Visas and Walls. Nazli Avdan
the primary causes of irregular migration into Europe, where clandestine border crossings have been traditionally less frequent than along the U.S.-Mexico border. In general, stricter visa regimes compel migrants to seek irregular ways of gaining access to and staying in destination states. Czaika and Hobolth (2016) find a 4–7 percent jump in the irregular migration rate into the European Union following a 10 percent spike in the visa rejection rate.
States use visas to regulate entry into destination state territories.1 Visa restrictions perform a screening function, acting as “the first line of defense” against the entry of undesirables (Torpey 1998, 252), which include prospective undocumented migrants as well as security risks. States design visa regimes to lower the ex ante probability of migrants transgressing the terms of the visa. To do this, they must be able to weed out individuals most likely to overstay and thereby transition into illegal status. For this reason, for instance, origin states that generate a high volume of undocumented migration typically confront a higher likelihood of visa requirements from advanced democracies (Neumayer 2006). Visas also have a preselection function. Czaika and Haas (2013) argue that, in general, migration control aims to distinguish between desirable and unwelcome migrants. Through selective controls, states target the composition of flows, usually in terms of skill but sometimes in terms of ethnicity and religion. Similarly, visa controls allow governments to encourage the mobility of some while inhibiting and deterring the mobility of others.
Boehmer and Peña (2012) conceptualize border openness as a continuum, reflected in the amount of documentation the destination state requires for legal entry. Fully open borders allow passage with minimal documentation; the Schengen zone has heretofore permitted citizens of Schengen member countries to travel without a passport. In other instances, states may have a separate category of origin states from which they demand only an identity card in lieu of a passport to gain entry. The requirement of a passport to gain admittance indicates a stricter approach. To illustrate, in 2009, the United States introduced the requirement that individuals carry a passport to enter from Canada, a development that signified the tightening of border controls in NAFTA. Visa requirements are a more restrictive requirement, representing a step toward border closure. Not surprisingly, there are no cases where states impose a visa for travel without a passport.
The global visa regime has become more permissive over time. However, this liberalization has proceeded in an uneven fashion (Mau et al. 2015; Neumayer 2006). While the citizens of advanced Western democracies gained visa-free travel privileges to a greater number of countries, the rest of the world’s citizens encountered new restrictions. In other words, visa policies are not necessary reciprocal. Where reciprocity applies, it is restricted to a smaller set of advanced democracies. What we do not yet know is whether and how transnational terrorism contributed to this bifurcation in the global visa system.
Empirical Implications of the Theory
This section develops a set of testable propositions concerning bilateral visa restrictions that serve as the basis of the empirical analysis. The first set of hypotheses ties transnational terrorism to visa policies. Under what conditions does terrorism impel stricter visa policies? First, we can envisage a global effect. By design, visa requirements are a tool for defending against security risks. Nevertheless, there are several ways that visa policies can be used more or less discriminately. We expect states to capitalize on the preselection, screening, and deterrent roles of visa controls to regulate territorial access. Prospective migrants who are exempt from visa requirements are deemed nonthreatening and those facing restrictions undergo additional scrutiny and background checks (Neumayer 2006).
The previous chapter argued that states confront an endemic type of uncertainty with respect to transnational terrorist groups. Asymmetric informational disadvantages make it more difficult for states to detect and ferret out transnational militants. Through clandestine access, terrorist actors can flout states’ surveillance technologies. Terrorist groups make up in secrecy and surprise what they lack in military power. By organizing across states, they place states at an operational disadvantage. Hence, uncertainty over the where and when of terrorist violence reinforces the importance of visa controls. If visa policies are the first line of defense against potential threats, as Torpey (1998) surmises, then states should capitalize on visa controls to address this type of uncertainty.
Hypothesis 1: Global Effect
States will enact restrictive visa policies against origin states whose nationals have perpetrated incidents of transnational terrorism.
One possible response is to restrict mobility from terror-exporting origin states. If we conceptualize transnational terrorism as a flow of violence, then states whose nationals have been involved in a high volume of incidents worldwide are significant exporters of terrorism (Muller 2010). I label this policy response the global effect of transnational terrorism. Namely, destination countries are attentive to whether the nationals of an origin state have frequently executed transnational terrorist events. This expectation is consonant with the notion that in the current security climate, states respond to individuals as threats (Salehyan 2008a). States may place restrictions on certain countries even if there is no animosity toward their home governments. From a slightly different perspective, the rogue-state framework that gained currency post-9/11 labels specific countries as pariahs because of their purported support of terrorism (Caprioli and Trumbore 2005). The international community may cast blame upon terror-rich states for turning a blind eye to their nationals’ involvement in worldwide terror.2
The contagion of terrorist violence across borders magnifies the global effect on policies. Transnational terrorist events may spill over into neighboring states even if the grievances are homegrown (Braithwaite and Li 2007). Alternatively, terrorist groups strategically target softer targets (Enders and Sandler 2006). Hence, proximate states’ more stringent policies may redirect terrorist violence toward states with more permissive conditions for violence. Thus events in other states inspire heightened perceived probability of future violence. Even if the state in question is not targeted in attacks, violence in other countries increases the perceived security risks of human mobility. In sum, we expect states to tighten visa policies in response to attacks elsewhere.
Hypothesis 2: Targeted Effect
States whose citizens or territory have been harmed in incidents of terrorism will enact restrictive visa policies against origin states whose nationals were associated with these incidents.
The global effect is selective in the sense that states tailor policies to specific countries, imposing restrictions on terror-rich origin states. That is, it does not imply a wholesale response whereby attacks abroad drive destination states to enact more stringent policies against all sending states. However, it is somewhat less discriminate in that it means stricter policies against origin states, regardless of whether the destination state has been directly harmed by these attacks. We can imagine a more selective type of policy whereby states respond to attacks by origin-country nationals only if their national security interests were involved in these attacks. Incidents that harm the state’s citizens, or take place on the territory of the state, directly threaten its national security. I refer to this as the targeted effect of terrorism.
Targeted events also more directly activate the fear-management aspect of border controls. Friedman (2011) argues that responding to terrorism is mostly about managing perceived vulnerability to attacks. Targeted assaults generate a sense of vulnerability, propelling states to calibrate policies according to the possible harm rather than to precise risk. However, Andreas (2009) contends that policy stringency is, to an extent, an outgrowth of public demand. Regardless of the objective efficacy of policies, restricting territorial access to outsiders also fulfills domestic demand. Policymakers also utilize draconian measures to symbolically assert their commitment and ability to insulate the citizenry from external threats.
The symbolic aspect is muted when it comes to visa controls because the public is not always cognizant of visa restrictions. The government may make much ado about imposing visas on terror-exporting states, but even then the visa requirement is physically not salient. That said, insofar as attacks on the country’s soil or involving its citizens elevate threat perception, they inspire the public to demand that the government take action.
Furthermore,