Social Work Between a Handyman and a Humanitarian Actor?

With increasingly restrictive migration regimes throughout Europe and a ‘race-to-the bottom’- attitude of previously more generous states to only follow the minimal legal requirements set by the European Union, third actors involved in the ‘migration industry’ are often caught in a moral dilemma. States increasingly outsource migration control to NGOs and private actors, expecting them to take over repressive control functions.

The buzzword ‘migration’ brings several actors onto the field, which all have some financial, moral, political and legal motivations to participate in what has been termed ‘migration industry’ (Hernández-León, Gammeltoft-Hansen, and Sørensen 2013; Andersson 2014). This increasingly productive industry, fueled by the alleged ‘migration crisis’ and growing policy restrictions put in place to regain control over migration flows, has caused the state to outsource previous ‘state domains’. According to media reports and accounts of public officials, as well as caseworkers on local level, the German state would have not been able to lift the ‘crisis of migration’ alone. Similar to this, the engagement of a growing number of voluntary organizations spread across Europe in order to facilitate adequate housing for the incoming migrants, hand out clothing and other necessities, but also legal advice. While these agencies initially aimed to reduce the often precarious living conditions, securitization approaches, based on a fear of loss of control and populist movements, have made it difficult for the so-called ‘humanitarian sector’ to react (cf. Steinhilper 2016; Muy 2016).

Consequences of Outsourcing and Privatization of Migration Control

Outsourcing former state-owned tasks of migration administration, reduces legibility of the state and its practices (Eule et al. 2019), as well as of the entire European migration regime. Tasks are redirected; negative outcomes can be easily blamed on hired third parties, the external actors. In Germany, the contracting of private security firms for guarding reception centers has led to extensive criticism (Komaromi 2016). Violent actions documented within those centers finally led to a massive court case against 32 individuals, which tortured and abused asylum seekers (Bosen 2018; Dowidelt 2016). However, due to the outsourcing, reactions on the political level remained low. Besides the lacking intercultural education of this particular workplace, the threshold for entering this line of work is low, while at the same time badly paid. Due to competitive contracts, a lack in staff and the feeling of ‘crisis’, there was little quality control.

The competitiveness of contracts and uncertainty how long a project will be run and if there is funding for future projects, causes a reduction of quality in case processing (Fee 2018). It forces staff to prioritize cases and reduce support, actively categorizing and excluded those deemed less in need (Muy 2016). Further, there has been an increase in state attempts to push third actors into becoming proxy border police. Swiss psychiatric hospital staff has to conceal information regarding upcoming deportations towards their patients. This evokes feelings of mistrust and uncertainty for the migrants: Does the social worker or volunteer work for the state, following its mandate which aims to increase voluntary return and deter individuals from staying (Suarez-Krabbe, Arce, and Lindberg 2018)? This diffusion of tasks and different roles is not only found among non-state actors, but also within the state.

Moral and Professional Dilemma

The outsourcing and privatization of migration control cause professional contradictions. It endangers the trust-based relation between social worker or volunteer, and migrant. Since social workers are embedded in the national welfare state and are expected to follow its categorizing, social workers experience a conflict of interest. During our research on state agencies and their tasks to detect, detain and deport irregularized migrants, staff of a psychiatric hospital in Switzerland voiced unease towards their new control tasks. Their superior had agreed on certain guidelines, supporting the cantonal police, which required staff to keep deportation and pick-up dates secret, thus violating the physician-patient relationship. This dilemma is even felt on state-level. A police section in Germany voiced the following concern that their tasks were contradictory. Usually their work tackled questions of integration and keeping an active contact with migrant-led groups. Yet, when deportation flights were scheduled, they were also in charge of picking up migrants for deportation. Officers felt unease about the duality of their tasks, highlighting that a great deal of their work was strongly connected to building up trust-based relations.

Linking back to the International Federation of Social Workers, Wroe (2015) argues that one should expect these work sectors to speak up for the rights of migrants, as well as to contest dehumanizing practices and thus criticizing the system. The Berner Beratungsstelle für Sans-Papiers (Achermann 2008) thus highlights their support of the ‘humanization of the everyday life‘, supporting people who are afraid to turn to other agencies, due to their irregular status. Academic institutions have made use of noncompliance – e.g. by not reporting back their students’ status to the home office and rejecting a role in immigration surveillance. Non-governmental organizations (NGO), communal and private actors can indeed support migrant individuals and integration, as well as contest restrictive state practices. However, the often complex relationship these organizations retain with the state at times challenge their independency and internal goals (Borrelli, Mavin and Trasciani 2018). This leads to the necessity to discuss the role of social work and the ‘humanitarian sector’ regarding the involvement in state-given mandates, which makes them dependent and even co-perpetrators. We need to study the self-understanding of such organizations and social workers, as well as the current changes in their work in order to analyze the broader contexts of migration control and securitization. Further, this enables us to critically study the self-positioning of the assumed humanitarian actors.

Lisa Marie Borrelli is a Post-doctoral researcher at the School of Social Work, HES-SO Valais-Wallis.

References:

– Achermann, Christin. 2008. ‘Berner Beratungsstelle für Sans-Papiers: Evaluation der Pilotphase’. SFM-Studien 54. Bern: Verein Berner Beratungsstelle für Sans-Papiers.
– Andersson, Ruben. 2014. Illegality, Inc. Clandestine Migration and the Business of Bordering Europe. Oakland, California: University of California Press.
– Borrelli, Lisa Marie, Mavin, Rebecca and Trasciani, Girogia. 2018. ‘A Forest with many trees’ – Mapping the migration industry and accountabilit(ies) in Europe. Working Paper (unpublished), presented within the FEPS YAN Network.
– Bosen, Ralf. 2018. ‘Gewalt gegen Flüchtlinge: “Es lag ein Kontrolldefizit vor”’. DW, 8 November 2018, sec. Asylbewerberunterkünfte.
– Dowidelt, Anette. 2016. ‘Security im Asylheim ist oft ein Job für Gescheiterte’. Welt, 21 March 2016.
– Eule, Tobias G., Lisa Marie Borrelli, Annika Lindberg, and Anna Wyss. 2019. Migrants Before the Law: Contested Migration Control in Europe. Palgrave Macmillan.
– Fee, Molly. 2018. ‘Paper Integration: The Structural Constraints and Consequences of the US Refugee Resettlement Program’. Migration Studies, 1–19.
– Hernández-León, Ruben, Thomas Gammeltoft-Hansen, and Ninna Nyberg Sørensen. 2013. ‘Conceputalizing the Migration Industry’. In The Migration Industry and the Commcercialization of International Migration, 24–44. London ; New York: Routledge.
Komaromi, Priska. 2016. ‘Germany: Neo-Nazis and the Market in Asylum Reception’. Race & Class 58 (2): 79–86.
– Muy, Sebastian. 2016. ‘Wes’ Essenspaket ich ausgeb’, Des’ Lied ich sing’? Über Abhängigkeiten Sozialer Arbeit Im Kontext Restriktiver Asyl- und Unterbringungspolitik’. Widersprüche. Zeitschrift Für sozialistische Politik im Bildungs-, Gesundheits- und Sozialbereich, Flucht: Provokationen und Regulationen, 141: 63–72.
– Steinhilper, Elias. 2016. ‘Ausnahme und Regel. Asyl zwischen menschenrechtlichen Ambitionen und realpolitischer Praxis’. Widersprüche. Zeitschrift für sozialistische Politik im Bildungs-, Gesundheits- und Sozialbereich, Flucht: Provokationen und Regulationen, 141: 13–28.
– Suarez-Krabbe, Julia, José Arce, and Annika Lindberg. 2018. ‘Stop Killing Us Slowly: A Research Report on the Motivation Enhancement Measures and Criminalization of Rejected Asylum Seekers in Denmark’. Copenhagen: Marronage.
– Wroe, Laura. 2015. ‘Social workers have a duty to speak up about the humanitarian crisis in Calais’. The Guardian, 4 August 2015.