Border controls continue to kill

Some thoughts on the recent tragedy off the coast of Libya and how it ties into political rhetoric on immigration and the received wisdom of border controls as a social necessity.

Submitted by Phil on April 22, 2015

Late on Saturday, a migrant vessel capsised 60 miles north of Libya. The death toll for that one incident could be upwards of 800, over half of the figure of 1,500 deaths estimated in the past year alone - itself 50 times higher than in the same period during 2014. This is just the latest stark illustration of the human cost of border controls.

This tragic occurrence comes on the heels of a column by Katie Hopkins in The S*n suggesting that migrant vessels coming to Britain be forcibly sunk as a deterrent to the "cockroaches" trying to get here. Hopkins, of course, is famous solely because she is entirely without redeeming features to the point that it's a surprise no story has yet emerged of her punching a crying orphan child at their parents' funeral. Which is why she went on to write: “No, I don’t care. Show me pictures of coffins, show me bodies floating in water, play violins and show me skinny people looking sad. I still don’t care."

But even if Hopkins is beyond the pale, to the point of making us realise that the putrid shit-rag she writes for can actually go lower in our collective estimations, the problem is that she's not an anomaly.

This because, no matter how uniquely vile she may seem, she is just the latest incarnation of the "politically incorrect" pundit who's given a national media platform to have extremely reactionary opinions for money. And on immigration, no matter how many people distance themselves from Hopkins' comments, it remains received wisdom that borders need to be defended, and whether or not a few tears are shed for the bodies floating in the water, they're still the inevitable result of that.

Outrage over Katie Hopkins' comments will have made a lot of people forget the Labour Party's infamous 'racist mug.' Unlike Hopkins, Labour will be able to put their views on immigration into practice in government. Indeed, they already have, since the last Labour government built a vast network of immigration prisons and oversaw a regime of abuse and death in detention. This includes neglect and violence towards children in detention.

The same regime continued after Labour left office, of course. The promised 'end' to child detention never happened and the same injustices prevail. But this is because the current handling of immigration isn't a party policy, but the prevailing consensus of the ruling class.

Nor is this consensus limited to the Tories, Lib Dems and Labour. A Thousand Flowers points out how the SNP, supposed bulwark against the Westminster consensus, played into the same narrative when Nicola Sturgeon 'started talking about wanting to get rid of, “people with no right to be here,” calling for “strong controls” on immigration and declined to give a straight answer as to whether there were too many immigrants in the country.'

The Trade Union and Socialist Coalition's sister party No2EU also takes an anti-immigrant stance in its pursuit of populist workerism. As Anticapitalist Initiative explains:

Anticapitalist Initiative

Perhaps the most worrying section of the No2EU website is the one on “Yes to workers’ rights,” which starts with the argument that “The social dumping of exploited foreign workers in Britain is being carried out under EU rules demanding the “free movement of capital, goods, services and labour” within the EU.”

This is a cynical and deliberately confusing attack on what is actually one of the main progressive aspects of EU law, namely the free movement of workers. For internationalists, the only possible criticism of this is the fact that it creates a “fortress Europe”, a bloc within which workers can move freely, while those from outside Europe find it increasingly difficult to enter.

No2EU have actually picked up on this, saying “The so-called ‘free movement’ of labour is part of the development of a deeply racist Fortress Europe which would increasingly exclude people from outside the EU and undermine wages and working conditions inside the bloc.”

But, perversely, rather than arguing for an opening of the borders to those from outside Europe, their answer is…. excluding European workers from Britain by abolishing the free movement of labour inside the EU.

Of course, Sturgeon and No2EU alike will distance themselves from the likes of Katie Hopkins, UKIP, and anyone else who wants desperate people fleeing persecution to be machine gunned in open waters. They deplore racism and merely want a 'sensible' debate about a 'humane' system. But how can a system built on the state's power to dictate who has the right to live where ever be humane?

Immigration controls in Britain were born with the 1905 Aliens Act. This was aimed at Jewish refugees fleeing anti-semitism in Eastern Europe and Russia and created in response to the agitation of the proto-fascist British Brothers League. The 1962 Commonwealth Immigrants Act, directed against black people, was declared by Blackshirts leader Oswald Moseley as the “first success” for fascist activity in this country. Immigration controls were built upon racism.

Today, the ideological driving force behind such controls is not racial but economic. Without a doubt, racist sentiments are still a key element in the propaganda campaign used to reinforce their existence as a neccesary imposition upon freedom of movement. However, the concerns of state and corporate planners with regards migration controls are capital-based.

Whilst capital has complete freedom of movement, people don't. We are restricted based on our “economic worth” to the ruling class, divided into citizens and non-citizens based upon our usefulness to profit margins. One element of the working class is played off against the other on the basis of status as “indigenous” or “immigrants” by the very people we should be uniting against. This is the true value of migration controls – it allows entrenched power to strengthen its position by playing upon racist sentiments and uses nationalism to protect against the internationalism neccesary to take on those whose policies are at the real root of our problems.

But, even amongst people who accept all of the above arguments, there remains one – supposedly – inescapable reality; mass migration. If it were not for borders and border controls, then we would be “swamped” by the sheer number of people who are migrating from their homes towards the west every day. We would be overcrowded, fighting for resources, drowning in crime, our infrastructure would collapse, and so on.

However, such an argument assumes that those who advocate an end to the border regime simply want to scrap border controls and then let a chaotic free-for-all happen. This isn't true at all.

Mass migration has absolutely nothing to do with how “tough” or “soft” border controls may be. Mass migration is a product of the unjust and often violent military and economic policies that displace people on a massive scale. On important example is the General Agreement on Trade and Tarrifs (GATT) that came about in the aftermath or World War II has esentially kept the colonial system alive through the establishment of “free trade areas” – essentially meaning that we have pried open the third world to our plunder. It’s something we’ve always done, but now there’s international legislation barring them from using protectionist tarriffs to prop-up their economies. This restriction enacted specifically to prevent the third world using precisely the measures that the developed world used to become developed.

This disparity is the driving force behind mass migration, and responsibility for it lies primarily in western hands. The United States and Great Britain have spent half a century imposing market fundamentalism through unaccountable bodies like the WTO, IMF, and World Bank, and legislation like GATT. This is not to mention military interventions, funding, arming, and mobilising of terrorist groups, propping up third-world dictators and pumping aid to them in order to keep corporate profits high.

The only way to end mass migration, then, is to end precisely these injustices. This isn't an easy task, but rather one that requires complete social revolution to change the way the world is run.

While we remain a long way from that, people are still dying on a regular basis - in immigrant prisons and in open water. Fighting against such naked injustice is absolutely integral, from challenging racist immigration narratives and the very urge to determine people's worth by where they're from and how they got here to giving practical aid to those taking action to help migrants and resist immigration controls.

The case against borders is solid. We need to keep fighting for it to be heard.

Comments

Ersatz

8 years 11 months ago

In reply to by libcom.org

Submitted by Ersatz on April 24, 2015

Wouldn't this complete piece of crap article find a more appropriate home in some Trot forum, where nationalist-development fantasies are encouraged? Or has the difference between "class-struggle anarchism" and Trotskyism become this nonexistent?

Protip: If your political program means fixing places so the brown hordes who live there don't invade your space, you are neither an ally of migrants nor a radical. You're just a reactionary putz.

mjack

8 years 11 months ago

In reply to by libcom.org

Submitted by mjack on April 24, 2015

But, even amongst people who accept all of the above arguments, there remains one – supposedly – inescapable reality; mass migration. If it were not for borders and border controls, then we would be “swamped” by the sheer number of people who are migrating from their homes towards the west every day. We would be overcrowded, fighting for resources, drowning in crime, our infrastructure would collapse, and so on.
However, such an argument assumes that those who advocate an end to the border regime simply want to scrap border controls and then let a chaotic Free-for-All happen. This isn't true at all.

This is news to me. Why should mass migration be seen as something that should be ended in-itself again?
What about people that think all those supposed "inescapable realities" are not actually inescapable but simply the product of conservative propaganda?

99redandblackb…

8 years 11 months ago

In reply to by libcom.org

Submitted by 99redandblackb… on April 24, 2015

"However, such an argument assumes that those who advocate an end to the border regime simply want to scrap border controls and then let a chaotic free-for-all happen. This isn't true at all."

Wow. Border controls without borders then I guess, can't wait. Although I guess we'd just be calling them 'controls'.

donald parkinson

8 years 11 months ago

In reply to by libcom.org

Submitted by donald parkinson on April 24, 2015

"but the borders will be self-managed by the workers themselves!"

shallah

8 years 11 months ago

In reply to by libcom.org

Submitted by shallah on April 25, 2015

This article feels a little confused. On the one hand it argues against borders, and gives a little history on the racialized anti-immigrant policies in the UK, but then

a) It seems to defend the retaining of some border controls, here:

But, even amongst people who accept all of the above arguments, there remains one – supposedly – inescapable reality; mass migration. If it were not for borders and border controls, then we would be “swamped” by the sheer number of people who are migrating from their homes towards the west every day. We would be overcrowded, fighting for resources, drowning in crime, our infrastructure would collapse, and so on.

However, such an argument assumes that those who advocate an end to the border regime simply want to scrap border controls and then let a chaotic free-for-all happen. This isn't true at all.

Why not? I don't buy the above argument, it seems a typical right-winger argument about how there isn't enough to go around that defends austerity. I'd argue we should welcome refugees wholesale and work with them to fight for relief, shelter, etc. through any means necessary. Anything less seems collusion with the nation-state.

b) It puts out some, at best, confusing language about the roots of border controls:

Today, the ideological driving force behind such controls is not racial but economic. Without a doubt, racist sentiments are still a key element in the propaganda campaign used to reinforce their existence as a neccesary imposition upon freedom of movement. However, the concerns of state and corporate planners with regards migration controls are capital-based.

What does it mean for state/corporate planner's concerns with regards to migration controls to be 'capital-based' versus 'racially-based'? This seems to be making a distinction between underlying policy and explicit rhetoric that just isn't true, or at least isn't well supported. Border controls were materially racialized before, but now they're based on capital vs labor (which they weren't also before)? This feels nonsensical, or at least, I don't get it.

The author at the end affirms a commitment to 'resist immigration controls' and advocate 'the case against borders'. But which is it? The nature of the state is such that this question is either/or. You either fight to end borders and all border controls, or you work to maintain the most 'humane' sections of a fundamentally unjust social arrangement. The author seems to want to make it clear that he wouldn't go as far as to end border controls.

Phil

8 years 11 months ago

In reply to by libcom.org

Submitted by Phil on April 25, 2015

Ersatz

Protip: If your political program means fixing places so the brown hordes who live there don't invade your space, you are neither an ally of migrants nor a radical. You're just a reactionary putz.

Well, that's not the point. The point is about people not being forcibly displaced - or do you think people put themselves to sea in easily-capsized lifeboats or in the hands of ruthless people smugglers because they're making a lifestyle choice?

For the avoidance of doubt, as well as thinking people shouldn't face a situation where they're forced to flee their homes, I also believe in the free movement of people. I wasn't aware that this was a really difficult nuance.

mjack

What about people that think all those supposed "inescapable realities" are not actually inescapable but simply the product of conservative propaganda?

Well, that would include me. I don't think mass migration is an inescapable reality, I was addressing people who agree about the inhumanity of immigration controls but then wring their hands because 'something must be done' and talk bollocks about 'humane' control. The tone and context really should make it clear that I don't think we'll be 'swamped' or any such nonsense.

99redandblackballoons

Wow. Border controls without borders then I guess, can't wait. Although I guess we'd just be calling them 'controls'.

Err, no. The whole point is about removing the conditions that forcibly displace people and create refugees, so removing borders isn't about a chaotic free-for-all because there wouldn't be one. This is a right-wing argument for borders (if we remove them, there'll be chaos) and it conveniently ignores the fact that the chaos is the economic, social and military policies that create refugees.

shallah

I'd argue we should welcome refugees wholesale and work with them to fight for relief, shelter, etc. through any means necessary. Anything less seems collusion with the nation-state.

I agree entirely. I'm not arguing for turning away refugees but for tackling the conditions that force them into becoming refugees in the first place.

shallah

The author at the end affirms a commitment to 'resist immigration controls' and advocate 'the case against borders'. But which is it? The nature of the state is such that this question is either/or.

Why? Can't you advocate the end of border controls and resist them while they still exist? Am I missing something?

shallah

The author seems to want to make it clear that he wouldn't go as far as to end border controls.

No, I don't. I want them gone and I'm really stumped that people are interpreting otherwise.

Soapy

8 years 11 months ago

In reply to by libcom.org

Submitted by Soapy on April 26, 2015

man, people need to chill out. this was a good article, i retweeted

shallah

8 years 11 months ago

In reply to by libcom.org

Submitted by shallah on April 26, 2015

Hey Phil, I want to clear up my shitty writing a bit.

When I wrote "The author at the end affirms a commitment to 'resist immigration controls' and advocate 'the case against borders'. But which is it? The nature of the state is such that this question is either/or." I was making a contrast between a) resist immigration controls and advocate the case against borders, vs b) retaining some border controls because mass migration would "swamp" Western nations. I was not trying to contrast a.a) resisting immigration controls vs. a.b) advocating the case against borders. That was not made clear by my last remarks.

I think I got very confused by the two paragraphs I quoted first in my first comment (they begin with "But, even amongst people"), which seem to agree with the right-wing fear of hordes of refugees coming in and overwhelming Westerners, and see some border controls as useful to prevent this happening while we deal with the injustices which caused refugees to flee their homes in the first place. It seems clear from your reply that this was not what you were trying to convey, and that instead you meant those paragraphs as a critique of people who feel this way.

This part in particular: "However, such an argument assumes that those who advocate an end to the border regime simply want to scrap border controls and then let a chaotic free-for-all happen. This isn't true at all." It feels confusing because in some sense, that is what we want: we want open borders. But I think I know what you mean, that we want both open borders/end to all border controls and to fix the root causes of mass migration that make people flee in the first place. Am I reading you right?

In any case, I think we're in agreement, I just got confused.

Phil

8 years 10 months ago

In reply to by libcom.org

Submitted by Phil on April 26, 2015

Thanks Shallah. Yeah, I think we're in agreement despite the earlier crossed wires!

Ay up

8 years 10 months ago

In reply to by libcom.org

Submitted by Ay up on April 27, 2015

Could the 'chaotic free for all' be the catalyst for the social revolution?

In reality it wouldn't be a 'chaotic free for all' more of a challenging 'meeting place where Europe has to confront her past'. If the UK/Europe was going to be swamped by millions upon millions (which won't happen) then in order to survive we'd have to look at redistribution of wealth, land, consumption and the end of policing immediately.

A lot of radicals or conscious people try and appease racists by saying of course we don't want to be flooded but we just want to be a bit nicer than letting 'geography' kill everyone who has the audacity to gamble their whole families future on making it inside the war machine instead or living precariously in it's sights.

To me the whole idea of no borders is precisely the challenge needed to colonialism, precisely the fears we should be making people feel as it makes them address their own xenophobic quackery. Everything they fear is everything that has happened to the people of the South. By insisting that we smash all borders now we open up a dialogue for real social change. We start asking the questions that we should be asking, instead of being paralysed by some fasco-capitalist argument that forces most free thinking people into a fluffy nationalist form of protectionism.

Gloria Anzaldua said the 'the border is where the third world grates against the first and bleeds'. It would be nice if we could change the formula so that the border is where the first and third world meets and capitalism, colonialism and the deep deep deep roots of Western racism bleed.