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ALL at SEA the Policy Challenges of Rescue, Interception, and Long-Term Response to Maritime Migration

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ALL at SEA the Policy Challenges of Rescue, Interception, and Long-Term Response to Maritime Migration ALL AT SEA The Policy Challenges of Rescue, Interception, and Long-Term Response to Maritime Migration Kathleen Newland with Elizabeth Collett, Kate Hooper, and Sarah Flamm Migration Policy Institute Foreword by Peter Sutherland, United Nations Special Representative of the Secretary-General September 2016 Migration Policy Institute Washington, DC © 2016 Migration Policy Institute All Rights Reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced or transmitted in any form by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopy, or any information storage and retrieval system, without permission from the Migration Policy Institute. Information for reproduc- ing excerpts from this volume can be found at www.migrationpolicy.org/about/copyright- policy. Inquiries can also be directed to [email protected]. Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data All at sea: the policy challenges of rescue, interception, and long-term response to maritime migration / by Kathleen Newland, Elizabeth Collett, Kate Hooper, and Sarah Flamm. pages cm Includes bibliographical references. ISBN 978-0-9831591-6-2 1. Emigration and immigration--Government policy. 2. Emigration and immigration- -Government policy--Case studies. 3. Ports of entry--Security measures. 4. Ports of entry- -Security measures--Case studies. I. Title. JV6271.N48 2015 325’.1--dc23 2015020086 Cover Photo: A. D’Amato, UNHCR (via Flickr.com) Cover Design: Marissa Esthimer, MPI Typesetting: Liz Heimann, MPI Suggested citation: Newland, Kathleen with Elizabeth Collett, Kate Hooper, and Sarah Flamm. 2016. All at Sea: The Policy Challenges of Rescue, Interception, and Long-Term Response to Maritime Migration. Washington, DC: Migration Policy Institute. Printed in the United States of America. TABLE OF CONTENTS FOREWORD .....................................................................................................................................V Peter Sutherland PREFACE ........................................................................................................................................VII Kathleen Newland CHAPTER 1: Maritime Migration: A Wicked Problem ..................................................1 Kathleen Newland CHAPTER 2: Unauthorized Maritime Migration in Europe and the Mediterranean Region .....................................................................................................................43 Elizabeth Collett CHAPTER 3: Maritime Migration in the Bay of Bengal, Andaman Sea, and Straits of Malacca ...................................................................................................................95 Kathleen Newland CHAPTER 4: Unauthorized Maritime Migration in the Gulf of Aden and the Red Sea ........................................................................................................................127 Kate Hooper CHAPTER 5: The Maritime Approaches to Australia ................................................149 Kathleen Newland CHAPTER 6: Maritime Migration in the United States and the Caribbean ..............175 Kathleen Newland and Sarah Flamm Acknowledgments .....................................................................................................201 About the Authors ....................................................................................................203 About the Migration Policy Institute ........................................................................206 FOREWORD By Peter Sutherland Desperate migrants and refugees risking their lives at sea frame one of countries intolerable, and no country to welcome them, they shock our collectivethe defining conscience issues of andthis revealyoung thecentury. inadequacy With conditions of both national in their poli home- cies and international cooperation. Unauthorized maritime migration, too often accompanied by appalling suffering and shocking death rates, has put to the test friendly relations among neighbors, long-established maritime traditions, the cohesion of the European Union, and the humanitarian commitments of the international community. The policy responses to these challenges are by no means adequate, but the issues cannot be ignored. Kathleen Newland and her co-authors from the Migration Policy Insti- tute have put the challenges and the dilemmas of maritime migration starkly in perspective in this compelling volume. Although the issue did not get the attention it deserves until people started pouring across the Mediterranean, this book also covers the boat people of the Carib- bean, the Bay of Bengal, and the Andaman Sea, as well as the maritime approaches to Australia. It puts the policy conundrums in vivid language: squeezing the balloon, the blind men and the elephant, and wicked problems. But it also offers practical policy recommendations as well as analysis, while asserting unequivocally that there will be no Thesingle, failure simple to solutioncooperate to and these share flows. the responsibilities of protection at sea will lead—is leading—to greater disorder in international migra- asylum and frontline coastal states are experiencing growing pres- suretion corridorsfrom refugee and andto less unauthorized protection formigrant refugees. arrivals. Countries If these of firststates are overwhelmed and left to face these challenges unaided, they may resort to pushbacks to even less-capable countries, or tolerate irregular departures to other countries. They may suffer from growing lawless- ness associated with the presence of criminal elements attracted by smuggling opportunities. FOREWORD V The costs of not cooperating are high, and they escalate if cooperation does not even begin until a crisis is very nearly out of control. This is the challenge confronting policymakers in the face of unauthorized maritime migration—and this book will help to prepare them for timely action. Peter Sutherland United Nations Special Representative of the Secretary-General for International Migration VI ALL AT SEA PREFACE In 2013, the Australian Department of Immigration and Border Protec- tion invited me to take part in a series of high-level strategic discus- sions in Canberra, addressing some of the most perplexing, and often brought policymakers from several departments of the Australian governmentcontentious, togetherissues in withmigration academic policy. experts These from confidential a small numberdiscussions of countries and practitioners from international organizations and nongovernmental organizations. One meeting was devoted to irregular maritime migration, and that led the Department’s Irregular Migration Research Programme to commission the Migration Policy Institute (MPI) to do a study of unauthorized movements by sea in several parts of updating a publication that MPI had issued in 2006, but it quickly becameof the world. apparent At first, that we a newimagined and more that ambitiousthis would work be a simplewould bematter required. Movements by sea had become more complex, widespread, and dangerous, presenting what often seemed to be intractable prob- lems for policymakers. At the time the work began, in early 2014, the Mediterranean crisis had yet to assume the dimensions that would rock Europe, the Caribbean was relatively quiet, movements across the Bay of Bengal and the Red Sea/Gulf of Aden got little attention outside (or even inside) their regions, and Australia was just embarking on it its radical new operation to stop boat arrivals. From that point forward, unauthorized maritime migration exploded onto national and international policy agendas, seizing the attention of governments, the media, and publics worldwide. Crisis followed team at MPI was updating every week and struggling to keep up with eventsupon crisis. and policy With theturns. manuscript After several in first months, draft inwe the decided spring to of put 2015, the the book aside and wait until things settled down a little, or at least until we could gain some perspective on current events. We returned to the manuscript in 2016 and decided to draw a line under the narrative with the end of that summer. Maritime migration was far from disappearing from public view, but some common themes had emerged—enough, we hope, to support a useful analysis and practical recommendations. - tion to the movement of people by sea to places that are not prepared One thing that readers of this book should not expect to find is a solu dynamic, and complex for a once-and-for-all solution. The multiple to welcome them—or even to let them land. This issue is too difficult, PREfaCE VII - gees; the overlapping and sometimes contradictory legal regimes; the state- and nonstate actors; the mixed flows of refugees and nonrefu destinations;fluctuating state and policies; the inter-relatedness the secondary with movements other equally of people complex from problemscountries guaranteeof first asylum; that combiningthe constantly control shifting of sea sources, routes androutes, protect and - ing the lives and rights of refugees and migrants will require a long, oriented toward the long term. Bringing together the pieces of a puzzle thathard, constantly and persistent shifts effort. shape Policy and dimension will have isto abe particular flexible, adaptive, policy chal and- lenge and one that governments, civil society, the private sector, and international organizations must tackle together. Kathleen Newland, Washington, DC, September 2016. VIII ALL AT SEA CHAPTER 1 MARITIME MIGRATION A Wicked Problem By Kathleen Newland
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