Migration and National Security: a Case Study of Nairobi County

Abstract

Migration is considered an old phenomenon relevant in the spread of racial, linguistic, societal cultures and transfer of economic facets from one geographical region to another. In the post-colonial era half of the international migrants were from third-world countries to developing and western countries. Migration is significant in terms of numbers and the people involved, the amount of income earned and the possibility of reducing poverty among many poor groups at the place of destination. The study explored that the ballooning population in Nairobi is linked to influx of migrants and contributes to some extent to the recent rise in insecurity due to the involved vices of proliferation of small arms and light weapons, trafficking, terrorism, organize criminal activities and other economic crimes. While it is true from the research that insecurity has in the past decade been rising, the perpetrators of these criminal activities, are perceived to be migrants attributed to rising unemployment of young people, poverty, economic inflation and the lacking security service to cab and control crime. The study has found that there are groups of criminals camouflage amongst refugees in executing their illegal activities. The study further outlined that both the national and county governments should necessarily have cooperation at both national and international level. The international sectors among the East African countries should develop new Legislation curricula enabling security services have different capacities relevant in addressing the national security issue. The international instability will continue to thrive only until adequate infrastructure, capacity, resources, coordination and information sharing develops to help lessen the extent to which migrants related crimes develop. The study also revealed that the hosting states willingness to accept and integrate migrant inflows is a national security issue due to the presence of terrorism, organized crimes and proliferation of SALW linked to migrants.