Introduction

In August 2015, the Australian Border Force announced it would be joining Victoria Police, to target 'everything from anti-social behaviour to outstanding warrants' as part of Operation Fortitude in Melbourne's city centre. Important political questions arise for researchers who are outsiders to the communities affected by their research. This introduction presents an overview of the key concepts discussed in the subsequent chapters of this book. The book is about the author's research, which was driven by three main impetuses. First, border policing is a legally, institutionally and technologically dynamic arena of migration policy. Second, although there is a substantial literature on immigration detention in Australia and on its exterior border policing, both sites in which the designation of illegality has already effectively been accomplished, little is known about the practices of interior migration policing. Third, how the law marginalises the violent effects of migration law and policing from legal records and naturalises the limited accountability and responsibility for these practices.