The spatial logics of migration governance along the southern frontier of the European Union

Abstract

Research shows that enforcement measures and human smuggling industries tend to escalate in symbiotic fashion: as one intensifies, so too does the other (Koser 2001; Nadig 2002; Hiemstra 2012). Over the last several years, the cat and mouse games between government authorities who enforce borders and transnational migrants seeking to enter the European Union in an illicit fashion have intensified. In 2011, EU and member state authorities recorded 141,000 irregular border crossings into the EU. They countered this 35 % increase of irregular crossings with nearly 200 operations by land, air and sea, and by returning more than 150,000 persons (Frontex 2012: 4).