The Pros And Cons Of Irregular Migration

Implications and Dangers

While it is, in fact, possible for migration to become a threat to security, it is crucial, as Hammerstad (2008) notes, to realize that the issue of forced migration can easily “become over-securitised to where it is in danger of creating threats where before there were none, while at the same time undermining the international refugee protection regime in the name of [a] claim to ‘security needs’” (pp. 1-2). As the way in which we perceive and understand an issue affects how we act on it “changing perceptions of forced migrants […] have had a significant impact not only on how we talk about refugees but also on what actions we deem appropriate and acceptable for dealing with their situation” (Hammerstad, 2011, p.

The blurring of national borders has lead states to realize that their desire for order cannot be guaranteed. Irregular migration thus comes to be seen as undermining the exercise of state sovereignty, endangering public confidence in the effectiveness of its government (Koser, 2011). Additionally, the member states that are situated at the external borders feel that those states that are not are lack in taking up their responsibilities, resulting in increased suspiciousness between member states (Koser, 2011). These developments have lead to “foreigners knocking on Europe’s doors looking for better material life or freedom of prosecution find[ing] a Europe disputed along national lines and an absence of a receptive European identity” (Heinitz,

Quota plans and increased border security measures may help in reducing the number of migrants entering the EU, but it will not stop them from undertaking the journey. Concurrently, the EU’s inability to set up a common coordinated and proportionate response to irregular migration “is likely to continue to feed sentiments that push individual countries to emphasize national security over international protection [making] closed borders, barbed-wire fences and maritime pushbacks, the policy norm rather than the exception” (Jeanne Parker, 2015). Such practices would not only further endanger the lives of migrant and refugees; it would also compromise the very values upon which the EU was built. As Senior Vice President of the Centre for Strategic and International Studies, Heather Conley asserts: "[t]he political response of countries pushing migrants out or incarcerating them for long stretches runs counter to the very values that the EU promotes, like protecting human life and the right to asylum" (Jeanne Parker,