Browsing by Author "Willamo, Max Eduard"

Migration policy in the European Union as it has evolved from the post WWII era, has caused the external border of the EU to shift. European Member States have simultaneously been eager to adopt measures curbing irregular migration and been uninterested or reluctant to adopt measures on regular migration, even though hardening external border management has no effect on the number of irregular migrants entering EU territory. Securitization in tandem with the ever-increasing criminalisation of migration in the EU has given rise to the present modus operandi of the violent EU border regime, materialized in the externalisation of migration. This thesis examines this evolution by answering the question of how the criminalisation of migration manifests itself as externalized migration management while also scrutinizing the history of EU migration management and border policy. Today, made possible by the evolution of EU border policy in inter alia the Tampere-, Hague-, and Stockholm Programmes, the Frontex regime and ECtHR caselaw, the militarized border and migration measures have become the new normal. This thesis, highlighting this through examples of Finland, Frontex, and Italy, shows that the status quo of EU border management has evolved into what Juliet Stumpf in 2006 described as ‘crimmigration’, where migrants exist in a constant state of either illegality or criminality, or both. In unearthing the quasi-legal or legal-ized nature of illegal border policies such as pushbacks, this thesis illustrates the interdependent relationship of securitization, criminalisation and externalisation; and illuminates how the criminalisation of migration, the securitization of migration and the externalisation of migration work (in)dependently of each another.