Borders may be barely noticed by globe-trotting corporate executives, but for the vast majority of the world’s inhabitants, border checks remain a practical obstacle to transnational mobility. If this were not the case, unauthorized migrants would not have to pay such enormous prices to hire professional smugglers and place their lives at their mercy to evade state controls. Clandestine transnational activities such as migrant smuggling and drug traficking are so profitable precisely because states impose prohibitions and restrict territorial access. Defying border controls is not only financially costly for many but can involve great personal risk: If border controls were merely a nuisance and easily bypassed, there would not be so many migrant deaths in the southwest borderlands of the United States and so many migrants drowning in the Adriatic and the Strait of Gibraltar. These mounting deaths offer a particularly grim reminder that borders continue to matter.
Tiré de : ►http://www.mitpressjournals.org/doi/abs/10.1162/016228803322761973
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