Migrant Crisis: Gaining at the Expense of the World's Most Vulnerable

States, criminal groups, and even legitimate companies are exploiting the worsening migrant crisis like never before, with severe consequences.

Migrants at the Polish-Belarusian border, 2021. Image souce

In November 2023, Saleh al-Meri – a Yemeni national – crossed the Russo-Finnish border following several unsuccessful attempts to enter the European Union via Belarus. Saleh wants to continue his education in Finland and one day bring his family to the country, especially his father, who is wanted by Houthi militants in Yemen. Saleh is also a victim of violence, having completed this lengthy journey with a bullet lodged in his leg as a result of a 2019 gunshot wound. Although he managed to cross the border just before Finnish authorities closed it, four of his friends died in a vehicular accident following a failed crossing attempt. 

Finland recently announced that it will keep its border with Russia closed beyond its initial April 14 deadline. Finnish authorities now claim that thousands of asylum seekers seek to enter the country and that illegal crossing attempts will likely rise in the spring and summer months. The first closure of the Russian border occurred last November after more than 1,300 refugees from Afghanistan, Egypt, Iraq, Somalia, Syria, Yemen, and other countries entered Finland from Russia in less than three months. This influx of refugees from Russian territory comes amid the souring of once-cordial relations between Moscow and Helsinki, which officially joined the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) last April. 

Saleh’s example is not unique. The United Nations Refugee Agency estimates at least 110 million people globally have been forcibly displaced - both internally and externally - as of mid-2023. This figure is up nearly 25% compared to the end of 2021. As conflict displaces more people globally, states and non-state actors are increasingly weaponizing these vulnerable populations for political, economic, and security objectives. 

Major global refugee flows. Image Source.

Exploiting the crisis on the EU’s doorstep

Finland accuses the Russian government of deliberately sending refugees and asylum seekers across its border to destabilize the country. Finnish intelligence officials also accuse their Russian counterparts of recruiting some of these vulnerable individuals to conduct espionage inside the country. The influx of refugees from Russia escalated after Finland joined NATO last year. Authorities in both Finland and neighboring Estonia - also a NATO ally - call this sudden influx of mostly undocumented refugees deliberate on the part of Moscow, which the Kremlin denies.

Poland – another NATO member – has seen similar an influx of refugees from their border with Russian ally, Belarus, which moved thousands of Iraqi and Afghan refugees to the Polish border in 2021. Warsaw claims that Belarusian state agencies even profited from this move by extracting funds from refugees fleeing their war-torn homelands. Last year, Polish authorities reportedly foiled a plot by Russia’s military intelligence agency to derail trains carrying NATO-sent weapons and military aid to Ukraine using refugees, including Ukrainian citizens. 

Using refugees for these purposes may be described as ‘hybrid warfare’ tactics, as they serve to exploit and inflame divisions within the EU regarding migration, open borders, and support for Ukraine. Divisions are rife in many EU countries over the issue of refugees and migrants, given the high economic, social, and security costs borne by their citizens. These divisions are deeply rooted and longstanding: in 2015, the EU faced a significant migrant crisis when over one million refugees entered the bloc, primarily due to the Syrian civil war and other Middle Eastern conflicts. 

Russia is not the first country to exploit the EU’s migrant issues. In 2019, Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan threatened to send millions of Syrian and other refugees to the EU if the bloc did not give more aid to the Turkish government to provide for the refugees living in Turkey. Last year, the bloc amended its ‘liberal’ asylum posture and will now focus on deterring refugees from entering. International and local NGOs are highly critical of these changes due to their stripping of safeguards previously afforded to asylum seekers, such as legal aid. 

Pakistan’s Afghan migrant crisis

Thousands of kilometers away, Pakistani authorities announced plans to expel all undocumented refugees last year. This move comes amid growing tensions between Islamabad and the Afghan Taliban - a relationship that has devolved from one of close partnership to border clashes and unilateral air strikes in recent years. Pakistan currently hosts over three million Afghan refugees, including hundreds of thousands of those who fled following the 2021 Taliban takeover. The Pakistani government regularly claims that many Afghan refugees in the country support the Pakistani Taliban, a major terrorist threat there. 

Pakistani authorities have deported some 500,000 Afghan refugees to date and plan to continue this policy, likely in an effort to exert leverage over the Afghan Taliban, which cannot manage such large influxes, given its minimal resources. During these deportations, Pakistani authorities allegedly target refugees who have lived in the country for decades, seizing their money and other items before pushing them across the border. This policy is creating a massive humanitarian crisis that could have significant ramifications for South Asia and the world moving forward. 

Afghan refugees at a border crossing in Pakistan before deportation. Image Source. 

Non-state actors and vulnerable migrants

Non-state actors such as transnational criminal organizations, private businesses, and terror groups also seek to gain politically and financially from the worsening global migrant crisis. Criminal networks extort significant fees from refugees fleeing violence, often for tens of thousands of US dollars. In Myanmar, Rohingya refugees regularly fall prey to criminal gangs, which have proliferated in the country since the 2021 coup and civil war. 

Hundreds of thousands of people across Myanmar and other countries, including refugees and economic migrants, have been trafficked by Chinese and local gangs, resulting in a dramatic spike in forced labor. ‘Scam prisons’ run by these criminal groups generated some $75 billion in revenue over the last four years. In 2022, scams run by organized crime operating mainly from Myanmar’s Golden Triangle cost Americans around $2.6 billion alone. 

Private businesses also benefit from the migrant crisis. In Egypt, legitimate travel companies and brokers regularly charge between $4,000–10,000 per person to Palestinians seeking to flee Gaza. Prices for these services were as low as $350 before the Israeli invasion last October. 

Terror groups regularly seek to exploit the migrant crisis. In October 2015, two Islamic State (IS) militants with falsified Syrian passports arrived in Greece by boat along with some 200 other Syrian refugees, declaring asylum. One month later, the militants took part in attacks that killed 130 people in Paris in a series of shootings and bombings. The same network was also behind the 2016 Brussels bombing, and some members of the network entered Europe on refugee boats, with some of these individuals already on the radar of security forces. This year, the IS announced its latest global campaign, “Kill Them Wherever You Find Them,” and threats from the group’s different chapters, particularly the Khorasan branch, have risen significantly following this year’s attacks in Iran and Russia. In this way, the IS will likely continue to exploit the migrant crisis wherever it can to carry out attacks. 

Number of people displaced due to persecution, conflict, violence, and major safety concerns until 2022. Image Source. 

Conclusion 

The weaponization of refugees and vulnerable sections of society is nothing new. For example, Cuba sent vast numbers of criminals amongst the refugees it sent to the US in the 1980s. However, the weaponization and exploitation of refugees is a growing trend as the number of displaced people worldwide continues to rise. Although most research indicates that the terror threat posed by migrants is low, legitimate security threats remain, as do concerns over resources in host countries. The vast majority of refugees and displaced people are themselves victims of violence, persecution, terrorism, and economic collapse, making the situation all the more tragic.

With global conflicts becoming increasingly deadly and resource competition on the rise, these and other factors, such as climate change, will likely create more refugees in the future. In the absence of coherent planning that takes all of these factors into account, these people, as well as those living in host countries, will likely continue to fall victim to the exploitation of this issue by bad actors on the world stage.