Contradictory migration management? Differentiated security approaches to visa overstay and irregular border crossings in the European Union

ABSTRACT While the construction of migration as a security threat in Europe has been thoroughly examined, how different groups of migrants become targets of security concerns has not received similar attention. In its fight against irregular immigration, the European Union uses visa liberalisation agreements with neighbouring states as an incentive for cooperation on migration control. At a first glance, this strategy appears somewhat contradictory, as visa liberalisation potentially increases the share of visa overstayers among irregular migrants. Through analysis of the annual “Risk Analysis” reports between 2015 and 2020 published by EU’s border and migration management agency, FRONTEX, this article shows that visa overstay is routinely left out of the agency’s security concerns of irregular migration, thus rendering risk assessments asymmetrically occupied with irregular migration by means of “illegal entry”. Although visa overstayers are not conceptualised as threats to security in discourse on par with other categories of irregular migrants, we find that they are increasingly subjected to a rationale of surveillance and risk.