Discrepancy Detected. Operationalizing Immigration and Borderzone Policy in Papers, Please

Abstract

This article examines how Papers, Please (2013) critiques modern immigration policies by operationalizing immigration law and borderzone security. In the game, the player is an immigration officer at a recently demilitarized zone between two fictionalized countries. Every in-game day, the player decides which migrants must be admitted, rejected, or detained by comparing increasingly complicated documentation to ever-changing immigration policies. Through a visual and operational emphasis on rules and paperwork, Papers, Please conveys how supposedly fair immigration processes prioritize documentation and order over the lives and rights of individual immigrants. The game also shows how modern governments implement haphazard and reactionary immigration policies through ever-changing rules for the player to follow. By making the player complicit in the systemization of immigration, the game shows how seemingly equitable borderzone policies support daily unethical and dehumanizing treatment of migrants at highly regulated borders.