Dissertations / Theses on the topic 'Humanitarian migrants'

Through an analysis of the Danish Immigration Law and asylum system, this research illustrates how the Danish state through state practices and policies permeates and produces the everyday space of humanitarian migrants. Furthermore, it examines how humanitarian migrants experience their everyday life in the Danish asylum system. An examination of state practices in conjunction with humanitarian migrants’ narratives of space and everyday practices, offers an opportunity to explore what kind of politics and political subjectivities that can emerge in the space of humanitarian migrants. This research contribute to our understanding of first, how the securitization of migration has direct impact on the everyday life of humanitarian migrants, second, second, how the state through practices and space governs and de-politicizes humanitarian migrants, and third, humanitarian migrants are able to act politically. Furthermore, this research problematizes the categorization of humanitarian migrants as “asylum seeker” in order to illustrate how the group of humanitarian migrants is a very diverse group of people from different places with various skills and education-, social-, and economic backgrounds. Even though “asylum seekers” are often portrayed as a homogenous group of vulnerable people we cannot assume that these people understand themselves as vulnerable docile “asylum seekers”.

This thesis provides a criminological perspective on the Australian state???s responses to unauthorised migrants. In particular, it attempts to build on recent criminological literature on state crime by contrasting the alleged deviance of unauthorised migrants with the organised and deviant human rights abuses perpetrated by the Australian state. The main argument of the thesis is that through the systematic alienation, criminalisation and abuse of unauthorised migrants, particularly refugees, the Australian state is engaged in state crime. While this can partly be measured by breaches of international humanitarian law, the acts in question are criminal according to the broader sociological understanding of state crime as ???state organisational deviance involving the violation of human rights???. The thesis develops this argument by locating the phenomena of forced and illicit migration within an increasingly globalised world economy in which the needs for international human migration are confronted by the restrictive migration policies of the dominant Western states. In this context, the Australian state has played a pivotal role in the development of three major Western exclusion zones, which are designed to contain unauthorised migrants in the developing world and are enforced by measures that systematically abuse human rights. The fundamental criminological dynamic of the Australian exclusion zone is its systematic assault on the movements and by definition, the rights, of forced migrants. This operates at a number of levels: unauthorised arrivals are alienated by their lack of legal status; they are denied access to a full refugee determination process; their status as refugees is subordinated to that of the resettled refugee; their experiences are denied and delegitimised through their construction as queue jumpers; they are criminalised through their participation in smuggling enterprises; they are punished and abused through the use of detention, dispersal and forced removal; and they are put at greater personal risk by the measures employed to enforce the zone. The thesis traces the development of this zone from the formation of the white Australia policy through to the Pacific Solution and critically analyses the ways in which current policy draws on and reinforces the exclusionist traditions of Australian nationalism.

This thesis research was conducted to identify factors that impact the psychological well-being of refugees from Burma who have been resettled in Australia. Qualitative analysis of interviews conducted within the first year of resettlement, and again at four years and five years post-resettlement demonstrated that refugee well-being is influenced by the context of resettlement and the continuity of existing relationships. Results have implications for immigration policy and contribute to knowledge of understanding and assisting with the process of resettlement.

The portrayal of migrants in Spanish and British media and political discourse has been the focus of much recent academic study and is largely concerned with negative images. Where positive or sympathetic portrayals have been examined, they alert us to pitfalls: compassion aroused by the portrayal of migrants as victims is a double-edged sword because victims need an external agent to empower them and, therefore, are deprived of their own agency. The image of the 'passive' and 'rightless' migrant has been counteracted by literature that portrays migrants as 'political activists' mobilising to demand legalisation of their immigration status. This portrayal of the 'activist migrant' can be viewed as 'utopian' whereby migrants are transformed into a new historical subject for social change and, as such, become the site for the projection of political hopes and desires. This study focuses on an area of research that has received little attention - how migrants' rights organisations portray migrants. Two organisations provided the research sites for the case studies: Sevilla Acoge, based in Seville, Spain, and Praxis, based in London, Britain. As demonstrated in this thesis, both of them were strongly influenced by the radical leftist ideas of liberation theology. The thesis argues that over a period of approximately thirty years (from the 1980s to the early 2010s) the portrayal of migrants shifted from a political to a humanitarian framing. More specifically, it shows that these changing portrayals reflected shifts in the organisations' values and expressed a sense of disappointment in the politics of the past that had aimed to change society through collective political action. This cross-country, comparative and longitudinal study uses a mixed-methods approach to investigate the changing portrayals of migrants. The case studies illustrate the consequences of the humanitarian trumping the political approach to migrants' rights and the implications of this for the possibilities of political action and empowerment.

This thesis examines the concept of solidarity and how it can contribute to the understanding of the criminalisation of those who provide humanitarian assistance to undocumented migrants in Europe. It also looks at acts of resistance against such criminalisation. Alternative explanations are explored on the basis of theories of solidarity, previous research and collection of material from international and European institutions on the legal situation within the European Union. Particular attention is given to illustrative cases focusing primarily on the more or less publicly acceptable provision of healthcare and the less publicly acceptable provision of housing. Criminalisation can be understood in the light of exclusive solidarity only for those with citizenship or residence permit and as a part of immigration enforcement by deterring those who want to help and therefore discouraging irregular migrants from staying in the EU. Resistance against such criminalisation is built locally, on the basis of solidarity with undocumented migrants that are relatable and familiar, which also explains why solidarity is harder to achieve on a national and European level. Resistance against criminalisation is also built on faith, dignity and other grounds such as cost-benefit estimates for cities tackling issues such as social inclusion and public health.

La presente investigación se justifica en la existencia de peruanos que viven en el exterior, quienes, según las estadísticas, son más de tres millones. Sin embargo, más que cifras exactas, lo importante es que algunos de ellos se encuentran en indigencia o necesidad extrema y necesitan protección. El objetivo principal de la presente investigación es analizar la asistencia humanitaria que brinda el Ministerio de Relaciones Exteriores a los peruanos en el exterior en el marco del Derecho Internacional de Derechos Humanos. De manera específica, la repatriación en vida; cómo el Estado peruano afronta los casos de repatriación, cómo los atiende, su evolución en los últimos casi cuarenta años y la visión de las políticas públicas del Estado con relación a sus nacionales en el exterior. Para ello, se plantea como objetivo responder a la interrogante: cuál es el fundamento para que el Estado brinde asistencia y protección a sus nacionales en el exterior, si es una obligación en sí misma o una actividad generosa y no obligada en términos jurídicos. Se concluye que es una obligación general para todos los Estados. Otro objetivo del presente trabajo es responder de qué manera cumple el Estado peruano con esta obligación de asistencia y protección. Al respecto, se llega a la conclusión que el Estado peruano es respetuoso de esta obligación de asistir y proteger a sus nacionales en el exterior, y para ello ha emitido normas, otorgado presupuestos, creado órganos y procedimientos. La conclusión principal es que, en los últimos casi cuarenta años, el Estado peruano desarrolla una serie de mecanismos para que la asistencia humanitaria a los migrantes peruanos se otorgue de manera sistemática, planificada, con normas y procedimientos preestablecidos, para brindar una protección y asistencia humanitaria que cumpla con su finalidad: respetar los derechos humanos del peruano en el exterior
Tesis

Association d'origine protestante, la Cimade naît en 1939 pour venir en aide aux Alsaciens-Lorrains repliés dans le sud-ouest de la France. Son action s'oriente vers l'accueil des réfugiés dans les lieux d'enfermement et de relégation. Son histoire permet d'aborder sous un angle particulier les années 1940, les camps d'internement français et la Shoah, la Libération, l'épuration, la reconstruction et les mutations du système pénitentiaire. La Cimade œuvre durant la Guerre d'Algérie auprès des populations algériennes dans les camps de regroupement et en métropole dans les centres d'accueil des familles harkies comme indochinoises et dans les bidonvilles où vivent les travailleurs post-coloniaux. Enfin,le gouvernement fait appel à la Cimade en 1984 pour intervenir dans les centres de rétention administrative auprès des étrangers reconduits à la frontière. Sa présence est exclusive jusqu'en 2007. L'histoire de cette association permet de saisir comment d'une assistance humanitaire, l'action bascule vers une "juridiciarisation" dès les années 1970. La continuité de sa présence livre une lecture originale de la gestion des étrangers en France. Interface entre "le dedans et le dehors", la Cimade est en tension permanente avec l'Etat. Association de terrain, pouvant sembler participer à la cogestion du système de l'enfermement, elle ne renonce pas à son militantisme ancré à gauche et dénonce ce qu'elle considère comme des cas d'injustices. Son action est représentative de l'ambiguïté de l'interventionnisme associatif. Ce travail de thèse met en lumière les repositionnements et la progressive sécularisation d'une association protestante qui traverse une partie du XXème siècle,"siècle des camps"
Originally a Protestant association,the Cimade was created in 1939 to help people from Alsace-Lorraine,who had taken refuge in the south-west of France.Its action was mainly based on welcoming refugees in confinement and banishment places.Its history helps to understand the 1940s,the French internment camps and the Shoah as well as the purge then post-war reconstruction and the penitentiary reform.During the Algerian war,the association worked both in grouping camps in Algeria and in France where the members of the FLN were assigned.During decolonisation,it gave assistance to harkies and Indochinese families in reception centres as well as to post-colonial workers in shanty towns.As soon as 1984,the government urged the Cimade to work with foreigners escorted to the border in administrative confinement centres.Its presence was exclusive until 2007.The history of this association helps to understand how humanitarian assistance became a cause lawering in the early 1970s.Its permanent presence in camps enables us to consider the specific approach to the governments policies concerning foreigners in France.Working as an interface between "the inside and the outside",the Cimade,throughout its history,was in constant tension with govenments.Although being an association in the field,seemingly involved in joint management of the confinement system,the Cimade didn’t give up its left-centered activism, denouncing what they considered as a justice denial. Its action is representative of the ambiguities of the associations interventionism.This research highlights the repositioning and the progressive secularization of the association throughout the 20th century,the century of camps

A thesis submitted in fulfilment of the requirements for Doctor of Philosophy, School of Social Sciences, Faculty of Humanities University of the Witwatersrand, Johannesburg February 2015
This study is about understanding the constructions of and meanings behind aid workers’ and independent migrant children’s representations of the category of childhood and vulnerability. A cross-cutting theme is concerned with expounding the ways in which aid workers construct the characteristics and worlds of meaning of independent adolescent migrants from Zimbabwe, partly through a kind of dialogic interface between local and global ideas of who these children are and the ideas that independent adolescent migrants have of who they ought to be. Exploring insights on the diversity of independent children’s experiences and varied representations in humanitarian work is at the centre of the investigation. The study challenges dominant and homogenising discourses about independent migrant children in migration and humanitarian work contexts. Based on fieldwork in Musina, South Africa, the study uses traditional ethnographic methods. This methodological approach is appropriate for studying the lived reality and lifeworlds of different social actors. This study is anchored mainly on “the New Social Studies of Childhood”, social constructionist and actor-oriented ethnographic approach developed by Norman Long. It employed thematic analysis and discourse analysis to understand the various discourses in child migration and humanitarian work. The study contributes to a growing body of literature in New Social Studies of Childhood, anthropology of childhood which documents and theorises the gap between aid workers’ representations of independent migrant children and the lived experience of these children in a humanitarian context. With childhood and adulthood boundaries often being de-emphasised or fading, this thesis , which provides situated accounts of the lives of social actors, underscores the prominence of social context, lifeworlds, power and shifting interests of different social actors in producing multiple, contradictory, negotiated and contested representations of independent migrant children. The representations of independent children tended to vary depending on the lifeworlds of the different actors and the context in which they operated. Focusing mainly on child mobility, sexuality and work, I argue that contrary to homogenising representations, there are formal and informal representations of independent migrant children. Thus, the study provides a critical antidote to the danger of taking dominant representations of childhood for granted. The complexities, ambiguities and contradictions in the representations of independent children which also generated different childhoods for different children, were a result of the significant tensions but also complementarity of local and global understandings of childhood. The study observes that childhood in humanitarian work is gendered, classed, nationalised and economised. Thus it challenges the discourses of childhood innocence and vulnerability which dominate humanitarian work. The varied and conflicting childhood discourses often led to exclusion and pathologisation of independent children by humanitarian workers. The study also revealed how the dominant discourse of childhood innocence and vulnerability was sustained through reminders of childhood and vulnerability. Noting that there are exclusionary and pathologising discourses at some moments, the study argues for critical, reflexive and nuanced representation of independent migrant children in migration and humanitarian work.

In Australia the Horn of African migrants are one of the fastest growing migrant communities. The majority of these migrants arrived under the refugee and humanitarian resettlement program. This study focuses on the social networks of these migrants and the impact of remittances they send on them, as well as on the lives of their families back home. The study begins with an analysis of the major trends and characteristics of migration from the Horn of Africa to Australia. The study examines different types of formal and informal social networks that migrants develop and which are used as coping strategies to address their personal, social, financial, and emotional problems. It is based on a survey of migrant settlers from the Horn of Africa. The survey also found that family and ethnic owned remittance providers play formidable roles in facilitating the cheap, fast and reliable sending of remittances from Australia to rural and remote areas (including refugee camps) in Africa. In addition to their roles in fighting poverty and improving the living and human development conditions in Africa, remittances link family and maintain social networks with those left behind, and they also are used to influence the political landscapes of their countries of origin. Due to their lack of English language and relevant labour market skills, many of the Horn of African migrants studied are unemployed and dependent on the social welfare system. Despite high unemployment rates and dependence on the social welfare system, the majority (the employed, under employed and unemployed) of these migrants send money to support their families and friends stranded in precarious situations in asylum countries and in their country of origin. However, while they believe that their remittances have improved the lives of their families back home, they openly admitted that sending money has affected their lives and reduced the quality of lifestyles of their families in Australia. The study examines a number of aspects of the lives of Horn of African immigrants in Australia, especially their engagement with the labour market, housing, social networks, the social and economic cost of not recognizing overseas qualifications and work experiences, the long and short term health consequences and the economic and social costs of allowing the import, selling and consumption of “Khat”. A number of conclusions are made regarding policies on settlement of refugees from Africa in Australia.
Thesis (Ph.D.) -- University of Adelaide, School of Social Sciences, 2012

This thesis is about a specific locality- the Central Methodist Church- and it details the lives and experiences of a large group of migrants who lived within this locality. The study also examines the activities of a wide range of humanitarian organisations that instituted interventions at the church and analyses how individuals’ suffering is dealt with by humanitarian organizations. The individuals who inhabited the church were a product of large-scale structural factors- political conflict, economic decline and fragmentation and social despair. These individuals were however following traditional mobile livelihoods routes that have been part and parcel of the Southern African labour migration history. The central questions that this study examines are how and in what ways experiential suffering is dealt with and how the different ways and technologies of managing suffering, impinge upon individual and collective subjectivities in the specific locality of the church. In addition the study examines the categorizations and representations of indigent Zimbabwean migrants within South Africa and how these representations have been constructed and transformed over time. The findings made in the study are drawn from a year of ethnographic fieldwork, which combined a number of different methods. These included archival research, participant observation, in-depth interviews and narratives with individual migrants, state officials and officials from humanitarian organizations. The study also made use of diaries in order to detail the everyday lives of individual migrants and capture the texture of everyday life at the church. The findings indicate that the migrants emplaced within the Central Methodist Church were not only victims of structural, political and socio-economic factors as has been the common refrain in recent literature but were also victims of the ‘invisible’, silenced, unrecognized and unacknowledged violence and exclusionary nation-building mechanisms and processes in post-independence Zimbabwe and post-apartheid South Africa. The study finds that the ways through which organizations deal with suffering is mediated by numerous factors and humanitarian interventions interact and articulate with the aspirations of individuals in complex and unpredictable ways often with perverse outcomes. One of the key findings that emerges from the study carried out within a specific locality challenges the notion of places such as refugee camps and asylum holding centres as being ‘exceptional spaces’ where individuals are bereft of rights and even their sense of individuality and worth. Rather such places ought to be understood in terms of contextual, material and historical realities. These places ought also to be understood in terms of the meanings that are attached to them by those who inhabit them. In this regard the study shows the Central Methodist church building to be a material and political resource used by the inhabitants and it’s also an economic and political resource utilized by NGOs and other actors. The thesis shows that the ways through which humanitarian interventions are deployed leads to the creation of categories of victimhood and oftentimes these categories are negotiated and constantly reconfigured at times without necessarily interacting with the realities of the beneficiaries in the manner intended. The thesis shows that the everyday lives of indigent individuals are characterized not only by hardships but the manner in which these individuals attempt to assist each are processes fraught with tension and ambiguity. By so doing, the study challenges the romanticization of the lives of the poor which is often depicted as resilient and where the poor assist each other. The thesis makes a contribution to the anthropology of humanitarianism. In addition, the thesis contributes to broader debates on the intersections between migration, indigence, victimhood and the logics and practices of humanitarian institutions.

Master’s Thesis
This study aims to analyse the causes, the consequences and the instruments of response of the humanitarian crisis of migrants and refugees that started in the beginning of the last decade – 2010 – and did not end yet in 2021. This humanitarian crisis had its peak of deaths and movements in the Mediterranean Sea in 2015, and even though these numbers decreased after 2015, this issue remains a humanitarian emergency that reflects the distress of millions of migrants and refugees. The consequences of this humanitarian crisis are negative for migrants/refugees and for the hosting countries. As analysed in this study, migrants and refugees have a high probability of die during their crossing, falling victim of crimes such as migrant smuggling and human trafficking and other serious human rights violations. Migrant smuggling and human trafficking are crimes that allow the growth of organized crime networks, put migrants’ lives at stake, and affect negatively the countries of destination. The origin of the humanitarian crisis of migrants and refugees lies on the massive wave of migrants coming from Africa and the Middle East into the EU during the last decade. This phenomenon is a behavioural expression of various complex problems such as climate change, wars and conflicts, corruption, human rights violations, poverty and lack of natural resources and job opportunities. By analysing the instruments of response to this crisis, such as the migration legal and non-legally binding instruments set forth by the United Nations and the European Union, we concluded that some of these instruments need a reform, for instance the notion of refugee set forth by the 1951 Refugee Convention. The fact that this Convention excludes economic migrants from the right of applying for the refugee status, distinguishing these from migrants fleeing persecution and conflicts, is a factor that contributes for the increase of irregular migration in the countries of destination. The results obtained in this study allowed me to conclude that creating more legal paths to enter the EU and the establishment of solidarity political agreements between Middle Eastern hosting countries and the EU would contribute for the ease of the negative consequences of this humanitarian crisis, especially by decreasing the incidence of irregular migration and migrant smuggling.
Este estudo visa analisar as causas, as consequências e os instrumentos tradicionais de resposta da crise humanitária de migrantes e refugiados que decorre desde inícios da última década – ano de 2010 – e que, em 2021, ainda não terminou. Esta crise humanitária teve o seu pico de mortes e deslocações no Mar Mediterrâneo em 2015, e embora este número tenha diminuído após 2015, continua a ser uma emergência humanitária que reflete a angústia de milhões de migrantes e refugiados. As consequências desta crise humanitária são negativas tanto para os migrantes/refugiados como para os países que os acolhem. Tal como analisado neste estudo, os migrantes correm risco elevado de morrer durante a travessia e são vítimas fáceis para crimes tais como o tráfico de migrantes e tráfico de seres humanos, assim como de outras violações graves dos direitos humanos. O tráfico de migrantes e o tráfico de seres humanos são crimes que permitem o crescimento de redes de crime organizado, põem em risco a vida dos migrantes e afetam negativamente os países de destino. A crise humanitária de migrantes e refugiados resultou da onda massiva de migrantes vindos de África e do Médio Oriente para a União Europeia ao longo da última década. Este fenómeno é o sintoma de vários problemas complexos, tais como alterações climáticas, guerras e conflitos, corrupção, violações dos direitos humanos, pobreza, falta de recursos naturais e de oportunidades de emprego. Ao analisar os instrumentos de resposta a esta crise, tais como os instrumentos legais e não legais de migração estabelecidos pelas Nações Unidas e pela União Europeia, concluímos que alguns destes instrumentos necessitam de uma reforma, por exemplo a noção de refugiado estabelecida pela Convenção dos Refugiados de 1951. O facto de esta Convenção excluir os migrantes económicos do direito de requerer o estatuto de refugiado, distinguindo-os dos migrantes que fogem de perseguições e conflitos, é um fator que contribui para o aumento da migração irregular nos países de destino. Os resultados obtidos neste estudo permitiram concluir que a criação de mais vias legais para entrar na UE e o estabelecimento de acordos políticos de solidariedade entre os países de acolhimento do Médio Oriente e a UE contribuiriam para atenuar as consequências negativas desta crise humanitária, especialmente para diminuir a incidência da migração irregular e do contrabando de migrantes.

Dissertação de Mestrado em Relações Internacionais - Estudos da Paz, Segurança e Desenvolvimento apresentada à Faculdade de Economia
A presente dissertação incide nos recentes fluxos migratórios para a Europa, entre os anos de 2015 e 2018, quando o continente europeu recebeu a maior vaga de migrantes forçados desde a Segunda Guerra Mundial. Atendendo a este contexto, o foco de análise recai nas políticas securitárias adotadas pela UE e por alguns países europeus em particular para dar resposta a estes fluxos e, posteriormente, na forma como a aplicação dessas políticas, que visavam a segurança europeia, impactaram e criaram novos desafios ao nível da assistência humanitária e acolhimento prestados nos mesmos territórios. Dentro das políticas securitárias distinguem-se as de abrangência europeia – colocadas em prática pela União Europeia (UE) enquanto ator normativo e coletivo – e as de caráter nacional – ponderadas e concretizadas pelos próprios Estados europeus. Entre estes, a Hungria e Itália darão o suporte empírico a este trabalho, por se afirmarem dos exemplos mais esclarecedores no âmbito de atuação securitária doméstica face às migrações. Sendo estas políticas securitárias formuladas ao mesmo tempo que ocorrem e chegam estes fluxos migratórios, é fundamental atentar na forma como os migrantes forçados têm vindo a ser retratados, uma vez que partiremos da premissa de que a sua caraterização nas práticas discursivas políticas e nos media funcionou como motor na legitimação de muitas destas políticas. Como tal, esta dissertação combinará duas abordagens teóricas que consideramos serem complementares à análise pretendida: Teoria Construtivista e Teoria da Securitização. O Construtivismo, essencialmente na sua vertente de análise de discurso, ajudar-nos-á a melhor compreender de que modo os Estados-Membros recorrem a uma retórica securitária para justificar a recorrência a novas políticas de segurança e também para delimitar e limitar a ação das organizações humanitárias no terreno. Por sua vez, a Teoria de Securitização permitir-nos-á perceber de que forma a segurança é construída nas práticas discursivas e como os fluxos migratórios se tornam, através dos processos de securitização, em verdadeiras questões de segurança ao nível da UE e dos próprios Estados-Membros.Deste modo, a reflexão que se procura fazer partirá da importância do discurso securitário e sua influência sobre as políticas securitárias aplicadas. A partir deste ponto, analisaremos com detalhe que tipo de políticas securitárias têm sido tomadas quer no seio europeu, quer a nível interno húngaro e italiano, com vista a compreender os seus impactos na assistência e acolhimento de refugiados e migrantes nestes contextos. Mais especificamente, adotaremos uma visão mais crítica, procurando entender de que modo as políticas securitárias concretizadas têm dificultado a operacionalização das organizações humanitárias nos mesmos terrenos, prejudicando a prestação de auxílio, chegando a criminalizar este tipo de ajuda e atribuindo ao trabalho humanitário novas vertentes de ação. Significa isto que a assistência e acolhimento humanitário se moldam, em primeiro lugar, à forma como os fluxos migratórios são encarados pelos governos e como essas perceções são transmitidas às populações e, em segundo lugar, às políticas securitárias colocadas em prática nos mesmos territórios onde decorre a sua ação.
This paper focuses on the recent migration flows to Europe between 2015 and 2018, when the European continent received the largest wave of forced migrants since the World War II. In this context, the focus of the analysis is on the security policies adopted to respond to these flows and, subsequently, on how the implementation of those policies aimed at European security undermined and created new challenges for humanitarian action in the same territories. Within security policies, a distinction is made between those of European scope - put into practice by the European Union (EU) as a normative and collective actor - and those of national nature - considered and implemented by the European states themselves, among which Hungary and Italy will be the empirical support for this work, as they are among the most enlightening examples in the field of domestic security action against migration. As these security policies at the same time migratory flows occurred and strengthened, it is essential to pay attention to the way in which forced migrants have been portrayed, since we will start from the premise that their framing in political discursive practices and in the media has worked as an engine for the legitimization of these policies. As such, this dissertation will combine two theoretical approaches which we consider to be complementary to the intended analysis: Constructivist Theory and Securitization Theory. Constructivism, essentially in its discourse analysis aspect, will help us to better understand how Member States resort to a security rhetoric to justify the recurrence of new security policies and also to delimit and limit the action of humanitarian organizations on the ground. In turn, the Securitization Theory will allow us to understand how security is constructed in discursive practices and how migrations become, through securitization processes, real security issues for both the EU and Member-States. In this way, the reflection that is sought will start from the importance of the security discourse and its influence on the security policies applied. From this point on, we will analyze in detail what kind of security policies have been adopted both within Europe and within Hungary and Italy aimed at understanding their impacts at the level of the assistance and hosting of migrants and refugees. More specifically, we will adopt a more critical view, seeking to understand how the security policies implemented have made it difficult for humanitarian organizations to become operational in the same areas, undermining the provision of aid, even criminalizing this type of aid, and attributing new areas of action to humanitarian work. This means that humanitarian assistance and reception are shaped, firstly, by the way in which these migration flows are perceived by governments and how these perceptions are transmitted to the populations, and, secondly, by the security policies implemented in the same territories where they take place.