Cultural Profiling During Passport Control: Ugandan Migration Officers’ Informal Selection Practices

Abstract Recently, northern Uganda has become a destination for inner-African immigration. As a result of new security policies, passport controls are intensifying at border posts and are being expanded across the country. During passport checks, officers often refer to natio­nal-cultural stereotypes in order to verify statements in identity documents. Stereotyping and profiling of ‘Somalian terrorists’ or ‘militant South Sudanese’ are used as pre-selection tools. At the same time, officers try to establish informal networks with immigrants as informants to make use of their cultural and linguistic expertise. The article is based on an ethnographic study of Ugandan police and immigration officers in 2014. Keywords: Uganda, South-South migration, profiling, citizenship, passport