Keeping Them Out: Border Fences and Refugee Flows

• In Event: Political Violence and the Physical Environment

Abstract

In recent years, growing intellectual attention has been devoted to the study of border barriers. Scholarship has examined the determinants of border walls, showing that states install border walls in order to guard against non-state threats, thwart illicit flows, and maintain stability in border regions. More recently, a small stream of work has cast attention to the consequences of border walls. Empirical patterns show that while walls may ameliorate the threat of transnational terrorism, they have deleterious consequences on bilateral cross-border trade. At the same time, policy-makers tout border walls as a panacea against unwanted population inflows. The European migration crisis animated states to begin construction of fences in an effort to regulate and stanch political migration. Despite these explicit linkages drawn between walls and refugees, we lack an empirical and theoretical understanding of the effectiveness of border walls in stemming involuntary migration. We seek to remedy this paucity in research by empirically investigating the effects of border fences on transnational refugee flows. We conjecture that border barriers may mitigate migration by imposing logistical costs on prospective migrants and by boosting the chance of apprehension and detention for unauthorized entry. Barriers are symbolic signals of draconian migration regimes and may deter prospective migrants by conveying an unwelcoming political climate.
We also theorize that walls reduce migratory pressures for destination states but also expect displacement of inflows to porous portions of the border and to neighboring states. This displacement effect parallels the effects of tight asylum and visa regimes, which redirect flows to proximate countries. In contrast to visa and asylum instruments, which regulate migrants already present within receiving states, however, border walls are designed to stop migrants before they cross the border. Walls prevent access at specific points of entry but may channel migration to permeable border areas. Additionally, migrant routes shift, aided by illicit agents who adapt to states’ policy changes, allowing migrants to circumnavigate barriers. We expect that border barriers will not be effective in reducing refugee inflows for states with lengthy borders that are only partially fortified, particularly if the terrain permits ease of access. We test these insights using a cross-sectional time-series dataset of border barriers, 1945-2017. We examine two types of effects: 1) the effects of border fences on dyadic refugee inflows for contiguous states and 2) the effects of border fences on total refugee inflows for destination states. Our findings are important to understanding border security in light of non-state threats and generate concrete implications into the utility of border walls vis-à-vis migratory pressures.

Authors

• Nazli Avdan, University of Kansas

• Andrew S Rosenberg, University of Florida

• Christopher F. Gelpi, Ohio State University