Deportation and the Micropolitics of Exclusion: The rise of removals from the UK to Sri Lanka

Geopolitics

Volumn 17, Issue 2, 2012, Pages 276-292

  Collyer, Michael ^a  

^a UNIVERSITY OF SUSSEX   (United Kingdom)

Author keywords

[No Author keywords available]

Indexed keywords

DEMOCRACY; EUROPEAN UNION; FORCED MIGRATION; GEOPOLITICS; IMMIGRATION;

SRI LANKA; UNITED KINGDOM;

EID: 84860895646     PISSN: 14650045     EISSN: 15573028     Source Type: Journal    
DOI: 10.1080/14650045.2011.562940     Document Type: Article

References (44)

1. W. Walters, 'Deportation, Expulsion, and the International Police of Aliens', Citizenship Studies 6/3 (2002) pp. 265-292.
2. Birnberg Peirce and Partners, Medical Justice, and the National Coalition of Anti-Deportation Campaigns, Outsourcing Abuse: The Use and Misuse of State-Sanctioned Force during the Detention and Removal of Asylum Seekers (London: Birnberg Peirce and Partners 2008).
3. M. Gibney and R. Hansen, 'Deportation and the Liberal State: The Forcible Return of Asylum Seekers and Unlawful Migrants in Canada, Germany and the United Kingdom', New Issues in Refugee Research, Working Paper 77 (Geneva: UNHCR 2003) p. 2.
4. M. Gibney, 'Asylum and the Expansion of Deportation in the United Kingdom', Government and Opposition 43/2 (2008) pp. 146-167.
5. S. Cohen, Deportation is Freedom: The Orwellian World of Immigration Controls (London: Jessica Kingsley 2005).
6. A. Bloch and L. Schuster, 'At the Extremes of Exclusion: Deportation, Detention and Dispersal', Ethnic and Racial Studies 28/3 (2005) pp. 491-512.
7. J. P. Cassarino, Return Migrants to the Maghreb Countries: Reintegration and Development Challenges (Florence: European University Institute 2008).
8. B. Cruikshank, The Will to Empower: Democratic Citizens and Other Subjects (Ithaca: Cornell University Press 1999)
9. Walters (note 1).
10. C. McDowell, A Tamil Asylum Diaspora: Sri Lankan Migration, Settlement and Politics in Switzerland (Oxford: Berghahn 1996).
11. Birnberg Peirce and Partners et al. (note 2); Amnesty International Migration-Related Detention: A Research Guide on Human Rights Standards Relevant to the Detention of Migrants, Asylum Seekers and Refugees (London: AI 2007) AI Index POL33/005/2007.
12. J. Painter and C. Philo, 'Spaces of Citizenship: An Introduction', Political Geography 14/2 (1995) pp. 107-120.
13. Walters (note 1)
14. P. Nyers, 'Abject Cosmopolitanism: The Politics of Protection in the Anti-Deportation Movement', Third World Quarterly 24/6 (2003) pp. 1069-1093.
15. Nyers, 'Abject Cosmopolitanism' (note 12) p. 1071.
16. G. Goodwin Gill, International Law and the Movement of Persons Between States (Oxford: Oxford University Press 1978) p. 201.
17. Current practice in the UK distinguishes 'deportation', the removal of individuals under criminal sanction from the administrative process of 'removal'. Technically individuals who are deported are banned from re-entry whereas those who are removed are theoretically able to return. In practice this distinction is increasingly blurred. Previous removal would almost always prevent an individual subsequently obtaining a visa so the re-entry ban is irrelevant.
18. As certain practices associated with undocumented migration such as the use of forged documents are criminalised, the remaining distinction between deportation and removal also blurs. The Draft Bill on Immigration and Citizenship (2008) proposes to remove the distinction and replace deportation and removal with a single process, to be called 'expulsion'.
19. ECRE, Handbook on Voluntary Returns (London: ECRE 2006) p. 4.
20. M. Schrover, J. van der Leun, L. Lucassen, and C. Quispel 'Introduction: Illegal Migration and Gender in a Global and Historical Perspective', in M. Schrover, J. van der Leun, L. Lucassen, and C. Quispel (eds.), Illegal Migration and Gender in a Global and Historical Perspective (Amsterdam: Amsterdam University Press 2008) pp. 9-37.
21. J. Torpey The Invention of the Passport. Surveillance, Citizenship and the State (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press 2000).
22. M. Schulte-Beerbühl, 'British Nationality Policy as a Counter-Revolutionary Strategy during the Napoleonic Wars: The Emergence of Modern Naturalisation Regulations', in A. Fahrmeir, O. Faron, and P. Weil (eds.), Migration Control in the North Atlantic World: The Evolution of State Practices in Europe and the US from the French Revolution to the Inter-War Period (Oxford: Berghahn 2003) pp. 55-70.
23. D. Feldman, 'Was the 19th Century a Golden Age for Immigrants? The Changing Articulation of National, Local and Voluntary Controls', in A. Fahrmeir, O. Faron, and P. Weil (eds.), Migration Control in the North Atlantic World: The Evolution of State Practices in Europe and the US from the French Revolution to the Inter-War Period (Oxford: Berghahn 2003) pp. 167-177.
24. M. Collyer, 'Secret Agents: Anarchists, Islamists and Responses to Politically Active Refugees in London', Ethnic and Racial Studies 28/2 (2005) pp. 278-303.
25. Walters (note 1) p. 294.
26. P. Nyers (ed.), Securitizations of Citizenship (London: Routledge 2009).
27. B. Hindess, 'Citizenship in the International Management of Populations', American Behavioural Scientist 43 (2000) p. 1494.
28. Home Office, Control of Immigration Statistics 2007 (London: Home Office 2008) table 6.3.
29. An example is the case of gang members returned following prison terms in the USA to Central America where they are held responsible for initiating violent gang cultures in several countries; IASFM paper on Central American gangs.
30. Cassarino (note 7).
31. Cotonou agreement, article 13.
32. Home Office, Controlling our Borders: Making Migration Work for Britain (London: Home Office 2005).
33. European Parliament's Committee on Civil Liberties, Justice and Home Affairs, Report on the Proposal for a Directive of the European Parliament and of the Council on Common Standards and Procedures in Member States for Returning Illegally Staying Third-Country Nationals, A6-0339/2007 (Brussels: European Parliament 2007).
34. Runnymede Trust, 'Race and Immigration', The Runnymede Bulletin 205, 207, and 210 (June, Sep., and Dec. 1987).
35. Refugee Council, Sri Lanka Project, Sri Lanka: Human Rights and the Return of Refugees (London: Refugee Council 2001).
36. Monthly reports from 1996 are available at http://brcslproject.gn.apc.org/.
37. Refugee Council, Sri Lanka Project, Sri Lanka: Return to Uncertainty (London: Refugee Council 2002).
38. European Court of Human Rights, case of NA v. UK 17.7.2008.
39. Author's interviews with anonymous respondents, London and Colombo. Commercial flights are also regularly used but the readiness with which European governments are prepared to charter planes is surprising. In 2006, the German government reportedly chartered a plane to return two migrants to West Africa at an estimated cost of between 40,000 and 80,000.
40. J. Schneider and A. Kreienbrink, '2010 Return Assistance in Germany: Programmes and Strategies Fostering Assisted Return to and Reintegration in Third Countries', German EMN Contact Point, Working Paper 31.
41. Author's interview, Colombo, Aug. 2008.
42. Institute for Public Policy Research (IPPR), Irregular Migration in the UK: An IPPR Factfile (London: IPPR, 31 March 2006).
43. It turned out that one individual had actually returned under a much rarer, alternative scheme, Assisted Voluntary Return for Illegal Migrants (AVRIM), which provided travel expenses but no integration support to individuals who had not been involved in the asylum system at all. Since it is logical for Sri Lankans found to be illegally resident in the UK who do not want to return to automatically claim asylum this scheme is rarely used by Sri Lankans.
44. ECRE (note 16).