In June of this year, the new
right-wing Italian government denied multiple rescue ships operated by private
NGOs permission to dock in Italian ports. This move marked the dramatic opening
salvo of a further reinforcing of Fortress Europe. Since then, civil rescue
missions in the central Mediterranean have been almost completely blocked,
while captains and crews are threatened with legal proceedings for, among other
things, “supporting illegal migration”. According to the UN Refugee Agency
(UNHCR), these moves caused at least 700 people to drown in the Mediterranean in June alone.
Urban civil society has risen up in
protest across Europe. The statements issued in June by mayors of southern
Italian coastal cities such as Palermo, Naples and Ravenna attracted
international attention. All of them harshly criticized the national
government’s refusal to allow the rescue ship “Aquarius”, carrying over 600
refugees, to anchor in an Italian port and declared their willingness to accept
the refugees in their cities. The municipal governments of Cologne, Düsseldorf,
Bonn, Berlin, and Kiel also signalled their willingness to take in refugees
shortly thereafter. Prior to that, the Berlin Senate had been involved in
negotiations with the governments of Barcelona and Naples to collaborate on
further refugee protection measures.
Many of the cities currently
pushing for taking on more refugees belong to the network of administrations of
major European cities established in 2016, “Solidarity
Cities”. This alliance of cities, however, is no activist network, but
rather a “circle of heavyweights” composed of the administrators of European
metropolises, mostly port cities, pushing for a coordinated approach to what
its founding document labels the “refugee crisis”. They call on the European
Commission to increase social infrastructure funding in the European cities in
which most refugees arrive or already live.
Political pressure also comes from
the activist base, however. Last year, refugee councils, migrant organizations,
welcoming initiatives, left-wing movements, urban policy NGOs, church groups
and academics in cities like Berlin, Bern, Cologne, and Zurich as well as
countless smaller cities founded the alternative city network with the almost
identical name, “Solidarity City”. The
coalition’s demands go far beyond the official European city network: they call
for halting deportations and directly accepting refugees, but also for a
fundamental democratization of urban life.
These examples show the growing
significance of urban policy coalitions in the struggle against Europe’s
rightward drift and the sharpening of European border and migration policies
(Kron 2017). After all, it is not only the fortified borders on the
Mediterranean, the question of national citizenship and foreign residency
status — the policies of cities and municipalities also play an important role
in the living conditions of migrants in the EU. It is thus central for
developing a left-wing migration policy strategy to take a more critical look
at the various city networks. More than anything, we must ask how local
political measures can be developed which at least side-step or even disable
national and European migration controls and exclusion mechanisms at the
municipal level.
The Solidarity City: Global Freedom
of Movement and Social Rights
What initially appear to be two
separate topics — EU border policies and social rights in the city — turn out,
upon closer inspection, to be closely related. Insofar as solidarity cities
experiment with new ideas of delinking access to rights and resources from
national citizenship, such as through municipal ID cards, they strengthen (at
least implicitly) struggles for open borders. For although a growing number of
people regard it as the precondition for access to social rights, the right to
(global) freedom of movement and settlement is thus far not recognized as one
of the catalogued social rights in the stricter sense. So-called “free
movement” — i.e., the free choice of one’s place of residence — is by its nature
more of an individual right and thus belongs to the category of civil rights.
Paragraph 13 of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights gives every person
the right “to freedom of movement and residence within the borders of each
state” and “the right to leave any country, including his own, and to return”.
The human rights charter thus acknowledges the right to emigrate, but not to
immigrate.
The UN Sustainability Goals agreed
upon in 2015, which primarily humanitarian and development NGOs refer to either
affirmatively or in a critical manner, also fails to identify global freedom of
movement and settlement as a development goal. It is instead addressed only as
a sub-point featuring a very vague formulation, that “orderly, safe, regular
and responsible” forms of migration should be established, including through
the “implementation of planned and well-managed migration
policies”. Further sub-points make indirect reference to migration. They
contain issues such as reducing transaction fees for migrant remittances or the
fight against human trafficking and forced labour. Yet the sustainability goals
make no mention of a right to migration for everybody — a right that most
people in Europe and North America take for granted.
This legal and developmental gap is
the subject of intense controversy in the social sciences and humanities.
Authors who attempt to adopt a global perspective in inequality research or
political philosophy see the restricted right to global freedom of movement and
settlement as one of the most important preconditions to accessing many further
(social) rights and thus to the goal of global social justice (Cf. also Cassee
2016; Forschungsgruppe “Staatsprojekt Europa” 2014). Political scientist
Joseph Carens writes that, in light of the restrictions on mobility in place
for the majority of the world’s population, being a citizen of a wealthy country
is comparable to a feudal privilege, as life chances are extremely unequally
distributed. Anyone who takes individual freedom seriously cannot get around
accepting a general right to international freedom of movement (Carens 1987).
The “visa politics” pushed by the
EU and US in the northern hemisphere and the “global mobility divide”
associated with it is described by sociologist Stephan Lessenich as a central
pillar of the “externalization society”. It maintains the “imperial mode of
living” and privileges people in the Global North at the expense of people in
the Global South: “Mobility chances are a monopolized resource here, which one
claims for oneself while denying it to others. Physical regulation of movement
— some are mobile; others are demobilized — is a central element of the Western
lifestyle” (Lessenich 2017: 137).
In the movements and networks for a
solidarity city, the right to global freedom of movement and settlement is
factually acknowledged and attempts are made to assert Global Social Rights in
the local political space. This becomes particularly evident in the Charter of Palermo formulated by
Palermo’s mayor Leoluca Orlando in 2015, to which many European solidarity
cities have since subscribed to. Orlando explicitly calls for the abolition of
residency permits, the linking of civil rights with one’s place of residence,
as well as the unconditional guarantee of the (human) right to global freedom
of movement and settlement.
Urban Citizenship: Rights for All
These kinds of municipal
citizenship policies are referred to as “urban citizenship” in the
Anglo-American debate. Conceptually speaking, the debate refers to, among other
things, sociologist T.H. Marshall’s 1950 essay “Citizenship and Social Class”.
The concept of “citizenship”, however, is understood in markedly broader terms
than the German term Staatsbürgerschaft,
allowing for a nuanced and historically informed understanding of social,
political and economic participation in social life (Marshall 1950). The
urban citizenship debate applies this perspective to the local level and to
urban processes (Hess and Lebuhn 2014). Against this backdrop, notions of urban
or regional forms of citizenship are discussed to denote the introduction of
local political instruments which grant or extend social participation not only
to (state) citizens, but also to urban inhabitants who have no formal citizenship
status or rather cannot assert it due to their marginalized social position
(García 2006).
In recent contributions to the
debate, citizenship is understood as more than just a status which people
either do or do not have. Instead, political and social struggles are also
highlighted through which recognition, rights and access to resources can be
won in the first place. Primarily with view to the situation of migrants and
refugees, Engin Isin and Greg Nielsen have coined the term “acts of citizenship”
to describe these struggles for rights (Isin and Neilsen 2008)
The Sanctuary City as a
Model
A prominent model for the European
network of solidarity cities is the “sanctuary city” movement (or “cities of
refuge” movement), which started in Canadian and US cities and localities in
the 1980s (Lippert and Rehaag 2013). Pushed forward by the mobilization of
strong immigrants’ rights movements, progressive mayors and municipalities
forbid local administrations and police departments from working directly with
national immigration authorities. This goes a long way in preventing raids and
deportations, as the federal authorities responsible for executing checks and
deportations are generally dependent on the assistance of local authorities.
Yet many of the US and Canadian municipalities are concerned with more than
“just” stopping deportations and a more or less precarious “right to stay”.
Some, such as New York City or San
Francisco, have issued municipal ID cards for years: so-called “City IDs”
(Lebuhn 2016). These allow people without regular residency permits as well as
other marginalized groups in the city to deal with local administrations more
easily, and offer them more security in their everyday city life more
generally. Although the reach of such policies of recognition is limited, the
everyday alleviations that sanctuary city status or a municipal ID facilitate
should not be underestimated: whether it be registering children for public
schools, using public libraries, accessing city resources in the broadest
sense, or opening a bank account or signing a rental contract.
Compared to the German-speaking
world, it is also interesting that the topic of migration is not addressed
exclusively through discourses of cultural difference such as the dispositif of integration, ethnic ascriptions
or the alleged formation of parallel societies. Instead, it has to do with the
tension between belonging to a political community on one hand and the
possibilities of social participation this entails on the other (Holston and
Appadurai 1999: 4). This, in turn, affects not only migrants, even if they are
often excluded from (formal) citizenship, but rather all people pushed into
social marginalization over the course of neoliberalization who have had their
social as well as civil rights factually restricted.
An Example: Health for All!
Urban citizenship is not limited to
stopping deportations. Rather, it is about strengthening social rights and
social participation in their various dimensions: that includes the social
rights to health, education, shelter, work, but also cultural and
gender-specific rights. Contrary to the often repeated prejudice that
fundamental change in these spheres can only be reached at the nation-state
level, there are in fact spaces to manoeuvre at the regional and municipal
level — that is, if activists, local politicians and administrations all work
together (Fried 2017).
An exemplary case can be found in
the field of health care policy. Although no area is more tightly regulated
than access to the public health care system, it has been possible in multiple
federal states to enable medical care for people without access to the public
health insurance system through alternative public programs. This in turn helps
not only migrants without regular residency permits, but also many other people
who were pushed out of the standard insurance system due to social
marginalization. In Berlin, for example, 1.5 million euro is to be spent on
medical care with an anonymous medical certificate beginning in autumn 2018.
Those in need receive the certificate through
a non-state clinic without having to indicate their identity or legal
status. Such programs are anything but perfect, as they continue to work
as a kind of parallel system, but they relieve activist networks like the Medibüro which until now have provided medical
care for disadvantaged groups in a volunteer capacity, and institutionalize it.
More than anything, however, they represent the insight that the ensuring and
public financing of the right to health for all people is a responsibility for
the whole society.
Radical Democratization or
Neoliberal “Diversity”?
It is precisely these
socio-political and material components which distinguish urban policies
asserting Global Social Rights from “diversity” programmes of the more
neoliberal persuasion. Many states and municipalities have introduced these
kinds of diversity programmes in recent years (cf., inter alia, Rodatz 2014).
At the European level, the Intercultural Cities Programme (ICC) has functioned
as a network of meanwhile over 100 European cities pursuing intercultural
reforms since 2008 (Lebuhn 2018).
It is without a doubt positive that
such programmes seek to normalize migration rather than depicting it as a
“problem” for cities from the beginning. At the same time, the term “diversity”
is often oriented towards concepts taken from corporate management. Migration
is understood as an economic resource which can prove useful for cities in
inter-urban competition. The World Economic Forum (WEF), for example,
emphasized in a 2017 study on the effects of
migration on large cities worldwide that inclusive urban migration policies
have a positive influence on “economic development” in the urban space. To
the extent that the notion of “citizen” is deployed, it tends to exhibit
qualities like “self-responsibility” and “self-optimization”, combined with the
utilization of neo-communitarian notions of a civil society-driven
“responsibility for the community”. Unlike in the solidarity cities debate,
which is inspired by the “Right to the City” approach and demands the “Right to
Rights”, questions of distribution, justice or social security are secondary at
best. Points of connection for left-wing movements and politics are thus hardly
to be found.
Criticisms and Counter-Criticisms
Although the political approaches
of the Solidarity City network and Sanctuary City policies differ significantly
from urban “diversity management” programmes, they are also criticized from the
left. Often described as problematic is the fact that urban citizenship
policies only have “local” effects and generally remain focused on “pragmatic”
aims. In practice, however, the urban movements grouped around the idea of the
solidarity city are in fact highly important. On the one hand, they seek to
mobilize broad political alliances. The Solidarity
City network, for example, seeks to develop “a city for all” in which
“everyone shall have the right to live and work”, “no matter what ‘legal’ and
financial status they have”. This makes the campaign attractive for rent
control, housing and trade union initiatives as well. On the other hand,
opportunities are created — not only for migrants with insecure residency
status — to access rights and resources, at least at the city level. For those
affected who otherwise are deprived of fundamental rights to shelter,
education, health and work through national laws, this has a very immediate
utility, the significance of which cannot be emphasized enough.
A major problem is without a doubt
the fact that municipal regulations, due to their local reach, cannot ensure
access to social security systems which are generally established at the
federal level. Moreover, Albert Scherr and Rebeccas Hofmann (2016) argue that
no regular access to the labour market can be enabled and that Sanctuary City policies
as we know them from North America also facilitate the emerge of “shadow
economies”. Ultimately, no real protection from deportations occurs, which can
perhaps give those affected a false sense of security.
This can be countered, however,
with the fact that despite all limitations, there is no reason not to take
action at the local level to make the everyday lives of refugees more secure.
The criticism concerning the “shadow economy” is also not unproblematic, as it
overlooks the fact that local protection from deportations also makes it easier
to assert regular working standards for all. Especially for people without
regular residency status, legal advice from the trade unions and social
movements is made easier to access and legal action against manipulative
employers is facilitated — that is to say, the emergence of the “shadow
economy” is addressed on the capital side and migrants are supported in their
labour struggles. Nevertheless, it remains clear: whether Solidarity City or
Urban Citizenship, municipal citizenship policies are an important but
nevertheless small step in the right direction.
Global Social Rights and Migration Struggles
The movements and coalitions of
cities of solidarity, refuge and sanctuary in Europe and North America are politically
heterogeneous, pursue different interests and raise diverse expectations from
other political actors. We can distinguish between four dimensions of municipal
interventions into migration policy: these include, firstly, protecting against
legal prosecution and deportation of irregular migrants and rejected asylum
applicants. This is the common denominator of the meanwhile 560 cities,
districts and states participating in the US and Canadian sanctuary cities
movement (Kron 2018). The second dimension is that of human rights
interventions. The mayors of European cities like Berlin, Cologne, Düsseldorf,
Bonn, Barcelona, Palermo and Naples who declared their willingness to take in
refugees in their cities directly in the summer of 2018 are primarily concerned
with intervening in the humanitarian crisis on the basis of human rights. Third
are the policies of municipal citizenship. With innovative experiments to
strengthen urban citizenship such as municipal IDs in New York, San Francisco,
Barcelona and Zurich as well as the planned anonymous health card in Berlin,
city governments seek to assert Global Social Rights at the municipal level and
thereby detach them from the residency status and nationality of city
inhabitants. The fourth dimension is the “Right to the City”. The Solidarity
City network, for example, pursues a fundamental democratization of urban life.
It is a social movement that fights for a more solidary, socially just and
participatory city for all. Thus, while neoliberal actors like the WEF
highlight city policies of inclusion and diversity as motors for economic
development, left-wing movement actors see in solidarity cities a “space for progressive politics in
Europe”.
Irrespective of their differences,
the coalitions and networks of solidarity cities and sanctuary cities
articulate a deep political disagreement with the increasingly restrictive and
exclusionary migration policies being enacted on the national and regional
levels. Herein lies their political relevance and potential strength, although
they still encounter inevitable limitations. It cannot be our long-term goal to
transfer the question of social rights onto the municipal level and produce a
patchwork quilt of local regulations. The municipal recognition of the right to
global freedom of movement and settlement thus possesses a strongly appellative
character, but will have little positive impact for most refugees as long as
national and regional governments — such as in the current blockade on sea
rescues in the Mediterranean — continue to pursue such demonstratively
exclusionary policies.
For global freedom of movement to
make its way into the catalogue of accepted human rights and Global Social
Rights to be asserted beyond individual urban spaces, new or strengthened
coalition politics are needed — with, for example, civil society actors working
on development policy, open-minded government administrations, and progressive
politicians at the national and regional levels. A growing number of
politicians and activists in urban policy coalitions now know that migration
struggles and urban citizenship policies are not sectoral issues, but rather
emphasize the common interests of (allegedly) disparate groups, namely social
justice. Particularly the linking of demands for a right to free movement and
Global Social Rights in the city opens the possibility of posing a solidary
answer to the neoliberal and far-right European elites currently succeeding in
sewing divisions of “we Europeans” or “we Germans” against “the Others”.
Translation by Loren Balhorn
Stefanie
Kron is a Rosa-Luxemburg-Stiftung fellow working on international
politics and social movements.
Henrik
Lebuhn is a researcher in city and regional sociology at the Humboldt
University in Berlin, and serves on the editorial board of PROKLA
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Originally published on: Solidarische Städte: Globale Soziale Rechte und das Recht auf
Mobilität. - Rosa-Luxemburg-Stiftung (rosalux.de)
Photo: European migrant crisis | Oct. 11, 2015
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