Selection in Border Areas: Profiling Immigrants or Crimmigrants?

Abstract

Research on profiling in law enforcement focuses mostly on traffic stops and stop and searches in an Anglo-American context. This article aims to expand this scope by studying profiling practices in migration checks in the Netherlands, aiming to see how migration officers select potential immigrants in the absence of a requirement of reasonable suspicion and how they deal with the legal complexity of the role of race and nationality in the selection process. It does so by employing an elaborate case study of the Royal Netherlands Marechaussee (RNLM). Findings show that officers are not looking for immigrants in general but focus on a subset of criminal immigrants based on stereotypical perceptions of specific nationalities. While these perceptions could be attributed to the discriminatory beliefs of the individual officers, the present study moves beyond that by documenting how unclear legislation and organisational factors are important to understand how these beliefs come to be and are maintained.