07 November 2021
Counterterrorism measures as a migration control device
While concerns over terrorism have not shaped Italian migration policy in a comprehensive way, the increased use of the administrative measure of expulsion of foreigners for counter-terrorism purposes must be questioned. It poses serious challenges to fundamental rights and rule of law principles and might foster a shift from a punitive to a preventive approach in the field of migration control. Continue reading >>
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05 November 2021
Vom Widerstand gegen die Mauer zur Mauer selbst
So sehr sich die komparative Migrationsforschung in jüngster Zeit auch weiterentwickelt hat, so sehr leidet sie immer noch unter einer eklatanten Annahme: dass Staaten über die gleiche souveräne Macht verfügen, ihre Migrationspolitik entsprechend ihren eigenen Interessen zu bestimmen. Der Begriff der "Externalisierung", der heutzutage so häufig diskutiert wird, erinnert uns an die Asymmetrien der Macht. In Fällen extremer Asymmetrie, wie im Verhältnis zwischen Mexiko und den Vereinigten Staaten, ist der Spielraum für souveräne Entscheidungen in der Migrationspolitik äußerst gering bis nicht vorhanden. Continue reading >>
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05 November 2021
From Opposing the Wall to Becoming it
As much as the comparative study of migration policies has developed recently, it still suffers from a blazing assumption: that states have equal sovereign power to determine their migration policy according to their own interests. The notion of “externalization”, so widely discussed nowadays, reminds us of asymmetries of power. In cases of extreme asymmetry though, as in the relation between Mexico and the United States, the spaces for sovereign decision making on migration policy are extremely thin to nonexistent. Continue reading >>
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04 November 2021
Status, Verantwortung und Gemeinschaft nach 9/11
Migrations- und Staatsangehörigkeitsrecht sind politisch gestaltbare Materien, wie alle anderen. Alle terroristischen Bedrohungen berühren die staatliche Schutzpflicht für das Leben, möglicherweise staatliche Infrastruktur und das Sicherheitsgefühl im öffentlichen Raum. Sicher verwerfen die Meisten eine Gleichsetzung von Migration und Terrorismus als politisch (und rechtlich) zurückgeblieben. Das Bild einer Unterwanderung von Migration durch Terrorismus aber wirkt. Continue reading >>
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04 November 2021
Status, Accountability and Community after 9/11
Migration and citizenship law are politically configurable matters, like all others. All terrorist threats affect the state's duty to protect life, possibly state infrastructure and the sense of security in the public sphere. Picking up a connection to migration, in contrast to already existing domes-tic right-wing and left-wing extremism, can promise a quick reduction of external dangers in the political competition. Certainly, most people reject an equation of migration and terrorism as politically backwards. However, the image of migration being infiltrated by terrorism is effective. Continue reading >>
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26 August 2021
The EU’s Face in Łukašenka’s Mirror
On the Polish-Belarusian border thirty-two Afghan citizens have been sitting quite literally between the Belarusian border guards on the one side and Polish border guards, army and police on the other for two weeks now. They sit there without access to water, food or medical aid. They sit there claiming their rights under EU and International law. Yet, they are not allowed to ask for asylum or establish any contact with the outside world. The tragic situation of those thirty-two hostages exemplifies both how devastating the consequences of rule-of-law backsliding might be and how closely linked the rule of law breakdown in Poland and the general denigration of EU values in the field of migration are. Continue reading >>
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09 July 2021
Rights that are not Illusory
On 8 July, the European Court of Human Rights ruled in case Shahzad v. Hungary, concerning the denial of access to an asylum procedure and the forced removal of a Pakistani national by Hungarian police officers. The court found that the acts violated the prohibition of collective expulsion as well as the right to an effective remedy. With this decision, the Court on the one hand straightens out some possible misunderstandings, on the other hand returns to the line of argument opened in N.D. and N.T. v. Spain in ways that should be considered more closely. Continue reading >>
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18 February 2021
On illegal push-backs into the EU
On 29 December 2020, the Constitutional Court of Serbia (CCS) adopted a decision (Už-1823/2017) upholding the constitutional appeal filed on behalf of 17 Afghani migrants, who were expelled into Bulgaria although they had expressed the intention to seek asylum in the Republic of Serbia (RS) in 2017. It found that the Ministry of the Interior (Police Directorate - Gradina Border Police Station (BPS)) violated the prohibition of expulsion and inhuman treatment – both guaranteed in the Serbian Constitution. Continue reading >>08 February 2021
Between Rule of Law and Reputation
On 27 January, Frontex announced the unprecedented decision to suspend its activities in Hungary. The choice to withdraw the Agency from Hungary is not a clear, serious, and meditated move in the Commission’s action for the rule of law. Nor is it a sign of a coherent and firm intention to put an end to the Agency’s engagement in human rights violations at EU borders, since it keeps operating in other frontline Member States with equally problematic issues. It rather represents an attempt to remedy the already compromised reputation of Frontex. Continue reading >>
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05 February 2021