Alternatives 27 (2002), Special tssue, 21-39 The Securitization of Migration in Western Societies: Ambivalent Discourses and Policies Ayse Ceyhan and Anastassia Tsoukala* What shall we become now withou (he barbarians Those people were a solution, weren't they? —C. Cavaly, ‘Waiting for the Barbarians” Phe last decades of the twenticth century were marked by a dra- matic change led by the development of globalization, the en- hancement of transnational flows, and the cud of bipolarity. The construction of the European Union, the emergence of new eco- nomic agreements stich as NAFTA, the deterritorialization of mar- kets. physical borders, and identities, the increase of migration flows. the construction of the Schengen area, and the fragmenta- tion of major states (c.g. the Soviet Union and Yugoslavia) have raised gnestions about many old assmmptions, inchuding those made about Westphalian state sovereignty and identity. These phe- nomena significantly affected the forms and the meanings of bor- ders, individual and collective identitics, and the sense and nature of slate sovereignty and authority. In the meantime. these changes have recast the domestic order, challenged traditional structures, modified social arringements. transformed the forces of inegra- tion and fragmentation, and accelerated the dynamies of inclusion and exclasion, In consequence, Western societies are witnessing the emergence of many existential and conceptual anxieties and foars about theiy identity, security, and well-being. As Martin Heister asserts,? migration is at the local point of the interrelated aynamics of identity, borders. and orders. By iis wansnational char- acter, nic. and its impact on people and institutions at all s dyna Phe authors are researchers at the Cente d'Etudes sar les Conllits, Paris. Ceyhath isalso at the Insubut d”Futdes Politiques (IEP) de Paris: Tsoukaki teaches at the Uni- versity of Rouen and the University of Paris X-Nanterre, 2122 The Sectritigation of Migration iu Western Sveietios levels, migration is perceived as posing a serious challenge t the long-standing paradigms of certainty and order. One of the prominent {catures of Western societies in the post bipolar cra has been therefore the production of a discourse of lear and proliferation of dangers with reference lo the scenarios of chaos, disorder, amd clash of civilizations. I is easily noticeable in the public sphere that the fear is mainly about the different, the alien, the undocumented migrant, the refugee, the Muslim, the “non-European,” the “Hispanic.” These different expressions con- verge on the figure of the migrant, which appears as the anchoring point of sceuritarian policies and ficree public debates that gained momentum in the 1990s. Because of the widespread publicization of preventive and re- pressive immigration policies, a politics of fear was generally con- sidered as being developed specifically in the European context and not in the United States, which was presented as being more tolerant and open to migration. But the production of similar dis- courses and the adoption of securtiarian policies in the United States as well, made it difficult (o argue the singularity of Europe. Indeed, although with differences in social and economic contexts as well as in immigration and integration policies, both the EU countries and the United States have been marked, since the 1980s, by a reversal of the image of migrants and asylum seekers in the public space. In both cases, migrants, who were welcomed after World War I asa useful labor foree, are now presented in political discourses as criminals, troublemakers, economic and social de- franders, terrorists, drug talfickers, unassimilable persons, and so forth. They are demonized as being increasingly associated with or- ganized crime, They are accused of taking jobs away four nation- als, taking advantage of social services, and harming the identity of host countries. Introduced in public debates as a political hot-button topic, migration is thus transformed into a threat not only to the state but also to the security and the identity of the host society, Wh portant to siress here is that through stich a presentation, the mi- gration issue, which was not at the origin inherently securitarian, Became one involving new actors and leading to stricter public policies and to new surveillance and control devices. More speci cally, it implied the escalation of immigration-control policies mix- 2 restricted “thin” and extended “thick” policing at the border, inside the territory and in migrants plementation of a tough visa systen.8 ‘The lumping together of all people who cross the border involved a policy of amalgamation of migrants and asylum seckers, and this led to the perception of fis im: countries of origin via (he im-Ayse Ceyhan & Anastassia Tsoukala 23, migrants as only economic-benefit seckers and to the weakening of the legal status of the asylum seckers. In fact, such a perception conceals the multiple dynamics of coming and going, being here and there, settling, moving, and leaving. Why, among the many important social issues in public di courses, is immigration placed at the first rank of social problems to be dealt with? Why is it antomatically associated with unemploy- ment, poverty, crime, social exclusion, discrimination, and racism? Why does this issue not disappear from the political debate but—as has occurred strikingly in France—keep on attracting the public at- tention? (In France, since 1982 imunigration legislation has been amended fifteen times up to now.) Why in both the EU counties and the United States does the demonization of immigration lead lo the tightening of external border controls despite discourses of globalization and open markets? Several free-trade regimes (e.g., the World Trade Organization) include provisions on the free cir culation of service workers as part of the liberalization of inter- national trade and invesunent. Why is the existence of these provi sions litde known even among experts on economic globalization and immigration? According 10 Murray Edelman, it is possible 10 assert that a so- cial problem is not a verifiable entity but a construction depending on different interests, and that its explanation must be considered in ternis of a process of social consiruction rather than forming a set of refutable proposals. For Edelman, social problems are ere- ated with the precise intention to convince public opinion to ac- cept specific rationalisations.® Since the 1980s, migration has be- come the catalyst supposed to be able to summarize most of the current social problems of Western societies. By a sidestepping of the nouseeuritarian insights of economic, social, and cultural anal ves, immigration is now apprehended under the nearly exclusive angle of securitarian and identitarian preoccupations. The securitization of migration is processed through symbolic politics and implies the transformation of the logic of control and the surveillance of people entering and living inside the territory, More- over, it involves new discursive strategies and semantic creations. Securitization Through Ambivalent Arguments The securitization of migration involves a symbolic process and the deployment of « corpus of rhetorical arguments. It is interest- ing to notice thac the rhetorical arguments put forward in almost all antiinmigration discourses are more or less similan, with ¥, vious,