No Borders: Immigration and the Politics of Fear

It is often asserted that neoliberal globalisation has had the liberating effect of breaking down traditional borders as barriers to free trade are swept away. Yet, in practice, recent decades have seen the erection of a host of new boundaries and the reinforcement of old ones. Boundaries continue to be a salient feature of the contemporary political, geographical and social landscape. National and extra-national boundaries have been reinforced, particularly in the European security state and beyond as ever-stricter immigration controls are adopted. Through an analysis of immigration policies in Europe, the United States and Australia, this book aims to challenge both the physical and metaphorical borders that divide citizens from migrants, ‘bogus’ asylum-seekers from the ‘genuine’, ‘legal’ from ‘illegal’ migrants… Rather than seeing immigration as problematic in itself, this collection instead regards barriers to immigration as problematic to the extent that they contribute to the marginalisation, criminalisation and even death of those who seek to make a better life for themselves in another country and tend to obfuscate the cultural, social and economic benefits which migration might bring to host countries.