Israeli-Egyptian border. Cornelius Kibelka/Flickr. CC (by-sa)
National immigration policies and their enforcement constitute the greatest dangers to people trying to cross national borders. Moreover, the categories into which nation-states slot most migrating people—‘illegal’ or ‘temporary foreign worker’ being two of the largest—are the greatest threats to their liberty. Being categorised as ‘illegal’ or ‘temporary’ is what entraps a growing number (and proportion) of migrating people into substandard work while severely limiting their rights and mobility. In short, national immigration policies legislate the conditions that make some people ‘cheap’ or ‘disposable.’ Quite simply put: without national immigration policies, there would no ‘migrants’ to subordinate, scapegoat and abuse.
We learn none of these real-life dangers and exploitations from the ever-multiplying accounts of ‘human trafficking’ and ‘modern-day slavery.’ I’ve long been curious about why that is. I suspect it has something to do with how anti-trafficking campaigns cast nation-states as the ‘rescuers’ of ‘victims of trafficking’ instead of showing nation-states to be the source of much of their woes. For those people whose mobility is seriously imperilled by immigration and border controls; who have resorted to paying someone to help them across increasingly militarised borders; who are forced to work for poverty wages in substandard conditions; who are ever more frequently detained and deported; and for those who care about the people who have drowned at sea or died of thirst in deserts while attempting to reach somewhere else, the idea that the nation-state is a friend to ‘migrants’ is, well, galling.
