The Policing of the Internal Schengen Borders: Targeting “Deviant Migrants” and Investigating Criminal Networks Linked to Migration

• In Event: Comparative and Cross-National Perspectives on Immigration and Violence

Abstract

Since the 1970s, French national borders have been defined as the primary locus of control for the movement of individuals. The implementation of the Schengen area of free movement of persons in the mid-1990s contradicts this principle. This article assesses the specificity of border policing in this context.

Drawing on a criminology approach (Pratt et Thompson 2008; Loftus 2013), I examine the daily practices of the border guards at the internal borders of the Schengen territory. Based on interviews and observations made at the France-Italy and the France-Spain internal border, I demonstrate how border police agents manage the contradictory directives of free movement of persons and migration control. First, these agents have developed de facto approaches to target the “deviant migrants”. This targeting of the “deviant migrant” is embedded in a local geographical and migratory context. Secondly, border police services have been deployed within the territory in the border region to investigate criminal networks linked to irregular migration, such as document forgeries and smugglers. This deployment has revealed more complex means of criminalizing migration.

Author

• Sara Casella Colombeau, Université de Montéral / CICC