Humanity and security under siege. European discursive politics on immigration and asylum

In recent years, European politics and public discourse about immigration and asylum have been permeated by a humanitarian stance. Yet the same political representatives who speak up humanely often produce merciless statements that imply inhumane treatment for people on the move. To explain this contradictory regime of humanitarian and security discourse we start from the early securitization of European borders, which has established a link between immigration, crime, and terrorism. The securitization of the issue of immigration, with its related rhetoric of fear and security, has made the metaphor of the siege seem natural, credible, and validated by facts. After illustrating the pendular regime of humanitarian/security discourse, we show how while the first is deemed inevitable after high profile shipwrecks, but is soon forgotten, the second is justified by a paradigm of siege and institutionalized in norms, bureaucracies, technologies, and doctrines that privilege security over human life.