Crimmigration: Criminal justice, refugee protection and the securitisation of migration

This chapter will overview the acceleration of the 'crimmigration' process identified by Stumpf (2006) as the increasing merging of criminal and immigration laws. This will include but not be limited to the increasing merging of criminal justice and immigration agencies, the development of exceptional legislation and the problematic application of criminal justice and criminological ideas to the global phenomenon of irregular migration (most notably ideas of deterrence and punishment in the absence of clearly identifiable criminal activity). In so doing it will consider the merging of criminal justice and immigration functions at a range of functional border sites (Weber 2006) with a focus on its criminalising impact. It will trace the tensions between refugee protection and border control symptomatic of the current securitisation of migration climate.