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Immigration Policy Studies

Theoretical and Empirical Migration Researches

by Ufuk Bingöl (Volume editor)
©2019 Edited Collection 338 Pages

Summary

The migration movement, which has taken place since the beginning of the story of mankind, increasingly continues voluntarily or compulsorily for various reasons such as social challenges, technological revolutions and wars. Due to migration, many new questions emerge depending on these issues. Researchers from many different disciplines are looking for answers to these questions arising from migration movements. This book covers deep researches from different perspectives and disciplines upon migration by successful and expert researchers in their field. In this book, different and rigorous analyses of all areas influenced by migration are carried out and various dimensions of immigration studies are shown.

Table Of Contents

  • Cover
  • Title Page
  • Copyright Page
  • Preface and Acknowledgments
  • About the editor
  • About the book
  • Citability of the eBook
  • Contents
  • List of Contributors
  • Section 1 Policy & Conceptual Researches on Migration
  • What is Required of a Welfare State?: A Comparison of the Migration Policies Employed in Both Turkey and Europe with Regard to Syrian Refugees
  • Migration Management and Municipalities in the Context of Urban Refugees: Legal and Administrative Approach
  • The Right to Work of Workers under Temporary Protection Status in Turkey
  • International Migration and Immigrants: An Evaluation in the Context of the New Security Concept
  • The Effects of Transboundary Movements on Security and Stability
  • Section 2 Economic Researches on Migration
  • Refugees in the Turkish Labor Market: Legal and Economic Analysis
  • The Economic Reflections on the Homeland of the Reverse Brain Drain Tendency in Turkish Scientific Diaspora
  • Migration: Employment, Productivity and Openness
  • Section 3 Health Researches on Migration
  • Migration and Adaptation
  • Immigrants and Health
  • Section 4 Urban, Educational & Cultural Researches on Migration
  • Migration and Urban Space: The Distribution of Syrian Asylum Seekers in the Space
  • “Who is Who According to Whom?”: An Analysis of the Relationship Between Teachers Candidates’ Attitudes Towards Refugees and Their Understandings of Multiculturalism from Different Perspectives
  • The Journeys of Afghan Immigrants and the Relationship among Immigrants
  • Section 5 Regional Researches on Migration
  • Turkish Migration Policies in the Context of Syrian Refugees through from the Turkish Citizens’ Perspective: The Case of Konya
  • Measuring Attitudes Towards Migrants: The Case of Bandirma
  • A Study on the Integration Process of Syrians Who Emigrated to Aydın Province after 2011
  • Factors Affecting Households’ Internal Migration Intention in Muş Province, Turkey: An Ordered Discrete Choice Modeling Approach
  • The Effect of Geopolitical Factors on Migration and Settlement Geography: The Case of Sakarya
  • List of Figures
  • List of Tables

List of Contributors

Asst. Prof. İnci Aksu Kargın

Uşak University, Turkey

Asst. Prof. Hicran Hamza Çelikyay

Düzce University, Turkey

Dr. Mehtap Yücel Bodur

Hacı Bayram Veli University, Turkey

Asst. Prof. Emre Çıtak

Hitit University, Turkey

Assoc. Prof. Zeynep Yücel

Bandırma Onyedi Eylül University, Turkey

Asst. Prof. Yavuz Kağan Yasım

Hitit University, Turkey

Asst. Prof. Atakan Durmaz

Samsun University, Turkey

Assoc. Prof. Kenan Terzioğlu

Trakya University, Turkey

Merve Öztürk

Trakya University, Turkey

Prof. Ayhan Gençler

Trakya University, Turkey

Assoc. Prof. Çiğdem Yüksel

Health Sciences University, Turkey

Asst. Prof. Didem Ayhan

Bandırma Onyedi Eylül University, Turkey

Asst Prof. Neşe Mercan

Bilecik Şeyh Edebali University, Turkey

Dr. Melike Çallı Kaplan

İstanbul, Turkey

Asst. Prof. Eylem Beyazıt

Hatay Mustafa Kemal University, Turkey

Asst. Prof. Banu Yaman Ortaş

Trakya University, Turkey

Asst. Prof. Hayrettin Şahin

Sinop University, Turkey

Asst. Prof. Kemal Çiftyıldız

Bandırma Onyedi Eylül University, Turkey

Assoc. Prof. Erhan Örselli

Necmettin Erbakan University, Turkey

Lect. Veysel Babahanoğlu

Düzce University, Turkey

Asst. Prof. Neslihan Arslan

Bandırma Onyedi Eylül University, Turkey

Dr. Eren Alper Yılmaz

Aydın Adnan Menderes University, Turkey

←15 | 16→

Prof. Kerem Karabulut

Atatürk University, Turkey

Assoc. Prof. Ali Kemal Çelik

Ardahan University, Turkey

Asst. Prof. Dilek Özdemir

Atatürk University, Turkey

Lect. Kübra Karakuş

Muş Alparslan University, Turkey

Asst. Prof. Cemile Şahin

Bandırma Onyedi Eylül University, Turkey

İnci Aksu Kargın

What is Required of a Welfare State?: A Comparison of the Migration Policies Employed in Both Turkey and Europe with Regard to Syrian Refugees

1 Introduction

Migration, which has significantly affected humans throughout the world since time immemorial, is shaped via a variety of motives such as an increase in armed clashes between different factions within a state, the corruption of state institutions, environmental problems, world transformation brought about through globalization, citizens being denied democratic rights, and ethnic and racial-oriented conflicts (Taran, 2001). Recent times have played witness to what has been referred to as the worst humanitarian disaster since the Second World War, which was prompted by the Bashar al Assad regime employing disproportionate violence against protestors in the Syrian town of Daraa in March 2011. This crisis has in turn resulted in Syrian refugees questioning how migration is and will continue to shape their existence in the world at large. Syria’s pre-war population totaled 22 million, but clashes between parties in the country have resulted in 6.2 million internally displaced people (UNHCR, 2019b) and 5.6 million Syrian citizens seeking shelter in neighboring countries, including Turkey, primarily, as well as Lebanon, Jordan, Iraq, and Egypt. At present, as the war in Syria enters into its eighth year, Turkey hosts 3.6 million of the 5.6 million Syrian refugees displaced via war (UNCHR, 2019a). While Turkey has taken in the majority of Syrian refugees, other neighboring countries have shouldered the burden of taking in the remaining Syrian citizens fleeing war, and most of Europe has sought to keep the crisis as far away from its borders as possible. To this end, Europe has extended offers of financial aid to the countries hosting the refugees (Unutulmaz, Sirkeci, and Utku, 2017). From the time the crisis began, Turkey approached the Syrian refugees and the problems they faced as temporary, which meant that country expected the Syrians to seek refuge within Turkey’s borders for a relatively short time, but the civil war in Syria seems to be without end. As such, Turkey must begin to pursue long-term policies aimed at the social and economic integration of the Syrian refugees. This academic study assesses the ways in which both Turkey and the European Union have approached the Syrian ←19 | 20→refugee crisis in terms of welfare state provisions. The current study also offers recommendations regarding the steps both parties should undertake in order to transform this humanitarian crisis into a situation that is more beneficial and less potentially risky to those involved.

1.1 Welfare States and the Risks Posed to Them via the Migration Movements

The relationship that exists between the welfare state and migration has been widely discussed in recent years (van Oorschot, 2008). The welfare state, as a concept, embodies a structure that forms a border so as to determine who is and who is not a citizen and therefore who does and who does not automatically benefit from state resources that result from the associated welfare system (Freeman, 1986). Since nation-state boundaries and domestic resources often result from hard-fought battles, the primary purpose of the welfare state is to protect these things from potential external threats. A central tenet of the welfare states calls for justice via the redistribution of welfare by taking from the wealthy to ensure that welfare is distributed to the needy and most vulnerable; this may be referred to as the Robin Hood philosophy (Barr, 1998). However, even though welfare states generally strive to protect their national borders, millions of individuals abandon their homelands and, through migration, may erode the borders of nation-states. Migratory movements may serve to disquiet these welfare states and affect their sustainability as they can result in economic, security, and socio-cultural risks, which may prompt the states to close their borders even to claims for asylum.

2 The Assessment of Migration Policies Employed in Turkey and Europe Regarding the Syrian Refugees in terms of Different Variables

2.1 Turkey and Europe’s Approaches to the Migration of Syrian Refugees from a Security Perspective in the Context of the Welfare State

When considered in the context of security, a primary aim of all welfare states is to protect the country’s national borders from potential external threats. The protection of a state’s national borders is of vital importance not just in terms of the maintenance of public order but also in terms of preserving citizens trust. The erosion of a welfare state’s national borders may bring about a number of issues such as the state losing sovereignty over its borders, and public order being ←20 | 21→spoiled (Carens, 1987). In addition, often, welfare states may have too little information regarding who the newcomers are and why they want to enter a given country, and this is another reason as to why welfare states have been wary in terms of refugees and security (Gibney, 2004).

The primary risk associated with migration and asylum movements in terms of the security of a welfare state is the prospect of refugees, for example, encouraging more and more people to migrate into the state and perhaps gradually erode the state’s borders (Gibney, 2004). For instance, beginning in March 2011, when the events that led to war began in Syria, the Turkish government stated that it would implement an open-door policy with regard to the Syrian refugees. However, the psychological limit was determined to be 100,000 refugees, and when number of incoming refugees continued to increase, Turkey wanted to create a security zone in Syria (Ferris and Kirişçi, 2016).

While Turkey, in accordance with both the international agreements to which it is party and the humanitarian viewpoint, generously opened its borders to the Syrian refugees, the migration policy the country implemented prompted new migration and asylum influxes. For instance, the clashes between ISIS (Islamic State of Iraq and Syria) and opponent factions in 2014, as well as the increase in attacks aimed at civilians, resulted in Iraqi citizens seeking asylum from Turkey; the number of asylum seekers was initially between 40,000 and 50,000, and it later reached between 240,000 and 250,000 (Ferris and Kirişçi, 2016: 36–37). Further, beginning in the first quarter of 2018, a new Afghan migration movement took root, with its participants seeking to make their way into Turkey (Kasapoğlu, 2018). In particular, the increasing clashes in Afghanistan and the insecure environment, the increasing deterioration in the economy, and the country’s high unemployment rates prompted Afghan citizens to seek to Turkey in hopes of ultimately reaching Europe. Although the migration of the Syrians and, later, the Iraqis and Afghanis is largely the result of Turkey’s generous migration policy, it is also a sign of the erosion of Turkey’s borders.

Unlike Turkey, with its generous migration policy, European countries have approached the Syrian migration movement with increased border security so as to protect their welfare states. The main reasons regarding why European Union states have approached migration movements and pursuits of asylum as security issues have to do with risks associated with domestic security, cultural unity, and the operation of welfare systems within European societies (Huysmans, 2000). Although European countries viewed emigration positively during the 1950s and 1960s, as they sought to use foreigners as labor, which their economies needed, they began abandoning this outlook during the late 1960s and 1970s; from that point, they began to perceive migration as a security problem that has to be ←21 | 22→solved (Huysmans, 2000). In response to seeing migration as a security issue, European countries began implementing solutions in the form of, for example, the Third Pillar on Justice and Home Affairs, the Schengen Agreements, and the Dublin Convention (Huysmans, 2000). These regulations sought to discourage illegal migrants from entering Europe.

European Union member states approached the Syrian refugees just as they had come to approach refugees from elsewhere; that is, they saw the refugees as a risk and sought to keep them out of Europe (Hristova, 2017). Once the Syrian crisis began, some European countries granted resettlement to the Syrian refugees, but they only allowed relative few refugees to resettle in Europe, and to keep others out, most European countries enhanced border controls, fought harder against migrant smuggling, and built fences along the borders. Most Countries’ were determined to do what they felt necessary to keep the refugees out of Europe rather than to apply right-based approaches. For instance, the European Migration Agenda, which was implemented in May 2015, sought to decrease the illegal migration aimed at Europe as much as possible, strengthen the border controls, decrease migrant and refugee deaths, and implement a unified migration regime among European countries (Carrera, Blockmans, Gros, and Guild, 2015: 3–4). Further, FRONTEX which was founded in 2004 with the aim of generating unity in the migration and asylum regulations of European Union member states, and securitization of the external borders of the European Union against illegal entries (Léonard, 2010), tightened border checks further in response to the increased illegal crossings into European countries (Orchard and Miller, 2014).

However, since the refugee crisis began, the European states had resorted to a number of legal regulations in order to deter the refugees from entering into Europe illegally; while European borders were closed, as expected, the Turkish border remained open. Some refugees and immigrants who did not see a long-term future for themselves in Turkey and who believed that they might have better opportunities in Europe, have been willing to risk their lives in the dangerous waters of the Mediterranean and Aegean Seas so that they might reach these countries. For instance, according to the Dublin Regulation, the European Union member country that receives the first asylum application is responsible for the management of the asylum process. However, when European countries like Greece and Italy, which are closer to the region of crisis than the Western European countries, became more exposed to refugee influxes, and their borders began to erode, they violated the Dublin Regulation on occasion, as they allowed the flow of refugees to enter Europe’s interior (Park, 2015). Moreover, the Hungarian government, as a result of 102,000 illegal migrants arriving at ←22 | 23→the state’s borders between January and July 2015, built fences along the border (Park, 2015: 7), and this served to shift the refugee flows away from the Hungary-Serbian border and toward Slovenia (Trauner, 2016).

Another security problem that the asylum and migration movements bring out in terms of welfare states is the migrant smuggling problem, and along with the emergence of Syrian refugee issue, the migrant smuggling in Mediterranean and Aegean Seas worsened. The migrant smuggling problem has not been a problem only for the lives of the migrants, but it has also caused the individuals who mediate this action to violate the border regulations of nation-states, gain illegal income from this deed, and undermine the relevant welfare states to operate properly.

Along with the Syrian refugee crisis, the number of individuals who committed migrant smuggling in Turkey increased gradually, and while the number of migrant smugglers arrested in 2014 was 1,506, this increased to 4,471 in 2015 (Sirkeci, 2017: 133). Turkey announced that beginning March 2015, the country had suspended the open-door policy except as it pertained to emergency health cases, an this was the result of increased asylum claims (Crawley, Düvell, Jones, McMahon, and Sigona, 2016). Still, some Syrian refugees continue to enter Turkey via illegal routes with the help human smugglers (Crawley et al., 2016). Moreover, it has not been only Syrians who have held out hope of reaching Europe via the Mediterranean and Aegean Seas; Afghan migrants who entered Turkey illegally have also sought to reach Europe via the waters. In particular, since the first quarter of 2018, the number of illegal Afghan immigrants and refugees who seek to enter Turkey with fake documents and trucks gradually increased, as people began to think of Turkey as a corridor by which to reach Europe.

Immigrants and refugees have attempted these perilous journeys in hopes of building new lives in developed countries – primarily Europe. This has resulted in thousands of lost lives, as people have drowned in the Mediterranean and Aegean Seas. Europe’s measures aimed at keeping migrants away from its external borders have played an escalating role in refugees and immigrants choosing to resort to other hazardous routes (Cosgrave et al., 2016).

While Europe takes restrictive measures to deter illegal migrant entries across its borders, during the first nine months of 2015, the number of individuals seeking to get into Europe reached 464,000 according to the IOM (as cited in Park, 2015: 12). Both the rising immigrant and refugee casualties in the Mediterranean and Aegean Seas and the illegal migration toward the European countries, as well as the ever-worsening migrant smuggling problem, pushed European Union member countries to negotiate with Turkey in order to develop ←23 | 24→a new solution to address the growing problems. This resulted in a Joint Action Plan, which was implemented on November 29, 2015, and it serves to address the needs of both Turkey and the refugees to whom it serves as host, and it also seeks to impede illegal entries into Europe (Collett and Le Coz, 2018). Moreover, on March 20, 2016, a new collaborative agreement was signed between the parties regarding border security; this agreement seeks to prevent immigrants and refugees from entering Europe by Turkey to Greece via illegal routes (Baban, Ilcan, and Rygiel, 2017). This agreement also addresses the facilities of migrant smugglers who mediate these entries. The agreement states that for each immigrant or refugee who passes over Turkey to Greece via illegal routes and is subsequently returned to Turkey, a Syrian refugee will be resettled in one of the EU countries, as long as the number of individuals resettled does not exceed 72,000 (Amnesty International, 2016). Further, in addition to the 3 billion euros, which are to be given to Turkey in order prevent illegal travel to Europe, the agreement states that an additional 3 billion euros in foreign aid will be provided (BBC Türkçe, 2016). However, although the plan had been effective in decreasing the number of migrants who arrived at Europe via illegal routes (Bordignon and Moriconi, 2017), it has been subject to criticism, as it seems to use refugees as bargaining chips (Ferris and Kirişçi, 2016).

Finally, another security problem created via the Syrian crisis that served to affect the welfare systems in both Turkey and European countries had to do with the authority gap in Syria that gave rise to terror organizations’ newly formed spheres of influence. For instance, after the civil war in Syria began, the radical terror organization ISIS, which became more problematic in the region beginning in 2013, executed twelve bloody terror acts in Turkey, and as a result, 211 Turkish citizens lost their lives (Çakır, 2016). In addition, with the goal of establishing a Kurdish state, the terrorist groups PKK/PYD gained some of the regions in northern Syria, which prompted the Turkish government to carry out cross-border military operations to the north of Syria (i.e., Fırat Kalkanı in 2016, Zeytindalı in 2018). The main goal of both operations was to weaken the PKK/PYD settlements in the region, prevent the formation of a Kurdish state, provide border security, form security zones, and provide voluntary repatriation of some Syrian refugees.

As for European states, the attack on Charlie Hebdo in France on January 7, 2015, caused the European countries to take into consideration the ISIS factor in the region for its own safety (Pirinççi, 2015). After the Paris attack, the attacks that were committed in Brussels and Nice encouraged gradually intensified feelings of Islamphobia in Europe. Further, after the attack in Paris, arson attacks were organized against the immigrant and refugee camps in the Calais region ←24 | 25→of France (Campbell, 2015), police operations were carried out against some Muslim men who were considered suspect, and to prevent illegal entries into the EU countries, the interior and justice ministers of EU countries assembled and decided to strengthen their surveillance systems (De Genova, 2017: 13). Finally, unlike most of the European countries’ leaders, German Chancellor Angela Merkel provided shelter to hundreds of thousands of Syrian refugees in Germany, but her approach agitated some German citizens. Further, Merkel’s open-door policy prompted some citizens to remove their support for certain parties, such as AfD, in the elections and to engage in anti-immigrant discourse (Byrd, 2018).

2.2 Turkey and Europe’s Approaches to the Migration of Syrian Refugees from an Economic Perspective in the Context of the Welfare State

Today, international rivalry is strong and shapes economic stability and growth, which is itself an important factor that helps to determine whether a country can offer its citizens acceptable living standards that are fundamental to the goals of welfare states. In particular, when conducting an evaluation via an economic perspective, it is necessary to consider that natural resources are finite, and the objectives of a welfare state may be to protect state resources from potential external threats (Freeman, 1986).

If migration begins in a country where quality of life is low, then it is not unreasonable to expect that migrants from that country will economically burden any target countries. The just redistribution of public revenues among a society’s citizens is among the aims of the welfare state, but these revenues and the public services that are linked to them may become overburdened with the arrival of foreigners to the state. This may then result in citizens taking a dim view of their government and its ability to govern effectively. For instance, if the host country citizens are discontent with the idea that public revenues, which are collected via the taxation of the citizens in question, will also be used to meet the needs of foreigners, the citizens might resort to tax evasion that will effectively undermine the country’s welfare system (Crepaz, 2008).

In examining the economic impact of migratory movements to states, one might find that migrants have caused the price of labor to fall (Kreibaum, 2014) in some business sectors and have led to an increase in unemployment among the country’s citizens who work in the shadow labor market.

Details

Pages
338
Year
2019
ISBN (PDF)
9783631804810
ISBN (ePUB)
9783631804827
ISBN (MOBI)
9783631804834
ISBN (Softcover)
9783631801932
DOI
10.3726/b16328
Language
English
Publication date
2020 (May)
Keywords
migration refugee immigration policy migration theories migration movements
Published
Berlin, Bern, Bruxelles, New York, Oxford, Warszawa, Wien, 2019., 338 pp., 21 fig. b/w, 54 tables

Biographical notes

Ufuk Bingöl (Volume editor)

Ufuk Bingöl is assistant professor at Bandırma Onyedi Eylül University, Turkey. His main interests are qualitative data analysis on policy debates on social networks, economics and social sciences.

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