GE Sanchez
Migrant smuggling and irregular migration facilitation
https://gufaculty360.georgetown.edu/s/contact/0031Q00002eaqDDQAY/gabriella-sanchez
https://migrationpolicycentre.eu/team/gabriella-sanchez/
https://orcid.org/0000-0002-6543-346X
https://scholar.google.com/citations?user=QMRvEbAAAAAJ&hl=en
https://gufaculty360.georgetown.edu/s/contact/0031Q00002eaqDDQAY/gabriella-sanchez
https://migrationpolicycentre.eu/team/gabriella-sanchez/
https://orcid.org/0000-0002-6543-346X
https://scholar.google.com/citations?user=QMRvEbAAAAAJ&hl=en
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The call has two tracks: 1. the decision-making process leading to the decision to opt for smuggling services, and 2. the impact of counter-smuggling measures.
This is an outstanding opportunity for junior scholars conducting empirical, critical work on migration, migration enforcement, and counter-smuggling. We hope you encourage those in your networks to apply. The workstream will accept submissions in English, Spanish and French, what hopefully will encourage the participation of researchers who do not traditionally write and/or present their work in English. Selected authors will be invited to contribute to a special publication by the UN Network of Migration.
300 word abstracts are due June 30 and should be submitted to both the organizers and [email protected]. Selected authors will be announced by July 31.
Interested scholars can reach out to the organizers:
Rita de la Peri, International Organization for Migration [email protected]
Samantha Monodawafa, United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime, [email protected]
https://migrationnetwork.un.org/call-abstracts-workstream-migrant-smuggling
We describe how the conflict between smuggling factions and the declining power of drug trafficking groups, have impacted the local facilitation of migrant smuggling, the people who depend on it for their mobility, and the communities through which they transit.
Commission's specific perspective, which views smuggling as inherently
exploitative and abusive, our brief emerges from a critical examination of
this stance. We analyse the proposed directive and provide recommendations that contribute to the debate surrounding its implementation.
En 2022 Derechos Humanos Integrales en Acción, A.C.(DHIA) documentó incidentes de violencia de género reportados en ocho albergues para personas en movilidad en Ciudad Juárez, Chihuahua--una de las ciudades fronterizas con mayores índices de movilidad humana en México. Nueve mujeres, seis niñas y niños reportaron actos de violencia sexual, explotación laboral, intimidación y represalias por parte de encargados de albergues directamente, o bajo la inacción de éstos. Los hallazgos hacen eco a investigaciones académicas recientes que cuestionan la narrativa de alberges de migrantes como lugares de protección o libres de violencia.
In February 2023, the New York Times published “Alone and Exploited,” a harrowing article on the experiences of newly-arrived migrant children in the United States who are often exploited for their work in dangerous jobs that violate child labor laws. Having crossed the U.S. southern border unaccompanied, many of these young people are under pressure to earn money to support their families back home, pay rent and living expenses, as well as debts to smugglers, while also attending school and navigating immigration and asylum systems with little support. Following an onslaught of criticism, the White House promised an investigation to “crack down” on migrant child labor and new mechanisms to report abuse.
During this webinar, participants challenge the discourse concerning the dynamics of migrant child labor in the United States, the criminalization of indigenous and working-class parents, and the infantilization of migrant youths aspirations and desires. Will efforts to “crack down” on child labor stop exploitation? How will forthcoming changes to U.S. asylum processes impact migrant children and their livelihoods? Most importantly, what do migrant youth have to say about their experiences?
In this episode we hear from Luca Stevenson of European Sex Workers Rights Alliance, who explains that, even with sex workers, we have to look at what drives them to the trade in the first place and recognise that laws to prevent trafficking can cause vulnerable women even more harm. Host Maggie Prezyna speaks with Kamala Kempadoo (York University) and Gabriella Sanchez (University of Massachusetts), who argue that we need to look deeper at the systemic injustices behind smuggling, at what drives people to risk everything for a chance of a better life.
The call has two tracks: 1. the decision-making process leading to the decision to opt for smuggling services, and 2. the impact of counter-smuggling measures.
This is an outstanding opportunity for junior scholars conducting empirical, critical work on migration, migration enforcement, and counter-smuggling. We hope you encourage those in your networks to apply. The workstream will accept submissions in English, Spanish and French, what hopefully will encourage the participation of researchers who do not traditionally write and/or present their work in English. Selected authors will be invited to contribute to a special publication by the UN Network of Migration.
300 word abstracts are due June 30 and should be submitted to both the organizers and [email protected]. Selected authors will be announced by July 31.
Interested scholars can reach out to the organizers:
Rita de la Peri, International Organization for Migration [email protected]
Samantha Monodawafa, United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime, [email protected]
https://migrationnetwork.un.org/call-abstracts-workstream-migrant-smuggling
We describe how the conflict between smuggling factions and the declining power of drug trafficking groups, have impacted the local facilitation of migrant smuggling, the people who depend on it for their mobility, and the communities through which they transit.
Commission's specific perspective, which views smuggling as inherently
exploitative and abusive, our brief emerges from a critical examination of
this stance. We analyse the proposed directive and provide recommendations that contribute to the debate surrounding its implementation.
En 2022 Derechos Humanos Integrales en Acción, A.C.(DHIA) documentó incidentes de violencia de género reportados en ocho albergues para personas en movilidad en Ciudad Juárez, Chihuahua--una de las ciudades fronterizas con mayores índices de movilidad humana en México. Nueve mujeres, seis niñas y niños reportaron actos de violencia sexual, explotación laboral, intimidación y represalias por parte de encargados de albergues directamente, o bajo la inacción de éstos. Los hallazgos hacen eco a investigaciones académicas recientes que cuestionan la narrativa de alberges de migrantes como lugares de protección o libres de violencia.
In February 2023, the New York Times published “Alone and Exploited,” a harrowing article on the experiences of newly-arrived migrant children in the United States who are often exploited for their work in dangerous jobs that violate child labor laws. Having crossed the U.S. southern border unaccompanied, many of these young people are under pressure to earn money to support their families back home, pay rent and living expenses, as well as debts to smugglers, while also attending school and navigating immigration and asylum systems with little support. Following an onslaught of criticism, the White House promised an investigation to “crack down” on migrant child labor and new mechanisms to report abuse.
During this webinar, participants challenge the discourse concerning the dynamics of migrant child labor in the United States, the criminalization of indigenous and working-class parents, and the infantilization of migrant youths aspirations and desires. Will efforts to “crack down” on child labor stop exploitation? How will forthcoming changes to U.S. asylum processes impact migrant children and their livelihoods? Most importantly, what do migrant youth have to say about their experiences?
In this episode we hear from Luca Stevenson of European Sex Workers Rights Alliance, who explains that, even with sex workers, we have to look at what drives them to the trade in the first place and recognise that laws to prevent trafficking can cause vulnerable women even more harm. Host Maggie Prezyna speaks with Kamala Kempadoo (York University) and Gabriella Sanchez (University of Massachusetts), who argue that we need to look deeper at the systemic injustices behind smuggling, at what drives people to risk everything for a chance of a better life.
We argue that the series of practices that constitutes the facilitation of irregular migration – of which smuggling is an element –are rooted in historical, generation-long efforts dependent upon notions of community, solidarity, friendship, tradition and affect. Under neoliberalism and in response to states’ concerns over sovereignty and national security, these efforts have increasingly become criminalized, labeled as dangerous, exploitative and criminal, smuggling becoming in turn an increasingly dangerous premise for those who historically have relied on it as a mechanism for mobility. Our contribution is therefore an attempt to critically analyze the frameworks present in the academic engagements with migrant smuggling and potentially articulate solutions to move the field beyond oversimplified accounts of victimized migrants and inhumane smugglers."
I will not discuss here the political implications of Mr. Guzmán-Loera’s arrest, the alleged involvement of the U.S. DEA in his search or the extradition requests from the American government that according to some reports are in the process of being granted by the Mexican government. Instead, I look beyond the spectacle and focus on what the aftermath of the arrest teaches social scientists on and off the field.
Read the entire article here: http://goo.gl/03vKCm
Keywords: Human smuggling; women; irregular border crossings; U.S. Mexico Border; Arizona
Drawing from interviews among undocumented migrants who successfully crossed the border extralegally with the assistance of human smuggling facilitators, this essay seeks to identify the nature and the extent of the interactions between the men and women who participate in human smuggling and those involved in the traffic of drugs along the Arizona/Sonora region. While there are in fact interactions among members of both markets, these vary in their nature and scope, and cannot, and should not be characterized as of criminal nature alone. Rather migrants’ testimonies point to human smuggling and drug trafficking as highly differentiated markets. While reports of border crossers being forced to carry drugs are common in anecdotal accounts, this project encountered a more diverse range of interactions, varying from voluntary participation in drug trafficking to finance smuggling journeys, unexpected encounters with recruiters for DTOs in immigration detention facilities, self-initiated, direct transactions with DTO operators to facilitate irregular crossings, and benevolent exchanges allowing for the survival of both border crossers and drug trafficking participants.
(Working Paper)
This initiative is part of a partnership between the UNSW Institute for Global Development, the ANU Coral Bell School of Asia Pacific Affairs and the European University Institute.
https://www.igd.unsw.edu.au/call-papers-global-system-protection-young-people
All this has allowed for political leaders and authorities to frame clandestine migration processes as a war, a war where the evil is represented by the smugglers. But who are the smugglers? And to what extent does human smuggling actually jeopardise the security of the receiving state and that of the migrant? For those who have followed migration flows over the years, such doomsday narratives are far from new. The smuggler has long been the quintessential predator of late modernity, with his exploits occupying, and at times even dominating, media headlines via the display of graphic images of victimisation and death.
The emphasis on smuggling networks’ transnational ties, the smuggling/trafficking nexus, and the conceptualisation of human smuggling as fundamentally coercive have been endlessly mobilised to justify immigration enforcement operations. Yet, empirical evidence shows that human smuggling across the world is largely the sum of highly heterogeneous organisations operating on small scales and in short time frames; that these groups are characterised by a lack of solid hierarchies and the existence of interchangeable figures; that they provide a service that is in great demand without necessarily exploiting clients; and that the smuggler and the customer may, at times, be the same person. An effective eradication of these organisations without addressing the causes of clandestine migration may thus prove difficult, for smuggling networks are deeply enmeshed within migratory flows.
Nonetheless, nation states all over the world tend to remain overwhelmingly focused on implementing a security-based policy. The recently signed EU-Turkey agreement is in fact another clear step in this direction. The strategy has proven difficult – if not dubious – for a number of reasons. First, enforcement of irregular migration operations through deterrence has often proven inefficient. The evolution of smuggling across the Asian, American, and Mediterranean corridors demonstrates this with dramatic clarity. Effectively blocking smuggling groups has often resulted in redirected unauthorised migration flows onto different routes.
Second, the implementation of these security-based policies increases the level of risk faced by those on the move, who in an attempt to avoid detection often opt, with the hopes of reaching less precarious locations, for more remote and hence more dangerous travel mechanisms and routes. Finally, the militarisation of border control has accompanied a growing tendency of smuggling groups to specialise and to increase their capacity of delivering specialised services to would-be migrants in a systematic and standardised manner. This has led to the emergence of increasingly precarious conditions characterised by specific forms of smuggling violence afflicting those on the move.
The search for better policy
The urgency of migrant ‘crises’ all over the world calls for alternative policy measures. A better understanding of human smuggling is crucial in light of ensuring the security of the migrants and that of the receiving states.
On 5 and 6 April, an international group of scholars will gather at the European University Institute in Florence to challenge widely-held notions about smuggling and to provide an empirical basis for one of the least researched fields in migration studies: the facilitation of irregular migration. The workshop ‘critical approaches to irregular migration facilitation: dismantling the human smuggler narrative’ constitutes the first collective attempt to provide grounded and much needed critical notions in the area of human smuggling scholarship.
Our goal is to furnish unique insights into the much-debated issue of human smuggling, at a time when Europe is calling for the official return of strict immigration controls and restrictions to asylum conventions; America is witnessing the spectral return of the radical-right and supremacist groups; and calls for the establishment of walls, fences, and detention facilities for migrants and refugees seem to be spreading like wildfire.
Over the next few days, in preparation for the workshop and through a dual collaboration between openDemocracy and Allegra Lab, we will first present a round table that records our participants’ approaches to human smuggling. The following week we will publish a series of articles from the workshop participants on the main lessons found in their work. Drawing on firsthand work in Europe, the Middle East, southeast Asia, Oceania, Africa and the Americas, this series reveals smuggling as a complex practice that cannot be boiled down to the narrow parameters of transnational crime, violence and greed. In the words and works of our contributors, smuggling emerges instead as a far richer practice embedded in notions of collective solidarity and support. We invite you to join us in this global journey on the facilitation of migration across five continents.
Link to the round table is available here: https://opendemocracy.net/beyondslavery/hsr/luigi-achilli-gabriella-sanchez/introducing-human-smugglers-roundtable
Link to the workshop is available here: http://www.migrationpolicycentre.eu/event/workshop-critical-approaches-irregular-migration-facilitation/