How Can Migration Become a National Security Problem?

Migration is when people move from one place to another to work or live. International migration involves moving from one's country to another. The world of today many people migrate due to different reasons: some migrate seeking better opportunities and education, while others flee their countries because of the crisis imposed by disasters or poverty. There is an excellent correlation between migration and security of any country, and this has led to the securitization of immigration and border policies by some states. Movement and national security have long been linked even before 9/11 and the emergence of the global terror threat (Walters, 2010, p.218). The global action to securitize immigration shows that terrorism’s link to migration and the perception is widespread. There are many security threats posed by transhumance, but there is no direct proof that it causes terrorism.

The correlation of immigration and security dates back during the Second World War when Germany citizens living in Britain were interned, and in the 1980s, when Kurdish and Algerians were linked to terrorist acts in Western Europe. The process of taking security precautions in any migration instance has heightened in the recent past due to the ongoing globalization. Globalization has reduced the world into a village where people, information or ideas can flow seamlessly. The societies and economies are now closer than before, and this poses another threat which emanates from the negative side of globalization (Walters, 2010, p.218). Since the world is always at risk, many nations are in constant fear which is prompted by the numerous security threats and civil wars. The countries get entangled in a situation where they have to recruit and let people into their countries, but at the same time worry about the security threat these people pose.

After the September 11th act of terrorism in the United States, European countries were on alert, and they all began to institute measures that assisted in migrant control. There is an assumption that due to globalization, the United States allowed in people with ill intention without the government’s knowledge. The United States and other nations came up with their border control policies that would help screen out those without any plan. These include surveillance and screening of the migrants. In the European Union, the law enforcers started using migrant control policies to control terrorism (Waever & Buzan, 1993, p.1). At some point, the Union used the system used for monitoring and gathering information from migrants as a tool of counter-terrorism. The action furthers the belief that immigration is increasingly becoming a security threat to European societies.

The narrative of perceiving migration as the source of all the terror-related act is wrong and has no evidence to support it. The labelling has also prompted most of these nations to come up with restrictive policies that lockout or drive the migrants to the wrong hands of human traffickers. The strategies have also been used to justify the dentation, deportation or even greater surveillance on the migrants by the relevant authorities. Even though any country’s national security should prioritize terrorism, there is a need for not using the presumption that terrorism mainly results in terrorism. Despite all this perspective, migration still raises security concerns, and the issues majorly come from illegal migrants.

Irregular migration undermines the exercise of state sovereignty. Every state has the right to control anything that passes through its border points. Every country has instituted policies and measures that are used at the border points to manage the process of admitting the migrants. In most cases, this is violated by the migrants and human traffickers who use loopholes at the crossing point to enter the state of their interest. The act is always treated as a criminal act by the affected nation since it’s a threat to national security. The illegal migration in most cases results from the presence of constant civil wars and extreme poverty. The affected migrants are always forced to use unlawful means so that they can secure what they perceive as a better life.

In Europe, a country like Italy has been facing waves of illegal migrants from North Africa fleeing from their countries because of poverty and constant political instabilities. The receiving states have different policies in case of such eventuality. In most cases, the migrants are arrested and deported back to their respective countries. They usually are charged with possession of undocumented citizens, and also using illegal border points to enter into the state illicitly. The action of migrating to another country without the knowledge of the receiving country poses a significant security threat, and every nation has a right to put in places policies and measures that will control the flow of migrants into their state.

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Irregular migration is a threat to law and order of a nation. The smuggling and trafficking human into another state can be viewed as a national security threat. In the first place, the action undermines the existing policies that are put in place to control migration. Human smugglers and traffickers are not only associated with migrants alone, but in most cases, they also bring in illegal goods and even guns and other prohibited commodities. The issue poses a severe economic problem which can easily translate to a security threat. The smugglers might also smuggle in terrorist whose intention is to harm the receiving state. The states are always on a high alert when dealing with such a problem since it has a long-term negative impact on the nation.

The smugglers always have associates who they do business with within the host countries. The associates are organized criminal gangs who might be dealing with illegal goods, drugs or even guns. The groups pose a direct threat to law and order in the affected state. If not handled with swiftness, the gangs and smugglers frequently cause immense damage to the nation ranging from murder, violence, and addiction if drugs are involved. An example is what happened in the United States following the illegal smuggling in of cocaine from Latin American countries through the Mexico border. Many criminal gangs emerged, and the result was a lot of death related cases and addiction to a large percentage of youths. In such cases, the states should prioritize the threat and use applicable means to control this kind of migration.

The other security problem posed by migration is lack of social cohesion on the section of the population with migrants. The threat happens when the segment of the community receives a lot of migrants with the same social components, such as race, ethnicity or religion affiliation. Over time the native population might be outgrown by the migrants in terms of people; this will lead to a shift of the domestic political balance within that population (Weiner, 1992, p.1). The migrants will be more powerful, and they will champion for their interests through politics since they have the numbers. The migrants might also shift the conception of national identity and the beliefs of the sociopolitical of the affected community.

Mass migration can result in the above factors and pose a threat to national security. In most cases, this shift is always illegitimate and always result in conflict among the two societies that are trying to integrate into each other. In some scenario, the situation culminates in the influence on the receiving state’s policies by the diaspora community. The community might want to see the migrant community integrated into the new population without causing problems to the natives, which is not always the case. Eventually, the receiving country will experience conflict from the diaspora communities. An excellent example is what happened in Italy, when the Europe Union blame Italy on how it was handling the migrants from Africa and on its move to shut out the migrants. Mass migration will always pose a threat to the receiving state, especially when the migrants share the same ethnicity or religion.

Migration has long been linked to terrorism, especially after the terror act of 9/11 in the United States. The proposition prompted many states under the European Union and other countries globally to implement policies that would help fight the activity. It also heightens the belief that migration is the root cause of all the terrorist acts that have happened in Europe and America. There is no evidence to support the presumption and most strict measures being used to control migration, but rather some of them are political.

Even if there is no evidence to support the link between migration and terrorism, there are security threats that are posed by movement. Irregular migration of migrants violets the receiving country right to control who to enter and who not to enter their country, this is against the law, and most likely the migrants might be subjected to punitive measures. The other threat posed is human trafficking and smuggling of other illegal commodities that might cause a security threat to the receiving country. Also, migration poses a considerable security threat when there is no social cohesion between the two communities occupying the area affected by immigration. When there is no social cohesion, civil clashes might erupt.