Between Enforcement and Precarity: Externalization and Migrant Deaths at Sea
| Date | 01 September 2018 |
| Published date | 01 September 2018 |
| DOI | http://doi.org/10.1111/imig.12439 |
| Author | Alison Mountz,Kira Williams |
Between Enforcement and Precarity:
Externalization and Migrant Deaths at Sea
Kira Williams* and Alison Mountz*
ABSTRACT
Much scholarship on border enforcement and loss of life asserts the relationship between
enforcement and precarity. Little research attempts to correlate the two: enforcement operations
and loss of life. In this article, we statistically analyse the relationship between increased bor-
der enforcement operations at sea and migrant losses of life around the EU between 2006 and
2015, and find them to be significantly and positively correlated. We also find evidence that
increased enforcement leads to rerouting of migrant journeys to ‘weak spots’in relation to bor-
ders. These findings bring empirical support to the commonly-asserted claim by social scien-
tists that externalization creates greater loss of life. We argue that, although discourse about
interception and externalization has shifted to humanitarian rescue narratives, offshore enforce-
ment by any other name continues to be highly correlated with migrant deaths. We then con-
struct two datasets documenting migrant boats lost at sea and state interdiction operations
since 1980. These data serve as the basis of our statistical analysis.
INTRODUCTION
Recent increases in deaths of migrants crossing the sea have reached historical highs among those
trying to land on sovereign territory of nation-states of the “Global North”. Among the southern
member states of the European Union (EU), for example, the reported number of losses reached a
record 5,082 in 2015 (IOM, 2017) - likely an underestimate. Increases in deaths have also been
accompanied by significant increases in global media coverage and resources dedicated to enforce-
ment operations in the annual budgets of enforcement activities. Yet little existing scholarship
tracks this relationship between increased investments in enforcement and migrant losses at sea. In
this article, we address this gap using new empirical evidence. Because so much scholarship
asserts, yet fails to demonstrate empirically, the correlation between increased enforcement and
increased losses, we decided to test this relationship statistically. We found a strong, positive corre-
lation. We urge caution despite this result, however, due to a number of core limitations of our
data, and therefore present our findings as a necessary basis for further research and discussion
using enhanced data and methods.
We argue that although discourse about interception and externalization has shifted to humanitar-
ian rescue narratives, offshore enforcement by any other name continues to be correlated highly
with migrant deaths. This analysis is timely due to recent empirical spikes in displacement
(UNHCR, 2014), asylum claims, and losses at sea –particularly in the Mediterranean (IOM, 2015).
Scholars associate the increase in enforcement and securitization with more dangerous journeys on
land and at sea (e.g., Williams, 2014; Williams, 2015). European state investments in deterrence in
* Wilfrid Laurier University, Waterloo, Canada
doi: 10.1111/imig.12439
©2018 The Authors
International Migration ©2018 IOM
International Migration Vol. 56 (5) 2018
ISS N 00 20- 7985 Published by John Wiley & Sons Ltd.
the form of interception have become so significant in 2015 as to involve what some called the
“militarization”of the Mediterranean (Lemberg-Pedersen, 2015). Given the scope of these offshore
investments and their role as the primary policy response to mass migration by sea, our argument
holds direct and immediate implications for existing public policy pertaining to asylum-seeking and
migration (broadly conceived, whether unauthorized or otherwise).
The modern period of externalization can be traced back to US interceptions of Haitian and
Cuban migrants in the Caribbean in the early 1980s (Loyd and Mountz, 2014). In subsequent dec-
ades, offshore enforcement practices have been dispersed, moving regionally and implemented in
times of crisis and geographical ‘hot spots’where large and spontaneous migration events occur.
The terrorist attacks on US soil in 2001 brought the movement of externalization into the public
geographic imagination, building on fear and premised on national security imperatives. US deten-
tion of “foreign enemy combatants”captured during its war on terror catapulted Guant
anamo Bay
into public discourse as an iconic space of offshore enforcement where domestic and international
law could effectively be evaded at the cost of human rights (Gregory, 2011). These historic events
proved but one moment in an ongoing trend, where securitization processes moved farther offshore
and deeper into zones of origin and transit to prevent the arrival of unauthorized migration and
those seeking asylum on sovereign territory.
This article proceeds as follows. We first offer a brief review of externalization literature in order
to provide context to contemporary migration and enforcement activities concentrated around the
EU, Australia, and the United States (US). This review encompasses existing literature and mea-
sures taken by states with respect to operations and associated losses at sea and previous work that
has endeavoured to track migrant boats and related operations. We review previous scholarship
documenting the empirical relationship between these operations and losses.
We next discuss our methodology, explaining how we built a global database on migrant boat
losses and state operations at sea since 1980 and then conducted descriptive analysis and compar-
ison of data on operations and losses. We present our findings. Using statistical analysis, we find
evidence to support the long-asserted claim by social scientists that greater enforcement at sea
intensifies precarity and losses among migrants attempting unauthorized entry (Hiemstra, 2012;
Koser, 2000; Nadig, 2002). We also analyse how variations in enforcement in specific areas relate
to future losses in other areas. Finally, in our conclusions, we address limitations and policy impli-
cations of key findings, as well as new questions engendered by this research.
FROM EXTERNALIZATION TO HUMANITARIANISM: A SHIFT IN DISCOURSE
Scholars have endeavoured to understand the notion of securitization of migration as the process
whereby migrants are moved from regular politics to extraordinary times and measures by employing
a discursive rhetoric of emergency, threat, and danger (Huysmans, 2000, 2006; Ibrahim, 2005). Fewer
have defined externalization. This may owe to the fact that externalization takes many forms: intercep-
tion, offshore networks of civil servants, increased transit visa requirements, development of detention
facilities in transit regions and airport waiting zones, bilateral arrangements for policing and repatria-
tion, and so on (Basaran, 2011). Externalization is part of the securitization of migration (Bigo, 2000).
While many scholars discuss securitization as the process wherein migration is securitized and
migrants criminalized in discourse (e.g. Ibrahim, 2005), securitization also involves material forms of
exclusion that accompany this shift in discourse. Externalization is one example. By scripting
migrants and would-be asylum seekers as criminal and security threats, the rationale is set forth dis-
cursively for their distancing through exclusionary measures or bureaucratic management offshore.
While lacking in definition, a literature on externalization has existed since the early 2000s. The
term first emerged in writing by political scientists researching externalization undertaken by EU
Externalization and migrant deaths at sea 75
©2018 The Authors. International Migration ©2018 IOM
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