Violent Infrastructure: Natural and Unnatural Barriers to Climate Migration

Global Tides Volume 19 Article 2 April 2025 Violent Infrastructure: Natural and Unnatural Barriers to Climate Migration Walden Hicks Pepperdine University, Follow this and additional works at: https://digitalcommons.pepperdine.edu/globaltides Part of the Comparative Politics Commons, Environmental Studies Commons, Infrastructure Commons, Migration Studies Commons, and the Politics and Social Change Commons Recommended Citation Hicks, Walden (2025) "Violent Infrastructure: Natural and Unnatural Barriers to Climate Migration," Global Tides: Vol. 19, Article 2. Available at: https://digitalcommons.pepperdine.edu/globaltides/vol19/iss1/2 This Social Sciences is brought to you for free and open access by the Seaver College at Pepperdine Digital Commons. It has been accepted for inclusion in Global Tides by an authorized editor of Pepperdine Digital Commons. For more information, please contact . Violent Infrastructure: Natural and Unnatural Barriers to Climate Migration Cover Page Footnote Thank you to my mentor professor, Dr. Chris Doran, for helping me build confidence in my writing ability and encouraging me to share this paper with others. This social sciences is available in Global Tides: https://digitalcommons.pepperdine.edu/globaltides/vol19/iss1/2 Hicks: Natural and Unnatural Barriers to Climate Migration In response to recent rises in climate migration towards the Global North from regions such as Central and Northern Africa, the Middle East, parts of Central and South America, and Pacific Island nations, Global North countries have responded with anti-immigration, restrictionist rhetoric centered around national security and fear of migrants. Global North governments are increasingly considering the use of militarized force and natural deterrence at national borders to prevent the arrival of migrants, including many climate migrants. While climate migrants are often displaced for many different reasons, including political and economic strife, climate-related impacts such as drought, wildfire, sea level rise, and flooding will only worsen as the Earth warms, operating as a threat multiplier for intrastate and international migration 1. National security and climate experts have predicted a rise in climate-related migration in the coming decades,2 and nation-states are already responding with threats of violence and aggression towards migrant populations. Militarized border security forces in countries like Italy and the United States are using natural barriers to migration, such as the Sonoran Desert and Mediterranean Sea, to commit violence against climate migrants. In this essay, I will compare the use of militarized borders and natural deterrence against climate migrants in three major Global North countries experiencing high levels of climate migration: the United States, Italy, and New Zealand. Without a just transformation of Global North security and immigration policy, climate migrants will continue to be harmed by restrictionist attitudes and militarized borders. Italy’s proximity to the Mediterranean Sea and North Africa allows significant climate migration pathways to form into this European Union (EU) country,3 but crossing the Sea has 1 Kristy Siegfried, “Climate change and displacement: the myths and the facts”, UNHCR, November 15, 2023, https://www.unhcr.org/us/news/stories/climate-change-and-displacement-myths-and-facts. 2 Erol Yayboke et al., “A New Framework for U.S. Leadership on Climate Migration”, CSIS, October 23, 2020, https://www.csis.org/analysis/new-framework-us-leadership-climate-migration. 3 Georgia Chiochinni et al., “I migranti ambientali”, Legambiente, 2021, https://www.legambiente.it/wpcontent/uploads/2021/09/I-migranti-ambientali_dossier_2021.pdf. Published by Pepperdine Digital Commons, 2024 1 Global Tides, Vol. 19 [2024], Art. 2 presented a significant challenge for migrants who are often met with aggression at Italian ports of entry.4 While migration rarely occurs due to a singular reason, many of the migrants entering Italy in the past few decades have fled countries exposed to significant climate-related impacts.5 Some of the most common countries of origin for migrants entering Italy include countries ravaged by drought, rising temperatures, and extreme flooding, such as Afghanistan, Bangladesh, Tunisia, Egypt, Pakistan, Eritrea, and Guinea.6 According to the Italian environmental organization Legambiente, over 75% of the migratory flows into the country were related in some way to environmental causes.7 For instance, in Afghanistan severe drought and flooding have driven extreme hunger, with over half of the country being food insecure in 2022.8 In Bangladesh, sea level rise and consistent flooding has forced intrastate migration north into the capital city, Dhaka, and is increasingly pushing Bangladeshi climate migrants out of the country.9 Throughout North African countries such as Tunisia, Egypt, and Eritrea, rising temperatures are limiting the agricultural output for subsistence farmers and increasing food and water insecurity.10 Many climate migrants from North Africa are choosing to brave the dangers of crossing the 4 Paola Monzini, “Sea-Border Crossings: The Organization of Irregular Migration to Italy,” Mediterranean Politics 12, 2 (2007): 163–84, https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/13629390701388679?casa_token=8wOs_FxHhGoAAAAA%3Ae2m MP9mYEAvFoWqB9PmkUoRnAQWykRGL9OnKmxIQ9b7tfDj7Zzn7js44kalleXLd-ESvjsi6SA. 5 Chiochinni et al., “I migranti ambientali”. 6 Chiochinni et al., “I migranti ambientali”. 7 Chiochinni et al., “I migranti ambientali”. 8 Nasrat Sayed and Said H. Sadat, “Climate Change Compounds Longstanding Displacement in Afghanistan”, Migration Policy Institute, June 29, 2022, https://www.migrationpolicy.org/article/climate-change-displacementafghanistan. 9 Mostafa M. Naser et al., “Climate change, migration and human rights in Bangladesh: Perspectives on governance”, Asia Pacific Viewpoint, 60 (2019): 175-190, https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/full/10.1111/apv.12236?casa_token=7wLIE3UNwkEAAAAA%3AibaPBMjnkw uYWj8GEpBRbbWZQsOqaJdosQuo9-dyCQfaPTCx4FDSbBUqV1Hml6jzrREnqN97AEj9. 10 Marwa Daoudy, Jeannie Sowers, and Erika Weinthal, “What Is Climate Security? Framing Risks around Water, Food, and Migration in the Middle East and North Africa”, WIREs Water 9, 3 (2022): https://doi.org/10.1002/wat2.1582. https://digitalcommons.pepperdine.edu/globaltides/vol19/iss1/2 2 Hicks: Natural and Unnatural Barriers to Climate Migration Mediterranean for EU countries like Italy rather than remain in a region affected by increasingly harsh temperatures and water scarcity. In recent decades, the Italian government, under right-leaning, populist party control, has resisted immigration from North Africa and other Global South countries. In 2015, Italy began to see a rise in far-right anti-immigrant political sentiment, characterized by the Lega Nord party, due to a “refugee crisis” spurred by a (...truncated)