Rescued and Caught: Dismantling the Humanitarian-Policing Mechanics of Europe’s ‘Illegality Industry’

Europe’s response to boat migration across the Mediterranean seems uneasily poised between rescues and controls, yet these fields are in fact enmeshed. Casting an eye on the ‘mechanics’ of this humanitarian-policing nexus, my paper focuses on the role played by surveillance technologies at the borders. Often presented as life-saving, such technologies – from the Eurosur surveillance system to Spain’s coastal radars – have however had little impact in this regard, as Europe’s border agency Frontex has acknowledged. Worse, however, more surveillance pushes migrants towards riskier routes – thus generating a demand for more technology. Aerostats, drones and integrated sensor systems are now on the cards in a fruitful back-and-forth between Frontex, defence companies and border guard ‘end users’. In this ‘illegality industry’ at the borders, the failure of controls has created a market for ever more controls, in a self-perpetuating dynamic. ‘Humanitarian’ technologies, I argue, are crucial to this growth in masking the political, social and financial logics at play. From the perspective of decision-makers, such technology can be waved as a magic wand, promising controls shorn of violence and politics; in the view of Frontex and member states, it serves to join up conflictive security forces in a network-of-networks; and for the defence sector, it assures more investments in research and development. I conclude by arguing for a critical look not just at the ‘politics of death’ at borders but also at the economics of controls, highlighting the absurd incentives and deep contradictions marring Europe’s attempts at ‘managing’ migration.