Migration and security

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Migration and security

people cross borders for a variety of reasons and that states generally devise immigration policies to encourage some forms of border crossing and not others.

The general impact of migration on national security therefore depends on the efficacy of a particular state’s policy to shape migration flows according to its overall national interests.

Philippines

Counter-terrorism Intelligence Capabilities 2.5

Size and Resources 3

Expertise and Capabilities 2

Understanding of Threat 4

Sympathies/Orientation 2

Frontier Security 2

Border Security 1

Coastal/Port/Airport Security 2

Unregulated Migration 2

Legal Environment 3

International Cooperation 4

Public Cooperation 2

Thailand

Counter-terrorism Intelligence Capabilities 3




Sympathies/Orientation 3

Frontier Security 2

Border Security 2


Unregulated Migration 2

Legal Environment 4



Counter-Terrorism in SEA

Malaysia

Counter-terrorism Intelligence Capabilities 3 Size and Resources 2 Expertise and Capabilities 3 Understanding of Threat 3 Sympathies/Orientation 3

Frontier Security 2 Border Security 2 Coastal/Port/Airport Security 3 Unregulated Migration 2 Legal Environment 4 International Cooperation 3 Public Cooperation 3

Indonesia

Counter-terrorism Intelligence Capabilities 3

• Size and Resources 3 • Expertise and Capabilities 2 • Understanding of Threat 3 • Sympathies/Orientation 2

Frontier Security 1 • Border Security 1 • Coastal/Port/Airport Security 1 • Unregulated Migration 2• Legal Environment 3 • International Cooperation 3 • Public Cooperation 3

Singapore

Counter-terrorism Intelligence Capabilities 4.5




Sympathies/Orientation 4 Frontier Security 4

Border Security 5


Unregulated Migration 3 Legal Environment 4



Several factors that contributed to increase of international population movements:

First, states are increasing their ability to control borders, thus international movement automatically becomes a matter of concern for at least two states;

second, world’s population is rapidly increasing;

third, communication and transportation revolution increase people’s awareness of opportunities abroad and ease their travel to these areas.

Fourth, turmoild and uncertainty motivate people to move for a better life, and the world is indeed becoming more turbulent and unstable.

Migration can be economically beneficial to both sending andreceiving countries and for the migrant.

Categorising international migration: Involuntary and voluntary migration.

Involuntary or forced migration refers essentially to refugee flows, where for reasons of natural disaster, war, civil war, ethnic, religious or political persecution people are forced to flee their homes.

Voluntary migrations can be further subdivided into three main categories.

legal permanent settler migration

legal temporary migration, and includes the bulk of the voluntary migrations.

illegal migration of people which may be temporary or permanent.

There are international regime and norms to deal with involuntary or forced migrations, but those dedicated to regulate voluntary migration is completely absent.

Conflict scenario Igovernments who are refusing refugee population, and thus take steps to their stay will be temporary.

receiving states influencing policies of sending country’s government or even bring about change of government.

receiving states providing arms to refugees and invlove them in sending state’s internal conflict.

Conflict Scenario II Even small number refugees may have security implications for receiving country.

Britain for example, has given refuge to a small number of Islamist clerics who escaped repressive middle eastern regimes who are targeting them for their extreme islamist views. GWoT has revealed how some of these muslim residents and citizens of immigrant origin became involved in terrorist attacks.

Conflict Scenario IIIMigrant communities tend to maintain a strong connection with their home countries, and express their aspirations regarding instability in their home countries.

Conflict scenario IV:

migrant communities’ attempts to recruit their host governments and populations to their cause in their home country depends to a large extent on the nature of the political system in the host country.

Migrant communities may also be used by the government of the home country to pursue its own aims, vis-à-vis the host country government.

Conflict Scenario V: migrants challenge traditional notions about membership of a state, the meaning of nationality and citizenship, and the rights and duties of citizens towards their state and vice versa.

Conflict scenario VI:

Social cohesion and stability can be at risk when migrants are perceived as economic burden on society. The perception is usually justified by the country’s allocation of local resources in housing, education, healthcare and transportation for migrants. At the same time, migrants are also potentially perceived as criminals or carriers of infectious dsiseases.

Conflict scenario VII:

Migrants can also be perceived as threats to culture and way of life of the people in receiving country.

Large numbers of refugees can also be a driving force for change within the receiving country, particularly if they are ethnically similar to their hosts, or speak a common language.

various ways in which population movements can constitute a threat to the security of states, societies, and the individuals within them:

turn civil wars into international conflicts

cause the spread of ethnic conflict and civil unrest from one country to another

lead to some form of conflict, including full-scale war between countries.

play a role in facilitating terrorism.

become the cause of economic hardship and the increase in competition for scarce resources of various kinds from jobs to social housing, and

weaken existing power structures and institutions within countries,

threaten cultural identities and social cohesion.

It is now widely accepted in many Western states that the public policy process should explicitly treat immigration and security as intertwined, and bring a security focus to bear on matters of control and management of population movements.

State’s authority to respond to involuntary migration is to some extent limited by 1951 Convention on Status of Refugees.

This Convention obliges states to extend asylum and protection to those facing persecution, on grounds of religion, race, nationality or political opinion.

Further, implicit in the meaning of refugee lies an assumption that the person concerned is worthy of being and ought to be assisted, and if necessary protected from the cause of flight

the Convention commits states to ensure that no asylum seeker is sent back to any country where they are likely to face danger to life or liberty, without their application for refugee status being given due consideration.

The question of whether someone is a refugee and should be treated as such by a state becomes an issue decided by the government and the courts of the country in which refuge is sought.

For an asylum seeker to be recognized as a refugee is a political decision, and depends to some extent on the relationship between the sending and receiving countries.

International population movements create ethnic minority communities in receiving countries. Host countries, especially democracies, invariablu accepts some immigrants as citizens and thus create cultural, linguistic, religious, racially distinct minority within their borders.

However, there are governments who are refusing refugee population, and thus take steps to their stay will be temporary. Conflicts may emerge between sending and receiving countries. Receiving states will influence policies of sending country’s government or even bring about change of government. This can lead to conflict. Receiving states may also be involved in sending state’s internal conflict by arming the refugees and deploying their own armed forces.

Even small number refugees may have security implications for receiving country. Britain for example, has given refuge to a small number of Islamist clerics who escaped repressive middle eastern regimes who are targeting them for their extreme islamist views. GWoT has revealed how some of these muslim residents and citizens of immigrant origin became involved in terrorist attacks.

Most of those involved in the attack on the Twin Towers of the World Trade Center were temporary migrants, resident in the USA ostensibly for education or business.

A number of those involved in the Madrid bombings, terrorist trials in Germany (where some of the 9/11 bombers were resident) and currently detained in the UK, France and Italy, are Islamist residents of the countries they are now attacking.

The fact that most of them are either refugees, immigrants themselves or of immigrant origin presents Western liberal democracies with a significant challenge.

Migrants from conflict zones tend to carry the conflict with them. Migrant communities tend to maintain a strong connection with their home countries, and express their aspirations regarding instability in their home countries.

They will use all means at their disposal to influence events at home, which could be in support of, or (more often) against their home governments.

They take advantage of their unique status, being outside their home country and not subject to its jurisdiction, to take those actions that people living in their country of origin cannot, due to fear of arrest, persecution or violence.

The success of migrant communities’ attempts to recruit their host governments and populations to their cause in their home country depends to a large extent on the nature of the political system in the host country.

The more open the system and the more susceptible to lobbying it is, the more likely it is that minority communities will succeed in getting their concerns on the agenda.

Migrant communities may also be used by the government of the home country to pursue its own aims, vis-à-vis the host country government. The relationship between successive Israeli governments and American Jews illustrates this point.

Host governments too will try to use their ethnic minority communities to achieve their own goals, particularly those in relation to events in the country of origin of that community.

Migrants raise social concerns because they potentially threaten to undermine the popularity and strength of the nation-state.

At the moment nation-states remain the dominant unit of social organization across the globe with each state ostensibly forming a ‘territorially based self-reproducing cultural and social system’

Their members are seen to share a common history, language, religion and culture that binds them into a cohesive integrated unit with a shared sense of nationhood.

As citizens of one state moving to live and work in another, migrants clearly challenge traditional notions about membership of a state, the meaning of nationality and citizenship, and the rights and duties of citizens towards their state and vice versa.

The fact that very few states fit the idealized picture of the homogeneous nation-state, and that most states are cultural and social products of earlier movements of peoples, fails to register in the popular consciousness.

Social cohesion and stability can be at risk when migrants are perceived as economic burden on society. The perception is usually justified by the country’s allocation of local resources in housing, education, healthcare and transportation for migrants. At the same time, migrants are also potentially perceived as criminals or carriers of infectious dsiseases.

Validity of the welfare state model in many of advanced industrial countries is threatened if the public begin to feel that their taxes are being used to subsidise foreigners’ living expenses and healthcare, rather than taking care of those in need within the home society.

Migrants can also be perceived as threats to culture and way of life of the people in receiving country.

This tends to happen when large numbers arrive in a short period of time or when migrants are seen as holding themselves apart and being reluctant to make any efforts to integrate into the host country’s way of life.

Large long-term refugee populations can bring about significant changes in the social cohesion and stability of the host country.

Large numbers of refugees can also be a driving force for change within the receiving country, particularly if they are ethnically similar to their hosts, or speak a common language.

The gradual ‘talibanization’ of parts of Pakistan, and the growing support attracted by the Islamic political parties, is at least in part a result of playing host, for nearly 20 years, to millions of Pashtuns from across the Durand line that separates Afghanistan from Pakistan.

Further, migration can affect political and social conditions, and even, in rare instances, fundamentally alter the nature of society in receiving countries, many years after the actual movement of people has ceased.

The securitisation of illegal migration in the Asia-Pacific is best manifested in the increasing criminalisation of migratory movements.

The countries of the Asia-Pacific deal with the phenomena of illegal migration and migrant smuggling as an issue of national security and try to curb these problems with defensive strategies developed predominantly at the national level.

Migrant smuggling refers to ‘the procurement, in order to obtain, directly or indirectly, a financial or other material benefit, of the illegal entry of a person into a State Party of which the person is not a national or a permanent resident’.

Migrant smuggling involves voluntary illegal movements, that is situations in which the decision to migrate is based on a free choice and not the result of force, coercion or threats.

The securitisation of any strategy against illegal migration and the smuggling of migrants must balance the sovereignty and security interests of the nationstate against the rights of individuals.

A comprehensive response to illegal migration and migrant smuggling must combine achievable long-term goals, which offer real solutions to the political, demographic and socio-economic dimensions of illegal migration and organised crime, with short-term measures that address the immediate needs of asylum seekers and the current threat posed by ruthless criminals.

Rather than alienating unauthorised arrivals, local authorities along with immigration and law enforcement agencies, international and non-governmental organisations should cooperate closely with asylum seekers in a fair and open manner.

In line with the provisions under the Protocol against the Smuggling of Migrants, special protection should be provided to those who are victims and witnesses of migrant smuggling and their collaboration with authorities should be facilitated as much as practicable.

Regional and international responses to refugee exoduses are particularly problematic as they entail statements about the political circumstances in the sending country.

In many instances, receiving countries as well as the international community have been reluctant to protect refugees in order to prevent confrontation with the country of origin, especially if the sending country is a global political or economic player.

Moreover, individually or collectively, governments have very few rights and tools to intervene against nations that experience large outflows of people.

The countries of the region must work towards harmonised protection regimes to share the burden between nations and recognise the needs of asylum seekers as well as the security concerns of individual nations.

Australia and the United States, along with the other Parties to the Refugee Convention and Protocol and UNHCR need actively to promote broader accession to the Convention and the Protocol and facilitate ratification for those nations that are concerned about the financial burden the ratification may entail.

Countries that have access to greater economic resources, such as Australia, or that are less affected by refugee flows should assist those nations that are disproportionately affected by large numbers of asylum seekers in order to alleviate their burden.

Ever larger ºows of people across borders;

increasingly multicultural populations; and the emergence of informal,

migration-based, transnational networks that circulate capital, goods, and

ideas—all challenge notions of the territorial state as a bounded entity with a

clearly demarcated territory and population. This in turn calls into question

traditional models of national security, which assume a unitary national identity

from which a set of national interests can be derived. Yet this does not necessarily

mean, as some more sensational accounts claim, that large migration

ºows are causing states to lose control.35 As Gary Freeman has argued, “Anyone

who thinks differently should try landing at Sydney airport without an entry

visa or go to France and apply for a job without a work permit.

Two areas in which migration inºuences state

capacity and autonomy are border control and national identity. The ability of

states to maintain control over their borders and to formulate a coherent national

identity are arguably necessary preconditions for the maintenance of

state security in other areas.

The world’s poorest states host

most of its refugees, and the uncontrolled ºow of refugees or other migrants

across borders produces additional stresses on already weak state institutions,

heightens competition over scarce resources, and exacerbates ethnic and sectarian

tensions.

nonstate actors access to territory and population groups that can be used for

political mobilization, which in turn can lead to the emergence of “refugeewarrior

communities.”42 Examples include the mobilization activities of the

Palestine Liberation Organization in refugee camps in Lebanon in the 1970s,

the role played by refugee camps in Pakistan as sites of mobilization

for Taliban-related groups in the 1980s, and the emergence of the Rwandan

Patriotic Front in Ugandan refugee camps in the 1990s

The emergence of organized criminal networks around illegal migration can

also pose a signiªcant challenge to state authority and control.

If migration pressures on states increase without the state adapting,

then the capacity of states is indeed under threat. The record shows, however,

that many states are adjusting to these pressures. As Peter Andreas

argues, “Globalization may be about tearing down economic borders, as globalists

emphasize, but it has also created more border policing work for the

state. At the same time as globalization is about mobility and territorial access,

states are attempting to selectively reinforce border controls.”

State migration policies generally have two main objectives: regulating who

enters (e.g., controlling borders), and deciding who is entitled to membership

in a polity (e.g., conferring citizenship or political membership in a community).

The challenge that migration flows pose to unitary conceptions of national identity has deep historical roots and continues to provoke political debate.

Many states have historically incorporated national, ethnic, or racial criteria into their migration policies; examples include racial restrictions on immigrants to the United States during the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, the favoring of ethnic Germans (or Aussiedler) by Germany in its post–World War II immigration policy, the “White Australia” policies that denied Australian migration policies for much of the twentieth century, and the automatic right to immigrate to Israel that is granted to Jews in the 1950 Law of Return.

Migration and human mobility inºuence three core areas of state power:

economic, military, and diplomatic. Here, again, the intervening variable between

migration and national security is policy: if states have the capacity to

design and implement effective policies that “harness the power of migration,”

international migration ºows can enhance, rather than detract from or

compromise, state power.

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Migration and security