Border Externalization in the Western Mediterranean: Mobilities, Violence and the Politics of Compassion

Abstract

Based on a long-term fieldwork in Tangier and the Spanish-Moroccan border, this paper deals with the outsourcing of the Moroccan border, with an emphasis on the experience of the children and youngsters crossing borders in their respective migratory itineraries. After the 2004 The Hague Programme, the delocalization of border control started to be present in European migratory policies though the progressive integration of third countries in control tasks. To analyze the impacts of these policies, the papers brings the reader to Bujalef, a «waiting» suburb in the periphery of Tangier —understood as the «second-to-last border»—, where a violent eviction of Sub-Saharan immigrants took place in July of 2015. In this context, the author exposes the three main control policies at work: everyday violence —expressed in the lack of judicial security and in repression—; random mobility —a logical response to outsourcing border control model—; and compassion —intrinsic to the structure of humanitarian action. This paper reinforces the idea that respect for Human Rights does not fit well with border delocalization.