""Europe’s Border Policies Are Sacrificing Migrant Lives for Corporate Profits", 3 March 2024

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Defense conglomerates such as Thales, Finmeccanica and Airbus do not just benefit from border control. They are also among the largest European arms exporters to the Middle East and North Africa. In other words, they fuel the very immigration crises that they promise to solve — and profit from both.

From January 2020 to January 2023, EU members awarded almost €94 billion in arms exports licenses to the Middle East. Thales advertises its “expertise in the field of border surveillance,” while boasting that its biometric technology has allowed the EU to drastically reduce asylum applications in recent years. By portraying foreigners as threats, arms makers have taught the public to see immigration as a national security issue, turning walls into weapons and migrants into enemies to combat.

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