Edited by Irina Isaakyan, Anna Triandafyllidou, Simone Baglioni

Through an inter-subjective lens, this open access book investigates the initial labour market integration experiences of these migrants, refugees or asylum seekers, who are characterised by different biographies and migration/asylum trajectories. The book gives voice to the migrants and seeks to highlight their own experiences and understandings of the labour market integration process, in the first years of immigration. It adopts a critical, qualitative perspective but does not remain ethnographic. The book rather refers the migrants’ own voice and experience to their own expert knowledge of the policy and socio-economic context that is navigated. Each chapter brings into dialogue the migrant’s intersubjective experiences with the relevant policies and practices, as well as with the relevant stakeholders, whether local government, national services, civil society or migrant organisations. The book concludes with relevant critical insights as to how labour market integration is lived on the ground and on what migrants ‘do’ with labour market policies rather than on what labour market policies ‘do’ to or for migrants.

Cham: Springer, 2023. 231p.

By Jan Breman

For a long time, Europe’s colonizing powers justified their urge for expansion with the conviction that they were ‘bringing civilization to territories where civilization was lacking.’ This doctrine of white superiority and indigenous inferiority was accompanied by a boundless exploitation of local labor. Under colonial rule, the ideology that later became known as neoliberalism was free to subject labor to a capitalism tainted by racialized policies. This political economy has now become dominant in the Western world, too, and has reversed the trend towards equality. In Colonialism, Capitalism and Racism, Jan Breman shows how racial favoritism is no longer contained to ‘faraway, indigenous peoples,’ but has become a source of polarization within Western societies as well.

Amsterdam: Amsterdam University Press, 2024. 434p.

By Tom K. Wong 

On May 13th, 2023, the U.S. Immigration Policy Center (USIPC) at UC San Diego interviewed asylum seekers detained by Border Patrol (BP) in the Jacumba desert. Over 1,000 people seeking asylum and refuge from nearly every part of the world were held in three makeshift encampments on the U.S. side of the U.S.-Mexico border without adequate food, water, or shelter. Under the hot desert sun, the USIPC donated supplies and joined volunteers as they brought food, baby food, water, hygiene kits, clothes, blankets, diapers, and other supplies to these migrants. Using stratified random sampling during aid distribution in Camp 2, USIPC conducted fifteen structured interviews with asylum seekers. With approximately 150 people in Camp 2, these interviews represent a 10 percent sample. These data make clear that despite assertions by Border Patrol that the migrants were not being detained, they were surrounded by Border Patrol agents and would be apprehended if they tried to leave. This is consequential because those in Border Patrol custody, according to the U.S. Customs and Border Protection (CBP) National Standards on Transport, Escort, Detention, and Search (TEDS), are entitled to basic humane treatment. The asylum seekers that we interviewed were only given one water bottle each day in the morning, were not given any food, were not given any shelter to protect themselves from the sun, and were not given blankets to keep themselves warm at night. Lastly, the data show that those seeking asylum have been ignored by Border Patrol agents, have been unable to formally request asylum, and have been denied due process.   

La Jolla, CA:  US Immigration Policy Center University of California San Diego (UCSD), 2023. 8p.

By Daniela Alulema and Jacquelyn Pavilon

New York City is a “welcoming city” that encourages “all New Yorkers regardless of immigration status” to access the public benefits and services for which they qualify (NYC Mayor’s Office of Immigrant Affairs or “MOIA” 2021a). Moreover, it invests significant resources in educating immigrant communities on this core commitment and its lack of participation in federal immigration enforcement activities. However, this report by the Center for Migration Studies of New York (CMS) finds that immigrants in New York City still face significant barriers to accessing public benefits and services.

The report is based on CMS research that examined immigrant fear and other barriers in three general areas: the use of public benefits, with a particular focus on the public charge rule; the use of public health services; and access to law enforcement and the courts. The report documents how Trump-era immigration policies perpetuated fear among immigrant communities, in the context of other barriers to accessing services and benefits, and why its detrimental impacts have persisted and outlived the Trump administration.

The research included semi-structured interviews with 75 immigrants across all five boroughs of New York City and two focus groups with immigrants in both English and Spanish. The interviews documented the prevalence and impact of fear and other factors that impede (and facilitate) immigrants’ use of public benefits and services. The respondents were from 30 countries across all regions of the world and had varied legal statuses and lengths of stay in the United States. The CMS research team also interviewed 16 social service providers from community-based organizations (CBOs) and New York City agencies, including the Department of Health and Mental Hygiene (NYC DOHMH) and the Human Resources Administration/Department of Social Services (HRA), and eight healthcare providers and social workers from the city’s public hospital system, NYC Health + Hospitals, who worked with immigrants across the city.

The project ran from January 2020 through October 2021, spanning most of the last year of the Trump administration and most of the first year of the Biden administration. Data collection started in November 2020 and extended through the COVID-19 vaccine rollout starting in spring 2021. The report finds that Trump-era anti-immigrant rhetoric and immigration policies, including aggressive enforcement tactics and a new rule on the public charge ground of inadmissibility, exacerbated long-standing fear pertaining to lack of status, family separation, detention, and deportation. The COVID-19 pandemic has further increased the need for services and assistance for all New Yorkers, including immigrants.

The report also finds that the change in administration, the widespread recognition of the essential work of immigrants in response to COVID-19, and the pandemic’s disproportionate impact on immigrant and minority communities did not eliminate immigrants’ fear or other barriers to accessing public benefits and protection in one of the most immigrant-welcoming communities in the country. Misinformation, language barriers, culturally-rooted concerns, and discrimination continued to impede immigrants from coming forward for needed services and benefits for which they or their family members are qualified. As one immigrant explained: Yes, I’m aware the public charge act has been rescinded by the Biden administration, but people still think it is not safe. People will tell you, ‘Yes, but you never know when [the rule could] come back.’ They say they don’t want to jeopardize their chances of bringing their children, so they want to focus on the bigger picture as opposed to some money.

The report finds that while government agencies, hospitals, and CBOs have all taken steps to minimize gaps in service provision and to mitigate immigrants’ fear, more can and should be done. It offers the following top-line findings, supplemented by additional findings in the body of the report:

The Public Charge Rule and Immigrants’ Concerns on the Use of Public Benefits

Many respondents underutilized benefits for which they were eligible due to fears pertaining to immigration status, family separation, detention, and deportation. For example, a service provider recounted a case in which a mother feared that her US citizen children would be negatively impacted in the future for having used food stamps: She’s an immigrant. It’s her husband and her, and [her] two American citizen [children]. The husband died due to COVID. When she applied [for food stamps,] she really didn’t want to apply. She was under the impression that also her kids are going to be penalized and they’re going to have to pay this back when they grow up. Because she doesn’t have any status, she was afraid. If she want[ed] to apply, she could, for the kids. … I had mentioned to her [what] the requirements [were], which [were] proof of income and address, and she said that she will get a letter from the employer, because that’s part of the requirements. When she asked for the letter, she got fired. She was just so devastated, because she was at her wit’s end. I called her, and she said, no, she didn’t want to be bothered. She was just so frustrated and devastated, and she just let it go.

Trump administration policies and rhetoric led immigrants to increase their efforts to secure a safer immigration status, including citizenship, and obtain identification documents for themselves and their children. The study found that service providers had to step out of their regular roles to provide the services that the immigrant community needed. In the midst of an unprecedented public health crisis, for example, hospital workers were also helping to fill out patients’ citizenship applications.

Context and location strongly influenced the comfort level of immigrants in sharing information which would allow them to access benefits and services. Many immigrants feared sharing identifying information in government buildings, but not as much in other settings or online.

Large numbers of respondents feared the use of public benefits, including by their US citizen children, due to misinformation about the impact of the new public charge rule on their ability and the ability of family members to secure legal status or permanent residence. Social media has made it easier to spread incomplete information or misinformation about the presence of Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) in local neighborhoods, as well as about the details of the public charge rule........

New York: Center for Migration Studies, 2022. 69p.

By James Rochlin

The near collapse of the Venezuelan economy since 2015 and the concomitant erosion of public order have led to an exodus of over seven million people by mid-2023, the largest forced migrant flow in recent Latin American history and the second largest globally after Syria. It occurs against a global backdrop of a 400 percent increase in persons displaced across borders between 2010 and 2021. Colombia hosts the largest number of Venezuelan refugees — with about 2.5 million officially recorded by the government. This has occurred during a politically tumultuous period in Colombia, which has featured the reconfiguration of competing illegal armed groups since the signing of the 2016 Peace Accord between the government and the Fuerzas Armadas Revolucionarias de Colombia (FARC), a major COVID-19 outbreak in 2020–2021, and a crippling and protracted national strike in 2021.

Within the hemispheric context, Colombia serves as a stop-gap to stem the flow of Venezuelan refugees northward, roughly similar to the role played by Mexico to intercept and diminish migration to the United States. This has especially been the case since the January 5, 2023 announcement by US President Biden, which specified that refugees cannot declare asylum in the US if they attempt to cross the US border without first seeking asylum in their initial transit country. For Venezuelan refugees, the first country they enter is typically Colombia. Further, in May 2023, the Biden administration announced it was considering sending US troops to the Darien Peninsula in Panama, and will perhaps train Colombian forces, to diminish the “trafficking” of Venezuelan refugees and other refugees passing through Colombia and headed north. The result, according to leaders of NGOs and other who work directly with refugees, has been more pressure on Colombia to retain them.

The argument here is twofold. First, human security threats for Venezuelan refugees should be viewed intersectionally in the particular spaces through which they pass — from the collapse of order in their home countries (which qualifies them as refugees), through the borderlands with Colombia that pose specific threats to their safety and wellbeing, and to their destinations within Colombia that offer their own peculiar array of opportunities and human security challenges. Second, regularization programs such as the Estatuto Temporal de Protección de Migrantes Venezolanos (ETPMV) are the best way to promote human security for refugees in Colombia in the short and medium terms, but this process needs to be more inclusive.1 The first half of this paper discusses the conceptual underpinnings that link power/mobility/space to human security for refugees. The second part brings those concepts to life through interviews with an assortment of refugees.

The paper draws from a database of interviews with 72 Venezuelan refugees in Colombia in 2022 and 2023 regarding the intersectional nuances of human security. It also relies on interviews with dozens of security, migration, and human rights experts in Colombia since 1997. A unique conceptual perspective is developed regarding critical human security for Venezuelan refugees. Journal on Migration and Human SecurityVolume 11, Issue 4, December 2023, Pages 333-355

By Susan Schmidt

While gang violence, community violence, and domestic violence have been recognized as contributing factors to Central American migration, less is known about the intersection between child maltreatment and migration. This article uses secondary data from United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) interviews with unaccompanied minors from Central America and Mexico to examine child maltreatment. It provides information on the abused children, their abusers, and the questions that led to their disclosure of maltreatment. It finds that girls reported maltreatment at higher rates than boys; only girls in this sample reported sexual abuse and intimate partner violence; and boys experienced physical abuse more than any other form of maltreatment. Overall, girls experienced all forms of abuse at higher rate than boys. Fewer than half of this sample described maltreatment as an explicit reason for migration, even those who viewed it as a type of suffering, harm or danger. In addition, some disclosures suggest that childhood transitions, such as in housing, schooling, or work status, warrant further inquiry as a potential consequence of or contributor to maltreatment. The article recommends that professionals engaged with migrant children in social services, legal services, or migration protection and status adjudications should inquire about maltreatment, recognizing that children may reveal abuse in complex and indirect ways. Protection risks within the home or family environment may provide the grounds for US legal immigration protections, such as Special Immigrant Juvenile Status (SIJS) or asylum. Practitioners working with unaccompanied migrant children should use varied approaches to inquire about home country maltreatment experiences. Maltreatment may be part of the context of child migration, whether or not it is explicitly mentioned by children as a reason for migration. Policy Recommendations • US Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS) should update SIJS regulations to reflect changes in the law, and modify application procedures to incorporate research knowledge on the impact of trauma on children. • The US Departments of Homeland Security (DHS), Justice (DOJ), and Health and Human Services (HHS), should ensure that all children in immigration proceedings receive legal representation through public-private partnerships overseen by the HHS Office of Refugee Resettlement  (ORR). Passage of Senate Bill 3108, the Fair Day in Court for Kids Act of 2021,1 would at least guarantee legal representation for unaccompanied minors. • Codify legal standards (via USCIS regulation, or Congressional statute) for granting asylum based on gender and gender-based violence, and include standards for children and youth. • Adjudicators from USCIS, Asylum Offices, and the Executive Office for Immigration Review (EOIR) should consider new information about painful, traumatic, or shame-inducing experiences—such as child maltreatment—as part of the gradual process of disclosure, rather than negatively reflecting on the credibility of the applicant. • Federal agencies with immigration responsibilities such as USCIS, Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE), and ORR, should be included in the federal government’s Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration’s (SAMHSA) Interagency Task Force for Trauma-Informed Care. These agencies should require new trainings for immigration adjudicators, including immigration judges, asylum officers, Border Patrol agents, and Customs and Border Patrol (CBP) officers, on interviewing and making decisions related to children. • Legal service providers should adopt a holistic approach to service provision that includes social workers as part of the child’s legal team. 

  Journal on Migration and Human Security 2022, Vol. 10(1) 77-92  

By Michele Waslin

This article examines presidential immigration policy making through executive orders (EOs) and proclamations. Donald Trump’s overall volume of EOs has been remarkably similar to that of other presidents, while his number of proclamations has been relatively high. His immigration-related EOs and proclamations, however, diverge from those of his predecessors in several ways. Of the 56 immigration-related EOs and 64 proclamations issued since 1945, Trump has issued 10 and nine, respectively. Overall, about 1 percent of all EOs and proclamations during this period have been immigration related, compared to 8 percent of Trump’s EOs and 2.4 percent of Trump’s proclamations.

In a sharp departure from previous presidents, a greater share of his EOs and proclamations have been substantive policy-making documents intended to restrict admissions of legal immigrants and increase enforcement along the border and in the interior of the United States. This article explores Trump’s unorthodox use of executive tools to make immigration policy, circumventing Congress and even members of his own administration. It recommends that:

• Congress should hold oversight hearings and should consider revoking or modifying EOs and proclamations that have been issued pursuant to the authority provided to the president by Congress, as opposed to those based on the executive’s constitutional authority.

• Advocacy organizations should continue to challenge the president’s executive actions, the insufficient process and consultation leading to them, their statutory or constitutional justification, and their impact.

• Congress should take an inventory of the immigration authorities it has delegated, both explicitly and implicitly, to the executive branch and determine when this authority can and should be limited.

• Congress should pass legislation to update and reform the US immigration system, and thus clarify its intentions regarding US immigration law, policy, and executive authority in this area.

Journal on Migration and Human SecurityVolume 8, Issue 1, March 2020, Pages 54-67

By  Ricardo D. Martínez-Schuldt and Ricardo D. Martínez

Sanctuary jurisdictions have existed in the United States since the 1980s. They have recently reentered U.S. politics and engendered contentious debates regarding their legality and influence on public safety. Critics argue that sanctuary jurisdictions create conditions that threaten local communities by impeding federal immigration enforcement efforts. Proponents maintain that the policies improve public safety by fostering institutional trust among immigrant communities and by increasing the willingness of immigrant community members to notify the police after they are victimized. In this study, we situate expectations from the immigrant sanctuary literature within a multilevel, contextualized help-seeking framework to assess how crime-reporting behavior varies across immigrant sanctuary contexts. We find that Latinos are more likely to report violent crime victimization to law enforcement after sanctuary policies have been adopted within their metropolitan areas of residence. We argue that social policy contexts can shift the nature of help-seeking experiences and eliminate barriers that undermine crime victims’ willingness to mobilize the law. Overall, this study highlights the unique role social policy contexts can serve in structuring victims’ help-seeking decisions.

 American Sociological Review 86(1):154–85. 2021

By David Hausman

The US government maintains that local sanctuary policies prevent deportations of violent criminals and increase crime. This report tests those claims by combining Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) deportation data and Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) crime data with data on the implementation dates of sanctuary policies between 2010 and 2015. Sanctuary policies reduced deportations of people who were fingerprinted by states or counties by about one-third. Those policies also changed the composition of deportations, reducing deportations of people with no criminal convictions by half—without affecting deportations of people with violent convictions. Sanctuary policies also had no detectable effect on crime rates. These findings suggest that sanctuary policies, although effective at reducing deportations, do not threaten public safety.

PNAS,  Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences USA 117(44):27262–7.  2020.

By the American Civil Liberties Associations of New Mexico and Texas

Vehicle pursuits make for exciting movie scenes and capture the interest of reality TV viewers, but police chases are dangerous and often deadly.1 Law enforcement agencies across the country are increasingly restricting when such pursuits may be undertaken. Many have issued policies authorizing chases only when the public faces immediate danger. 2 The United States Border Patrol, the largest law enforcement agency in the country, has taken no such steps. In fact, the agency is increasingly engaged in high-speed chases throughout the Southwest border region, with deadly results. The number of fatalities resulting from Border Patrol vehicle pursuits has skyrocketed in recent years, from just 2 deaths in 2019 to 22 in 2021. Despite this trend, Border Patrol does not provide statistics on the number of car chases conducted by its agents unless the agency itself deems it a “use of force” incident, such as when a Border Patrol unit intentionally collides with a vehicle to cause it to crash or agents deploy spike strips to stop a vehicle.3 Senator Dianne Feinstein demanded in 2019 that Customs and Border Protection (CBP) reevaluate its vehicle pursuit policy, stating: “CBP’s pursuit policy does not follow the Justice Department guidelines for vehicle pursuits, but instead offers insufficient protection against possible injuries and fatalities, either to bystander members of the public or occupants of a pursued vehicle. This has led to catastrophic and unwarranted results.   

Albuquerque, NM: ACLU, 2022. 13p.

By Rachel Feldman

This study was undertaken because generally available information about local government policy regarding inquiry about immigration status, use of this information, and interaction with federal immigration authorities was limited to a few New Mexico jurisdictions and was not upto-date or complete. The study identifies the variation and reasons for variation in these policies across the state, including the lack of any formal policy, and the function of informal policy. The study introduces the term “policy infrastructure” to refer to the function of written policy, procedure, monitoring and enforcement systems in directing local government employees and contractors, regarding their obligations to use public resources as directed by any policy that exists1 . A study assumption is that where no formal policy exists and where policy infrastructure is incomplete, public employees and contractors may use public resources at their discretion, regardless of consequences for affected persons. The problem motivating the study is the apparent situation in which residents and visitors to New Mexico experience different practices regarding the identification of and treatment related to their immigration status across the state, including within overlapping jurisdictions (e.g., city and county). Such variation in treatment raises questions regarding the extent to which immigrant rights (legal and undocumented) are respected across the state. It raises the question as to whether such variation is consistent with the intent of state and federal civil and human rights. The study was conducted between September and December in 2018, and inquiries were made by phone and formal requests for public records to all 33 counties and the 10 largest cities in the state. Contacts focused on county and city managers, sheriff and police departments and detention facilities operated by local governments. Some level of information was provided by all 33 counties and all cities contacted. A summary of results is shown in Table 1. Analysis of all documents and interview notes is provided below as study findings.   

Albuquerque, NM: ACLU of New Mexico, 2019. 51p.

By Melanie Gower, Georgina Sturge 

The Home Secretary has a duty to make a deportation order in respect of nonBritish or Irish citizens who have been convicted of an offence in the UK and sentenced to at least 12 months’ imprisonment, unless certain exceptions apply. He also has discretionary powers to deport non-British citizens if he considers it to be “conducive to the public good”. Deportation of foreign national offenders is a longstanding government priority. The Home Office considers for deportation all foreign nationals convicted of a crime in the UK and given a prison sentence. Foreign national offenders can be removed from the country before the end of their prison sentence by way of a prisoner transfer agreement, or through the Early Removal Scheme or Tariff-Expired Removal Scheme. They can receive money to help them to resettle in their home country through the Facilitated Return Scheme. As of the end of June 2023, there were at least 10,321 foreign nationals in prison in England and Wales, out of a total prison population of 85,851. Over half of foreign prisoners were European and, overall, the most common nationalities were Albanian, Polish, Romanian, Irish, and Jamaican. There were 11,769 foreign national offenders subject to deportation action living in the community, as of 30 September 2022.

A report of an inspection by the Chief Inspector of Borders and Immigration published in June 2023 was critical of the Home Office’s handling of foreign national offender cases. It found that the Early Removal Scheme and the Facilitated Return Scheme were not being administered effectively. The Government says it has made good progress removing foreign national offenders from prisons and the community, pointing to a 19% increase in overall foreign national offender returns in the 12-month period to September 2023 (3,577 people). Up until that point, the number of foreign national offenders returned on an annual basis had been falling since 2016, when 6,437 individuals were returned. 

London: UK Parliament, The House of Commons Library , 2024. 11p

By JM Berger

Can legal codes and court rulings function as extremist ideological texts? 

Academics usually define extremism as a set of beliefs that fall outside the norms of the society in which they are situated, but entire societies have at times been organized around recognizably extreme beliefs. This paper will examine the U.S. Supreme Court decision in Scott v. Sandford, 60 US 393 (1856), more commonly known as the Dred Scott decision. Widely considered the worst Supreme Court decision of all time, the opinion written by Chief Justice Roger B. Taney decreed that Black people, whether enslaved or free, could never become citizens of the United States and that they had no rights under the Constitution. 

This paper will analyze the Dred Scott decision to consider whether and how it implements and institutionalizes many widely recognized tropes of extremist ideology. The paper will conclude with a discussion of empirical frameworks that can enable and empower the study of lawful extremism. 

United States, Middlebury Institute of International Studies at Montery. 2023, 57pg

By Cecilia Esterline  

The Heritage Foundation’s Project 2025 is the policy playbook for a second Trump administration, and its impacts on immigration would be far more complex and destructive than previously reported. It isn’t simply a refresh of first-term ideas, dusted off and ready to be re-implemented. Rather, it reflects a meticulously orchestrated, comprehensive plan to drive immigration levels to unprecedented lows and increase the federal government’s power to the states’ detriment. These proposals circumvent Congress and the courts and are specifically engineered to dismantle the foundations of our immigration system. The most troubling proposals include plans to: • Block federal financial aid for up to two-thirds of all American college students if their state permits certain immigrant groups, including Dreamers with legal status, to access in-state tuition. • Terminate the legal status of 500,000 Dreamers by eliminating staff time for reviewing and processing renewal applications. • Use backlog numbers to trigger the automatic suspension of application intake for large categories of legal immigration. • Suspend updates to the annual eligible country lists for H-2A and H-2B temporary worker visas, thereby excluding most populations from filling critical gaps in the agricultural, construction, hospitality, and forestry sectors. • Bar U.S. citizens from qualifying for federal housing subsidies if they live with anyone who is not a U.S. citizen or legal permanent resident. • Force states to share driver’s licenses and taxpayer identification information with federal authorities or risk critical funding. These proposals, along with the others discussed herein, mark a significant divergence from traditional conservative immigration priorities like promoting merit-based immigration, fostering assimilation, and enhancing interior enforcement. Instead, they are designed to cripple the existing immigration system without regard for the extraordinarily harmful effects on the health and wealth of our country. They would weaken our nation’s prosperity and security and undermine the vitality of our workforce, with far-reaching consequences for future generations of Americans. 

New York: The Niskanen Center, 2024. 17p.

By Enzo Nussio

How do moral beliefs influence favorability to collective violence? In this article, I argue that, first, moral beliefs are influential depending on their salience, as harm avoidance is a common moral concern. The more accessible moral beliefs in decision-making, the more they restrain harmful behavior. Second, moral beliefs are influential depending on their content. Group-oriented moral beliefs can overturn the harm avoidance principle and motivate individuals to favor collective violence. Analysis is based on a representative survey in Mexico City and focuses on a proximate form of collective violence, locally called lynching. Findings support both logics of moral influence. Experimentally induced moral salience reduces favorability to lynching, and group-oriented moral beliefs are related to more favorability. Against existing theories that downplay the relevance of morality and present it as cheap talk, these findings demonstrate how moral beliefs can both restrain and motivate collective violence.
Comparative Political StudiesOnlineFirst© The Author(s) 2023

By United Nations Task Force on Children Deprived of Liberty

IMMIGRATION DETENTION, IS NEVER IN THE BEST INTERESTS OF THE CHILD AND CONSTITUTES A CHILD RIGHTS VIOLATION.

It is a form of violence that impacts a country’s capacity to achieve the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development, especially targets 10.7 and 16.2.4,5 All children, regardless of their legal or migratory status or that of their families, have the right to be cared for and protected from violence, abuse and exploitation. At least 77 countries have laws and policies that allow children to be detained based on their legal or migratory status, and at least 330,000 children globally per year are deprived of their liberty based on their (or their parents’) legal or migratory status.6 Lack of accurate data means this is likely to be a significant under-estimate. While many countries have committed to end child immigration detention, the reality is that even in some countries where legislation does not support immigration detention, it continues to remain in use.7 In 2022, the United Nations Task Force on Children Deprived of Liberty8,9 under the leadership of the UN Special Representative of the Secretary-General on Violence Against Children, made a joint pledge10 at the International Migration Review Forum (IMRF):

1. To conduct evidence-based advocacy and to mobilize all key stakeholders at all levels to scale up child rights-based protective solutions to end the detention of children in the context of migration.

2. To support Member States to harmonize their national legal frameworks with international human rights standards to explicitly prohibit detention of children based on their migration status or that of their families.

3. To involve and amplify the voices of migrant children in determining their best interests in all issues concerning children in legislation, policies, practices, including those related to integration, return and family reunification; as well as access to services, to justice and to remedies for violations of their rights.

4. To support data collection and the dissemination of promising practices on child rights-based protective solutions as alternative measures to end the detention of children in the context of migration.
   This advocacy brief provides an overview of promising practices and lessons learned to end child immigration detention and sets out a range of policy actions needed to scale up efforts to end this form of violence

New York: UNICEF, 2024. 15p.

By International Labour Organization (ILO), Walk Free, and International Organization for Migration (IOM) 2022

Modern slavery is a scourge that affects every region of the world. The latest Global Estimates indicate that 50 million people were living in modern slavery in 2021. Of these people, 28 million were in forced labour and 22 million were trapped in forced marriage. Unfortunately, the number of people in modern slavery has risen significantly in the last five years. In 2021, 10 million more people were in modern slavery compared to 2016 global estimates.

Geneva, SWIT: 2022. 144p.

By: Daniel E Martínez, Josiah Heyman, Jeremy Slack

Enforcement along the US-Mexico border has intensified significantly since the early 1990s. Social scientists have documented several consequences of border militarization, including increased border-crosser deaths, the killing of more than 110 people by Customs and Border Protection (CBP) agents over the past decade, and expanded ethno-racial profiling in southwestern communities by immigration authorities. Less attention has been paid to the pervasive and routine mistreatment migrants experience on a daily basis in CBP custody.

This paper traces major developments in border enforcement to three notable initiatives: the “prevention-through-deterrence” strategy; the aftermath of the 9/11 terrorist attacks; and the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) Consequence Delivery System, initiated in 2011. Despite the massive buildup in enforcement, CBP has operated with little transparency and accountability to the detriment of migrants. The paper provides an overview of the findings of nongovernmental organizations and social scientists regarding migrant mistreatment while in CBP custody. It then highlights important shifts in migration patterns over the past decade, as well as changes in border enforcement efforts during the Trump administration. It discusses how these transformations affect migrants’ everyday encounters with CBP officials.

New York: Center for Migration Studies of New York (CMS) and the Zolberg Institute on Migration and Mobility at the New School, 2020. 22p.

By Josiah Heyman, Jeremy Slack, Daniel E Martínez

United States Border Patrol agent Matthew Bowen allegedly hit an undocumented migrant with his truck in November 2017. In preparation for trial, federal prosecutors revealed that Bowen had a history of making derogatory statements about migrants in text messages, including calling them “disgusting subhuman shit unworthy of being kindling for a fire.” Mr. Bowen’s attorney tried to suppress the disclosure of his text messages, offering the damning argument that this attitude was “commonplace throughout the Border Patrol’s Tucson Sector,” and “part of the agency’s culture”(Elfrink 2019). This case is not isolated, and our evidence raises serious concerns about a new proposal to have Border Patrol agents function as asylum officers.

The Trump administration has proposed that about 60 Border Patrol agents serve as asylum officers at the US-Mexico border (Taxin 2019). These agents would receive an unspecified period of training. 1 Their role would be to conduct initial interviews to determine whether asylum-seekers have a credible fear of returning to their countries or should be sent back. Those who pass such interviews can seek asylum before an immigration judge (ibid.). This process applies to people entering without authorization at the Mexican border, either presenting themselves without visas at ports of entry or entering without inspection. Despite it being legal to cross the border and request asylum, Border Patrol agents and Customs and Border Protection (CBP) inspectors are otherwise trained to target unauthorized border crossings as violations of the law. Border Patrol agents-

New York: Center for Migration Studies, 2019. 9p.

By Myrthe Wijnkoop, Stefan Kok, Anouk Pronk, Kathleen Bush -Joseph, Robin Neumann, Monika Sie and Dhian Ho

In this study, ‘In Search of Control’, current developments on access to asylum procedures and humanitarian protection in five destination countries have been studied through five separate country reports. In the synthesis report, results are compared and analysed, looking at which lessons can be learned from the North American context (Canada, United States), the European context (Denmark, the Netherlands) and the context in the Pacific (Australia). Our research shows that all these destination states are facing the same balancing act in search of control of migration. Therefore, they could and should learn from each other’s experiences in tackling this challenge. Firstly, there is a common humanitarian duty and responsibility to provide protection to those in need while demonstrating solidarity with regions facing heightened challenges due to refugee pressures and other geopolitical crises. Secondly, due to an aging population these states face increasing labour shortages, for which migration is needed. Thirdly, states want to remain in control over their borders and want to manage the influx and admission of migrants. Due to this balancing act, there are no ‘quick fixes’ in dealing with asylum migration. As these interrelated challenges are part of a global issue, innovative ways forward need to be based on solidarity and cooperation taking into account mutual interest; of those seeking protection, host countries in the region, transit countries becoming destination countries, communities within traditional destination countries, and of other destination states. To facilitate such cooperation, a clear legal framework with sound preconditions and safeguards is needed to ensure both effectiveness and the protection of the rights of refugees and migrants. This study identifies ten policy approaches that have been initiated or considered by these ‘destination states’ in order to either provide or limit access to asylum procedures and other forms of humanitarian protection. These approaches vary from interdiction to legal pathways, and from procedural measures to strategic communication, as will be briefly described below.

The Hague: Netherlands Institute of International Relations ‘Clingendael, 2024. 360p.