Multi-layered Migration Deterrence and Technology in Spanish Maritime Border Management

Until 2006 Spain witnessed growing irregular maritime immigration from the African continent. This intensification in irregular migration has led to the design and application of a migration control policy whose instrumental and institutional structures are becoming increasingly complex. Irregular immigration at maritime borders has been addressed through what we have referred to and characterized as a multi-layered deterrence strategy which has been gradually implemented and upgraded along the main entry points and migration corridors. The Spanish strategy is tightly intertwined with the unfolding of the EU Integrated Border Management approach and combines higher inputs of surveillance and border control technologies with multilateral cooperation agreements reached with transit and origin countries. High-tech border surveillance increases interception probabilities, but effective migration deterrence is conditioned by high expulsion rates once the border has been crossed. It is in the task of border implementation that technology appears as one of the pillars of the control structure and where its effect on deterrence depends on its embeddedness in a mix of instruments and actions.