People are not goods to be exchanged.
The long-awaited UK – France border deal has finally been agreed. It has been dubbed the “One in, One out” agreement because migrants arriving in the UK via a “small boat” will be returned to France, and in exchange France will send someone else to the UK via a “controlled, safe and legal route.” What both leaders won’t tell you is that this “crisis” is entirely manufactured, and this still won’t stop people from being forced to move using ‘irregular’ routes.
The Prime Minister began his announcement by stating that undocumented migration is a “global and European crisis”, linking it also to the intermediaries who help people circumvent state borders. The fact of the matter is that by cutting migration routes that are deemed “legitimate” by the State, such as visa free travel and resettlement schemes for certain countries, as well as criminalising entry without immigration documentation, more people are pushed into criminalised routes.
People who are allowed to enter the UK in this exchange with France will be subjected to “strict security checks”, which includes barring people who have tried to enter the UK without the required documentation. This is similar to much of the rhetoric used by both the far-right and the Government when discussing Electronic Travel Authorisation (ETAs) – the language of migrants, particularly people who cross the Channel, as being “unvetted” and therefore a (national) security threat has become increasingly pervasive.
This will also increase border policing, as the UK and France commit to funding more Maritime action and increasing law enforcement action both onshore and further inland, as well as jointly targeting routes of transit for undocumented migrants. Enforcement action and more policing can never be the solution to movement and displacement.
When announcing the deal, the Prime Minister appeared to concede further to the far-right in accepting as a so-called ‘legitimate concern’ whether the UK should accept anyone who arrives in the country from a small boat. Not only is this another appeal to “legitimate concerns” that serves to validate the racism and bigotry of the far-right, but the Prime Minister also repeated that the UK accepts “genuine” people seeking asylum. This language of “genuine” asylum claims was a favourite of the previous governments, and starts from a place of suspicion, discrediting people seeking asylum and making it seem that their claims are unscrupulous by default.
This is not a ‘safe route’
The one aspect of the deal that some migrants’ rights groups have celebrated is that by the UK admitting some people from France, it will be easier to reunite families who were separated during their journeys. However, this does not dampen the blow to the thousands of people who will be deported to France and denied their legal right to seek asylum in the UK. We maintain that people are not goods to be exchanged. Nonetheless, it speaks to a long history of immigration systems commodifying racialised people, reminiscent of slave masters exchanging their goods and chattel.
Like previous Government policies that focused on stopping entry to the UK by a specific method, such as in the back of a lorry, this cross-border focus on stopping small boats will not stop people from trying to reach the UK. The Prime Minister may say that work is being done “upstream” to reduce the travel of undocumented people throughout Europe. But, such a punitive approach centred on the aspect of this journey that is most visible in the UK – crossing the Channel in a dinghy or “small boat” – suggests otherwise. Both leaders may make brief reference to the cost of human life that these journeys involve, but ultimately this will push people into more dangerous journeys. We have seen this happen time and again, most recently by people making crossings from further along the coastline.
The UK-France agreement does nothing to address the role of both states in displacing people and forcing them to make these journeys. Both states have already been acting in ways that dehumanise and cause great harm to migrants. What should be done to address people having to make journeys in “small boats” is therefore decriminalising migration, and an end to state violence against migrants.
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