Are States Interconnected?

The world is on the move. Currently, millions of people are displaced, whether that be refugees, asylum seekers, or stateless persons. Countless factors can force the movement of people with their consent or against their will. A large portion of displaced people that are left out of the statistics are migrants who are smuggled into their destination state. Migrant smuggling consists of assisting migrants to enter or stay illegally in a state and only occurs transnationally. Each sovereign state has their own practices governing immigration, some stricter than others, making relocation for causes of political violence, war, and the betterment of life challenging. The smuggling of migrants proves that states are interconnected based on sustainable development, the violation of human rights, and international conventions and protocols.

The United Nations Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) connect states based on action by all countries for global partnership. In terms of migrant smuggling, there is a large toll taken globally on sustainable development, specifically looking at goals 8, 10, and 16. SDG 8 promotes inclusive and sustainable economic growth, full and productive employment, and decent work for all(1). Individual states have the primary responsibility to uphold this goal by regulating the labor market ensuring avenues of exploitation are reduced. The tenth SDG has an integral role in diverting migrant smuggling by reducing inequalities. Specifically in the targets 10.7 and 10.8, where the facilitation and mobility of people are planned and managed through migration policies, and develop financial flows with foreign direct investment to grow developing states economies. These targets examine migrant smuggling by its root in profit to aim toward allowing safe migration to destination countries without the need for smugglers and develop equal opportunity workplaces in order to reduce profit made by smugglers; if a developing country has the resources to initiate fair and safe workplaces for all, the demand for smugglers decreases, and overall works to reduce those looking for better working environments in another country. According to the International Migration Policies, appropriate migration policies can contribute to inclusive and sustainable economic growth by helping to fill labor shortages and revenue for migrant families (2). Because the United Nations (UN) does not have the ability to produce binding documents for states, state cooperation with the SDGs allows criminal justice institutions to provide proper punishment for migrant smuggling. SDG 16 aims for peace, justice, and strong institutions (3) to strengthen the effectiveness of criminal justice systems in states with a focus on human rights and humane treatment to ensure the dignity of smuggled migrants is protected. The United States, for example, adopted a border patrol policy in the 1990’s to control illegal immigration. This tactic looks to increase border patrol agents at the border and increase electronic surveillance. A downfall to this policy is that irregular migrants increased their reliance on smugglers to gain entry, which adds a new focus on smuggling with irregular migration (4). By global partnership and global state enforcement of meeting the 2030 SDGs, states can decrease the demand for smugglers and exploitation of smuggled migrants by reducing inequalities and building a justice based system for condemning smugglers.

States interconnect based on the human rights violations faced by smuggled migrants. The Universal Declaration of Human Rights (UDHR) represents the bare minimum set of rights with overlapping consensus of indivisibility and interdependence. States are responsible for violating the principle of non-refoulement; the cornerstone of asylum and international refugee law. This principle encompasses Article 14 of the UDHR, as well as the commitment of the international community to “ensure all persons the enjoyment of … the rights to life, to freedom from torture or cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment or punishment, and to liberty and security of person” (5). Under international human rights, non-refoulment entails the prohibition of extradition, deportation, expulsion, return or removal of a person regardless of status, when there is belief of risk, torture or cruel treatment, or other violations in the origin country. A prime example of non-refoulement violation is the discovery of smuggled migrants in the back of a transport truck at a Walmart in San Antonio, Texas in 2017, where the surviving migrants faced deportation meanwhile they helped the prosecution in sentencing James Bradley (6). Because of the American criminal justice system and ICE, instead of the smuggled migrants being treated fairly and with dignity, they were released from hospital with limited medical care, jailed with their smuggler, and faced deportation (7). A man from Aguascalientes, Mexico - which in 2021 was more dangerous for crime than Sinaloa (8)- faced deportation. This violates non-refoulement because deportation is a reality as well as fear of violence in the home country.

Smugglers also violate the rights of migrants through the violation of the right to life, the right to be protected from violence, and freedom of movement. Seen through various examples of migrants' deaths in shipping containers or by taking dangerous routes to cross borders by foot or sea denies the right to liberty and life. There are many more deaths than those that have been detected by authorities. 28% of deaths reported in 2018 and 2019 came as people attempted to cross the Sahara Desert, and 72 deaths per month in 2018 and 2019 from journeys across the Mediterranean Sea into Europe from the north African shores (9). Sexual violence was reported to be common among survivors, committed by their smugglers, and in states like West Africa, security, military, and police officials were primary perpetrators of sexual violence and abuse (10). The freedom of movement is also denied by smugglers by being forced to endure long, strenuous journeys to destination countries in transport trucks or by boat where movement is heavily restricted. The human rights violations demonstrated by states and smugglers shows state interconnection by denying rights for the vulnerable.

International conventions and protocols create binding obligations for states who sign onto the treaty. Migrant smuggling can take place in many different shapes and sizes. The most common is through hierarchical organized crime groups who have control and operate in all phases of the smuggling process, like providing fraudulent documents, transportation, and housing. The United Nations Convention against Transnational Organized Crime (UNTOC) is the main international instrument for fighting transnational organized crime and is supplemented by one smuggling protocol: the Protocol against the Smuggling of Migrants by Land, Sea and Air. This protocol was the first international instrument that provided a definition of migrant smuggled that was agreed upon, and aims at preventing and combating smuggling while promoting state cooperation to protect the rights of migrants. States that ratify the protocol agree to cooperate to combat smuggling by enacting laws criminalizing the crime. The UNTOCs Article 5 criminalizes the participation of an organized criminal group (11) which establishes that states must criminalize the completion or attempt of activities carried out by organized crime groups, while Article 9 of the Smuggling Protocol calls for the safety and humane treatment of persons. These conventions and their binding statures allow for states to build a global community connected on the protection of smuggled migrants and the punishment, and deterrence, of smugglers.

The smuggling of migrants poses a challenge to the global community to discourage migrants from seeking the help of smugglers from organized criminal groups, and challenges state institutions like border patrol and their policies to adjust for more inclusive entry and regulation for the labor market. The human rights violations puts the dignity of the person at risk, and if these displaced people are unrecognized by the state, violations will continue to happen in the forms of workplace, sexual violence, and threats for persecution from smugglers. Throughout exploring the smuggling of migrants, it is important for states in the future to understand the need for smugglers, thoughtful analysis of broadening accessibility and economic equality in origin countries to help decrease irregular migration for economic purposes, and implementing peaceful approaches to political instability to create equal opportunity and break cycles of political corruption.

End Notes

1. United Nations Department of Economic and Social Affairs, 2015.

2. International Migration Policies, 2015.

3. United Nations Department of Economic and Social Affairs, 2015.

4. Rob Guerette & Ronald Clarke, “Border Enforcement, Organized Crime, and Deaths of Smuggled Migrants on the United States - Mexico Border”, European Journal on Criminal Policy and Research 11 (2005): 159-174.

5. UN High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR), 1997.

6. Ryan Devereaux. “They Helped Prosecutors After Escaping Death in a Smuggler’s Truck. Now They’re being Deported”, The Intercept, 2017, https://theintercept.com/2017/10/01/immigrants-helped-prosecutors-after-escaping-death-in-a-smugglers-truck-now-theyre-being-deported/.

7. Devereaux, 2017.

8. Mexico Daily Post. “Aguascalientes exceeds Tamaulipas and Sinaloa in Crime”, Mexico Daily Post, 2021, https://mexicodailypost.com/2021/08/06/aguascalientes-exceeds-tamaulipas-and-sinaloa-in-crime/

9. UNHCR, “Thousands of refugees and migrants suffer extreme rights abuses on journeys to Africa’s Mediterranean coast, new UNHCR/MMC report shows”, UNHCR, 2020. https://www.unhcr.org/news/press/2020/7/5f1ee9314/thousands-refugees-migrants-suffer-extreme-rights-abuses-journeys-africas.html

10. UNHCR, 2020.

11. United Nations convention against Transnational Organized Crime, 2004.

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About the Author: Natasha Giannantonio is currently an undergraduate student studying English and Political Science.