Immigration Security Challenges

WHY IS IMMIGRATION A SECURITY CHALLENGE?

Introduction

Increased immigration as a result of globalization represent a security challenge for nations because of the fast increase in the number of immigrants worldwide, for example, there were approximately 191 million persons living outside their countries of origin in 2005, but by 2010 this number had increased to an estimated 214 million (IOM 2010). Traditionally, in international relations, security has focused primarily on military concerns. From this perspective, the state is the body needing protection from threatening forces, particularly that of war (Krause and Williams 1996:230). However, security studies in the post-Cold War era has moved away from the state-centric approach, broadening

What may be considered as a societal threat to one state may be included in another, indicating that immigration is a subjective rather than objective threat to societal security that differs between states. The securitization of immigration as a threat to the survival of the national community is problematic, as it labels the foreign migrant as the “other,” ultimately excluding them from society (Huysmans 2000:758). As argued by Huysmans (2000), dissertation that frames immigration as a threat to societal security “reproduces the political myth that a homogeneous national community or western civilization existed in the past and can be re-established today through the exclusion of those migrants who are identified as cultural aliens” (758). The act of securitizing immigration is more threatening than immigration itself, as it regularly results in racism and

While an increased flow of immigrants, specifically refugees and asylum seekers, inevitably poses a fiscal challenge which the host state must manage, the effects of migration on social spending vary between states and can change over time. Moreover, the long-term economic benefits of refugee flows should not be overshadowed by the possible short-term costs (Stevenson 2005). For instance, studies on the impact of refugees in Australia show that the initial costs of accommodating refugees through social security benefits are compensated in ten years (Stevenson 2005). Securitizing immigration and presenting immigrants as a danger to the survival of the welfare system consequently leads to the exclusion of immigrants by deeming them undeserving of social