Paper short abstract:

Our discussion shows how talk about the migration crisis serves as a framing mechanism to produce uncertainty and naturalize anti-migration policies within the borders of the EU but simultaneously create opportunities for migrants and other actors involved in emergent moments of continuous mobility.

Paper long abstract:

The EU and the Spanish government immobilized a few thousand West Africans in dehumanizing conditions for months, between 2020 and 2021, in the Canary Islands, as a part of the European hotspot system. Our discussion shows how talk about the migration crisis serves as a framing mechanism to produce uncertainty and naturalize anti-migration policies within the borders of the EU – externalization, militarization, deportation– but simultaneously create opportunities for migrants and other actors involved in emergent moments of continuous mobility processes. We analyze these formal and informal opportunities produced by the proclamation of a migration crisis in the Canaries, as well as stress the migration myths that facilitate the proclamation of the crisis. Locally, various informal strategies may be used based on different speculations to resist the immobilization of migrants and emphasize migration as a part of life in the Canaries, with its long history of migration. The capacity to speculate about opportunities and cope with uncertainty is thus a needed skill of every actor in any migration crisis.