The Visible Invisible: The Perils and Dangers of Illegal Immigration. By: Matias S Cavoti

The Visible Invisible: The Perils and Dangers of Illegal Immigration.

By: Matias S Cavoti

International Agenda

A Basic Introduction Into the Migratory World.

Ever since the Lampedusa shipwreck back in October of 2013, that put migrants and their plight on a 24/7 news cycle,  viewers got to see in real time the slow evolution of a Migratory and Refugee crisis that climaxed in late 2015. This coverage from global news networks sparked an active social/political debate over migrant control, immigration flows, and migratory policy or lack thereof. This discussion has been going on the last three years topping many States political agendas. Since then there has been a significant number of reports by international organizations like from the International Organization form Migrations (IOM) that use the Lampedusa event as a starting point but explain that migrants fatalities have slowly have been on the rise for the last 15 years.  This can be attributed to of lack of legal access to destination countries like the United States or the member countries of the  European Union (EU). For example, establishing travel visas or not permitting access to legal residencies in host countries, have hindered the opportunities of many migrants, pushing them to take the risk in trying to reach and enter the country they want to immigrate to through illegal means and many times putting their lives in danger.

What has become increasing evident observing major destination countries and even transit States, over the last five years, is that their migratory policies are outdated or even broken.  Many destinations countries like the United States of America and even transit States like Mexico, for example do not take the proper statics on migrants border deaths or missing, and as a result, it makes it pretty hard for these nations to establish the appropriate actions to curve illegal transits. Places, where border deaths occur, are the same locations where migrants and smugglers try to crosses illegally so States without proper statistics cannot take the appropriate actions because they are primarily operating in the dark.

In this brief report will concentrate on the migratory flows themselves, the dangers and problems  that migrants that travel illegally face in their transit and when they try to establish themselves, analyze the politics behind this transnational phenomena and explain some central migratory concepts.  The time frame for this study will be from the Lampedusa shipwreck in October 2013 to September of 2016 when Frontex becomes the official Border control and Coast Guard of the European Union which seem to be a real game changer.  This study will mainly focus on the migratory flows entering the south of the United States of America/Chapter 1, crossing Mexico and Central America/Chapter 2, the different routes transiting Africa/Chapter4 and Eastern European flow/Chapter 4.  These four major areas of migratory movement that are hotspots which International Organization for Migration (IOM), Migratory Policy Institute (MPI), the United States Department of State and Frontex, have made a series of reports analyzing and breaking down the problems that migrants are facing.

So to start off, let's define migrant, the IOM has modified their definition of migrant in 2016, so let's focus what has changed and evolved in this concept in the past year:

"IOM defines a migrant as any person who is moving or has moved across an international border or within a State away from his/her habitual place of residence, regardless of  the person’s legal status;  whether the movement is voluntary or involuntary;  what the causes of the movement are; or  what the length of the stay is (IOM 2016)". But this definition adds new elements that were not present in the previous one which defined migrants as "people or group of individuals that move from one geographic unit to another crossing administrative or political frontiers with the intention establishing themselves temporarily or permanently in a place different from their place of birth (IOM 2011)". 

The newer definition explicitly covers more theoretical  terrain, it is much more complete compared to its predecessor.  The first difference is the reference to the legal status that is made explicit the fact that migrants can be legal, temporary, permanent, illegal, irregular, undocumented, refugees, stateless and displaced by humanitarian or environmental disasters. Now even though Refugees can be considered migrants, this particular concept has been separated and treated distinctly from  traditional migrants, the theoretical line drawn between these two concepts have become increasingly blurred with the ever growing mix migratory flows that have been increasing the last   20 years.  Migrants and refugees are having a symbiotic relationship as of late, in some cases having the first capitalizing off the second and in other cases vice versa; this will be illustrated later in the report when it is explained how migrants had taken advantage of the Syrian refugee crisis to enter the Europe.

Now back the factors that differentiated these two concepts, is that previously migrants were those who travel and reestablish themselves voluntarily. While on the other hand were refugees those pushed out of their country involuntarily.  Now with this new definition, it establishes that in both cases they are considered migrants be it voluntary or not and puts both under the same theoretical umbrella.

Now having established what a migrant is, it is fundamental to understand what is a Migratory  Policy (MP), and we can affirm that it is an fundamental political tool in managing and controlling migratory flows. States that are the destination for large masses of immigrants,  are in great need for tools to act and control migratory flows are headed in their direction. Also through a proper MP, for example, can help recipient  States to capitalize on the human capital migrants represent.  So basically the objective for a migratory policy is to find a way to manage the flow of people entering (or exiting) a country temporarily or permanently and how can it serve best the needs/interests of the host country. Migratory policies can have the objective of retaining, promoting, regulating, incorporating, recovering and even blocking or redirecting migrants (Marmora 2002)[2]. 

Also, we must define the what is trafficking of persons or human trafficking, concepts that will be recurring issues in this report, which is a migratory crime, they are umbrella terms for the act of recruiting, harboring, transport, providing or obtaining a person compelled labor or commercial sex acts through the use of force, fraud or coercion ( Department of State Trafficking in Persons TIP 2016). The TIP report establishes that movement isn't obligatory, a person can be subjected to human trafficking in their own hometown, but for the sake of this report, we will only highlight most important international cases where people are forced or tricked to cross international borders.

Chapter 1: United States of America/ Land of the Free and  ¿Home of the Illegals? 

To begin let's get a quick migratory picture the United States before entering the subject Illegal Migrants and how the Obama administration handled this complicated issue. The U.S.   is the country that has the largest immigrant population in the world[1]  42.4 million people that make up for 13.3% of its population of 318.9 million (Migration Policy Institute/MPI 2016 ). Around 11 million of those foreign born people are undocumented/illegal migrants living which make up 5% of its workforce (Le Monde Atlas of Minorities 2014). There has been a high demand Illegal migrants that are a flexible supply of low skilled workers that are not affected by the  United States migrant quota system, with "relatively little enforcement against illegal aliens at U.S worksites" (P 9.Hason 2007). So one can affirm that business are the big winners with the actual status quo who capitalize on the use of illegal migrants as their principal workforce and illegals have a positive impact on federal tax revenue, while individual States feel the strain on the public services and their tax payers suffer higher taxes. The "illegal immigration" pins the States and local labor forces against the Federal Government, business and the American consumer.   

Now let's explain very briefly the basic US migratory policy, which can be characterized as a regulation policy. Migrants have three options to work in the US:

·         Becoming a legal permanent resident, normally be being a family member of a US citizen, and in these cases are exempted from quota restrictions.

·         Temporary Work in the United State, which must be sponsored by a company for example, which is subject to a strict quata system.

·         Entering Illegally to the country.

 In a report written by Gordon Hanson called "The Economic Logic of Illegal Immigration" for serial publication Council of Foreign Relation, explains that for example that 958.000 migrants got their permanent residencies in 2004, in a processes that takes 5 years, which 66% had been eligible because of having family members in the country, 16% thanks to their employer sponsorship and 7% were refugees. Now out of this group, 61% of these individuals were at some moment illegal aliens. After being accepted as permanent residents these people with five more years of naturalization, they become eligible for citizenship. Now Gordon Hanson explains that illegal migrants are a very flexible workforce that are not affected by the US migratory quota system, so they can easily satisfy spikes in labor demand this is the way business is quick to defend migrants and vouch for them to obtain residencies when needed.

But what is a illegal migrant/immigrant a term that seems so prevalent especially during the US election cycle in 2016? Now for the IOM the term is not correct and should not be used,  the proper form to refer to a person that  has entered illegally into  a country, or overstayed their time of permanence, should be called an irregular migrant and one must add that they do not have the right to transit in the country or stay (IOM 2011). The illegal aspect may be the migrants transit or crossing into the country or their overstay, but they cannot be considered themselves as illegals.

Now something curious is that the term illegal migrant isn't the correct term in the United States either even thought politicians and public officials use it all the time. The right way to describe these people is an illegal alien or undocumented alien which has a definition very similar word for word to IOM's irregular migrant but adds that these migrants are deportable. But it must be noted the in the Department of State Trafficking in Person report uses the term irregular migrant instead of illegal alien.

So why is the term illegal migrant is used? It has strong criminal and political connotation. The IOM affirms that it denies any basic humanity towards these migrants  (IOM 2011) and elevates them to the grade of a menace especial when used by right-wing politicians, that scapegoat on migrants to gain political capital and backing among their constituency.  But one must note that the left also sometimes uses this term patronizing immigrants when needed. Now the irresponsible use of this term by Donald Trump during the election cycle of 2016 has lowered overall public sensitivity and empathy towards these people, and he has oversimplified a very complex international phenomena, with easy fixes, to a conundrum within a quagmire.     

 An underlying mentality that has been around gaining traction since Reagan's Amnesty, that if migrants break the law.  If anything bad happens to them, they brought it onto themselves, not paying much regard to what drives these people or way they were pushed out of their country in the first place or if these people risk labor exploitation or being taken advantage of by organized crime.

There is a certain level of ambivalences, and double standard towards illegal aliens by the State and the possibility to obtain a permanent residence and a possible citizenship, which leads to certain speculation from illegal aliens that take tremendous risks because till they regularize their situation, they can be deported out of the country. To understand this situation let's imagen that till aliens get their legal residences they have an elastic cord stretching all the way back to the border ready to snap them write back if anything goes wrong, this illustration helps understand the precarious situation of these people and that their transit is not complete until they get their papers in order the border is literally one step away.     

The only major United State Policy towards trying to resolve the illegal migrant's problem goes all the way back to the Ronald Reagan Precedence with the  1986 Reform and Control Act (IRCA), which granted amnesty to all Illegal aliens that had arrived before 1982. But from that point on, it would established that the government would crack down on illegal migrants, monitor companies so they would not contract them and create a stronger border enforcement.

Now in the report  Fatal Journeys (FJ) by the IOM it affirms that the "story of  migrants death in North America is a story of exclusion and exposure" (FJ 2015). Migrants and especial poor undocumented migrants are increasingly seen as a negative other, especially for a certain parts of the US society. Being viewed  as the ones responsible for a wide range of  growing social problems in the country, from competing and stealing jobs from Americans to being a security risk to the country. But one must observe that the moment they became visible, having been able to obtain limited upward social mobility, breaking the paradigm of poor illegal migrants that remain isolated and invisible,  they altered the ontological security[2].  They became  easy targets for the discriminatory discourse of Donald Trump, pushing a securitization agenda against illegals establishing that they are the scourge of society mainly focusing on illegal Mexicans, promising to deport as many as possible and to build a new wall on the Mexico border. 

But what happened during the Obama administration that generated such backlash against illegal aliens? Barak Obama's administration's migratory policy towards illegal aliens, was focused on deporting of criminals and recent unauthorized aliens. On the other hand, they opted not to use voluntary returns,  which was more prevalent during previous administrations, because it does not generate legal repercussions and paper trail, opting for  formal removals with legal proceedings and criminal charges for illegal entries or reentries.

Here are the statistic of deportations of the last three years of Obama's administration[3]:

	Apprehensions	Removals	Returns	Total Deportation
2014	479.371	407.075	163.245	570.370
2015	331.333	333.341	129.122	462.463
2016	408.870	344.354	106.600	450.954
Totals	1.219.574	1084770	398.967	1.483.787

Now here are Obama's administration  totals  from his  two terms compared to the Clinton's and Bush's presidency, which each also had two terms[4]:

	Apprehensions	Removals	Returns	Total Deportation
Clinton	11.036.463	869.646	11.421.259	12.290.905
Bush	8.055.633	2.012.539	8.316.311	10.328.850
Obama	3.307.017	3.094.208	2.186.907	5.281.115
Totals	22.399.113	5.976.393	21.924.477	27.900.870

The lower overall total of deportations during Obama's administration can be attributed to the fact that throughout these years the Mexican economy was doing well, while the U.S. was dealing with a weak labor demand in its post-recession economy. Also, Obama had "inherited a formidable immigration machine" for migratory control especially at southern of the border (Chishti/MPI, 2016). Now the policy shift mentioned  before to formal removals over voluntary returns, observable in the statistics, has produced a drop in recurring aliens, those who have been formally removed and try to cross again dropped 29% in 2007 to 14% 2014. With formal removals, illegal aliens formally have criminal records, so their chances to get legal residencies or any kind of job, are off the table. But on the other hand in U.S. government shift and focus policing the border has established an implicit policy to leave illegal migrants alone who have integrated themselves and did not get into trouble with the law, and this worked in tandem with the local policies of sanctuary cities like Los Angeles, Chicago or San Francisco. And here's where Trump gets his political traction against Illegal aliens and implicitly against immigrants in general, gaining favor from the Alt Right.

Chapter 2: Mexico  and the Central American Northern Triangle (El Salvador, Guatemala, Honduras); Danger in the land of the Beast

The  Fatal Journey of 2015 report establishes that Mexico is a transit country that has a characteristic of having an  internal vertical border that goes from south to north, where Central Americans migrants experience total illegality, vulnerability, marginalization and suffering at the hands of criminal organizations praying on them the whole way extorting, enslaving, torturing and kidnapping migrants holding them for  ransom. To understand the level of violence migrants have to deal with,  for example,  more Honduran nationals have died in their trek north from homicides related to organized crime than from riding on top of trains like the Beast. Another example of gangs ominous presence on the routes, it is known that the Mara Salvatrucha controls whole sections of the transit routes and migrants must pay to pass. Now what is fascinating to discover when working on this subject is that in the TIP report only makes marginal mention of this situation with the Maras or with any other form of organized crime. Also, the  Department of State study, in general, is too soft on Mexico omitting some major issues, the whole section on this country is pretty short even though it is a major transit country for mix migratory flows that have had some major problems during 2014-2015, as the massive arrival of unaccompanied Central Americans minors.    

It must be noted that in most of the sources used for this report mentions that trafficking in persons in this region has become a major issue, while  the State Departments TIP study qualifies all of these countries, Mexico, the Northern Triangle States and Nicaragua, as Tier 2, smuggling and forced recruitment into gangs is prevalent in this area. Adding to this these States have significant institutional and structural limitations fighting these migratory crimes, having to deal with deep-rooted corruption among public officials. But the US Report chooses not to criticize these countries especially Mexico, possibly  because they are collaborating with the Obama administration trying to stop the flow of migrants from arriving at the United States Sothern border. Even overlooking some problems and possible human rights violations, so they do not have to downgrade any of these countries TIP classification from Tier 2 to Tier 2 watch list. In the case of Mexico, there have been accusations in various reports and news articles of heavy-handed policing, poor treatment towards irregular migrants, lack of infrastructure for detention centers for deportation, corruption of State officials and not taking petitions for asylum from possible refugees.   

Before we move on, we must explain what are these "tiers," in the TIP report it is a grading system for the Human Trafficking situations of each country in covered in its pages. Tier 1 is for States that meet the requirements are at least the minimum standers of the Trafficking Victims Protection Act of 2000 (TVPA) which its sole purpose is to fight Human Trafficking and raise awareness. Tier 2 countries are those that do not meet the minimum standard but are putting in a great effort to do so. Tier 2 Watch List, are States even though they are putting effort into battle trafficking in persons but the lack of progress leads to the country downgrade if a country is more than two years in a row in this classification it will be downgrade again to tier 3. And finally tier 3, these are  States that do not meet any of the TVPA's minimum standards and are not making any or very little effort in stopping human trafficking.

What characterized the migratory situation in Mexico and the Southern border of the United States last few years was sudden and massive flow of unaccompanied minors from Central America. In 2014 Mexican authorities intercepted 68.631  minors transiting through its territory, United States border guards stopped 52.000 children in 2014 and 28.387 in 2015 (Ahmed NY 2016). Gang violence, lack of opportunities, severe drought affecting the agricultural sector of their respective countries and searching for family member already established in the US, had generated a mass exodus of minors from Central America adding to the rest of the already existing flow of economic migrants, asylum seekers, refugees and stateless people.

Now this phenomenon of the unaccompanied minors as explained in a report by the Congressional Research Services. Which establishes the way that this situation manifested itself was a sudden surge of people arriving in a very similar fashion as one would see with massive displacements after a natural disaster or a military conflict, but having its own particular dynamic to itself. This flow of children that are particularly easy targets for traffickers to exploit and for gangs in the area to force into their membership, so if this situation wasn't addressed quickly, things could get worse.

With a potential crisis looming US government engaged and pressured Mexico to step up control and stop as many migrants possible in their transit through its territory. Mexico's deportations jumped from 78.000  in 2013 to 170.000 in 2015 (Ahmed NY 2016), filtering large amounts of migrants from getting to the US border in the first place, acting as a buffer. Mexico with financial help from the United States, started heavy policing on its southern border adding more security at its 12 points of entry in the south with its borders with Guatemala and Belize, controlling freight trains heading north, like the Beast and other cargo vehicles and creating 100 mobile checkpoints throughout its territory.  But in the context of this heightened control irregular migrants especially those headed north ended up pushing migrant off the traditional route they were taking, choosing more risky options in their transit, possibly using services of smugglers and having to deal with gangs, police or State officials.   

The US government put into motion Operation Coyote in 2014 and Operation Coyote 2.0 in 2015, working with Mexican authorities to bring smuggler to justice taking extra steps to try and capture them at the border, and also trying to dismantle the networks in Mexico.

Now let us briefly address the push factors from the Northern Triangle States and Nicaragua,   gang violence and major criminal activities in these countries can be traced back to the Illegal Immigration Reform and Immigration Act 1996. This is when the United States deported 46.000 convicts between 1998 to 2005(Ahmed NY 2016), including members of the Mara Salvatrucha and the 18th Street gangs, setting the groundwork for organized crime flourish in these unprepared countries. Adding to this situation the fatal journeys study establishes that Mexico War on Drugs, pushed their organized crime south to these countries, while South American drug cartels started to use this region for the transit of their goods. This caused a major disrupting to these societies with a  spike in violence and crime in these nations, this added to the poor  economic situation of these States were already going through. These push factors have been so persistent since the 80's has generated a culture of migration in these countries.  All three northern triangle States made the UN's top ten countries with the highest homicide rate in the world in 2014, with Guatemala in fifth place with 39.9 (per 10.000), El Salvador is in fourth place with 41.2 and Honduras in first place with 90.4 (CNN 2014).  

The US government also engaged with these countries to try different types of way not only sending these nations 750 million dollars Guatemala, Honduras and El Salvador to help these countries to address this problem. The Obama administration has invested trying to create public awareness in these countries of the dangers of irregular migration, using billboards and public service announcements.

A big issue for the families that are left behind in the Central American countries are there missing love ones that migrated north, but never contacted them again possibly having died in the transit.  And in the Fatal Journey 2016 study I must be noted there is no coordinated system for tracking migrants deaths in Mexico of  Central Americans, there are no centralized statistics on migrants, little effort to identify or repatriate bodies.  So Central American countries have established a joint project to determine missing migrants collecting information on bodies found along the route comparing it with the info given by the families. This is a collaboration with national governments of El Salvador, Honduras, and Guatemala, with the Mexican State of Chiapas, NGOs and family associations, these are bottom-up initiatives started by the citizens in their respective State pushing the governments into action. 

Now those migrants and smugglers that cross illegally with success having penetrated more than 100 miles into United States territory or have taken advantage of the US policy of segmented enforcement, which only guards the main legal and illegal crossing points not going deep into the desert falling back on the natural barriers of this inhospitable geography. Now segmented enforcement has causes the problem of  funneling imprudent migrants into dangerous areas put their lives at risk. Us Border Patrol estimates that 6.500 (P 26. FJ2) border death since 1998 and 320 during 2015, with three major causes being the Rio Grande, the southern desert and violence at the border, and one must note that these are deaths on the US side of the border.  The FJ report  does not have the statistics on the Mexican side and there is a known number of missing especially in the desert areas where many times entrances goes totally undetected.   

        

Chapter 3: ¿Is Fortress Europe Crumbling? ¿or is it Building New Walls?   

Let's start this section with a very brief historical overview of Europe on migratory issues especially illegal transits, migrants fatalities and missing that have been the center of IOM reports when working in this region. Now during the late  90's and early 2000's there were very few fatalities for migrants and refugees  (MRs)  mostly tried to enter legally into the content and subjected themselves to the States controls, and irregular migrants were the product of overstays in their permanence. But things changed when the European States increasingly started to make it an obligation to travel with visas and fined companies if any of their passengers did have them, and this shut the door for potential refuge seekers to get on any flights, busses, boats...etc, their options were severely diminished. This sets the trend for the next 15 years before the MRs crisis of 2015, where European countries did not know how to manage the influx of the mixed migratory flow of people risking their lives crossing the Mediterranean or Aegean seas from Africa or the Middle East.  Things boiled over generating a full-blown crisis with the Syrian refugee crisis that had a profound impact on migrant trying to enter Europe. From the year 2000 till 2014, it's estimated that 25.000 have perished trying to cross the Mediterranean (OIM 2015). In another report filed by the OIM called the Fatal Journey; Lives Lost During the Migration (FJ 2015), written by Tara Brain and Frank Laczko, affirm that 17.306 people have died trying to cross during the period of 1993 to 2012, and 14.600 of those were in the Mediterranean. Fatal Journey cites another report that establishes 19.812 deaths from 1988 to 2014; Now way are there three reports with different death tolls? It's because there are no official statics of how many people have died on the trek to Europe, the bodies are not identified, there is no death certificated made, and families are not notified. There is no paper trail for the bureaucrats to follow or established policy, it almost like the problem isn't there, but it's a very visible/invisible problem that pretty much smacked Europe on its face. The problem got so bad that municipalities and towns where many of the dead were being found had run out of space to bury the dead, there was a need to allocate new terrain for cemeteries.   

In 2015 IOM establishes that 1.011.712 million MRs have entered Europe during the crisis, and up to the 15 of August of 2016 they had 266.042 people arrived, with 3151 fatalities during that year. The Syrian crisis that is pushing Europe to the limits that have not been seen since the Boat People crisis after the Vietnam war.

Now from 2013 to 2015, a series of reports by the International Organization for Migration (IOM) diagnosed that the lack of a proper migratory policy was leading to a large amount of unnecessary migrant deaths and a possible crisis could be on its way. In a study called Migration Trends Across the Mediterranean: Connecting the Dots, written by the IOM's regional office MENA,  explains how the lack of coordinated policies lead to the death of 3.500 people in 2014 and  3771 deaths in 2015.  This tragedy was owed to the fact that Europe had severe structural administrative, political and security failures, generating a situation where people have taken unnecessary risks out of desperation putting their lives in danger.

The European Union itself has a very particular institutional and legal situation that we will not get into because it would be report all to its self, but one can affirm that the whole system buckled and almost totally collapses during the refugee crisis in 2015. The crisis had a strong undercurrent of migrants mixed into the flow of refugees heading north through the Western Balkans. Adding to the situation Dublin III  had been suspended generating a push for MR into the heart of Europe heading to Germany since they did not have to stay in the first country that had arrived to. This was done to relieve the burden of Italy and Greece who had a massive accumulation of MRs in their territories and also reduce the cost of taking back to force migrants back to the first State in which they had arrived to,  which is established in Dublin III. The crisis also provoked that transit countries of the Schengen Area near the Balkan Corridor temporarily reinstated land border controls. Frontex was shown to have a lack of means and recourses in stopping the flow from reaching Europe in the first place and in early 2016 the EU/Schengen policy of non-foulement[5]  was broken forcing refugees and migrants out of Greece and back to Turkey.

An important recurring issue in the migratory reports of the last three years is the political void of the border deaths and missing, which isn't exclusive to Europe because it happens on a global scale, but most reports centers around the fact that the Mediterranean  is probably the most dangerous place on the planet for migrants that are trying to cross it. In a Study called Mediterranean Missing, Understanding the Needs of the Families and Obligations of the States, 2016, by City University, University of York and the IOM,  establishes that there is policy vacuum produced by the fact the  EU does not know how to handle  the deaths of the people that try to cross the Mediterranean. There isn't a standardized protocol how to manage and dispose of the bodies of the dead that are found in European waters and coasts. EU countries (like many other States) do not identify the dead or inform their families denying them solidarity and closure.  Nor EU or individual State members have centralized database holding information on migrants missing, identified dead, unidentified bodies or DNA samples. Sometimes the only place where families can get information is from the smugglers which tend to lie, establishing that their loved ones have crossed and are alive and well, because telling the truth that they have died is bad for business.  

Now, this also affects the capacity for the EU States to handle the issue, because not managing this problem correctly. Not elaborating statistics, does not generate a paper trail, so the authorities do not have the correct information to be able to fix the problem in the first place because they are operating blind wasting time and money with reactive policies. But it is to be seen what will change and impact in border security and control with Frontex that has converted into the official border security and cost guard of the European Union as of September of 2016 expanding its mandate, not covered in the first two quarterly reports of 2016. The third and fourth 2016 quarterlies have yet to be published, to see this institution's impact on the migratory flow, with its new extended mandate.

Something observable in Frontex's  quarterly reports is that they go great lengths to not to use the term Irregular Migrants, but it does not use the term of Illegal Migrants either. They use the term Illegal Stay; these institutional documents walk the symbolic tightrope political correctness and the need to instill urgency of a threat very well.

Another term that is different in these reports is that uses the term facilitators and not traffickers/smugglers, and it doesn't define the concepts. Now during this first and second quarter studies, the Frontex informs that it had 568 cases of stopping facilitators operating in the Balkan corridor. But the report establishes that migrant movement during the refugee crisis was very self-organized in this region, not depending on smugglers to reach their destination.   

In Frontex's second Quarter Report (Q2) of 2016 mentions that Afghans are becoming the most prominent group in the region being 34% of the of the total of the nonregional migrants while Syrians dropped to the second place with 16% (P8 WBQ2). One must note that Afghans and Iraqis seem to be a constant in Europe as irregular migrants, the EU will have to take proactive steps if they want to take control of these migrants that had taken advantage of the Syrian crises to piggyback their way into Europe.

Irregular migratory movement in 2016 has grown by 19%  in the Schengen area from Q1 of 2015 with 127.000 cases, with Iraqis and Iranians, citizens being the most prominent. Also, Frontex mentions the presences of Moroccans and Algerians that tried to enter Europe through the Balkan corridor and Hungry, and in some cases with Syrian IDs.

Frontex ranks refusals at entry with Ukrainians in the first place with 6.555, Albanian with 3.615 and Moroccans at 1.755, all of these cases at land crossings, while Brazilian had the highest refusal rate at European airports 878. Reports establish that the Syrian Refugee flow has mostly stopped, but we can observe the studies concentrates on how to stop Albanian, Kosovar, Afghan and Turkish migrants in the southeast.  In the North East,  there seems to be worry over Russian movement and transits, and  illegal overstays of Iraqis and Iranians in the heart of the EU is a cause of alarm, so we have to wait till Q3 and Q4 to see how these dynamic situations evolve.

EU member States that have had significant migratory events in the past three years:

Czechia/ Czech Republic: Here is a case worth mentioning in how to handle human trafficking which isn't the only case in Europe, but it is a good example in how to combat this crime correctly. In the United States, Department State of  TIP report of  2016 classifies this State as a tier 1 country having cases of debt bondage in the construction sector, forestry, manufacturing, and the service sector. But is interesting to see how the report centers on the positive steps the country has taken to combat these migratory crimes, like helping more NGOs engage and assist victims, train and add more law enforcement exclusively dedicated to fighting this crime and training judges and prosecutors in how to manage these cases to help victims out.

Germany:  This country that has been the main destination for many of the refugees, with migrants that have piggybacked their way into the heart of  Europe, trying to take advantage of the situation. So not only does Germany have to deal with the influx of Syrian refugees during the crisis of 2015 but also a strong flow of migrants from the Balkans that are also petitioning for Asylum, even though they are mostly are economic migrants. So the German authorities had decided to take the position on this issue, fast tracking and rejecting these petitions of citizens of this region adding their State to an official "Safe Country" list. In 2014 Germany had Bosnia and Herzegovina, the Republic of Macedonia, Serbia, Ghana and Senegal on the safe country list and added in 2015 Albania, Kosovo and Montenegro, and by law,  anyone of these countries can only be taken off the list by decree for a maximum time of six months. For example out of 49.692 Albanian asylum petitions were taken by Germany from January to October 2015, only seven were given refugee status and 25.600 were rejected, we have another example with citizens from Kosovo that made 35.600 asylum petitions in the same time frame and also only having seven acceptances for refugee status and 24.400 rejected. While in contrast 103.708  Syrian petitions were made in the same time frame and while still being processed only 0.02% were rejected (Asylum Information Data Base AIDA 2016).

Other EU countries also have safe countries lists like Austria, Belgium, Bulgaria, Czech Republic,  Denmark, France, Ireland, Luxemburg, Malta, Slovakia... just to name a few , however, each country has a different lists, but Albania, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Kosovo, Montenegro and Serbia are on most of these lists. Now the European Commission has expressed the need to establish a unified list, but the initiative has not materialized yet.

Greece: This country has felt the brunt of the Syrian refugee crisis, with a massive number of refugees and migrants using its territory for transit entirely overwhelming its public services while trying to recover from an economic catastrophe. The MR flow crossed from Turkey through the Aegean sea, so in 2014 Frontex started Operation Poseidon was created to help lift some of the burdens the Greek officials were going through trying to manage the situation helping the country with border security, search and rescue missions, registration, identification and deportation. Frontex added with 19 vessels, one aircraft, two helicopters and 667 agents from around Europe, with a cost of 6.626.661 Euros (Frontex and European Commission 2016).  NATO also collaborated with Frontex, adding 31 vessels and working intelligence to crack down on smugglers, working with the Greek and Turkish coast guards, and analyzing the possibility of extending its missions to other areas of the Mediterranean.

Italy and Malta: The surge of migrants arriving in Italy and the Lampedusa tragedy 3 of October of 2013, where 366 (OIM 2015) migrants from Eritrea, Somalia and Ghana that sunk off the coast of the Italian island. This tragedy was a game changer, there had been a before and after marking precedent of the incumbent crisis, the Mare Nostrum program was born as a result, its primary mandate was to search and rescue. But it produced an unwanted effect on the migratory flux,  a pull effect, MRs would hit the seas knowing if they didn't make it there was a good chance that the Italian's would save them, the traffickers actually took advantage of the program. Also during Mare Nostrum many of the possible MRs that could have arrived at this Island ended up in the Sicilia.   After a year Mare Nostrum is replaced with a Frontex program called Triton, which had fewer resources and its mandate centered around the protection of Italian and Maltin territories. Frontex also added two more operations that would complement Triton: Hermes and Nautilus, these three programs to complement each others efforts to stop MRs from Tunisia, Libya and Algeria. Up to 80% of MRs that reached Italy in 2015 used Libya and Egypt as their platforms to cross to Europe, with the closure of the Balkan corridor the Libyan route started to become the most deadly way to Europe.

Now the EU itself also has created a special naval force working under the mandate of Operation Sophia which started in August of 2015 patrolling the Mediterranean to stop Smugglers vessel from reaching Europe, having arrested 89 smugglers and being handed over to the Italian authorities.  This operation also worked search and rescue missions, having saved more than 26.000 migrants.   

Spain: In a fascinating report by Altai/IOM from 2015 called Migration "Trends Across the Mediterranean: Connecting the Dots",  explains that  90% of all irregular migrants entered legally to Spain and became irregular when their permanence expired and only 10% (10p. Altai 2015) entered through illegal boat crossings. Most of the flow the heads to Spain originates from Senegal, Cameroon, Guinea and Nigeria. And the report makes the observation that there has been a steady transition from migrants to Asylum Seekers. 

The two largest groups of irregular migrants in Spain during 2014 were Syrians with 66.684  people and Eritreans 34.341 , and it must be noted that both nationals cross the African continent from east to west, instead of trying to cross through Egypt or Turkey, these two groups were far ahead of the unspecified Sub-Saharans at 26.341. Spain had 5.941 asylum petitions made during 2014 with Syrians being around 28% , Ukrainian nationals at 16% and Malians at 10% (26p. Altai 2015).

Spain has three Frontex Operation working on its doorstep trying to stop illegal entries into its territory: Hera, Indalo and Minerva, patrolling its waters trying to stop smugglers  and working search and rescue missions.

Now what sets Spain apart from other European countries is that it has two enclaves in Morocco Ceuta and Melilla, which that are completely fenced off from the African nation.  In the case of Melilla the  IOM report mentions that migrants storm the fence in large groups and authorities from both sides try to stop them but some do make it through, and it must be noted that the Moroccan authorities have built a second fence perimeter on their side.

Now for Ceuta because of its geographic position migrants try to access it by sea but are pushed back with force by the Spanish Guardia Civil and they have used in the past pellet guns to scare them off, but this particular practice has killed migrants in the past.

Frontex partnership Western Balkans ( Albania, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Kosovo, Macedonia, Montenegro, Serbia):

There has been in the first quarter of 2016 an 84% decrease in illegal transits compared the previous quarter in 2015 with 215.000, with Syrians, Afghans, Iraqis, Pakistanis, Iranian and Moroccans being 48% of the bulk of the flow while 51% are of unknowns nationalities (P 6. WBQ1 2016), while during  Q2 there were 26.488 illegal transits with an 88% drop from Q1. The EU-Turkey agreement has affected that migratory and Refugee flow of the whole region, adding the coordinated efforts of the countries of the region and the EU since November of 2015 they start slowly blocking, filtering and funneling refugees and migrants back to Greece and after the agreement back to Turkey. The 9th of March the corridor was officially closed. Until the EU-Turkey agreement went into effect, there was a large mass of  Migrants and Refugees (M/R) accumulation in Greece putting stress on their infrastructure. In 2016 the number of arrivals to Europe dropped from 1.056.599 people in 2015 to 387.739 (IOM 2017), this in good measure is owed to the coordinated efforts of the EU with the Balkan States, Greece and Turkey.

Now in the first quarter of 2016 had 8.800 border rejections of migrants that could not enter the EU  States next to the Balkan corridor and the Balkan partner countries, while in the second quarter they  had 10.000 cases,  with citizens from Balkan States that are not part of the EU are the most rejected group followed by  Turkish nationals. The statistics of these rejections are not in the front part of the Frontex report like other data but in the annex because it a politically sensitive issue the rejection of Citizens that are part of the partnership and the rejection of Turkish nationals, a country that has allowed Syrian refugees back in to alleviate Greece.

In the Frontex,  Q reports establish that Albanians and citizens of Kosovo are most common cases of migrants that use fake travel documents using fake EU IDs and both of these nationalities also are the highest regional cases of overstaying permanence. The study also makes the observation of Turkish nationals that are illegally establishing themselves in Bosnia-Herzegovina but does not give statistics on the issue.            

Now referring to human trafficking the US TIP report give most of the Balkan countries are a Tier 2 classification, for example, the study mentions that Bosnia and Herzegovina has a general lack of protection for victims in the country or these State have a lack of resources. But Croatia has a lower classification than the rest with a tier 2 watch list.  With cases of Bosnians and Romanians being forced to work the agricultural sector jobs and the countries judicial system that has a high-level acquittals of perpetrators  that force migrants to work, of now on the other hand the  State is helping NGOs establish shelters.

Another country that must be mention from this region is Macedonia downgraded from a Tier 1  in 2015 to a tier 2 in 2016. This country has problems with border guards that have been involved with traffickers and even under the strain of the migratory crisis the government didn't put in enough effort in managing the situation. But the biggest problem for the TIP report was that the government discontinued its partnership with the NGOs that had outreach programs to help the victims of human trafficking.

Now the TIP report criticized Macedonia while the Frontex studies only mentions that during the height of the Refugee crisis Macedonia built a two-layered fence and added more border guards that were trained and given resources by the IOM and the European Commission to help the country manage the situation. 

Frontex Eastern Partnership:

These particular reports focus on the European Union's eastern border and its partnership with neighbor countries Belarus, Ukraine, Moldova, Armenia, Azerbaijan and Georgia, with Frontex. The first two Quarterly reports of 2016 explains that most of the Illegal crossings at the eastern European border were not migrants but smugglers with contraband out of 840 cases in Q1 they were about 55% of the detained being Moldovan, Ukrainian and Russian nationals while 45% were migrants from Afghanistan and Vietnam (P 8. EE Frontex 2016). This scenario pretty much repeats itself in the second Quarter.

The report mentions an Arctic route of migrants that enter through Finland with migrants from Afghanistan, India, Cameroon, Pakistan and Bangladesh, but this path has been closed, but the study does not explain how this route was closed.

Again we are confronted by the concept of facilitators, which have grown in presence in this region and the report establishes that smugglers are present in the region being mostly  from Russia particularly   from the region of the Caucuses, Ukraine and Belarus. But since of the closure of the Arctic route to Finland migrant smuggling has dropped significantly. Document fraud doesn't seem to be an issue in the region with very few cases and visa overstays do not seem to be much of a problem either but that 99% of the cases were discovered when leaving means that Eastern border countries don't actively search for irregular migrants. While the Russian Federation during most of 2016 started to crack down on migrants and heightened their `policing of their western borders shared with Europe.

There have been 19.293  refusals during Q1 at Eastern European borders mostly done by Poland, rejecting the entry of Russians, Ukrainians and Moldavians (P8. EE Frontex 2016).   Now during Q2, there has substantial increase with 25.640 rejections of entries again mostly by Poland rejecting citizens from the same State from the previous quarter.

Now let's focus on some of  Frontex's partner States that have had some attention from migratory reports these past few years starting with Armenia, a transit country that is a Tier I nation taking important step fight trafficking in person in its territory. But there it is still a source country for women and children for the sex trade and other forms of exploitation, mostly being sent to the UAE and Turkey, while Armenian men are subjected to force labor in Russia. It must be mentioned that George Armenia's neighbor and also part of the partnership is also tier 1 nation taking many of the same steps and suffers the same problems as Armenia.

Armenia, Azerbaijan and Georgia have taken a great efforts to disrupt the flow of foreign fighters transiting through and returning to  their respective  territories,  they have invested heavily in their border security: for example using  biometric and biographic ID control of people transiting through their respective  borders, control passenger manifest on flights and establishing watch list. This possibly could have a spillover effect in hindering or stopping human trafficking and smugglers, because tools are fundamental in catching these criminals. Now in a US State Debarment report on Terrorism published in 2015, it affirms that these countries put in all this extra effort on the border and document security because these State wants to secure visa-free travel to EU countries. Heavy securitization can be a double edge sword for migrants, on one hand, it can weed migratory crime but can be an obstacle for migrants because State can use national security as an excuse to block migrant from transiting or establishing themselves in their territory.

Belarus a country that an interesting situation, that makes it unique in Europe, it is a tier 3 country almost the lowest ranking on the US TIP report, their citizen are victims of the trafficker and being sent to Russia, Poland, Turkey and other Middle Eastern Nations. This country is also a hub for trafficking nationals of third countries, and another aspect that makes this State standout  is that Belarus sponsors forced labor, unemployed people must pay a fee to the State or face compulsory community service, and this could be an import push factor for its citizen wanting to migrate to Europe.

Chapter 4: Africa ¿Land of Lost Hope?

To begin this section on Africa giving a brief picture some of the general problems that migrants have to face in their trek towards better opportunities, then we will observe particular challenges that were relevant during the last three year in individual countries. No African nation is classified as a Tier 1,  20 of its States are tier 2 countries like Ethiopia. Morocco and Egypt, 16 are tier 2 watch list, with Mali, Niger and Tunisia being the most notable. Now the continent has the highest concentration of tier 3 States with a total of 13  with both Sudans, Eritrea, Djibouti and Algeria being some of the most complex cases. And finally, two of the three special cases of countries that suffer extremely high levels of lawlessness Libya and Somalia can be found in this group of nations.

 A significant problem characterizes this content is a large number of Stateless people, who are individuals that lack any kind of identity documents and their countries do not recognize them as their citizens/national, and severely hinders their access to any essential public services like health and education complicating these people economic opportunities. The UN agency for Refugees estimates 10 million people are Stateless around the world and 1/3 are minors (P23, TIP 2016).

Now, why are Stateless people of interest in a migratory report? Well its due to the fact that they do not have any type identification or nationality in the first place, as mention before, so obviously they do not have travel documents so there obligated to transit illegally, having to use smugglers to cross, possibly falling into the hands of traffickers because they are easy targets to coerce or to tricked  into bonded labor. Stateless people are the permanent fuel reserve for the trafficker and smugglers.

Another aspect that traffickers take advantage is that stateless people are not nationals of any State,  they have no national authorities to go to, these people have never been registered as citizens anywhere, so no State has the obligation to find them if they go missing, they are as invisible as you can get.

A Stateless person can't access public education, health, get married, get a driver's license, work...legally, it like they don't exist; But how does this happen? Well, usually when a  person is born the infant acquires the nationality of where he/or she is born, or it is obtained through descendence from their parents, and in some cases, a person must apply to become a national in the first place. Most of the time citizens are formally registered in the public administration of the country where they were born and is given a birth certificate and identification. Now it must be understood in the case of many African States especially sub-Saharan Nations, they do not have their whole population covered with identity documents, but not all of these undocumented people are considered Stateless. Now some people are born stateless, and others become stateless; but how can this happen? Basically State themselves generate this situation through action, omission or error, they negate the possibility of particular people in their territory the opportunity in accessing citizenship, in some cases the mere presence of these individuals is deemed illegal, even if it's their country of birth.  

An interesting example of Stateless people in Africa, is the case of the people that fled the civil war in Liberia and Sierra Leone that are no longer considered by their host countries as refugees and were not allowed to naturalize there and have had difficulty repatriating themselves, in an article called "Who belongs? Statelessness and Nationality in West Africa" by Bronwen Mandy gives the example Liberia turned down 1.000 petitions for Passports from ex-refugees that were Liberian, but their homeland justified because these people did not have enough Knowledge of Liberia.

In Africa groups that are at risk of becoming Stateless are: as mention before refugees,  irregular migrants and their children are explicitly discriminated against and not allowed to naturalize or have legal residencies, nomadic populations that have always suffered suspicions from settled populations, border population that no State wants to take responsibility for and  children that are born out of wedlock with single mothers or raped women in which many African countries will not give this person nationality because it is only given through paternal descent.

Now in Africa, even those who would have no problem into accessing the right of identification and nationality are a serious issue accessing them because of the excessive requirements and costs. Weak in civil registration and identification plagues the African States, only 4% of births are registered in Liberia, 24% in Guinea-Bissau and less the 50% in Niger and Nigeria (Bronwen/MPI 2016), so many African have no opportunity in acquiring the basic travel documents that they need, pushing them to migrate irregularly.  And if they could  African travel documents have very little access to visa-free travel, another hurdle if they want to migrate,  in a ranking of 160 countries made by passport index, in the bottom ten countries five are from Africa  Somalia, Ethiopia, South Sudan, Eritrea, and Sudan. Seychelles is the highest ranked African country in 55th place and South Africa the first continental State at 93rd.   

Eastern Africa:

Djibouti: This country is a transit place of Ethiopian, Somali and Eritrean voluntarily and involuntarily migrants in route to Yemen and Saudi Arabia. This country is a Tier 3 State, so it's a hotspot for human trafficking and a distribution hub for these criminals, and adding to this situation because of the  between Yemen and Saudi Arabia that has been raging since (YEAR),   30.000 Yemeni citizens have crossed into Djibouti fleeing the war in their country of origin, being exploited once they arrive at this African nation, some being kidnapped for ransom by smugglers. 

 Eritrea: This State is classified tier 3 and both the IOM  and TIP  reports establish that Eritrean nationals are suffering disproportionally at the hands of traffickers, in a study by van Reisen Estefanos and Rijken, called The Human Trafficking Cycle: Sinai and Beyond mentions that between 25.000-30.000 (121p. FJ) Eritreans had fallen victim to organized crime between 2009-2013 and around 10.000 have died. Many were kidnapped for ransom, that if not paid, they are killed, and some get their organs to be sold on the Egyptian black market, which in the report mentions that the World Health Organization (WHO 2015) accuses Egypt of being an organ trafficking hotspot. In the Mediterranean Missing report from 2016 also accuses Turkey of organ trafficking, practicing unnecessary autopsies on the dead to mask organ removal from the bodies of dead migrants and refugees

Now what drives Eritreans to leave their country, the report mentions that obligatory military conscription pushes many people out to the country, because the time they serve in the military is just terrible and inhuman. Evading this obligation is considered a major crime in the country, this puts people on the run and adding to this situation Eritrean government has a policy of shooting on sight if caught red handed leaving the country by land or sea.

It must be noted that in the TIP report, Eritrea only gets a very basic diagnostic, about two paragraphs, while most countries get half to a full page of information. The study explicitly mentions that  US official have no idea what's going on in the country, in another report on Terrorism published 2015 also by the State Department they actually recognize this problem and put as a priority to obtain intelligence from this country.

Ethiopia: This countries national also fall victim to trafficker once they cross into Yemen, and even those who are not victims of these crimes suffer significant hardships in their route to Saudi Arabia, now during 2013-2014 this Arab country had a cracked down on migrants, using forced returns with deported 160.000 (p 141. FJ) Ethiopians. As mentioned previously the flow into Yemen is bidirectional, but it's estimated that in 2016 around 92.000 (P 24. FJ2) Ethiopians are in Yemen, and 168.000 Yemenis have left their country with 79.000 have crossed into Africa.

Many Ethiopians boys are trafficked to Djibouti and forced to work as errand boys, domestic workers, thieves and street beggars. But many times the minor's parent forcibly send them to Djibouti, or they leave the country by their own initiative by  bribing public officials to acquire passports without their parent's consent to search for work tending to fall into the grasp of traffickers most of the time.

Ethiopia has one of the highest fertility rates in the world with a population of 92 million, so  a full blown Ethiopian Exodus in the future could be a potential crisis in waiting, one must add that in this country there is also a culture of migration, to migrate and establish oneself is a sign of personal success. 

 Sudan: This country is characterized with a complicated situation with extraordinary amounts of unaccompanied minors, refugees and asylum seekers primarily from East and West Africa that somehow have ended up in its territory. People that are vulnerable to sex trafficking and forced labor, there have been reports of cases of Ethiopians and Eritreans being abducted from Sudan based refugee camps. Eritreans have even been kidnapped from or near border crossings, brutalized and offered return only if a ransom is paid, the responsible from this particular migratory crime are linked to the Rashaida Tribe, but the Sudanese border guards allegedly facilitate the abductions  (IOM 2016). 

Northern Africa:

Algeria: Even though this country is a member of the IOM  neither both Fatale Journey reports or the Connecting the Dots study mention this country, and both studies write extensively about what is happening in the region of the Maghreb referring the perils and difficulties migrants suffer in that part of the world. But the US Tip report does elaborate on the Human Trafficking situation in this country, that is classified as a tier 3, explaining that undocumented sub-Saharan migrants from Mali, Niger, Cameroon, Cote d'Ivoire and Nigeria are vulnerable to labor and sex traffickers, because of their irregular migratory status, their need to work, to be able to feed themselves and the language barrier, creates this level of social isolation that make it easy for trafficker to obtain new recruits. 

Isolation plays a fundamental role for human trafficking to thrive and maintain itself; it seeks to hide from government oversight, finding a strong foothold in rural and agriculture areas, at high sea in fishing vessels, in mines and in other isolated industries like textile workshops. But there are other forms of isolation that migrants suffer especially which can be cultural, political and legal isolation in transit or destination countries which pushes them illegality, which can leave these people in a situation of vulnerability for the trafficker to take advantage of this situation.

Debt bondage with smugglers is a common practice in this country, with migrants having to pay for their services through domestic labor, forced begging or prostitution. In some cases of the beggars will rent babies to other conational beggars so they can generate more sympathy and make more money.  

The Department of State report affirms that Tuareg are one of the groups that pushing the slave trade in the reason, thanks to their capacity and logistics in the Sahel. The Report also explains that the Algerian authorities are sluggish in their response to the cases of human trafficking and have the tendency of arresting and detaining the victims of migratory violations, so these people many times do not have who to turn to and do not denounce in fear of ending up in jail themselves.   Vacatur is a fundamental concept in the fight against human trafficking; it establishes that crimes committed as result of being subjected to trafficking, such record should be vacated or expunged. Vacatur is the formal recognition of factual innocence because if this doesn't happen victims cannot make any plea for help to State official because they are at risk of being jailed or expelled, and this plays right into the trafficker's hands. 

Egypt: A trafficking issue that stands out in Egypt, is when individuals from the Persian Gulf, including Saudi, Kuwaiti and Emirati nationals perches Egyptian women and girls for temporary or summer marriages for the commercial sex and/or forced domestic labor, with the parents of the girls work as the transaction brokers. Syrian women have been easy targets to force into marriage or to sell them off as domestic labor

In Egypt itself South Asians, East Africans and Syrians are subjected to forced labor, domestic services and begging, and the report explains the foreign domestic workers a not covered by Egyptian labor law leaving these people in an extremely vulnerable situation, suffering excessive hour of work, confiscation of travel documents, withholding wages, denial of food and medical.

The Sinai Peninsula had been a hotbed of illegal activities of human and organ trafficking, a place where many Eritreans fall victim, but during 2015/16 the Egyptian Army have moved into the area expelling these criminal elements, but it's possible that these same groups have resurfaced and relocated on the Libyan border.

Libya: Racism and Xenophobia are major issues for migrants in this country, and this is added to the already complicated social-political situation, but migrants still travel to this country searching for work. Now when they arrive discovering the hostility towards them, and this tends to push them to try their luck in crossing the Mediterranean, before returning home empty handed to their homelands. In some cases migrants are trapped in Libya not willing to cross to Europe and facing a hostile situation, they find that they have no one to go to because most countries have closed their embassies since the end of the war.

In the US TIP report  doesn't classify Libya in any of the tiers, but considers this country a Special Case, with Somalia and Syria, these are State with a high level of lawlessness due to the conflict that these States have to deal and this internal chaos has produced a fertile breeding ground for trafficker and migrants exploitation in general. In the case of  Libya, this country has trafficking networks reach stretch into Niger, Nigeria, Chad, Eritrea, Ethiopia, Somalia and Sudan shuttling victims to forcibly work Libya or trick people into going to the country with the promise of a false job. 

In the  Connecting the Dots Report reveals why there is such hostility towards migrants, explaining that  rival factions, the official government, and rebel groups, accusing the migrants having helped the opposing  side, with a particularly strong scapegoating against Palestinian and Syrians, but  this comes off  somewhat as a paradox because the Libyan Crisis has "created the perception of the  Door of Europe being open"  (82p. Altai)  and Libya is the doorstep. Libya is the main jumping point to cross to Italy and Malta, 80%  (78p. Altai) of all the illegal boat arrivals to Italy part from Libya.

 In the case of Sub-Saharan migrants, there is a strong cultural push back in this North African country against what was Muammar Gadafi's migratory policy of open doors towards African migrants, being part of his Pan-African political stance. Now, in contrast, the country has 18 official detention centers, under the control Directorate for Combating Illegal Migrants, a public institution created specifically to crack down on irregular migrants. Now one must note is that in the rebel-held areas of the country they also have migrant detention facilities but in unspecified numbers.

The 26 of June of 2016 The European Commission created two task forces to engage Libyan authorities to control the outflow of migrants better using their country as a platform to cross to Europe. The first mission was to prepare Libyan coast guard and Navy better, to stop smuggler vessel from using their costs. The second mission affects the migratory flow indirectly is coordinating with the Libyan State in stopping the flow of weapons from crossing into Europe leading to more control on vessels, possibly stopping smuggler in these checks (European Commission 2016).   

Morocco: When migrants arrive to Morocco many stay  because of the difficulty in crossing to Spain, be it because the hindrance of the Moroccan or Spanish authorities or by the fact that they actually find jobs in the country, Morocco has a need for migrant labor in the agricultural sector and in construction and authorities actually gives them the possibility of establishing themselves legally, so they can be able to work. So in various ways, this State sometimes works like a buffer/barrier nation blocking the entrance to Europe, and they use this capability as a political tool to negotiate with Europe.

Some female undocumented migrants primarily from Sub-Saharan Africa and South Africa are coerced into prostitution, the TIP report mentions that criminal networks operating out of Oujda near the Algerian border and in the northern coastal town of Nadar forced undocumented migrants into the sex trade and into begging (TIP 2016). The study also mentions Cameroonian and Nigerian trafficking networks established in Morocco exploit migrants and also threaten their families back home if they do not do their biddings (TIP 2016).

There are four main crossing routes to Spain from Morocco:  through the Gibraltar stretch, Tangier-Tarifa and two land crossings into Melilla and Ceuta, the two Spanish enclaves in Morocco that were mention before in the section about Spain. A big issue with Spain is the fact that Syrians are able to "rent" Moroccan passports, because ethnically they are similar to Moroccans who are allowed to enter transitorily to the enclaves, once in, they petition for asylum. It is interesting to see that later this worked the other way in 2015 because Moroccans posed as Syrian in the Balkan corridor to enter Europe.

Tunisia: The country has disarticulated most of the migratory flow through its territory especial heading towards the sea, there are many migratory checkpoints in the country filtering out irregular migrants. But everything isn't perfect in this country there have been reports of mass graves near Zargis of bodies that wash up on shore, locals have nothing to do with the dead, so they throw them in a pit at the local landfill.

West and Central Africa:

Mali: The situation in this country isn't as bad as previously mentioned African countries but it does have a trafficking hotspot the  city of Gao being pinpointed as another trafficking center for migrants, in OIM reports, but in the US TIP report Mali is a Tier 2 not mentioning the criminal activities in this city, even though it mentions that "alleged corruption is pervasive throughout the security forces and judiciary institution, which impedes on the government's efforts to persecute crimes in general, including trafficking" (p260 TIP 2016). The Report does mention that the Tuareg do practice hereditary slavery practices and that Malian boys like many other West African youth that are of Muslim faith are forced to beg for their Marabouts / Religious Teachers.

 Mauritania: Like in Niger hereditary slavery is practiced in this country, having a traditional slave cast, women of this group are at high risk of being forced into the slave trade and being sent abroad. The TIP report affirms that Middle Eastern and North African use legally contracted marriages to sexually exploit Mauritanian women and girls to become sex slaves in Saudi Arabia, sometimes women are tricked to think they are going to be employed in Arabe State and end up or in the sex trade or in forced domestic servitude. West African boys sent to the Mauritanian Muslim religious schools are forced to beg for the local Imans, but really stands out in the TIP report about this country is that "41% of Mauritanian children lack birth certificates, so generally are not permitted to enroll schools, which increases the risk for being trafficked"(p263 TIP 2016), and as mentioned before the lack of proper civil registration open the door to all kinds of human rights abuses.

Niger (Source, Transit and Tier 2 Country): This country is characterized by having a cast based slavery system, Islamic religious teachers called Marabouts make their students beg, prostitute themselves and force them into domestic labor, and OIM reports establishes that the cities of Arlit and Agadez, are human trafficking hotspots. Loosely organized networks of Individual including Marabouts trafficking migrants to Algeria, while in the south near Nigeria Borno State Boko Haram kidnaps minors to serve in their terrorist organization.

Trafficked Children from Niger and from Neighbor countries are sold to work in countries mines, while trafficked women are sold as "Fifth Wives" who are subject to forced domestic and sexual labor typically they between the ages of 9 and 11 and their children are born slaves (TIP 2016). 

Syrian in Africa: Something that laid the groundwork for the disaster that pushed thousands of Syrian  fleeing their conflict to cross by boat to Europe via Turkey , when air travel routes started to be blocked in 2013 Egypt started to require visas for Syrian passengers so airlines companies wouldn't embark those who didn't have them and Egyptian authorities wouldn't issue them, in 2014 Algeria and Libya followed the same example, leaving Sudan as the only option to travel by air and latter they would transit to Libya by land to try and cross into Europe by boat.

Conclusion:

18 years ago when I started to study international relations, you couldn't stop reading about globalization, international comers and integration would progressively erode the necessity of borders, people and goods should and must move freely. What a stark contrast with the world we have today that has governments of many State fixated on building fences, walls and barricades, around 70 countries around the world have built some kind of physical barriers to stop the movement of migrants or refugees, be it from their neighbors or for people from third countries. In the past three years, there has been an explosion of announcements and construction of border barriers and the temporary reintroduction of border controls in the Schengen area which I have summarized in this reference chart.

Country	Barrier/Fence/Wall and Reintroduction of Border Control in Schengen Area.	Reasons
Algeria	Announced the creation of a barrier on its border with Libya and Morocco in 2015.	Immigration, Trafficking and Security.
Austria	Announced the creation of a barrier on its border with Slovenia 2015 and Italy 2016. Temporarily lifted Schengen and reestablished passport border control during 2016 and during early 2017.	Immigration.
Bulgaria	Completed its barrier with Turkey in 2015. And has it military patrolling its Sothern border.	Immigration.
Demark	Temporarily lifted Schengen and reestablished passport border control during 2016 and during early 2017.	Immigration
Estonia	Announced the creation of a barrier on its border with Russia in 2015.	Security and Territory.
France	Reintroduction temporarily of border control in Schengen area from 13/11/15 to 26/01/17.	Security.
Great Britain	Complete a border fence in Calais and Coquille France in 2015.	Immigration.
Germany	Temporarily lifted Schengen and reestablished passport border control during 2016 and during early 2017.	Immigration
Hungry	Completed a border fence Serbia, begun a barrier with Croatia and announced with Romania all in 2015.  Country plans for a second fence for 2017 to have high-tech aspects like electro shocks, load speakers, cameras and heat sensors.	Immigration.
India	Announced the creation of a barrier on its border with Bhutan 2015.	Security. One must note that this country is already completely fenced off Bangladesh and Pakistan.
Iran	Complete barrier with Iraq in 2015 and previously announced creating a fence on its border with Turkey in 2015.	Immigration and Security.
Israel	Completed a barrier with Egypt in 2013, begun another the same year with Syria and announced another with Jordan in 2015	Immigration and Security.
Kenya	Announced the creation of a barrier on its border with Somalia in 2015	Terrorism and Immigration. One must note that this border is completely militarized.
Latvia	Announced the creation of a barrier on its border with Russia in 2015.	Security and Territory.
Lithuania	Announced the creation of a barrier on its border with Russian exclave Kaliningrad in 2015	Security and Territory.
Malaysia	Announced the creation of a barrier on its border with Brunei, Indonesia and Thailand in 2015.	Trafficking and Smuggling.
Mexico	Announced the creation of a barrier on its border with Guatemala in 2015.	Other.
Morocco	Announced the creation of a new barrier on its border with Algeria in 2015.	Territorial disputes, since 1994 the border between the two countries has been closed.
Myanmar	Has begun building a barrier with Bangladesh in 2015.	Trafficking, Smuggling and Immigration.
Namibia	Announced the creation of a barrier with Angola in 2015.	Other.
Norway	Announced the creation of a border fence on its border with Russia in 2016. Temporarily lifted Schengen and reestablished passport border control with Denmark during 2016 and during early 2017.	Immigration
Oman	Begun building a barrier with Yemen in 2014	Security.
Saudi Arabia	Completed a barrier on the Syrian border in 2014 and announced another the same year on the border with Qatar.	Immigration, Security and Smuggling.
Slovenia	Started building a barrier on its border with Croatia in 2015. The military controls the border and enforces migratory control.	Immigration.
Sweden	Completed barrier in 2015 and Temporarily lifted Schengen and reestablished passport border control with Denmark during 2016 and during early 2017.	Immigration.
Turkey	Begun a barrier with Syria in 2015.	Immigration and Security.
Ukraine	Announced the creation of a new barrier on its border with Russia.	Territorial.
Tunisia	Has begun building a barrier Libya in 2015.	Immigration and Security.
The United State of America.	Announced in 2016 the establishment of a new and more complete wall.	Security, Smuggling, Illegal migrants, and terrorism.

Building border fences or walls should be the last option on the table, but States are using it as their first choice. The concept of border/separation and us/them logic is back with a vengeance and here to stay, especial in Europe and the United States. The stigmatization of the concept of border barrier that had that taken hold after the fall of the Berlin wall has writhed away. Ever since 9-11 and the war on terror, finding fertile ground in societies that have lost sensitivity towards needs of migrants or are feeling the burden of over saturation or just will not tolerate migrants, in general, entering their territories.  

But with all of this talk of walls and barriers, people tend to forget, paraphrasing border expert Marcello Di Cintio:  History has already shown us how one of the most heavily fortified borders in history with trigger happy guards, the Berlin Wall, could not stop thousand of East Germans from crossing (Di Cintio/DailyMail 2016). I find that the lack of historical perspective not only in migratory issues troubling, this inclination towards right winged nationalistic policies that push this agenda of securitization of migratory movements and border fences, as quick and magical fixes. But these people are completing ignoring those border barriers conceived like they have imagined to be a burden more than a blessing and have questionable effectively. But these political promises of security and safety from those politicians gain a quick political capital in the short term until public spend becomes an issue.   

The walls and fences tend to divides communities and generate a strong a negative psychological effect feeding into tensions, distrust and even a slow build animosity. For example working in a border town[1], locals from both sides could cross with minimum control with unique IDs because they lived there lives on both sides. Now when it was established that they had to do the same ID controls as everyone else crossing having to wait in line things heated up very quickly, so imagine what a wall can do. Reece Jones, another known authority in border barriers, explains these obstacles always tend to affect the poorest and the most desperate affected, while drug cartels and terrorist groups have resources to enter by safer methods, for example, getting their hands on more favorable fake travel documents (Jones/Daily Mail 2016). One must not forget that the Hamburg Cell led by Mohamed Atta that made the attack on the World Trade Center all entered the United State with legal visas, not hopping the border. Another example of how ineffective any kind of physical wall can be against the modern terrorism States face in the present day group like ISIS do not even need to move operatives they can just use the internet to inspire lone wolf attacks in their name, no border need to be cross. Now in my point view drug trafficking can be hindered up to a certain point, but as long as there is demand for those products trafficker will find a way to cross their goods. 

These border barriers affect migratory movement in two ways, funneling migrants to other areas where they can possibly cross or put themselves in danger. Like as mention in the chapter about United State and its segmented enforcement the provoking that migrants used services of traffickers to cross the dessert or provoking a build of migrants at the border escalating the tension between State especially when these people are from third State.

In my opinion barriers can be very effective but must be defined differently and be only part of a complete migratory policy, not a quick fix and center of a States action because the problem will not go away because of the push and pull factors on the migrants are still at work. If thing are done right, a wall can be used as a lesser evil, and instead of funneling people to other areas it should funnel them to places where people can get the proper control. If you have ordinary people, not hardened criminal trying to enter illegally to establish themselves, means that your migratory policy has failed, especially if the barrier the was conceived for dissuasion.

An effective migratory policy and a proper control is a product of exhaustive cooperation on both sides, building ties and sharing information. There is a need to create clear and unequivocal rules for migrants to obtain legal residencies, no double standards referring to irregular migrants if you do not want a large amount of undocumented competing unfairly in the domestic labor market generating a possible future social conflict. Border security is fundamental, but addressing the push factors in the countries where migrants come from, sometimes directly investing in these place to generate work is much cheaper than maintaining a small army to watch over a wall, for political this can be a hard sell to their constituency but it is the most cost effective.   

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[1] The Top Ten countries with the most overall migrants from 2015  in  order  The United States of America is first, Germany second, Russia third, Saudi Arabia fourth, United Kingdom fifth, United Arab Emirates sixth, Canada seventh, France eighth, Australia ninth and finally in tenth place  Spain (MPI 2016).

[2] Ontological Security: Can be defined  as a  form of security that is provided by order, continuity, and stability in the lives of the citizen of a country,  this approximately summarizes the concept developed by Anthony Giddens (1979).

[3] Source MPI (2016)

[4] Source MPI (2016)

[5] Non-refoulement is a policy which is not to deport or deny  any petition of refuge, especial if it mean to send the person back to a dangerous place.