Preventing migration: deterrence and repression

Europe’s migration policy is characterised by a doctrine known as the "pull factor" [...]. Everything is geared towards strategies of dissuasion to limit entry and residence in the territory of the European Union (EU), with countries using the legal, administrative or military-police arsenal at their disposal to this end[...].

The main targets, often on a racist basis, are people who try to cross borders, who are threatened, hunted down or even accused of trafficking in human beings and convicted, even though they are simply helping each other. But also, by the same token, those who come to their aid and, where appropriate, their organisations, whatever their motivation.

Frequently described as criminals in reference to the hated figure of the “smuggler”, singled out if not punished, they are the subject of a multifaceted assault, the imagination of the forces of repression being limitless.

[Extract - Editorial]

Contributors : Claudia Charles (GISTI), Brigitte Espuche (Migreurop), Camille Gendrot (lawyer, Université Paris 1 Panthéon Sorbonne/ICM), Nawal Karroum (Migreurop), Alain Morice (emeritus research director at the CNRS, Migreurop), Claire Rodier (GISTI), Anna Sibley (GISTI), Elsa Tyszler (sociologist, Centre de recherches sociologiques et politiques de Paris, Migreurop).

Iconography : Olivier Clochard (geographer-cartographer, CNRS research fellow, Migreurop) for the network’s Brigade d’intervention cartographique (Cartographic Intervention Brigade)

Translated with the support of the Rosa Luxembourg Foundation.

Photography : © Valeria Ferraro/SOPA Images via ZUMA Wire