'Weaponized' Migrants? Domination and Opportunities for Agency

• In Event: The Strategic Logic of Migration

Abstract

In the summer of 2022, Governors Abbott and DeSantis started sending irregular migrants from their states of Texas and Florida, respectively, to, among others, Washington D.C., New York, and Martha’s Vineyard. This move was decried by many on the left as ‘weaponizing’ migrants for political purposes. Governors Abbott and DeSantis acknowledged that they were making a point -- namely, that inflows of irregular migrants across the border with Mexico presented a burden on their states that the federal government was not making enough of an effort to mitigate, and that liberal states they held responsible for these policies should get a taste of the problem. They also pushed back on the narrative of weaponization or victimization, however. They claimed, variously, that migrants volunteered to move to new locations; that the Federal government also moved migrants across the country (and that their initiatives were in line with such practices); and that no harm was done, since the destinations had openly proclaimed to welcome irregular migrants. This paper assesses the normative appeal of the arguments on both sides by foregrounding the perspectives and interests of the migrants themselves. It engages with previous work on this topic (e.g. Greenhill 2010; Muraszkiewicz & Piotrowicz 2023). Drawing a parallel to other recent episodes of the ‘weaponization’ of irregular migrants, notably, the Belarussian government’s policy in 2021 to move migrants to the Polish border and the appearance in late 2023 of asylum seekers at Russia’s border with Finland, it argues that the narrative of weaponization wrongly draws a stark contrast between regular practices in immigration control and the political tool of migrant instrumentalization. Instead, this paper contextualizes ‘weaponization’ as one of the myriad ways in which migration regimes dominate migrants, and it explicates under which conditions migrants might nevertheless be able to wrest back control.

Author

• Barbara Buckinx, Princeton University