basic rethinking of <a href="http://info.arte.tv/fr/dix-solutions-pour-sauver-leurope-de-lechec-migratoire">European migratory policies</a>.</p>
<p><em>Translated from the French by Alice Heathwood for <a href="http://www.fastforword.fr/en/">Fast for Word</a>.</em></p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/79699/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>The authors do not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and have disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>Accused of cooperating with smugglers, NGOs defend migrants’ right to life and point to the inadequate policies of European states.Antoine Pécoud, Professeur de sociologie, Université Sorbonne Paris NordMarta Esperti, Doctorante en sociologie, Université Sorbonne Paris NordLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/719142017-01-26T10:05:57Z2017-01-26T10:05:57ZGrim outlook for Africans seeking refuge as Trump looks to ban Somalis, Sudanese<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/154348/original/image-20170126-23858-gdkbd5.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Demonstrators gather at Washington Square Park to protest against President Trump in New York.</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">Reuters/Shannon Stapleton</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>Less than a week into his presidency, Donald Trump has made good on his signature campaign threat to start <a href="http://www.politico.com/story/2017/01/donald-trump-immigration-234142">building a wall</a> on the border with Mexico. A second executive order will facilitate swifter deportations for illegal immigrants. But this is only a start, with other measures set to be announced this week. </p>
<p>These include a <a href="http://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/read-draft-text-trump-executive-order-muslim-entry_us_5888fe00e4b0024605fd591d?0lwdu2cbey5htzkt9">range of restrictions</a> on citizens from seven war-torn countries in the Middle East and Africa. These are expected to include a temporary ban on most refugees and a suspension of visas. Sudan, Libya and Somalia are said to be on the list.</p>
<p>Questioned about when the additional measures would be announced, White House spokesman Sean Spicer <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2017/jan/25/donald-trump-sign-mexico-border-executive-order">said</a></p>
<blockquote>
<p>You’ll see more action this week about keeping America safe.</p>
</blockquote>
<p>Trump pledged during his election campaign to do just this by using what he termed <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2016/sep/02/donald-trump-syria-refugees-us-immigration-security-terrorism">“extreme vetting”</a>. This comes after complaints from the president’s favourite website –Breitbart – that refugees from conflict zones were <a href="http://www.breitbart.com/texas/2017/01/22/refugee-flow-somalia-afghanistan-continues-us/">still being resettled</a> in the US. </p>
<p>The developments will be a real blow to America’s large and thriving Somali and Libyan communities, for whom family reunions and visits from loved ones will be increasingly difficult. There were more <a href="http://www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank/2016/06/01/5-facts-about-the-global-somali-diaspora/">than 150,000</a> Somali immigrants resident in the US as of 2015. Most entered <a href="http://www.cnsnews.com/news/article/patrick-goodenough/almost-100000-somali-refugees-admitted-us-911">after the 9/11</a> attacks.</p>
<p>It comes as the communities have been putting down roots, with the Somalis having elected their <a href="http://time.com/4564296/ilhan-omar-first-somali-legislator/">first legislator</a>, Ilhan Omar. Omar, herself a refugee, is now an elected representative in Minnesota. It was a huge achievement, which she was keen to celebrate: </p>
<blockquote>
<p>For me, this is my country, this is for my future, for my children’s future and for my grandchildren’s future to make our democracy more vibrant, more inclusive, more accessible and transparent which is going to be useful for all of us.</p>
</blockquote>
<p>But it is not just Trump and the US throwing up barriers to Africans. The European Union is moving fast to halt the arrival of refugees and migrants on its southern shores, and is close to achieving the virtual “wall” that Trump is set on erecting.</p>
<h2>Europe moves to seal migrant routes</h2>
<p>Europe is close to sealing the routes refugees and migrants take across the Mediterranean. Consider the facts. These are the <a href="http://frontex.europa.eu/assets/Publications/Risk_Analysis/FRAN_2016_Q2.pdf">routes</a> into southern Europe. (Map: Frontex Risk Analysis, Q2 2016)</p>
<p>The graphic produced by the EU’s Frontier Agency is clear: the major route that Africans are taking is via Libya.</p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/154344/original/image-20170126-23875-14e5r84.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/154344/original/image-20170126-23875-14e5r84.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=325&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/154344/original/image-20170126-23875-14e5r84.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=325&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/154344/original/image-20170126-23875-14e5r84.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=325&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/154344/original/image-20170126-23875-14e5r84.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=409&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/154344/original/image-20170126-23875-14e5r84.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=409&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/154344/original/image-20170126-23875-14e5r84.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=409&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption"></span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">supplied</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>The map below, from the same source, underlines the point.</p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/154345/original/image-20170126-23845-zgf2xf.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/154345/original/image-20170126-23845-zgf2xf.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=360&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/154345/original/image-20170126-23845-zgf2xf.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=360&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/154345/original/image-20170126-23845-zgf2xf.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=360&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/154345/original/image-20170126-23845-zgf2xf.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=452&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/154345/original/image-20170126-23845-zgf2xf.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=452&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/154345/original/image-20170126-23845-zgf2xf.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=452&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption"></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Two routes that Africans have used in the past have almost been sealed. There is next to no transit by sea from West Africa through the Canary Islands and only a limited number arriving in Spain.</p>
<p>The Egyptian route through the Sinai and Israel has also been closed. The brutal treatment of Eritreans and Sudanese in the Sinai by mafia-style Bedouin families, who extracted ransoms with torture and rape, was certainly a deterrent. But this route was sealed in December 2013 when the Israeli authorities built an almost impregnable fence, blocking entry via <a href="http://www.jpost.com/Breaking-News/Construction-of-Israel-Egypt-border-fence-has-been-completed-333927">the Sinai</a>.</p>
<p>This has left Libya – and to a lesser extent Egypt – as the only viable route for Africans to use. Both are becoming more difficult. There has been the increasing propensity of Egypt to deport Eritreans to their home country, despite the risks that they will be jailed and abused when they are returned. </p>
<h2>Libya, the final brick in the wall</h2>
<p>Libya is critical to the success of the EU’s strategy, as a recent European assessment explained: </p>
<blockquote>
<p>Libya is of pivotal importance as the primary point of departure for the <a href="https://eeas.europa.eu/sites/eeas/files/com_2016_700_f1_communication_from_commission_to_inst_en_v8_p1_english.pdf">Central Mediterranean route</a>.</p>
</blockquote>
<p>The EU has adopted new tactics to try to seal the central Mediterranean route. The countries keenest to push for this are Germany and Italy, which have taken the bulk of the refugees in recent years. </p>
<p>Earlier this month Italy’s Interior Minister Marco Minniti was dispatched to Tripoli to broker an agreement on fighting irregular migration through the country with Fayez al-Sarraj, head of the UN-backed Government of National Accord. Minniti and al-Sarraj <a href="http://www.reuters.com/article/us-libya-security-italy-idUSKBN14T2BJ">agreed</a> to reinforce cooperation on security, the fight against terrorism and human trafficking. </p>
<p>Mario Giro, Italy’s deputy foreign minister, told the Financial Times:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>There is a new impulse here – we are moving as pioneers. But there is a lot of work to do, because Libya still doesn’t yet have the <a href="https://www.ft.com/content/e0e56ed4-d97f-11e6-944b-e7eb37a6aa8e">capacity</a> to manage the flows, and the country is still divided.</p>
</blockquote>
<p>The Italian proposals are very much in line with agreements the EU reached with African leaders during their <a href="http://www.newstatesman.com/world/europe/2015/11/latest-deal-migration-europe-wooing-africa-s-dictators">summit in Malta</a> in late 2015. The two sides signed a deal to halt the flight of refugees and migrants.</p>
<p>Europe offered training to “law enforcement and judicial authorities” in new methods of investigation and “assisting in setting up specialised anti-trafficking and smuggling police units”. The European police forces of Europol and the EU’s border force (Frontex) will assist African security police in countering the “production of forged and fraudulent documents”.</p>
<p>This meant co-operating with dictatorial regimes, like Sudan, which is ruled by <a href="https://www.icc-cpi.int/darfur/albashir">Omar al-Bashir</a>. He is wanted for war crimes and crimes against humanity by the International Criminal Court. </p>
<p>What is clear is that Europe is determined to do all it can to reduce and finally halt the flow of Africans through Libya – the only viable route left for most African migrants and refugees to reach Europe. </p>
<p>Now Trump is joining these efforts with his own restrictions. For Africans fleeing conflicts the prospects look increasingly grim.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/71914/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Martin Plaut is affiliated with the Institute of Commonwealth Studies, University of London; the Royal African Society and Chatham House</span></em></p>It is not just Trump and the US throwing up barriers to Africans. The European Union is moving fast to halt the arrival of refugees and migrants on its southern shoresMartin Plaut, Senior Research Fellow, Horn of Africa and Southern Africa, Institute of Commonwealth Studies, School of Advanced Study, University of LondonLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/496112015-12-01T11:05:58Z2015-12-01T11:05:58ZFor migrants in Sicily, group expulsion is the order of the day – but is it legal?<p>For more than a decade, Sicily has been the first port of call for survivors of one of the world’s deadliest sea crossings. This year <a href="http://data.unhcr.org/mediterranean/country.php?id=105">nearly 90,000 migrants</a> have arrived there, and an estimated 2,860 people have <a href="http://missingmigrants.iom.int/">died in the sea</a> trying to make the journey.</p>
<p>At first glance, migration to the island seems to be managed in an orderly way; the new arrivals are kept behind security fences and far from the eyes of the general public. Yet in many places, confusion reigns behind the façade. As part of the authorities’ efforts to fast-track processing of arrivals, expulsion orders have been handed out to groups of people who don’t understand the implications – potentially in defiance of international law.</p>
<h2>Pieces of paper</h2>
<p>I recently spent three weeks in Sicily <a href="http://www.coventry.ac.uk/research/research-directories/research-news/2015/coventry-led-study-seeks-to-unravel-mediterranean-migration-crisis/">examining the dynamics</a> of the migration crisis in the Mediterranean. I’ve been talking to people who have left behind persecution, conflict and poverty, lived through situations of horrific violence and lawlessness in Libya and survived the terrifying sea crossing.</p>
<p>On arrival, they are confronted with a complex and confusing bureaucratic system designed to separate “economic migrants” from refugees with a claim to international protection.</p>
<p>The situation is not easy for them. Many want to find a job and get on with their lives but carry with them the burden of the persecution and trauma they experienced before arriving. The lines between their economic concerns and personal safety are blurred, to say the least.</p>
<p>Some also took to showing me what they called their “piece of paper”: an expulsion order saying they had to leave Italy within seven days. Over recent weeks these orders have been <a href="http://www.repubblica.it/solidarieta/immigrazione/2015/10/19/news/respingimenti-125425049/?ref=fb">increasingly liberally distributed</a>. More than 100 cases were <a href="http://siciliamigranti.blogspot.it/2015/10/migranti-nei-futuri-hotspot-gia-emessi.html">reported in Syracuse</a> two weeks ago. More were given out <a href="http://www.repubblica.it/solidarieta/immigrazione/2015/10/19/news/respingimenti-125425049/?ref=fb">in the port town of Pozzallo</a>. </p>
<p>One group was given expulsion orders at a reception centre just a few days after being rescued at sea. They say they were told to sign the document without anyone explaining what it meant. People under 18 were not distinguished from adults and some of them said they had the wrong date of birth recorded. </p>
<p>The group was not only told to leave Italy by their own means within seven days, but also to leave the reception centre immediately. What followed was a 35km walk to the nearest town and a night sleeping in a car park until they could find a place to stay and a lawyer could see their case.</p>
<p>Many have now had their expulsion orders overturned. They are instead having claims for international protection processed and have been readmitted to the formal migrant reception system (although it is not uncommon for applications of this type to take years to settle).</p>
<p>Handing out group expulsions in this arbitrary way is <a href="http://siciliamigranti.blogspot.it/2015/10/migranti-nei-futuri-hotspot-gia-emessi.html">contrary to EU law</a>. They appear to be being handed to people because of their nationality rather than their reasons for leaving home. </p>
<p>They are also primarily given to people from the poorest countries – those least likely to have the resources to continue their journey away from Sicily or to leave the country by their own efforts.</p>
<p>One group of people I met claimed they didn’t even know what asylum was, let alone how to apply for it. These expulsions are therefore likely to create a population of homeless and undocumented people who are unable to work and integrate or to move away. </p>
<p><a href="https://uk.news.yahoo.com/germany-speed-repatriations-migrants-near-million-mark-224829136.html#JEtck6A">Much talk in Europe recently</a> has been on strengthening controls and speeding up the repatriation of migrants. But if this takes place behind security fences and out of sight, there is a risk that arbitrary deportations can continue. Migration reception facilities, in particular <a href="https://www.google.it/url?sa=t&rct=j&q=&esrc=s&source=web&cd=1&ved=0CCIQFjAAahUKEwjWk6e2uv_IAhXKBywKHY8XAJ0&url=http%3A%2F%2Fec.europa.eu%2Fdgs%2Fhome-affairs%2Fwhat-we-do%2Fpolicies%2Feuropean-agenda-migration%2Fbackground-information%2Fdocs%2F2_hotspots_en.pdf&usg=AFQjCNESCz_47xbKp37lbBGZ-U4f_sl2sw&sig2=hPoujfiqrz8mUr2umNvguA&bvm=bv.106923889,d.bGg&cad=rja">the EU’s new Hot Spots</a>, need to ensure that the right to international protection is properly upheld in practice, otherwise such efforts will be unsustainable and create further problems down the line.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/49611/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Simon McMahon is on a team led by Professor Heaven Crawley and funded by the Economic and Social Research Council (ESRC) to carry out comparative research into the Mediterranean migration crisis.</span></em></p>Simon McMahon travelled to Sicily, where arrivals are being ordered to leave without understanding why.Simon McMahon, Research Fellow, Coventry UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/492422015-10-16T05:25:25Z2015-10-16T05:25:25ZSeeing double? How the EU miscounts migrants arriving at its borders<p>Frontex, the border agency charged with European external border management, has released data claiming 710,000 migrants entered the EU between January and September this year.</p>
<p>According to the agency, this represents an “<a href="http://frontex.europa.eu/news/710-000-migrants-entered-eu-in-first-nine-months-of-2015-NUiBkk">unprecedented inflow of people</a>”, offering as a comparison data from last year, when 282,000 entries were recorded in total.</p>
<p>I found out about the data release via Twitter. Alarms bells immediately rang.</p>
<p><div data-react-class="Tweet" data-react-props="{"tweetId":"653877588985819136"}"></div></p>
<p>The numbers thrown out by Frontex are not only a noticeable increase on 2014 figures. They are also significantly higher than <a href="http://www.euronews.com/2015/10/14/migrant-crisis-confusion-how-many-are-entering-the-eu/">data published recently</a> by the <a href="http://data.unhcr.org/mediterranean/regional.php">UN</a> and the <a href="http://www.iom.int/news/mediterranean-arrivals-near-record-600000">International Organization for Migration</a> on the number of people entering the EU irregularly by the sea. These showed 590,000 estimated arrivals. </p>
<p>These figures are immensely important. They have a <a href="https://theconversation.com/calais-migrants-are-not-invading-theyre-just-a-small-part-of-a-global-refugee-crisis-45616">profound impact</a> on the public debate about the refugee and migration crisis. They are quickly picked up by the media – especially when they change dramatically. Anti-immigrant politicians looking for definitive confirmation that the EU is being invaded are just waiting for figures like these to come along to bolster their arguments about <a href="http://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2015/aug/04/cameron-wins-accolades-from-italys-anti-immigrant-northern-league">closing the borders</a>.</p>
<p>I have been concerned for some time about how Frontex collects, collates and presents data from different sources. I have been worried that the agency conflates the number of border crossings with the number of people actually entering the EU.</p>
<p>The two are not necessarily the same, especially if one considers the land route from Greece via the Balkans. People who arrive in Greece are counted by Frontex as crossing EU external borders. The very same people, however, then leave the EU into countries such as Albania, Macedonia and Serbia, only to reenter via Hungary or Croatia in order to reach their preferred destination (such as Germany). If for any reason an EU country returns the people to a transit country (as Hungary has been doing with neighbour Serbia) and make another crossing into the EU, they appear in Frontex data for the third time. </p>
<p>With this in mind, I decided to probe Frontex’s claim via Twitter.</p>
<p><div data-react-class="Tweet" data-react-props="{"tweetId":"653878192156114944"}"></div></p>
<p>To my surprise, after just a few minutes I got a reply – and a remarkably candid one. Frontex plainly admitted that it has double counted migrants entering the EU. It said that yes, people entering Europe through different routes are likely to be counted twice.</p>
<p><div data-react-class="Tweet" data-react-props="{"tweetId":"653881419912114176"}"></div></p>
<p>I was amazed that the agency would release such a politically sensitive figure (710,000) so blithely. Frontex must be well aware that these numbers could have a profound effect on how Europe deals with this ongoing crisis.</p>
<p>This is not an attempt to deny that the EU is experiencing a sizeable migration flow, but to draw attention to the responsibilities that befall an agency charged by the EU with the task of coordinating the management of its borders.</p>
<p>Frontex eventually issued a “clarification” about these numbers. It added a paragraph to the end of its press release stating:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>Frontex provides monthly data on the number of people detected at the external borders of the European Union. Irregular border crossings may be attempted by the same person several times in different locations at the external border. This means that a large number of the people who were counted when they arrived in Greece were again counted when entering the EU for the second time through Hungary or Croatia.</p>
</blockquote>
<p>Despite this clarification and its admission that a “large number” of people have been double counted, the headline of the press release remained the same – continuing to imply that 710,000 had entered the EU. </p>
<p>How many newspapers will report the Frontex figure with the hastily added caveat? How many will simply ignore it and report the headline number? </p>
<p>To me this story is a reminder that we should all be more watchful about how numbers on the refugee crisis are used by the various actors involved.
Frontex needs to be made more accountable for its actions, especially given the expanding mandate that EU states have accorded to it.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/49242/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Nando Sigona receives funding from the Economic and Social Research Council as part of the he Mediterranean Migration Research Programme.</span></em></p>Border agency Frontex recently reported that an unprecedented 710,000 migrants had entered the EU this year. Something didn’t ring true for Nando Sigona.Nando Sigona, Senior Lecturer and Deputy Director of the Institute for Research into Superdiversity, University of BirminghamLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/456162015-08-03T17:46:03Z2015-08-03T17:46:03ZCalais migrants are not invading: they’re just a small part of a global refugee crisis<p>Much of the media coverage and political rhetoric of recent weeks <a href="http://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2015/jul/30/the-only-migrant-madness-is-the-tabloid-pretence-about-events-in-calais">has implied</a> that the UK is undergoing an uncontrollable invasion by migrants attempting to jump on moving lorries in Calais. </p>
<p>To put this “crisis” in some perspective, it is useful to consider where most of residents of <a href="https://theconversation.com/is-this-really-europe-refugees-in-calais-speak-of-desperate-conditions-45414">the “new jungle” at Calais</a> come from and how they reached continental Europe. Many of the inhabitants of the new migrant camp in Calais are survivors of those dangerous Mediterranean boat journeys that until a few weeks ago seemed so distant from Dover. </p>
<p>They come mostly from countries such as <a href="https://calaismigrantsolidarity.wordpress.com/introduction-to-calais/">Syria, Eritrea, Afghanistan and Iraq</a> devastated by years of civil war, repressive and dictatorial regimes, with no future to offer for their youth. This growing mobility across the Med is not surprising given we are witnessing the most severe refugee crisis <a href="https://www.amnesty.org/en/latest/news/2015/06/world-leaders-neglect-of-refugees-condemns-millions-to-death-and-despair/">since World War II, according to Amnesty International</a>. But these incidents also indicate the scarcity of regular and safer migration routes in the region. </p>
<p>Increased military and humanitarian presence at sea since April this year has meant that the number of migrant deaths in the Mediterranean <a href="http://www.theguardian.com/world/2015/jun/01/mediterranean-migrant-death-rate-slows-may-search-rescue-boost">has been significantly reduced</a>, perhaps evidence that many of those deaths were avoidable if EU political will had been quicker to coalesce. A side effect of this otherwise positive result has been the reduction of public solidarity in the UK, and to different extent across Europe, for boat migrants. There has been a robust return of the “<a href="https://theconversation.com/calais-the-views-of-a-hawkish-elite-are-warping-public-perception-of-migrants-45475">migrant invasion</a>” rhetoric with its corollary of “<a href="http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-29780384">swamp</a>”, “<a href="http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-33714282">swarm</a>” and “<a href="http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-3141005/Tidal-wave-migrants-biggest-threat-Europe-war.html">tidal wave</a>”. </p>
<p>Compare the 500 daily attempts to jump on the back of lorries to the <a href="http://www.unhcr.org/5592bd059.html#_ga=1.174521697.23703118.1438616452">137,000 migrants who reached Italy and Greece in the first half of 2015</a>, and the numbers are far from huge. It is worth considering that they are often multiple attempts by the same people. While certainly enough to disrupt the Eurotunnel operation – combined with current disruption caused by prolonged strikes by ferry workers in France – these incidents and the surrounding rhetoric of invasion bolstered by journalists’ easy access to Calais should not let us lose sense of the broader picture. Calais is not a local issue. It is one manifestation of the global refugee crisis, but not one of the acutest. </p>
<h2>Behind the numbers</h2>
<p>Circular and seasonal migrations in the region have a very long history, arguably as old as Western civilisation. However, much of the coverage in recent months has been about the irregular crossings of migrants crossing the Mediterranean to reach the EU. </p>
<p>Traditional and <a href="https://theconversation.com/calais-the-views-of-a-hawkish-elite-are-warping-public-perception-of-migrants-45475">social media</a> have certainly played a central role in framing coverage of recent migration, but so have those who provided the figures that validate the invasion talk. One of the main sources is <a href="http://frontex.europa.eu/">Frontex, the EU Border Agency</a>. Leaving aside the consideration that Frontex resources in many ways depend upon the number of migrants that the agency is able to intercept and count, which may highlight a potential vested interest, there is a more structural point here. The organisation’s budget has rocketed from €6.3m (£4.4m) in 2005, to nearly €42m in 2007, topping <a href="http://frontex.europa.eu/assets/About_Frontex/Governance_documents/Budget/Budget_2015.pdf">€115m</a> by 2015. Frontext figures, often repackaged by other agencies, count migrants that have been intercepted at sea or at land borders. </p>
<p>The more resources and capacities to intercept Frontex has, the more migrants may be intercepted and counted by Frontex. In turn, if there are fewer Frontex officers patrolling a land crossing that means fewer migrants are likely to be intercepted. In other words, while hard to prove unequivocally, it may be at least useful to think that the “invasion” we are told about may be as much the result of the global refugee crisis as of the number of border officers we send to patrol specific stretches of the EU border. </p>
<h2>Not ‘typical’ undocumented migrants</h2>
<p>The migrants living in the new jungle in Calais are one of the most visible parts of the global refugee crisis. Yet of 625,000 <a href="http://ec.europa.eu/eurostat/statistics-explained/index.php/Asylum_statistics">asylum applications</a> in the EU in 2014, 65,000 were lodged in France and 32,000 in the UK. While it can be argued that a country such as Italy is a port of entry and a place of transit, this is less so for France and most people who apply there are likely to wait for the decision of their case in France. It may be obvious for any readers outside the UK, but not all migrants and refugees in France want to come to the UK: taking the views of the minority of migrants who reside in the new jungle as representative of the views and intentions of all asylum seekers and migrants in France is misleading and only stirs public hysteria. </p>
<p>To reassure the British public, new jungle residents contribute only in small part to the undocumented migrants in the UK. My own <a href="http://www.plutobooks.com/display.asp?K=9780745333908">research</a> shows that only a minority of undocumented migrants in the UK entered the country illegally – for example on the back of a lorry. Most undocumented migrants enter the country legally and overstay their visa. Despite the high profile accorded to Calais migrants, the <a href="http://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2015/aug/01/calais-illegal-immigrant-uk-facts">“typical” undocumented migrant</a> in the UK is more likely to be a white Australian, or a young Brazilian.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/45616/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Nando Sigona receives funding from ESRC for carrying out research on former unaccompanied minors in the UK.</span></em></p>Look at the numbers and the ‘invasion rhetoric’ is unwarranted.Nando Sigona, Senior Lecturer and Birmingham Fellow, University of BirminghamLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/406062015-05-07T12:31:07Z2015-05-07T12:31:07ZFrontex can’t solve the Mediterranean migration crisis on its own – here’s why<p>Europe in the past few weeks has been shocked by a record high in the number of migrants dying in the Mediterranean Sea. Facing this grave situation, EU political leaders pledged to work together to tackle the issue in an EU extraordinary summit held at the end of April. They proposed to <a href="https://theconversation.com/europe-has-finally-woken-up-to-migrant-deaths-in-the-med-but-can-it-deliver-a-united-response-40579">triple the fund for Frontex</a>, which has been coordinating two joint border operations – Triton and Poseidon – in the Mediterranean. However, these operations alone will not resolve the issue.</p>
<p>Frontex (“the European agency for the Management of Operational Co-operation at the External Borders of the Member States of the European Union”) was created in 2004 in Warsaw to facilitate cooperation between EU member states for border management. For this purpose, Frontex has implemented a wide variety of tasks. Joint operations in which multiple EU member states participate by sending their border guards and equipment is perhaps the most publicly visible one. </p>
<p>Frontex has also played a leading role in developing a border guard training package, analysing risks at borders in association with migration and establishing Eurosur, the EU-wide border surveillance system. It cannot be overstated that Frontex has become a core element in the EU’s response to irregular migration. </p>
<p>When <a href="http://content.time.com/time/world/article/0,8599,2040821,00.html">Greece called for EU assistance</a> to handle irregular migration at its borders with Turkey in 2010, <a href="http://europa.eu/rapid/press-release_MEMO-11-130_en.htm">Frontex co-ordinated a large-scale emergency operation</a> in which almost all of the EU member states and the Schengen member states took part. When Spain’s Canary Islands were the main port of entry for irregular migration in the mid-2000s, Frontex responded by organising the <a href="http://frontex.europa.eu/news/longest-frontex-coordinated-operation-hera-the-canary-islands-WpQlsc">Hera</a> joint operation there. </p>
<h2>Crisis in the Med</h2>
<p>In the past few years, a large number of people from Libya have tried to cross the Mediterranean by taking a dangerous journey in the hands of smugglers in unsafe boats. The Italian search-and-rescue operation “Mare Nostrum” was <a href="https://theconversation.com/opting-out-of-mediterranean-rescue-condemns-desperate-migrants-to-death-32512">replaced last November</a> by Triton. According to my reckoning – based on <a href="http://frontex.europa.eu/news/2-400-migrants-rescued-off-libyan-coast-before-easter-8k1Cj9">Frontex’s own figures</a> – 8,178 out of 26,800 migrants have been rescued by the Triton operation.</p>
<p>The EU’s high representative for foreign affairs and security policy, Federica Mogherini, and the commissioner for migration, home affairs and citizenship, Dimitris Avramopoulos, <a href="https://theconversation.com/migrant-crisis-can-europes-leaders-deliver-real-change-or-will-it-be-business-as-usual-40735">jointly stated prior to the EU extraordinary summit</a> that the EU would launch “direct, substantial measures” intended to “make an immediate difference”. Increased funding for Triton is the first indication of this but, of course, it’s not as simple as just increasing a budget. There are a number of other important stumbling blocks in the way of an effective coordinated response.</p>
<h2>Limited mandate</h2>
<p>Firstly, Frontex operations alone cannot be a solution as the agency does not have the scope or ability to address the causes of the current migration crisis. It is too easy for us to think that once there is a problem at a border – the Mediterranean in this context – that the only solution needed is to strengthen border checks and surveillance. It’s not that simple. What is needed is to focus on <a href="https://theconversation.com/to-deal-with-the-refugee-crisis-you-need-to-understand-the-cause-40737">why people are migrating in the first instance</a> – migration does not start and end at the border. </p>
<p>When we start to understand this, we start to realise that the impact of any operations, whether search-and-rescue or border control, will always be very limited. The EU has addressed other areas that are linked to this, such as the issues of <a href="http://europa.eu/rapid/press-release_IP-15-4813_en.htm">asylum application</a> and the <a href="http://europa.eu/rapid/press-release_IP-15-4813_en.htm">resettlement of migrants</a> in need of protection and the need for engagement with countries surrounding Libya. </p>
<p>But there is a great deal more to do – and there is serious time pressure. The EU must adopt a more holistic and detailed approach if it is to address this issue seriously. </p>
<p>Another problem Frontex has is that it cannot hold search-and-rescue operations as its top priority – the organisation’s mandate empowers it to focus on “control on persons” and “surveillance of external borders”. <a href="http://frontex.europa.eu/about-frontex/mission-and-tasks/">Frontex’s regulation</a> obliges it to comply fully with human rights standards such as the <a href="http://europa.eu/legislation_summaries/justice_freedom_security/combating_discrimination/l33501_en.htm">Charter of Fundamental Rights</a> and the <a href="https://www.icrc.org/en/war-and-law/treaties-customary-law/geneva-conventions">Geneva Convention</a>, so that migrants’ access to international protection is ensured. Indeed Frontex has set up a <a href="http://frontex.europa.eu/partners/consultative-forum/general-information/">consultative forum on fundamental rights</a> providing for a <a href="http://frontex.europa.eu/news/frontex-consultative-forum-and-fundamental-rights-officer-4dKVBG">fundamental rights officer</a>, mandated to monitor its own activities. </p>
<p>But this doesn’t mean that Frontex has turned out to be a search-and-rescue agency. Its primary goal is still to help member states more effectively control the border and surveillance so that irregular migration is tackled. In this regard, the proposed plan by the EU last week will <a href="https://theconversation.com/migrant-crisis-can-europes-leaders-deliver-real-change-or-will-it-be-business-as-usual-40735">again be insufficient</a> because it does not make any fundamental changes to Frontex’s operational goals. </p>
<h2>Limited will</h2>
<p>There is also no guarantee that EU member states will necessarily co-operate with Frontex. It’s often thought that Frontex has the power to mobilise member states in supplying border guards and equipment to its border operations – but in reality Frontex is no more than a coordinator with no real authority. It doesn’t have its own border guards and equipment, so its performance is considerably constrained by whether or not member states are willing to cooperate. There have been cases where Frontex has been hamstrung by having insufficient border guards and equipment to implement border operations. </p>
<p>When I interviewed former Frontex executive director, Ilkka Laitinen, he <a href="http://www.euractiv.com/sections/global-europe/juncker-suffers-double-blow-immigration-summit-314053">stressed that</a>: “The key [for Frontex] is that member states believe in us”. If reports are true that some EU members have already rejected calls to supply resources for the enhanced Triton operation, it’s hard to predict how Frontex can hope to implement its Mediterranean mission. </p>
<p>There’s no doubt that the vast majority of the population of EU member states view the current situation in the Mediterranean crossing as a serious crisis. So Europe’s leaders must be made to see this crisis in terms of their own domestic political mandate. The vast majority of people in Europe recognise this as a human tragedy of grand proportions – it is time their leaders were made to do so as well.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/40606/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Satoko Horii does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>The EU has pledged to triple money to the search-and-rescue mission in the Mediterranean. But simply throwing money at the problem won’t work.Satoko Horii, Lecturer, Akita International UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/358422015-01-04T21:15:47Z2015-01-04T21:15:47ZAround the world in 2015: the big stories predicted<p>The New Year always provides an opportunity for both introspection and speculation. So it seems a good time to consider what the big stories are likely to be this year. </p>
<p>Some of the five major stories I have listed below are obvious, hangovers from 2014. Others are not. But, as my list makes clear, there is always room for optimism amid the messiness, despair and incoherence – and a realization that progress is often uneven and frustrating. </p>
<p>In each case, I’ve tried to include a possible surprise or two that could shift the current situation out of its malaise. </p>
<p>What do you think? Do these match your top five? It’ll be interesting to compare at the end of the year.</p>
<h2>The greater commitment of ground troops in Iraq and Syria.</h2>
<p>President Obama keeps promising not to do so, as part of a zero tolerance policy for American casualties. His joint chiefs keep telling him, however, that he has to commit more forces if he wants a victory, one he would like before he departs from office. </p>
<p>Meanwhile, the number of official “personnel” in “Syraq” keeps inching up, from 300 to 3,000. And this figure doesn’t include many of those subcontractors, specialists and advisers who aren’t dressed in battle fatigues, about which we have no accurate numbers. </p>
<p>The likelihood is that the war will drag on, putting greater pressure on Jordan, Lebanon and Turkey, and resulting in greater domestic strife in those countries.</p>
<p>Possible surprises? More militant attacks in Europe result in some European governments committing grounds troops and the war intensifies. Even bigger surprise? Benjamin Netanyahu’s Likud party does unexpectedly badly in Israel’s March election. A new coalition of Labor and centrist parties assume power – and changes the map of peace negotiations as it halts development in the West Bank. Gaza-based <a href="http://www.cfr.org/israel/hamas/p8968">Hamas</a> then refuses to negotiate and the <a href="http://www.britannica.com/EBchecked/topic/439781/Palestinian-Authority-PA">Palestinian Authority</a>’s Mahmoud Abbas enhances his position once again as the “representative of the Palestinian people.” A grand coalition is formed that isolates and weakens ISIS.</p>
<h2>The situation with Russia will become more acute before there is any relief.</h2>
<p>Putin is under no domestic pressure to relieve the pressure on the average Russian – yet. Indeed, he seems to revel in defying Europe and the Americans, even as his economy slips into a deeper recession. </p>
<p>Any pressure on Putin to negotiate with America and Europe on Ukraine is more likely to originate from gentle suggestions from his wealthy friends rather than any limited street protests. Then again, we’ve seen powerful leaders across Eastern Europe, the Middle East and North Africa succumb to unanticipated pressure before. So let’s hope that Putin can find a way to “declare victory” before the Russian people suffer too much. </p>
<p>A possible surprise? The nationalist <a href="http://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-27173857">Right Sector</a> makes further electoral progress in Ukraine, becomes increasingly militant, and the conflict expands beyond the current war zones in Luhansk and Donetsk. An even worse surprise? The Arctic becomes the new focal point of friction between the US and Russia as both seek to consolidate their rights in the region. Russia, by the way, is much better prepared to do so than the US at the moment. So look for greater expenditures on this issue in the Pentagon’s next budget.</p>
<h2>Immigrants and asylum seekers will keep coming – to Europe and beyond.</h2>
<p>And they will do so in record numbers as they flee the conflicts in Libya, the Middle East and the Horn of Africa. They will also likely die in record numbers. Last year it is <a href="http://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-30653742">estimated</a> that nearly 3,500 refugees died trying to attempt the crossing to Europe, while another 200,000 were rescued. These mortality rates are less unusual than is commonly assumed, stretching back over a decade. </p>
<p>But now the spotlight is increasingly on the behavior of the EU. It has gloated that it is a global “force for good” for a decade, even winning the Noble Prize to reinforce that claim. Yet, <a href="http://frontex.europa.eu/">Frontex</a> - the EU’s extended border patrol force - cut back the number of vessels designed to patrol the Mediterranean under Operation <a href="http://www.bbc.com/news/world-africa-30039044">Triton</a> in late 2014 when it replaced the former operation run by the Italian government. Patrolling in this case really means rescuing distressed immigrants in sinking boats. This cutback has resulted in untold numbers of refugees drowning in the last three months, although we mostly get to hear about those who are rescued. </p>
<p>Frontex has received offers from <a href="http://frontex.europa.eu/news/more-technical-support-needed-for-operation-triton-IKo5CG">15 EU member states</a> to provide technical equipment and border guards. The EU will have to bolster its patrols if its international reputation is not to be permanently tarnished. But what it really needs is more ships, and a streak of humanity. </p>
<p>A possible surprise move? President Obama offers US humanitarian assistance in patrolling the Mediterranean.</p>
<h2>On the brighter side, the US enhances its ties with Latin America.</h2>
<p>Vice-President Joe Biden’s impromptu <a href="http://laht.com/article.asp?ArticleId=2367640&CategoryId=10717">meeting </a>with Venezuelan president Nicholas Maduro (at the inauguration of Brazil’s president) has followed on the heels of the US’s rapprochement with Cuba. Together they appear part of a well-orchestrated diplomatic offensive by the US to wrestle back influence from China. </p>
<p>Focused on the Middle East and Africa, the US has sorely neglected what it regards as its own backyard for the last decade. China has filled this vacuum with aid and <a href="http://www.japantimes.co.jp/opinion/2014/12/29/commentary/world-commentary/china-steps-in-as-the-banker-to-call-in-a-pinch/#.VKmrmCvF-8Q">loans</a> to the continent’s major oil producers, notably Brazil and Venezuela. As a result, the US’s influence has declined. In an effort to shore up a major hemispheric trade agreement that excludes the Chinese, President Obama is busy restoring those ties. It is a job made easier for him by the decline in oil prices, a rapid change that has made these countries again reliant on external aid and American trade. </p>
<p>A surprise: President Obama convenes a meeting of Latin American leaders in Washington and announces a breakthrough in a trade agreement, one that the Republican leadership reluctantly has to support.</p>
<h2>On the really brighter side, 2015 becomes a banner year because the West reaches a deal on nuclear weapons with Iran and on proliferation with North Korea.</h2>
<p>Okay, I admit these are unlikely. In fact, a real stretch. But as someone who lived through the fall of the Berlin Wall, and more modestly the recent reforms in Myanmar, I have learned never to discount the possibility of positive developments on the upside. While the morass in which we find ourselves seems never-ending, the fact is that things are getting better – at least when you look at the statistics. </p>
<p>2014 did not turn out to be the quagmire of 1914. We didn’t start any major interstate wars, and the number of people lifted from extreme poverty in Africa and Asia kept <a href="http://hdr.undp.org/en/content/multidimensional-poverty-index-mpi">improving</a>. So while it never hurts to be pragmatic, there may be hope for humanity yet.</p>
<h2>And finally…</h2>
<p>The biggest story of the year may never make the front pages of the foreign news section – the resurgence of the US dollar. </p>
<p>It spent 2014 steadily strengthening against the Euro and strongly rebounding against all of Asia’s currencies. A strong dollar was generally regarded as part of the tripod of US power during the Cold War, the others being America’s nuclear capacity and the global influence of its corporations. Parity with the Euro is still widely considered unrealistic. But so was a <a href="http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/wonkblog/wp/2014/12/23/u-s-economy-grew-at-a-rate-of-5-percent-in-third-quarter-the-fastest-in-more-than-a-decade/">5%</a> US growth rate, as recently as a year ago. </p>
<p>A strong dollar has its advantages and disadvantages for Americans: cheaper imports and less competitive exports. But any global crisis is only likely to strengthen it further as the currency of last resort. A strong dollar once again giving the US significant leverage over global affairs, even if reporting on that story remains confined to the financial news.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/35842/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
The New Year always provides an opportunity for both introspection and speculation. So it seems a good time to consider what the big stories are likely to be this year. Some of the five major stories I…Simon Reich, Professor in The Division of Global Affairs and The Department of Political Science, Rutgers UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.