UNIVERSITY OF NORTH CAROLINA AT CHARLOTTEDEPARTMENT OF GLOBAL, INTERNATIONAL & AREA STUDIES

PROFESSOR SEBASTIAN COBARRUBIAS

New Pathways toRefuge

(Un)categorizing Migrants &(Un)delineating Borders for the

Advancement of Human RightsMirage Berry & Patrick Doherty

April 2014

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Individuals embarking on paths of migration have reasons for

undertaking such journeys that are as numerous as they

themselves. The social, moral, religious and political

motivations contributing to migration cannot be adequately

accounted even when considered in these general terms, as

motivations for migration are fundamentally rooted in global

waves of change. As Castles explains, “It is becoming

increasingly difficult for states to control their borders, since

flows of investment, trade, and intellectual property are

inextricably linked with movements of people” (Castles 2004: 6).

Desire for economic advantage is often cast as the sole and

encompassing inducer of migration, but such assumptions belie the

complex inertia of the global economy and the powerful effects it

exerts on individuals. Migrants searching for economic advantage

may actually be less numerous than those seeking economic relief

from obstacles such as precarious labor markets, structural

unemployment, internal displacement, and lack of social services.

Political problems disseminate in confluence with economic

challenges, this is the inherent nature of the international

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political economy and once entangled, the intricacies that they

produce together cannot be dissociated. An emigrant’s search for

a more fulfilling life can be seen as a voluntary process only if

one ignores the primacy of such national deficiencies in

influencing migrations. Developing nations now under the thrall

of liberalized economic obligation commonly leave their citizens

with few options so viable as emigration; in such a context these

pressures often constitute just as grave an existential threat as

those compelling asylum seekers.

Due to conditions of relative deprivation induced through

western economic policies, those living in regions of desperate

economic circumstance are thrust abroad by more than their own

ambition or will; rather, these instances of migration could be

considered to be “forced” migration in precisely the same sense

as when applied to those fleeing oppression or threats of

persecution. The repercussions of profound economic

reorientations like those prescribed in neoliberal and free trade

schema have set into motion a “domino effect” that consequently

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informs and permeates all other structural aspects of

civilization including migration.

In order to investigate the legitimacy of the concept of

"economic refugees" we will first examine the immense global

changes that have precipitated the reordering of the developing

world. As a basis for our argument that economic change informs

all other social structures, we will attempt to identify how this

dynamic previously manifested during the eras of colonization and

decolonization, Cold War and post-Cold War, and the historic

vicissitudes of globalization. The evolution of both the abstract

-- such as philosophical dichotomies and trending ideologies --

and the concrete -- such as trade networks, free trade, the

induction of global hegemons, and the establishment of

international financial institutions -- are concomitant with said

eras. Moreover, we will discuss the current plight of the

developing world from a contemporary view, with reference to

theories and practices of neoliberalism, dependency, mercantilism

(protectionism), and political constructs, in order to frame the

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economic migrant as equal to, if not synonymous with, the

refugee.

We aim to provide particular attention to instances of

economic malaise symptomatic of market liberalization.

Accelerating factors indicative of this trend include increased

social stratification due to wealth inequality, deepening

dependence on foreign aid and markets, renewed racial and

religious discriminations, profound ecological damage, perceived

inequality and othering of the countries citizens on the world

stage, and the formation of illicit economies which in turn beget

violence and corruption. It is our objective to discuss these

instances through “on the ground” examples and situations as well

as developments in the Global South in recent years. We will

focus our attention on Latin America and its relation to the

United States which parallels similar relationships across the

globe.

We also hope to devote space to framing our discourse within

the realm of relative migration theories and constructs such as

Politics of Mobility v. Politics of Control, Migration Studies,

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Securitization, Migration Management, the process of “Othering”

and Autonomy of Migration. We will discuss the essentiality and

basis of what a refugee is and explore how denying an economic

migrant refugee status can effectively trivialize circumstances

that are objectively dire, a paradox that seems to be a component

of the othering process. We also hope to explore the proposal of

reforming the -- in our view -- outdated constituents of

International Law of Asylum Seekers and Refugees and reconsider

circumstances that prompt people to emigrate, from a perspective

consistent with the modern world’s entangled state of affairs. A

certain “Politics of Protection” has in creasingly come into play

that leads us to believe that an overall perversion of this

international law has emerged. In the formal discourse on refugee

law, as dictated by the UNHCR and other correspondents, a strict

definition of Refugee and Asylum Seeker is defined and expanded

upon by subsequent processing mechanisms. However, certain

scholars, organizations, and media outlets question this

definition and argue that it may be too narrow and exacting, for

the line between economic migrant and refugee is becoming

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increasingly blurred. We will discuss the politics and policy

frameworks of this discourse and veer toward the notion that

economic migrants are de facto refugees.

These complex considerations invite challenging but

relatively straightforward questions: Are we afraid of

considering economic migrants refugees because of their sheer

numbers? Or is it simply a problem of calculation, of proving

your degree of dereliction? Economic trauma and destitution do

not seem to resonate as powerfully in the collective

consciousness as do bombs and manacles. We seek to ask ‘why not’?

For over a century the global economy has manifested a

dynamic of economic exchange succinctly characterized as South to

North, more aptly described in Immanuel Wallerstein’s World

Systems Theory as the core-periphery relationship. The genesis of

these structures and relationships of capital and commercial

exchange can be found in the European voyages of exploration of

centuries’ past and the subsequent establishment of colonial

Empires. An imperial system may not have evolved at all were it

not for the already high degree of commercial competition in

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Europe and, as Rostow notes, a “compulsion not merely to advance

a national interest positively, but to advance a national

interest negatively by denying a source of power to another

nation” (Rostow 1961: 109). A second necessary reason for the

establishment of colonies was the lack of infrastructure in the

regions being colonized. “Normal trade” would have surely been

the tidier and less costly model to pursue, but “the native

societies of America, Asia, Africa and the Middle East were, at

various stages, structured and motivated neither to do business

with Western Europe nor to protect themselves against Western

European arms; and so they were taken over and organized” (Rostow

1961: 109). These new colonial administrations were then

instantly tied to the fate of the metropole, producing a slew of

complications for the colonizer.

Rostow notes the sea change as a movement away from “the

essentially peaceful terrain of business to the area of national

prestige and power wherein more primitive and general national

interests and motives held sway” (Rostow 1961: 110) The arena in

which European powers had long competed against one another

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expanded from the continent to the entire globe, and so the

business of profit became intermingled with the politics of

international power, influence and prestige. Once established,

stewardship of a colony could not be discontinued without

relinquishing it to another power; “The colonial game had thus

become a reflex not of economic imperatives, but of inherently

competitive sovereignties” (Rostow 1961: 111).

By the late 19th and early 20th centuries the most powerful

nations of Europe had each established a menagerie of colonial

holdings, all of them within the confines of the so-called global

south. The first decades of the new century were fraught with

tremendous upheaval and deferred ideals: the “lost generation” of

the Great War, the failure of the League of Nations, the Great

Depression, and finally the second-World War. Upon returning from

the battlefields, colonial subjects who had fought on behalf of

their imperial rulers were denied expected compensations of

increased rights, autonomy, and self-determination (Killingray

1979: 457). Europe’s economy was left in shambles, and once great

empires were no longer able to fund their far-flung territories.

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The efficacy of the colonial system was faltering, and

independence movements accelerated worldwide. The vacuum of power

in Europe allowed the United States to play a vastly increased

role, not only in directing development aid to both Europe and

the former colonies, but also in dictating the agenda of the new

UN agencies IMF and World Bank (Taylor 2008: 159)

It was in this context that President Harry Truman gave the

inaugural speech of his second term, in which his fourth point

addressed the need to “embark on a bold new program for making

the benefits of our scientific advances and industrial progress

available for the improvement and growth of underdeveloped areas”

(Truman 1949). Describing these so-called underdeveloped

economies as “primitive and stagnant”, Truman warned that “their

poverty is a handicap and a threat both to them and to more

prosperous areas” (Truman 1949). This sentiment was not

incidental but rather a shrewd reaction to the expanding post-war

influence of communist ideology emanating from China and the

Soviet Union. The geopolitical balance of power now shared

between West and East induced a new international regime of Cold

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War “bloc-politics”, with each superpower pressuring recently

decolonized countries to join their side (Alam 1977: 166). This

pressure gave rise to the Non-Aligned Movement, a collective of

nations which, having only just gained their independence, were

wary of any association with governments that had so recently

labored to perpetuate their subjugation; “the formation of

military alliances was interpreted by the leaders of Asia and

Africa as an attempt to repeat the old colonial process” (Alam

1977: 167). Although it failed to introduce a cohesive third

ideology to challenge the predominant East v. West binary of the

period, the NAM’s emphasis on co-existence and peaceful non-

intervention presaged the diplomatic necessities that would soon

manifest in the international political economy as a result of

the blurring of political and economic linkages between nations.

The Cold War and Post-Cold War periods brought about

ideological stratifications that seem to mirror the pivot from

theories such as structural economics championed by Raúl Prebisch

to Neoliberalism. American intervention and the containment of

communism marked an era of continuous proxy wars and conflict

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throughout the world. Latin America faced a debt crisis in the

1980s that induced many leaders to open their economies to

strategies of capitalist restructuring (Harris 2003: 367).

However, the collectively minded and inherently Marxist working

class was dissatisfied and ultimately marginalize by the costs of

the shock therapy of reforms from 1970 through the 1990s. Reforms

ironically awakened many advocates of socialism, popular

democracy, and revolutionary nationalism that sought to overturn

the American implanted authoritarian regimes (Harris 2003: 371).

To the West, durable authoritarianism seemed to trump

diplomatic socialism as it would be less detrimental to their

markets; it also served as an aggressive anti-socialist and

communist frontier abroad (Elias 2012: 4). Hence, the Unites

States was not only attempting to expand its markets but

externalize its democratic regime (Elias 2012: 3). Especially

after the fall of the USSR and many of its peripheral communist

allies, the masses were inspired by anti-imperialist sentiments

and the only hope of divorcing from authoritarianism – democracy

-- was deemed unviable due to the structural damage wrought by

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the volatility of nascent capitalist economies (Elias 2012: 5).

As Western nations faced their own financial turmoil and employed

protectionist measures, the idea of a capitalist alternative was

even more daunting to the recently converted (Elias 2012: 6). It

seems as if the cold war scenario and containment strategy

provided the ideological justification for the neoliberal regime

which promised wealth to few and poverty to many.

Envisioned as a new developmental paradigm, neoliberalism

attempted to restructure existent social, economic, and political

orders in “underdeveloped” nations. Western actors and their

institutional counterparts, specifically the United States, IMF,

and the World Bank, prescribed developmental remedies which

attempted to recreate the systems of exchange and commerce that

existed in the West within developing regions, the hope being to

duplicate these successes and induce growth which would culminate

in Rostowian mass consumption on the same order as was occurring

in these Western nations. The foremost means to this end were

structural adjustment policies, designed to replace the

protectionist import-substitution models. SAPs, as they have come

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to be known, dramatically alter the economic landscapes into

which they are introduced by pivoting local markets towards

export-oriented models. Measures employed to achieve this include

privatization of state-owned industry, pro-cyclical

stabilization, austerity, trade liberalization, general

deregulation of markets, and the facilitation of resource

extraction and direct exports.

The introduction of SAPs invokes a host of unintended

consequences which eventually culminate in the exodus of

significant portions of the population. De Hass asserts that

“international migration is a highly effective way of enormously

improving the financial situation of households” (De Haas 2009:

9). Local labor markets experience reductions in wages as working

conditions simultaneously worsen. As funds for social services

dwindle, instances of unemployment and underemployment appear in

epidemic proportion, causing informal sectors of the economy to

grow in power and prominence. These (and other) factors lead to

diminishing job creation, reduced productivity, criminal

empowerment, unstable political systems and rapid class structure

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fluctuations. Portes and Hoffman agree that the transition from

structuralist import substitution industrialization to the export

oriented industrialization of SAPs is directly accompanied by a

divergence in class structure, variability of political

mobilization systems, rise of violent crime among the growing

informal sector, and acceleration of diversified emigration

(Portes and Hoffman 2003: 43). While middle class workers are

often the most negatively affected, some are able to leave or

recover due to having the necessary resources and tools. Portes

and Hoffman explain; “Faced with a macro-economic model that

simultaneously increases inequality and abandons market losers to

their fate, many members of the intermediate and subordinate

classes have embraced the exit option” (Portes and Hoffman 2003:

74). The same cannot be said for lower class workers, who may

have to resort to employment in free trade zones or other

precarious industrial facilities, such as the maquiladora

factories within the NAFTA border zone between USA and Mexico

(Portes and Hoffman 2003: 75). In the presence of such economic

push-factors, divergence and conflict within societies flourishes

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and is perpetuated in a self-sustaining cycle. In environments

such as this, migration movements are accelerated.

Colombia provides a prototypical example of the many

countries facing internal conflict inflicted by the massive

changes in the global political economy. It exemplifies the

dichotomies present in the world during the Cold-War and post-

Cold War eras in conjunction with the onslaught of neoliberal

reform. These fluctuations have grave and unintended

consequences, not only for the countries in which they are

concentrated, but also for neighboring states. In the 1970s

Colombia’s government was among the first Latin American nations

to enroll in free-trade and market liberalization practices,

prompted by the United States for a number of strategic reasons,

particularly as it related to anti-communist security structures

of the time (Harris 2003: 366). Ironically, this occurred just

before Colombia endured massive structural violence in response

to ongoing civil unrest (Korovkin 2008: 323). This was followed

by a mass exodus of Internally Displaced Persons, primarily to

neighboring Ecuador (Korovkin 2008: 323).

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It is presumable that the economic “shock treatment” added

momentum to the conflict and further exacerbated tensions between

the parties involved. Within the national economy, agricultural

markets were among the most severely affected by these reforms,

which provoked pointed distress on the part of the citizenry;

land reform has historically been a source of friction within

Colombian economic class structures (Thomson 2011: 1). In a post-

colonial context, “the competing interests of the peasantry and

the landed elite materialized as a result of the development of

capitalism and the commercialization of agriculture as the

country became more deeply assimilated into world markets”

(Thomson 2011: 1). Entrenched US interest in manipulating

Colombian self-determination eventually reached beyond capitalist

interventions and extended into the “War on Drugs”. The

Narcoterrorist era was characterized by the formation of guerilla

groups and cartels which financed their operations through the

trafficking of narcotics, sponsored assassinations, and

agricultural exploitation (Library of Congress 2007: 3). As noted

by Kirk, “Our failed policy -- dramatically failed, epically

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failed, and failing with a numbing, annual frequency -- is

largely responsible” for provoking “Colombia’s home-grown demons”

(Kirk 2003: xviii, xix).

We intend for this case-study to reveal that, although there

are numerous causes for emigration and displacement, economic

perturbations are often as unrelenting as they are acute, and can

persist long after their initial appearance. Korovkin affirms

that “the sense of personal insecurity among those who flee armed

violence blends with economic deprivation: the destruction, or

fear of destruction, of their means of subsistence” (Korovkin

2008: 322). We will discuss more in detail the catalysts guiding

these momentous reactions.

Colombian conflict has metastasized along and across its

borders, resulting in the flight of between 370,000 and 500,000

refugees to regional neighbors’ Ecuador, Venezuela, and Panama.

In Ecuador and Venezuela, illegal armed groups from Colombia

terrorize local populations and exercise social control over

entire communities (Castles 2004). In the 1990s Ecuador was

subject to especially dramatic inflows and outflows of external

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migration, and provides a salient example of the detrimental

complications induced by the mass movement of people. Ecuador was

already experiencing economic volatility which was further

exacerbated in 1996 by a drop in oil prices and by natural

disasters later in the decade. (Serageldin, 2004: 7). Ill

equipped to handle the tremendous migrant influx, Ecuador

experienced a tripled rate of extreme poverty, skyrocketing

unemployment, a rising CPI, rapid monetary depreciation and

subsequent inflation, and a stagnation in per-capita GDP

(Serageldin, 2004: 7). Both the inflows of immigrants and outflow

of emigrants highlight very distinct causes and consequences. In

short, these inflows can be attributed to the massive forced

displacement of some 2.7 million Colombians, which began around

1985 as a result of Cold-War era structural violence within

Colombia (Korovkin 2008: 321).

Many of the Colombian migrants that fled to Ecuador did not

have documents and were unable to legally cross Ecuador’s border.

For every one migrant that was categorized and legally allowed to

pass, three crossed the border illegally (Korovkin 2008: 322).

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This problem, of accurately accounting for refugees, remains a

source of global difficulty, and significantly undermines the

logics of migration management regimes and their efforts to

categorize, direct, and filter mixed flows of people. What value

can these regimes offer when their statistical raisons d'être are

fundamentally flawed? This is especially significant regarding

distribution of international aid; in 2006, the entire UNHCR

budget was only $1.1 billion, as compared to the $4.5 billion

expended by the U.S. in military aid alone” which included

“aerial fumigation that created the problem of forced

displacement” in the first place (Korovkin 2008: 322, 325). In

addition, many civilians seeking asylum are denied this status

because they “do not even seek for it because of the high

probability of denial and inadequate assistance that they would

be entitled to as registered refugees” (Korovkin 2008: 323). This

speaks to the outdated and insecure nature of the 1951 Geneva

Convention and, as we will discuss further, the “politics of

protection” it enacts. The very same countries that instigated

and perpetuated many of the problems in Ecuador, Colombia and

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elsewhere abroad are avoiding the mess they have made; “Western

countries have been moving from protection of asylum seekers to

protection from them (Korovkin 2008: 322)”.

Bullish interventionism on the part of the US concentrated

these crises and triggered a purposeful alteration of USA’s Plan

Colombia. Originally designed for social and economic development

aid, Plan Colombia was reworked into a $1.2 billion fund for

military modernization, including funds for advanced weaponry and

aerial fumigation of the Southern agricultural region’s coca

crop, which was suspected of supplying product for the drug

trade. Plan Colombia failed in its main objective of driving up

the price of illicit cocaine, and instead resulted in a

displacement of southern Colombians so massive and rapid that

Ecuador was unable to account for all of the incoming migrants.

The number of Colombian applications for asylum in Ecuador

increased from less than 500 in 2000 to nearly 30,000 four years

later (Korovkin 2008: 324). These people essentially became

“invisible” refugees (all: Korovkin, 2008).

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Internally Displaced Persons are a group of people who flee

their land for similar reasons as refugees such as armed

conflict, generalized violence, and human rights violations but

remain within their homeland, often in urban areas (Hanson 2012).

Colombia is home to the highest population of IDPs in the world

in front of Iraq and South Sudan (UNHCR1 2014). Legally, they

must remain under the “protection” of their own government

instead of UNHCR or other organizations more concerned with their

livelihood -- even if that government might be the cause of their

flight (UNHCR1 2014). In conjunction with a massive outflow of

refugees to neighboring countries, and sometimes to nations of

the Global North, many are unaccounted for due to lack of

proactive regulation, protection, and the sheer quantity of their

numbers. Hanson states that “armed conflict continues to displace

more than 130,000 annually" and "once displaced, these Colombians

frequently endure extreme poverty, live in unsafe settlements,

and suffer social and economic exclusion" (Hanson 2012). It is

estimated that nearly 5.5 million Colombians have been displaced

since 1985 however the combined efforts of regional agencies have

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counted more (Hanson 2012). Of that 5.5 million, more than 90

percent of live in urban areas, 95 of them live in poverty, and

72 percent of those in extreme poverty (Hanson 2012).

Forced displacement in Colombia occurs largely in the rural

sector where the FARC and its counterparts can be found (Hanson

2012). Increasingly, victims of the conflict are forced to

abandon their agricultural livelihoods, assets, and social

networks to take refuge in cities. Stripped of their possessions

and ejected from their homes, they are propelled into new

environments of which they have no knowledge, often without the

relevant skills with which to adapt. Ill-equipped to subsist

within these urban labor markets, those displaced find themselves

relegated to the margins; if they are lucky enough to find

employment, they can look forward to earning approximately 30

percent less than non-displaced in the same city (Hanson 2012).

Due to the effects of social marginalization, socioeconomic

or ethnic discrimination, and (for refugees) fear of being

captured, many families do not send their children to school and

encourage them to work (often in the illicit economy) which

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merely serves to produce more violence, illegal activity, inspire

police and foreign intervention, and most importantly establishes

a vicious and enduring cycle for families of inter-generational

poverty (Hanson 2012). All of these components of economic

despair, inequity, and social intolerance create situations

conducive to emigration, legal or otherwise.

According to Massey, “The emergence of international

migration as a basic structural feature of nearly all

industrialized countries testifies to the strength and coherence

of the underlying forces” (Massey et al., 1993). As we have

shown, multifarious forces conspire to marginalize and displace

migrants even before they go abroad. When they inevitably resort

to migration, these individuals are immediately inserted into an

international legal framework designed to account for their

whereabouts and to classify the comportment of their migration.

The main categories of classification are economic migrants and

refugees. UNHCR states that; “Migrants, especially economic

migrants, choose to move in order to improve their lives.

Refugees are forced to flee to save their lives or preserve their

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freedom” (UNHCR2 2014). While the main thrust of this paper is to

critically evaluate this very distinction, it is valuable to

first discuss the effects of these labels, particularly the label

of economic migrant, which is itself the object of a particularly

American subjectivity.

Presume that a Latino migrant has successfully navigated

through the filtering agents of the United States’ border regime,

but was unable to do so through legal channels. A migrant in this

situation would find themselves defined by criminality. For

police and other law enforcement agencies the comportment of an

‘illegal’ migrant or his or her reasoning for immigration matter

little. As alluded to by Olson, “Whether illegal immigration

stimulates or burdens economic growth is of no importance to the

residual fact that the law is being broken” (Inda, 2011; Olson,

1994). For law enforcement agencies, the engendering of a state

of permanent exceptionalism allows for a specific breed of

migration management, that of “governing immigration through

crime” (Inda, 2011). This, in turn, directly fuels the “othering”

process by which migrants are spuriously framed as invaders,

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piercing the membrane of the border and diluting a given society

(Bigo, 2002). The labeling of migrants as criminal ‘others’

erodes their credibility in the eyes of many in the native

citizenry, and frames them as a source of anxiety and potential

insecurity. They can be more easily viewed as indiscriminate

takers, illegal in their presence alone; by extension, all their

actions are suspect to scrutiny, as they’ve shown a penchant to

disregard law. Suspicion, in turn, begets intervention, and in

the eyes of law enforcement, seemingly justifies it. Bear in mind

that irregular migrations of this type compose only 10 to 20

percent of the total migration inflows for USA annually; they are

not predominate, and yet they define the overall debate and

condition the comportment of all migration policy (Cobarrubias

2014). The sweeping conception that migration is predominantly

South to North is also a fallacy and must be dismissed when

framing migrations as an economic or social “crisis” for the

north; “On average one in 10 people who live in developed

countries is a migrant. One in 70 people who live in developing

countries is a migrant. Such numbers are significant, but far

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lower than many people think, and certainly do not justify media

headlines on ‘mass influxes’” (Castles 2004: 5). Therefore, the

othering process, in conjunction with governing through crime,

can be seen as contributing directly to the toxification of the

concept of “economic migrants”. Rather than inspire empathy, the

term may instead appeal to “a structural unease in a ‘risk

society’ framed by neoliberal discourses in which freedom is

always associated at its limits with danger and (in)security”

(Bigo 2002).

The legal structure commanded by the 1951 Geneva Convention

on Asylum Seekers and refugees and the narrative it conveys to

non-migrants everywhere fabricates an imaginary of divergent

concepts and conjectures. This imaginary, based on an objective

framework of migration management and mechanisms of control,

serves to illustrate the lack of circumstantial knowledge about

migrant struggles and subjectivities. This is an example of

another dehumanizing or “othering” mechanism in the realm of

migration studies. Contemporary migration movements challenge the

status quo that led up to the crises of the 1970s (Casas-Cortes,

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et al. 2014: 11). In fact, migration “has become global,

compelling us to come to terms with geographically heterogeneous

experiences of migration” of which the normative assumptions of

migration studies could not adequately account for (Casas-Cortes,

et al. 2014: 11). The less cohesive but more humanistic working

theory of Autonomy of Migration gives agency to each migrant and

the subjectivities of their individual struggles. It demands

“that migrants themselves be allowed to speak of their struggles

(or, more generally, that migration discover its own language)”,

and seeks not merely “to interrupt the helpless recourse to the

history of victimhood that oppresses through racism” (Bojadzijev

and Karakayali 2010). This theory’s main goal is “to contribute

to the construction of new connections within the social

struggles concerned with migration, in order to gather the

different layers of subjectivity (as men and women, as workers

and employees, as citizens and the illegalized) to form a

foundation with which to accelerate these struggles in

emancipatory ways” (Bojadzijev and Karakayali 2010 ). In effect,

this not only unravels constructed generalizations, it expresses

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a sense of oneness and commonality among the emigrants attempting

to leave behind similarly severe conditions. The Autonomy of

Migration approach allows for the “transformation of the borders

both on the edges of the [EU] and within it” to become

contextualized as localized areas of conflict, rather than

conflict at the “margins” of society. This is not to victimize

migrants or romanticize their journeys but rather to bring a

general awareness to their inalienable humanity.

A worldview fraught with desensitization is captured within

the Neoliberal paradigm of capitalism and free-enterprise; “Far

from flattening the world and reducing the significance of

borders, the contemporary social regime of capital has multiplied

borders and the rights they differentially allocate across

populations” (Casas-Cortes, et al. 2014: 4). Neoliberalism

quickly embedded itself into the various political and economic

pillars of society and in doing so effectively became the

unconscious id of the globalized economy. For example, some of the

most highly recognized modern theories of migration attribute

embedded economic motivations and other forms of normative

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analysis to the movements of all migrants. The first modern

economic theory of migration “posits that individuals move from

low-wage to high wage nations to improve returns to human capital

and maximize expected earnings" (Massey and Capoferra 2006: 117).

Not only does this theory not take into account the complexities

of the market and the lack of sustainability in an imposed

economic system, but it yields expressly normative predictions

about the intentions of migrants. Other economic theories have

replaced this and have themselves been replaced over time, with

each successive theory generating the same critique by ignoring

the agency of migrants, the complex social structures they

inhabit, and the transnational networks that affect them.

Conversely, among the humanitarian NGOs and aid organizations, a

victimization of all migrants is prevalent alongside a

romanticization of their heroism for escaping the “inescapable”.

For example; “The humanitarian border is less interested in

military or political security concerns, and instead focuses on a

perspective on migrants as victims, individual lost souls to be

rescued and cared for” (Casas-Cortes, et al. 2014: 20). The

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hypocrisy of Capitalism is also laid bare when one explores the

boundaries – both concrete and abstract – we humans must face

when attempting to migrate. If we, the vaunted Westerners, are to

live in a world bound to our capitalistic ideology, should we not

then liberalize all forms of capital and factors of production?

Free trade is not free if laborers are constrained by geographic

limitations, economic subjugation, and political voicelessness.

Just as national governments are not secure mechanisms for

insuring the human rights of their people (particularly in the

developing world), international organizations such as UNHCR seem

to be part of a regime of ambiguity in enforcing the Geneva

Convention on international Asylum Seekers and Refugees. The

role of the refugee protection regime as a partitioning

instrument points, in turn, to its binary logic, which is based

on a distinction between forced (political) and voluntary

(economic) migrants. The unilateral way in which UNHCR deems

economic migrants and refugees as completely separate entities

necessitates generalization, and undermines the diversity of

migrant flows. This tends to defy the prevailing logic for the

31

management of migrant mixed flows as “researchers have

convincingly revealed this clear-cut distinction to be

empirically untenable, as the motivations for movement are always

mixed and in excess of such simple dichotomies” (Casas-Cortes, et

al. 2014: 25). Furthermore, migrants moving in mixed flows often

employ the same routes utilized by laborers traveling to take

part in temporary worker programs introduced by the Global North.

They also move along the same lines that were established by

UNHCR and other Human Rights organization to facilitate the

movement of asylum seekers. Of the 200 million international

migrants in the world only 11.4 million fit into the category of

“refugee” (IOM). The vast majority of migrants that move in

these mixed flows do not fit into established legal categories

for protection specified by international organizations of

migration management and exhibit differing degrees of

vulnerability. This is exemplified in the case of Colombians

forced to migrate to Ecuador:

Initially, almost all Colombian applicants were grantedthe refugee status but, as their number grew, rejections became common. Those whose applications were turned down hadto leave the country or face the prospect of deportation. In

32

2004, approximately two-thirds of applications were rejected, as compared to less than one-fifth four years earlier. The usual reason was that the applicant did not fall under the definition of refugee. (Korovkin 2008: 325).

With the rapidly expanding focus on securitization in

migration management, administrative detention and deportation

have increasingly become the norm. Migrants who do not meet the

demanding criteria for refugee status find themselves immediately

criminalized; this is a facet of an intrinsically authoritarian

humanitarian regime. This regime response to refugee inflows can

be seen as merely an extension of national practices of migration

management aimed at differential exclusion:

By positing a ‘well-founded fear of persecution’ as a condition asylum seekers have to meet in order to be countedas legitimate, the refugee protection regime de-legitimizes the majority of migratory movements. This criminalizing effect of its binary logic manifests in refugee-status-determination procedures, which do not only certify some claimants as "genuine" refugees, but literally produce "illegal migrants" by officially indicating to rejected claimants that their presence is no longer authorized and istherefore "illegal" (New Keywords 2014: 26).

33

Since the fall of the Soviet Union the UNHCR’s laws and

discourse on the rights of migrants have become increasingly

restricted. This is especially salient regarding the material

support and legal representation of refugees, and is evident

throughout the platforms they have subsequently generated and

enforced. In the same way that nation-states and concepts of

citizenship produce the perception of the “good” migrant by

dictating who is and isn’t a citizen (or who is a “good” or “bad”

citizen), the protection regime “is full of prescriptions

specifying how 'good' refugees should behave in order to be

eligible for protection […]” (Casas-Cortes, et al. 2014: 25).

“Methodological nationalism” can be found through the limited

options given to refugees and asylum seekers and seems to insert

an impression of being “othered” and “governed” into their daily

existence. As the authors of New Keywords: Migration and Borders

explain, “It is through these politics of protection that the

supposedly strictly humanitarian protection regime restores the

"national order of things", a national order which produces

refugees in the first place” (Casas-Cortes, et al. 2014: 26).

34

In the post-cold war context of manufactured fear and the

war on terror, the UNHCR (along with refugee receiving nation-

states) sways toward practices of containment and deterrence

when enacting mechanisms of filtering and control; this allows

them to avoid taking in new refugees (Casas-Cortes, et al. 2014:

26). Once again, a contradictory notion of filtering and

selective migration management can be seen to exist within the

juridical subjectivities of international law. Behram maintains

“This is because the law cannot but recognize this new subject in

anything other than in commodity terms”; hence, “the fortunes of

forced migrants have been largely determined by the economic

needs of putative host states” (Behram 2014: 2, 4). This

increasingly marginalizes those not obtaining “protected status”

and lends momentum to the historically dissolute complication of

internal displacement. Recent focus on this topic reveals that

institutions of migration management “seek[s] to transform the

protection regime into one designed for the containment of those

for whom there is no regime of social protection, what Duffield

35

has called the “world's non-insured” (Casas-Cortes, et al. 2014:

26).

It is doubtful that the inherently binary logics employed in

the creation of migrant and refugee rights agreements (like the

1951 Refugee Convention) are able protect the refugee from the

domination of neoliberalism and the sovereign state. Contrarily,

as Behram observes, “law is a function of these socio-economic

structures” and therefore they are politicized in ways contrary

to the paradigm they impress (Behram 2014: 2). Therefore, “the

problem for the refugee is not too little, but too much law”

(Behram 2014: 2).

The explorations of this paper have led us away from the

idea that the “economic migrant” can be considered synonymous

with the “refugee” and towards the notion that such set

prescriptions will not create more freedom. A new sphere in the

discourse of refugee protection will only enact more restrictions

to the rights of all migrants and perpetuate 'othering'

processes. It is clear that a needs based approach does not work

within the refugee protection regime and therefore would be

36

useless to any “category” of migrant. When considering the

reality that individuals embarking on paths of migration have

reasons for undertaking such journeys that are as numerous as

they themselves, we must recall the critical questions posed by

the authors of New Keyword: Migration and Borders: “Who can

legitimately claim a need for protection? Against which dangers

shall protection be offered? Who is supposed to do the

protecting? What are the terms and conditions of the protection

provided? And whose voice is heard in debates stirred by these

questions?” (Casas-Cortes, et al. 2014: 26). A balance is

necessary, both to address the dire need to transform these

binary logics generated within paradigms of migration management,

and to maintain the autonomy of the individual while recognizing

their subjectivity. These moral complexities cannot be

responsibly navigated without a thorough grasp of the lessons of

history and a recognition and respect for the psychological and

physical manifestations they produce within all migrants. Hence

the importance in recognizing the implications of the so-called

“Domino Effect” within the political economy and the structural

37

dependencies present in the current neoliberal system. The

unintended consequences of policy-making have profound

implications on all aspects of the world.

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