What are the intended/unintended consequences of anti-smuggling and anti-trafficking policies?
Increased anti-smuggling and anti-trafficking policies lead to increases in criminalisation of low-income/working-class communities. In 2015, officials in Hidalgo County, Texas witnessed as the Texas legislature wrote changes into a border security bill in order to heighten penalties for “the smuggling of persons”. One consequence of these measures will be to separate families, as women and men will now serve lengthier prison sentences for their roles, however minor, in facilitating the movement of people.
Empirical research on irregular migration facilitation has shown how loosely organised people-smuggling networks rely on transnational kin- or group-based systems to conduct services. Within these networks, many are similarly positioned in socio-economic terms to their migrant colleagues.
