Article: Border internalisation
The Internalisation of Borders: State Surveillance and Control Tactics
We have talked about border fortification and border externalisation, but there is a third, crucial pillar that makes up “Fortress Europe”, namely: border internalisation.
Border internalisation is the holistic control and policing of migrants by state and non-state actors, within the state. It happens through the structural denial of rights, the encampment of asylum seekers, measures of immigration detention, and criminalisation. In practical terms, the internalisation of borders means that irregular migrants are excluded from society to a level that amounts to segregation or apartheid within the country between irregular migrants and other members of society.
The internalisation of borders takes many forms. Similarly to border fortification and border externalisation, border internalisation is often privatised and outsourced to technology and security companies, international organisations, NGOs, and even teachers, neighbours, and family and community members. As will be discussed below, since the 1980s, legal frameworks in Europe have increasingly linked basic human rights to residency status. Whilst the specific rules vary per country, residency statuses are now needed to rent a house, get a job, open a bank account, receive healthcare and use public transport. Private institutions, employers and landlords have to follow these rules too, risking fines or criminalisation if they employ or lease a house to an undocumented person.
A quick background and some examples…
It is a well known irony that human rights do not apply to people because they are human, but rather because they have the correct residence status.
While including and excluding people from human rights on the basis of their residence status is not new - this dynamic was also the norm under colonial rule, and what we see today is in one sense a continuation of historic power relations - before the 1980s, rights were mainly linked to participation in the labour market or society more broadly.
However, from the mid-1980s onwards, numerous laws and policies were passed facilitating new forms of control. These measures of control focused on the exclusion of people based on residence status and were justified by media outlets and political actors framing migration as a threat to domestic resources and national wealth. For example, the supposed scarcity of housing, welfare, and care resources was (and is) used to create a sense of fear and insecurity amongst citizens that there isn’t enough to go around - and migrants coming inside states puts further pressure on these resources.
The effectiveness of this border has been intensified by the merging of civil registries which keep track of individuals’ migratory statuses and personal and biometric data (like fingerprints). The transferring of this information between different databases, for example, between immigration officials, municipal registries, police officers, and social workers, has gotten easier, at both national and EU levels. In other words, more and more organisations are involved in identifying legal and illegalised people, and thereby strengthening the exclusionary effect of the border. Adding to this, some welfare states, such as the Netherlands, have gone as far as to stop childcare benefits and tax compensation for people who help undocumented people by sharing their home. This has been made possible through advanced bureaucratic and administrative technologies.
A very physical example of border internalisation is the detention and subsequent deportation of illegalised people who do not have the ‘right’ residence status. Alongside this, it is also the threat of detention and deportation that acts as an instrument of border internalisation. The constant fear of being detained and deported means that those without the ‘right’ residence status cannot seek help from the police, access healthcare, or use social services. Additionally, the fear of being reported to immigration authorities also means that undocumented people are more easily exploitable in the workplace.
Further examples of state borders being enforced internally are the centralised asylum reception centres and camps used to restrict asylum-seekers. People who apply for asylum in host states are expected to wait for their procedures in these reception centres and camps, where they are often not allowed to work or access education. During this time, asylum applicants are often also prevented from moving out of these camps, so that they remain under constant visibility of state authorities. Procedures can take many years, during which the stress and structural exclusion from life outside of camps and reception centres affects people’s wellbeing and sense of belonging.
Localised Apartheid
These examples of border internalisation show how certain groups of people have become excluded on the basis of their immigration status. This systemic exclusion creates a form of local apartheid: it forces one group of people to live under the control and power of another group of people, leading to enormous inequalities. Whilst one group of people enjoys all sorts of rights (citizens, ‘legal’ migrants), the basic rights of the other group of people are not recognised due to their migration status (undocumented migrants). At the same time, many undocumented people (without these rights) are involved in work necessary for society, including farming, construction work, cleaning, and care work, making their participation in the labour market crucial to the interests of the people from the first group, who enjoy full rights.
Adding to the segregation and inequality which border internalisation creates on a local scale, border internalisation also leads to the solidification of borders as ‘necessary’ in peoples’ minds. In a period of 30 to 40 years, the idea of inclusion and exclusion on the basis of residence status has become exponentially more structured and systemised. Border internalisation is a particularly insidious form of control, as it shows how borders are not lines on the map, but rather social and psychological processes of control and power - individuals in all parts of society are now personally enforcing the border, for example by conducting identity checks or excluding people from their spaces. Crossing the border isn’t the end of a migration journey: border internalisation means that the violence and inequality of the border regime continues to intangibly permeate migrants’ lives.
Points of Action
Border internalisation means that abolishing borders doesn’t just require tearing down walls and fences. To stop exclusion, segregation, and global and local apartheid, we have to tear down the borders in all their forms. There will be no equality or justice as long as societies are built on borders, be those physically, institutionally or socially constructed. This also means that resisting the border regime takes place as much in everyday life as it does on the physical border: border abolition includes breaking down all restrictions and obstacles migrants face, inside and outside the border line.
Further Reading
- The deportation continuum: convergences between state agents and NGO workers in the Dutch deportation field
- Immigration Detention, Punishment and the Transformation of Justice
Looking for ways to resist border internalisation in the Netherlands?
- Demand cash payments in your workplace - by requiring an eftpos or credit card payment method only, institutions exclude those who are unable to open bank accounts from being able to use their services;
- File complaints at institutions which require identity checks before granting access to services;
- Lobby for your local municipality to allow people without legal residence into homeless shelters and at foodbanks;
- Refuse to show your ID card at places - by participating in the existing system, we are reinforcing systemic exclusions. If enough people defied the status quo, businesses and services would stop enforcing ID card checks as doing so would hurt their businesses;
- Write to the IND and government to introduce pathways for regularisation - for more information on this, please contact us directly;
- Write to politicians to repeal the Dutch Linking Act (Koppelingswet) - this legislation makes it impossible to access any essential services in the Netherlands without a BSN number (which most undocumented people do not have).
We have talked about border fortification and border externalisation, but there is a third, crucial pillar that makes up “Fortress Europe”, namely: border internalisation.
Border internalisation is the holistic control and policing of migrants by state and non-state actors, within the state. It happens through the structural denial of rights, the encampment of asylum seekers, measures of immigration detention, and criminalisation. In practical terms, the internalisation of borders means that irregular migrants are excluded from society to a level that amounts to segregation or apartheid within the country between irregular migrants and other members of society.
The internalisation of borders takes many forms. Similarly to border fortification and border externalisation, border internalisation is often privatised and outsourced to technology and security companies, international organisations, NGOs, and even teachers, neighbours, and family and community members. As will be discussed below, since the 1980s, legal frameworks in Europe have increasingly linked basic human rights to residency status. Whilst the specific rules vary per country, residency statuses are now needed to rent a house, get a job, open a bank account, receive healthcare and use public transport. Private institutions, employers and landlords have to follow these rules too, risking fines or criminalisation if they employ or lease a house to an undocumented person.
A quick background and some examples…
It is a well known irony that human rights do not apply to people because they are human, but rather because they have the correct residence status.
While including and excluding people from human rights on the basis of their residence status is not new - this dynamic was also the norm under colonial rule, and what we see today is in one sense a continuation of historic power relations - before the 1980s, rights were mainly linked to participation in the labour market or society more broadly.
However, from the mid-1980s onwards, numerous laws and policies were passed facilitating new forms of control. These measures of control focused on the exclusion of people based on residence status and were justified by media outlets and political actors framing migration as a threat to domestic resources and national wealth. For example, the supposed scarcity of housing, welfare, and care resources was (and is) used to create a sense of fear and insecurity amongst citizens that there isn’t enough to go around - and migrants coming inside states puts further pressure on these resources.
The effectiveness of this border has been intensified by the merging of civil registries which keep track of individuals’ migratory statuses and personal and biometric data (like fingerprints). The transferring of this information between different databases, for example, between immigration officials, municipal registries, police officers, and social workers, has gotten easier, at both national and EU levels. In other words, more and more organisations are involved in identifying legal and illegalised people, and thereby strengthening the exclusionary effect of the border. Adding to this, some welfare states, such as the Netherlands, have gone as far as to stop childcare benefits and tax compensation for people who help undocumented people by sharing their home. This has been made possible through advanced bureaucratic and administrative technologies.
A very physical example of border internalisation is the detention and subsequent deportation of illegalised people who do not have the ‘right’ residence status. Alongside this, it is also the threat of detention and deportation that acts as an instrument of border internalisation. The constant fear of being detained and deported means that those without the ‘right’ residence status cannot seek help from the police, access healthcare, or use social services. Additionally, the fear of being reported to immigration authorities also means that undocumented people are more easily exploitable in the workplace.
Further examples of state borders being enforced internally are the centralised asylum reception centres and camps used to restrict asylum-seekers. People who apply for asylum in host states are expected to wait for their procedures in these reception centres and camps, where they are often not allowed to work or access education. During this time, asylum applicants are often also prevented from moving out of these camps, so that they remain under constant visibility of state authorities. Procedures can take many years, during which the stress and structural exclusion from life outside of camps and reception centres affects people’s wellbeing and sense of belonging.
Localised Apartheid
These examples of border internalisation show how certain groups of people have become excluded on the basis of their immigration status. This systemic exclusion creates a form of local apartheid: it forces one group of people to live under the control and power of another group of people, leading to enormous inequalities. Whilst one group of people enjoys all sorts of rights (citizens, ‘legal’ migrants), the basic rights of the other group of people are not recognised due to their migration status (undocumented migrants). At the same time, many undocumented people (without these rights) are involved in work necessary for society, including farming, construction work, cleaning, and care work, making their participation in the labour market crucial to the interests of the people from the first group, who enjoy full rights.
Adding to the segregation and inequality which border internalisation creates on a local scale, border internalisation also leads to the solidification of borders as ‘necessary’ in peoples’ minds. In a period of 30 to 40 years, the idea of inclusion and exclusion on the basis of residence status has become exponentially more structured and systemised. Border internalisation is a particularly insidious form of control, as it shows how borders are not lines on the map, but rather social and psychological processes of control and power - individuals in all parts of society are now personally enforcing the border, for example by conducting identity checks or excluding people from their spaces. Crossing the border isn’t the end of a migration journey: border internalisation means that the violence and inequality of the border regime continues to intangibly permeate migrants’ lives.
Points of Action
Border internalisation means that abolishing borders doesn’t just require tearing down walls and fences. To stop exclusion, segregation, and global and local apartheid, we have to tear down the borders in all their forms. There will be no equality or justice as long as societies are built on borders, be those physically, institutionally or socially constructed. This also means that resisting the border regime takes place as much in everyday life as it does on the physical border: border abolition includes breaking down all restrictions and obstacles migrants face, inside and outside the border line.
Further Reading
- The deportation continuum: convergences between state agents and NGO workers in the Dutch deportation field
- Immigration Detention, Punishment and the Transformation of Justice
Looking for ways to resist border internalisation in the Netherlands?
- Demand cash payments in your workplace - by requiring an eftpos or credit card payment method only, institutions exclude those who are unable to open bank accounts from being able to use their services;
- File complaints at institutions which require identity checks before granting access to services;
- Lobby for your local municipality to allow people without legal residence into homeless shelters and at foodbanks;
- Refuse to show your ID card at places - by participating in the existing system, we are reinforcing systemic exclusions. If enough people defied the status quo, businesses and services would stop enforcing ID card checks as doing so would hurt their businesses;
- Write to the IND and government to introduce pathways for regularisation - for more information on this, please contact us directly;
- Write to politicians to repeal the Dutch Linking Act (Koppelingswet) - this legislation makes it impossible to access any essential services in the Netherlands without a BSN number (which most undocumented people do not have).