Read an Excerpt
CHAPTER 1
"The Secret Is to Look Good on Paper"
Appropriating Mobility within and against a Machine of Illegalization
STEPHAN SCHEEL
Reports in the media of spectacular border crossings tend to create the impression that the majority of illegalized migrants enter the European Union (EU) clandestinely, hidden in freight containers or in unseaworthy boats. It is, however, by now an established fact that the majority of illegalized migrants arrive perfectly legally with a valid Schengen visa in the EU and only become "illegal" once it has expired (Collyer et al. 2012; Düvell 2011; EC 2003; Schoorl et al. 2000:101; Sciortino 2004; Zampagni 2013). The importance of visas as a mode of entry for illegalized migrants has also been documented for other destination countries such as the United States, where it is estimated that so-called visa overstayers account for 40–50 percent of the country's illegalized population of 12 million people (Andreas 2000:100; Pew Hispanic Center 2006:3). Likewise, reports on illegalized migration in the United Kingdom (which is not part of the Schengen area) underline the fact that, contrary to public perception, the vast majority of illegalized people in the UK are nondeported rejected asylum seekers and visa overstayers (Sigona and Hughes 2012:6). This observation has also been confirmed for the global level: The IOM's World Migration Report 2010 emphasizes that most of the 10–15 percent of the world's international migrants who are in an irregular situation are, in fact, overstayers (IOM 2010:29). Yet neither the importance of restrictive visa policies for the illegalization of migration nor the significance of visas as a mode of illegalized migration has been sufficiently acknowledged by border and migration studies so far.
This is well reflected by the relative neglect in the border and migration studies literature of the Schengen visa regime, which is the focus of this chapter. The meager but growing number of publications one finds on the Schengen visa regime sits in stark contrast with the attention dedicated to more visible aspects of border control such as detention centers, deportations, militarized border controls under the lead of Frontex, or interception policies in the Mediterranean in border, migration, and critical security studies. It could indeed be argued that much of the research in border and migration studies suffers from the same bias as media coverage and public debate, which, by focusing on more visible and often dramatic forms of unauthorized border crossings and the spectacle of militarized border enforcement, "help to generate a constellation of images and discursive formations, which repetitively supply migrant 'illegality' with the semblance of an objective fact" (De Genova 2013a:1830). The relative neglect of the Schengen visa regime is all the more astonishing given that it affects the access to mobility of billions of people. Phenomena such as the much-debated attempts to cross the Mediterranean in overcrowded boats simply constitute what are, in fact, effects of this vast machine of illegalization, which provokes these and other dangerous forms of border crossing, as I show in this chapter.
Moreover, we know virtually nothing about aspiring migrants' attempts to appropriate mobility to Europe via Schengen visas and the less spectacular border struggles that occur, on a daily basis, in the 3,500 visa sections that the EU's member states maintain worldwide. This chapter uses the introduction of the Visa Information System (VIS), one of the largest biometric databases in the world, as an occasion to compensate for this twofold lacuna in the borders and migration studies literature. Drawing on the autonomy of migration approach (AoM), I engage the Schengen visa regime from the perspective of aspiring migrants in order to investigate how they appropriate mobility to Europe via Schengen visas in the context of biometric border controls.
This question is raised by the AOM's core thesis. As indicated by its name, the AoM suggests that migration features moments of autonomy — that is, moments of uncontrollability and excess — in relation to the attempts to control and regulate it (cf. Bojadzijev and Karakayali 2007; De Genova 2010d; Mezzadra 2011; Moulier Boutang 1993). This claim is in tension with the promotion of biometric technologies as adequate means for " 'filling the gaps' in traditional methods of border control" (Thomas 2005). What makes biometric recognition systems so attractive for border control purposes is their alleged capacity to verify the claimed identity of a person with unprecedented speed and accuracy. One purpose of the VIS is, for instance, to verify that the person seeking to cross the EU's external border is the same individual to whom a Schengen visa has been issued at a consulate. To this end, the fingerprints of all visa holders are captured upon arrival at the EU's external borders and compared to the fingerprint templates that have been created and stored in the VIS when the people concerned applied for visas at the consulates. Thus, the VIS is meant to forestall passports with valid Schengen visas being used by so-called lookalikes, that is, similar-looking persons (Broeders 2007). What this example demonstrates is that the VIS forecloses some of the practices by which migrants could successfully appropriate mobility to Europe. Hence, the introduction of the VISraises the question: How do migrants appropriate mobility to Europe via Schengen visas in the context of biometric border controls?
Engaging this question provides me — and this is the second contribution that this chapter seeks to make — with the opportunity to introduce the notion of appropriation as an alternative concept to theorize migrants' capacity to subvert border controls. To this end, I will identify six features that practices of appropriation share, irrespective of their form. The need for such an alternative concept resides in the limitations of the two concepts that are usually invoked in border and migration studies to theorize migrants' capacity to challenge governmental attempts to control and regulate their behavior. These are the concepts of agency and resistance.
This twofold objective is reflected in the chapter's structure. In the first two sections I show that the Schengen visa regime constitutes, from the viewpoint of aspiring migrants, an unpredictable regime of institutionalized distrust that renders mobility to Europe a scarce resource. The Schengen visa regime emerges as a machine of illegalization that entices multiple practices of appropriation, and thus instigates the very practices it is meant to forestall. In the third section I elaborate on one set of practices by which migrants appropriate the Schengen visa in the context of the VIS. After outlining the central shortcomings of the two concepts that are usually invoked to theorize migrants' capacity to defy border controls, I use this example to illustrate six features that practices of appropriation feature, irrespective of their form.
The following account of the Schengen visa regime and practices of appropriation is based on ethnographic fieldwork that I conducted in and around consulates of Schengen member states in a North African country. During two field visits in 2012, I observed all phases of the visa application and decision-making procedures in a consulate to which I refer in the following only as consulate Z. The reason is that field access was tied to a promise to use theinformation obtained only in a way that enables neither the consulate nor the country where the research was conducted to be identified. These participant observations have been complemented by interviews with visa applicants, consular staff, and heads of mission of other consulates.
Making Mobility to Europe an Exclusive Affair: The Visa Regime as a Machine of Illegalization
"We are like flies ... what are we waiting for?" an old woman shouts angrily. Together with dozens of other visa applicants she has been waiting since seven o'clock in the morning outside a large visa section to have her fingerprints taken in order to enroll in VIS. For most people in the queue it is the second day of their visa application. In an attempt to rid itself of the bad image created by queues in front of its buildings in the middle of the capital, the visa section, which receives a large proportion of visa applications in the country in question, has outsourced the filing of visa applications to a private company. Following the instructions on the consulate's homepage, most applicants arrange an appointment at the company's offices, located in a prosperous business district out of town, to submit their application for an additional fee of &8364;25. If their file is complete and none of the required documents are missing, applicants receive an appointment to have their fingerprints taken at the consulate the next day. Many visa applicants regard the new procedure as confusing and complicated. As a surgeon working in a private clinic explains, the visa application procedure is a nuisance for him primarily because it is so time-consuming. The income he loses because he cannot work for two days is more significant to him than the additional fees he has to pay to the private company. Hoping to resume his work at the clinic as soon as possible, he has arrived three hours early for his appointment, like many others who are waiting on the small street behind the consulate. Lorries on their way to the nearby market sound their horns angrily at the waiting people as they try to pass the crowd, which almost completely blocks the road. After fifteen minutes and plenty of shouting, the two security officers guarding the consulate entrance bring the waiting crowd back into line.
What this account illustrates is that the visa application procedure is not only time-consuming and expensive — it is also a daunting experience for applicants, a point that has been greatly emphasized by the existing literature on the Schengen visa regime (Bigo and Guild 2003; CIMADE 2010; Infantino 2013; Maschino 2008; Zampagni 2011). Less has been written about the many people who never join one of the queues in front of the 3,500 consular posts that Schengen member states maintain worldwide because they simply cannot meet the manifold requirements an applicant must fulfill to receive one of the precious entry tickets to Europe.
Each day during my research I encountered people who told me they had never applied for a Schengen visa or had tried once, only to be rejected. One morning, while I was asking people in the queue described above for an interview, a young man approached me and asked me for advice. His name was Mohamed. He explained to me that he had recently tried to apply for a Schengen visa, only to be chased away by the guards in front of the consulate. Laughing at him, they had told Mohamed that his visa application would be refused anyway, advising him to come back in a couple of years when he had found a job and started a family. "Why can I not go to Europe? Why can I not go to [name of country represented by the consulate] to learn about the culture and get to know the people? I have studied European culture and philosophy, so why can I not go there now to get to know it firsthand? What do I have to do to get a visa?" I had no ready reply. I just confirmed what the guards had already told him: his visa application would certainly be rejected because as a young student without a stable financial income he embodied a high "migration risk" in the eyes of consular staff. Each day I encountered numerous others who, unlike Mohamed, had not even dared to apply for a Schengen visa because they "knew" what the guards had told him: they had no realistic chance of being granted a visa. Tarek, a cab driver, had a brother living in Europe but had never tried to visit him because "they would never give me a visa." Walid, a young servant working in the hotel where I was staying, had learned from failed attempts by friends that applying for a visa was "just a waste of time and money."
The accounts of Mohamed, Tarek, Walid, and countless others highlight that it is the very rationale of the Schengen visa regime to render mobility to Europe a scarce resource. This is far from surprising, since "making a division between good and bad circulation, and maximising the good circulation by minimising the bad" (Foucault 2007:18) is the raison d'être of this vast security dispositif. In practice, the Schengen visa regime restricts foreign nationals' access to the EU by introducing an entry ticket, a Schengen visa, receipt of which is subject to conditions that a significant share of the population cannot fulfill and that often do not correspond to local circumstances. People like Mohamed, Tarek, and Walid are excluded from registration and documentation with a Schengen visa through a "wall of documents" they cannot provide and a set of requirements they cannot fulfill (Broeders 2011:59). This is why the Schengen visa regime constitutes a "Paper Curtain" (Lavenex and Uçarer 2004:433) for many citizens from the 124 countries that are subject to a visa requirement, including all of Africa and nearly all of Asia, as shown on the accompanying map.
For instance, consulate Z's instruction leaflet enumerates no fewer than ten different types of documents which applicants must provide for a tourist visa: a valid passport, bank statements for the past twelve months, proof of means of subsistence (&8364;88 per person per day) or a declaration from a host that they will cover costs, an employment contract, salary slips for the past three months, a holiday request signed by the employer, a social security card, a print-out of social security contributions, travel insurance for all Schengen member states, and a reservation for a return ticket. Together with the costs of the visa application itself (including not only fees but often also travel and accommodation in the capital), the cost of providing these documents easily amounts to the average monthly income in the country I visited (cf. Zampagni 2011). Moreover, providing some of these documents may prove impossible for many people, as they do not reflect the working and living conditions of a large share of the population. In the context of a large informal economy, cab drivers like Walid may not have a bank account or pay social security contributions (Alpes 2011:116–17). That the paper requirements for a Schengen visa are often removed from local realities is also admitted by J, who works at an embassy hosting one of the largest visa sections in the country I visited. In the context of a large informal economy, even very rich businesspeople find it difficult to provide documents confirming their wealth, J tells me. The same applies to farmers, who cannot provide evidence of the land they own due to incomplete registers, she adds.
But even if they provide all the requested documents, people like Mohamed, Tarek, or Walid will not be issued a tourist visa by any of the consulates I have visited, because they do not meet the informal requirements that guide consular staffs' decisions. The head of the visa section at consulate Z, for instance, considers any application for a tourist visa dubious, because the member state he represents "is certainly not the most attractive tourist destination in Europe." Hence, he only issues tourist visas to people who have previously visited Europe and have a permanent job with a significant income. Likewise, the head of another visa section that does, in fact, represent an attractive tourist destination boasts in an interview: "Anybody who does not earn at least double the average monthly income will not get a visa from me." By setting requirements for a visa that the majority of the local population cannot fulfill, the Schengen visa regime subjects Mohamed, Tarek, Walid, and countless others to the paradoxical freedom "to go anywhere except where one wants to go" (Bigo 2007:26).
But since people "do not decide to stay put just because the receiving state says they are not welcome" (Castles 2004:209), the Schengen visa regime operates, in effect, as a vast machine of illegalization. This becomes apparent if one recalls that boat migration from North African coasts only became a significant phenomenon after Spain first imposed visa requirements on the nationals of all African and Arab countries in 1991, in order to meet the accession criteria for the Schengen area (Carling 2007b:11, 22; de Haas 2008:1307). People like Mohamed, Tarek, and Walid have, in fact, only two options at their disposal to contest their preemptive banishment from Europe through highly restrictive visa requirements: Either they try to appropriate mobility via Schengen visas through practices that involve the clandestine transgression of these strict regulations, or they bypass the Schengen visa regime altogether by engaging in more dangerous modes of clandestine border crossing, which are often facilitated by "smugglers" who charge their clients predatory fees for their services.
(Continues…)
Excerpted from "The Borders of "Europe""
by .
Copyright © 2017 Duke University Press.
Excerpted by permission of Duke University Press.
All rights reserved. No part of this excerpt may be reproduced or reprinted without permission in writing from the publisher.
Excerpts are provided by Dial-A-Book Inc. solely for the personal use of visitors to this web site.
