Op-ed by Nine, Co-Founder and Director, Garabtaag

“I am in a complete security crisis. A person can survive poverty, but no one can survive without safety. If I work, I risk going to prison. If I don’t work, I face starvation. If I go outside, I live in fear of being caught.”

My phone pings. It’s a message from Amir, a queer refugee, recalling how one year ago today, he was sent to a detention center in Malaysia after being rounded up in an immigration raid on his workplace. “It was not just a prison, it was a place where people were punished,” he says. “The torture I experienced there still affects me at times.” He recalls being beaten for not understanding Malay; he needed medical treatment after his release. None of what he shared came as a surprise: it aligned with the reports that have emerged from Malaysian immigration detention centers for decades.

His UNHCR documents weren’t worth much in a country that never signed the UN Refugee Convention. But documents should never act as a barrier to rights and dignity. Consider the case of Rahim, a migrant worker in a Kuala Lumpur establishment. When immigration officers raided the house he lived in, he didn’t have his passport – because it had been sent to the immigration department to process his visa renewal. But legal status did not protect him: the same institution that held his passport detained him for two weeks, during which time he, too, was beaten.

This violence is ever present for certain populations: refugees, Global South migrants, holders of ‘weak’ passports, low-income workers. It becomes normalized, even as other populations easily breeze past it. The violence that Amir experienced is not over yet: “I am in a complete security crisis. A person can survive poverty, but no one can survive without safety. If I work, I risk going to prison. If I don’t work, I face starvation. If I go outside, I live in fear of being caught.”

Since the first International Migration Review Forum (IMRF) in 2022, the obstacles to securing a human-rights-based approach to migration have only multiplied. Though people have migrated since long before passports or borders were imposed, governments the world over are pouring enormous resources into deterring, punishing, and excluding people on the move – while major factors that propel migration are largely unaddressed. These include conflict, genocide, climate crises, and a global economic system that perpetuates structural inequalities, deepening the Global North-South divide. 

The challenges are multiple and interlinked. Among them is the persistent visa apartheid, fuelled by racism and classism, that sets migrants on course for riskier journeys at a high cost, all too often resulting in the loss of life. The climate crisis, while threatening our collective future, disproportionately impacts lower-income, Global South countries. The pursuit of wealth through environmental exploitation continues to take precedence over meaningful action to reduce emissions, while international migration pathways are slow to develop for those displaced due to climate change. 

The Profitability of Bordering Practices

A great deal of money meanwhile flows directly from the labor exploitation of migrants, facilitated by formal migration pathways which make distinctions between different categories of non-citizens, creating a two-tier system and depriving those on the losing end of rights and autonomy. 

In transit and destination countries, populist politicians – deeply invested in nationalist, xenophobic and carceral narratives – scapegoat those who were born elsewhere, even proudly sharing images of violent interventions by security forces. Then there are the tech corporations which profit from expanding surveillance and enabling discriminatory actions. The heads of these corporations – whose power is growing to match their unprecedented levels of wealth – increasingly signal their allegiance to these same political leaders, collaborating on ever more dangerous interventions. 

In transit and destination countries, populist politicians – deeply invested in nationalist, xenophobic and carceral narratives – scapegoat those who were born elsewhere, even proudly sharing images of violent interventions by security forces.

Creeping Carcerality

Migrants are treated as threats by default, even one which requires a military presence. And although the Global Compact for Migration maintains that migrant detention should be ‘a measure of last resort’, the practice continues in countries around the world. Human rights violations occur behind locked doors while political points are scored and private profits are made. Criminalization of solidarity is also on the rise, with civilians being prosecuted for attempting to deliver life-saving aid to migrants that states refuse to take on.

From ‘citizens-only’ initiatives to physical harm, politicians and policymakers have to a large extent succeeded in normalizing the notion that human rights do not apply to non-nationals, particularly those with irregular migration status. But the threats faced by migrants today represent a close-up of the threats faced by everyone. Mission creep is underway, from the expansion of surveillance powers to rollbacks of long-won human rights. 

We must recognize that it is not only the threats that are interlinked: we are collectively interlinked, too. Attempts to divide us based on nationality and immigration status serve to obscure the factors that threaten humanity as a whole. 

Reversing the Trend of Dehumanization

We need to collectively advance to a point where it is no longer unusual or radical for migrants to have a say in the policies that impact them more than anyone; and where human rights are not cherry picked based on a person’s documentation or lack thereof. 

There are alternatives to this punitive, rights-averse status quo: positive initiatives which have been taken in various countries, by governments and by civil society – including, crucially, migrant-led groups. We need to collectively advance to a point where it is no longer unusual or radical for migrants to have a say in the policies that impact them more than anyone; and where human rights are not cherry-picked based on a person’s documentation or lack thereof. 

Bringing together these concerns, the Spotlight Report on Global Migration 2026 calls for migration frameworks that are not built around extraction or exploitation.

• Favorable conditions should be present to inform and enhance people’s choices to migrate or to stay.
• Accessible and long-term regular migration pathways should provide opportunities to a secure future regardless of nationality, sector or income. 
• Labor rights and decent working conditions should be a given across all sectors, and public services available to all people regardless of immigration status. 
• The unity of families should be respected and enshrined in labor migration policies, no longer separating workers from their loved ones through the imposition of unattainable income thresholds. 

Another way is not only possible, but imperative. To continue excluding people on the move from public life, from decent work, and from fundamental human rights, is unjustifiable. At the second IMRF in 2026, this understanding must be front and center.

Author: Nine is an editor, consultant and migrant, currently based in Malta. She is co-founder and director of Garabtaag, a grassroots collective which provides support to refugees in Malaysia. Informed by her background in queer and punk communities, she is invested in connecting people and finding solutions where institutional support is lacking. 

This article is part of a series developed through the collaboration between the Women in Migration Network (WIMN) and Efecto Colibrí.

This article was written prior to the International Migration Review Forum 2026 as a reflection of the present state of migration. In its aftermath, the article compares our hopes going into the IMRF with what occurred, as the articles to come will show.