This paper investigates how, amid broader processes of neoliberal social transformation, changes in agricultural production systems and processes of borderisation have influenced the mobility of ...Indigenous people and their labour across the Mexico-US border. Drawing from primary and secondary research with Mixtecos in Oaxaca and their countrymen and women who have settled as migrants with an irregular status in California, the article traces how the value of Indigenous labour has been redefined along the neoliberal ideal of the worker-citizen in ways that (re)produce their differential inclusion. This study shows that the simultaneous abandonment of small-scale agriculture across Mexico, and the development of industrial agriculture in the Californias, cemented the devaluation of their labour as “unproductive” and “inefficient” in Oaxaca while it led to their essential incorporation as migrant workers in the industrial fields. Likewise, I show that parallel efforts to restrict the mobility and increase the deportability of economically needed, but otherwise unwelcome migrants in the US further subordinated their labour as “illegal” and “low-skilled” in California.
"Territorial Presence As A Ground For Claims: Some Reflections" returns to political theory to assess the moral and legal position of those individuals who are inside the territory of liberal ...democratic states, but whose very presence has been unauthorised by the state. The author asks the question as to what their bodily presence means and does from a political perspective. The paper is part of a broader political phenomenology of territoriality in liberal national thought and puts emphasis on the idea that it is migrants’ bodily presence within the state’s territory that lies at the analytical heart of the conversation about irregular immigrants. What is paradoxical about territorial presence of unauthorised migrants is that such presence is simultaneously (1) the source of the offence states invoke as a justification for making them ‘illegal’; (2) the basis for protections the migrants may claim against the state for basic fair treatment while present; and (3) the ground for claims they make (or are made on their behalf) to remain present – i.e., to stay in the territory. Territorial presence is thus a fertile ground for the analysis of arbitrary law-making in migration. The author sets out to analyse some recent legal developments pertaining to the governance of irregular non-citizen immigrants in the United States. These developments bear on the project of theorising "immigrant justice" as resistance to the growing illiberalization of migration policy. In her view, the very existence of a class of people designated as irregular migrants within state polities presupposes that such polities maintain formal exclusionary border regimes and that in such regimes, some persons are predesignated as ineligible for entry. And even though those exclusion rules do not function to fully preclude entry and presence of such persons, states do not treat their arrival as an automatic basis for full membership either. Hence, irregular immigrants are territorially present in a state that purports to eschew that presence. The author then explores how the idea of “sanctuary” relates to the kinds of claims that both liberal humanitarians and immigrant justice advocates have been making over the last few years. These are claims which ground protection in what exponents cite as the overriding ethical significance of immigrants’ territorial presence – their already-hereness – as the basis for recognition and rights. In particular, the author makes the case that even though "sanctuary" provides a logic of safe harbour, it fails to end the predicament of constitutive based in border exclusionism. For her, the political, social, but also philosophical, struggle for the idea of border abolitionism requires a figurative sword that must go beyond sanctuary so that borders are not just mitigated, but radically deconstructed and even destroyed. The author takes this to be the vital imperative that confronts all legal and political theorists who must engage the normative challenge of rethinking arbitrary law-making in view of the new inequalities that a global political order grounded on sovereign borders produces.
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IZUM, KILJ, NUK, PILJ, PNG, SAZU, UL, UM, UPUK
From a small area of the South West of Bangladesh, thousands of landless farmers cross the border with their family in order to work in the informal sector, mostly in Delhi and Bangalore: as waster ...pickers for the men, as maids for the women. Based on two ethnographic fieldworks in the villages of origin, this article intends to highlight the reasons leading to this migratory movement, the way this migration is organized and its consequences for the families. In a context where, in India, Bangladeshi migration is mostly felt as a threat, it also analyses the process of hypervisibility/invisibility to which these migrants are subjected to and the effects that deportability - or actual deportation - have on their life. At last, it examines how migrants experience the discrepancy between the way they see themselves and the way they are largely considered by the Indian authorities and broaden society.
Migrants who live in Switzerland without valid residence papers find themselves in a complex and contradictory legal position. Even though they are entitled to a great number of rights, they are ...rarely able to claim them in practice. This paper analyzes the challenges that migrants with irregular status face when enforcing their rights. Furthermore, a strategy that could potentially serve as a remedy to their lack- ing access to justice is explored; the approach of ur- ban citizenship and the introduction of city ID cards.
The purpose of this paper is to explore how irregular status impacts a range of human development outcomes for labour migrants. The analysis indicates that for poorer labour migrants, irregular (or ...undocumented) migration provides a positive, private return to income and livelihood improvements for themselves and their families as compared to 1) no movement at all, and at times, 2) regular (or documented) migration. However, irregular status is associated with a range of forms of disadvantage and vulnerabilities that often compromise migrants’ rights, entitlements and the rate of return they achieve from the migration process. Migrants are as rational as other members of the population and, being aware of these vulnerabilities, many still choose to migrate. The larger hypothesis of this paper is that, as long as poverty drives migration, legal status will not be a priority for migrants. Migrants will be willing to endure short to medium term hardship and the undermining of a range of capabilities and rights (such as education, social assets, rights and personal welfare) to provide economic safety nets for their families and future improvements to their (and their families) livelihoods and wellbeing. As long as migrants on average achieve a positive increase in income and assets through the migration experience (which they do) they will sacrifice a whole range of freedoms and rights. It is therefore imperative that policy makers make active steps to protect migrants with regard to basic human rights and facilitate positive outcomes from their migration experiences. In particular, we urge southern governments to advocate for all their migrants abroad, regardless of legal status. If southern country governments accept the mainstream opinion that migration is good for development, and furthermore recognise that a substantial number, if not the majority, of their migrants are irregular, and continue sending remittances and investment, then governments should seek to protect their citizens aboard, facilitate safe remittances, and begin to stand firm in the face of pressure to control national borders.
The purpose of this paper is to explore how irregular status impacts a range of human development outcomes for labour migrants. The analysis indicates that for poorer labour migrants, irregular (or ...undocumented) migration provides a positive, private return to income and livelihood improvements for themselves and their families as compared to 1) no movement at all, and at times, 2) regular (or documented) migration. However, irregular status is associated with a range of forms of disadvantage and vulnerabilities that often compromise migrants’ rights, entitlements and the rate of return they achieve from the migration process. Migrants are as rational as other members of the population and, being aware of these vulnerabilities, many still choose to migrate. The larger hypothesis of this paper is that, as long as poverty drives migration, legal status will not be a priority for migrants. Migrants will be willing to endure short to medium term hardship and the undermining of a range of capabilities and rights (such as education, social assets, rights and personal welfare) to provide economic safety nets for their families and future improvements to their (and their families) livelihoods and wellbeing. As long as migrants on average achieve a positive increase in income and assets through the migration experience (which they do) they will sacrifice a whole range of freedoms and rights. It is therefore imperative that policy makers make active steps to protect migrants with regard to basic human rights and facilitate positive outcomes from their migration experiences. In particular, we urge southern governments to advocate for all their migrants abroad, regardless of legal status. If southern country governments accept the mainstream opinion that migration is good for development, and furthermore recognise that a substantial number, if not the majority, of their migrants are irregular, and continue sending remittances and investment, then governments should seek to protect their citizens aboard, facilitate safe remittances, and begin to stand firm in the face of pressure to control national borders.
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