The criminalization of migration-related acts, rather than simply strengthening state authority, also represents a risk of exposing legal legitimacy deficits. By drawing on juridical analysis of ...court judgements, legal documents, and case law, together with ethnographic observation in court and analysis of media coverage, the article argues for acknowledging the extra-legal aspects of criminalization. By employing the concept of legal consciousness, we bring attention to how bordering processes are challenged from below by using the courtroom to expose potential legitimacy deficits concerning crimmigration enforcement. The article shows how the courtroom is not merely a place for convictions but also a site for resistance and social mobilization: a platform that may give marginalized groups voice and visibility, invoking a complex picture of state power, involving the ability to use force as well as reluctance and ambivalence connected to the questionable legitimacy of criminalization strategies.
City engagement in transnational municipal networks in the migration field (TMNs) is widely seen as positive. Yet, the evidence for that optimism is limited and analysis of the functions and outcomes ...of these networks leaves many questions unanswered. This article presents a case study of the City Initiative on Migrants with Irregular Status in Europe (C‐MISE) as a contribution to our understanding. On the basis of documentary evidence and interviews with participants, it explores the operation of a network in a sensitive policy field. It throws light on the network's instrumental and “symbolic” functions and the relationship between them; on the factors which shape its operation and facilitate the accommodation of difference through internal socialization; and on the significance of the outcomes for the future governance of migration by urban and higher tiers. Conceptually, deconstructing “symbolic” functions into those of legitimation, substantiation and framing, facilitates a nuanced analysis of the role that each plays and exploration of a tension where those roles bordered on advocacy for policy change. In a critical assessment of the network's outcomes, it finds grounds for cautious optimism on the role TMNs can play in reframing debates, in the urban governance of migration, and in shifting its overall management from below.
In recent years, donors have claimed to tackle the root causes of migration from low‐income countries using aid. While others have studied the effects of aid on regular migration, we test whether aid ...deters irregular migration to Italy using two innovative dependent variables: asylum applications and apprehensions at border. For asylum applications, the largest significant effect implies we should expect one extra application for an additional $162,000 in bilateral aid. For border crossings, the only significant effect implies the marginal cost in bilateral aid is $1.8 million per deterred migrant. The conclusion that effect sizes are small is robust to different types of aid, measures of migration and various controls. We find robust evidence that irregular migration flows are significantly affected by conflict, poverty and the pre‐existing stocks from that country. Comparing our results to the existing aid–migration literature, we find similar effect sizes. The cost per deterred (regular) migrant is in the range $4–7 million. Statistically significant estimates for the effect of aid on regular migration are only found for sub‐samples or specific specifications. In short, aid does not deter regular or irregular migration and so should be used for other purposes.
Reducing the number of foreigners residing unlawfully within the borders of a state requires either their removal or the legalisation of their presence within the territory. Increasingly, governments ...also employ measures of internal control and limit irregular migrants’ access to rights and services in order to encourage them to leave autonomously. This article aims to contribute to current debates on how to conceptualise and account for the agency that irregular migrants themselves exercise in such contexts. Within critical migration and citizenship studies, many of their everyday actions have been described as ‘acts of citizenship’ but also as instances of ‘becoming imperceptible’, neither of which captures the whole range of strategies irregular migrants employ to strengthen their fragile position vis-à-vis the state. I argue that conceptualising their agency in terms of (self-)integration allows us to account for both: practices through which they actively become political subjects as well as those that precisely constitute a deliberate refusal to do so. Empirically, this is underpinned by an analysis of recent policy developments in the United Kingdom and a series of semi-structured interviews I conducted during 8 months of fieldwork in London with migrants experiencing different kinds and degrees of irregularity.
In recent years, the development‐migration debate has re‐gained popularity in policy circles, especially after the so‐called “migration crisis” in Europe and the following approval of the European ...Agenda on Migration. Much of the empirical literature supports the idea that the relationship between international migration and incomes at origin follows hump‐shaped patterns. A growing number of studies find that increasing economic development and financial resources in developing countries would allow a greater number of individuals to afford the costs of emigrating. However, this evidence heavily relies on measures of regular migration only. Using nationally representative data from 12 Middle East and North Africa countries, this study adopts a multinomial logit model to frame migration intentions, distinguishing between regular and irregular routes. The main finding is that the level of household income is associated negatively with the demand for irregular migration to Europe. Predictive margins clearly show that higher household incomes increase the probability of planning only regular migration, while decreasing that of considering also irregular migration. The policy implications are not negligible: improving economic conditions in countries of origin may be effective at deflecting migrants from irregular to regular routes.
Norway provides limited healthcare for irregular migrants, partly to make the country an unattractive option for ‘would-be refugees’. Drawing on fieldwork and interviews, this article discusses the ...use of healthcare to regulate migration and how irregular migrants make use of different tactics (creative access, self-care, ignoring symptoms and raison d’être) to gain access to healthcare despite legal restrictions. The migrants’ tactics are adaptations to the micropractices of control and are about a diseased and politicised biology. They illuminate ways to care or not care for the body from a marginal position. This research, then, highlights how migrants work to restore a political life against the sovereign construction of them as mere biology. While some of these tactics are ways in which migrants can survive without healthcare rights in the short run, other tactics may contest and disrupt how the government is defining and treating irregular migrants in the longer run
From 2006, thousands of migrants crossed into Israel after travelling through the Sinai Desert. The majority came from Eritrea and Sudan, seeking asylum from state violence. Israel's government ...classified them as 'infiltrators' using a law enacted in 1954 to criminalize Palestinians seeking to return to expropriated lands. Drawing on fieldwork in Israel in 2018-2019, the article examines dimensions of a process of political subjectivation among these migrants and citizens in solidarity with them. It is concerned with the performative effects of a struggle migrants waged for refugee status by contesting their construction in government discourse as infiltrators. It argues their claims became refracted through debates over contours of a fissured collective self, which challenged the limits of political community. While their claims disrupted the order's dividing lines, the article argues the latter proved durable, that conditions of possibility for disruptive speech are mediated by overlapping structures of colonialism and racializations.
Abstract Supporters of irregular migrants play an important role in the interactions between irregular migrants and the state. This article aims to shed light on the variety of actors involved in the ...support of irregular migrants and what kind of help they provide. The article asks whether this kind of help should be seen as purely humanitarian or as a form of political action; and describes a scale ranging from practical help to political help. With forms of hybrid help in between, to emphasize how everyday practices can be considered political in subtle or indirect ways.
Resumo Os apoiadores de migrantes irregulares desempenham um papel importante nas interações entre migrantes irregulares e o estado. Este artigo tem como objetivo esclarecer a variedade de atores envolvidos no apoio a migrantes irregulares e que tipo de ajuda eles fornecem. O artigo pergunta se esse tipo de ajuda deve ser visto como puramente humanitário ou como uma forma de ação política; e descreve uma escala que varia de ajuda prática a ajuda política. No meio a formas híbrida de ajuda, enfatiza como as práticas cotidianas podem ser consideradas políticas de maneira sutil ou indireta.
This article draws a model for viewing border politics based on experiences in Norway. The starting point is that the authorities do not count irregular resident migrants and openly refuse to help ...this group. While this makes governing this group harder, this choice makes sense from the point of view of the problem of sovereignty. Border policies in general and the decision not to count is a solution to ‘the predicament of permeable nation states in an age of migration’. What is not openly admitted is a tolerance for administrative efforts that both channel assistance to irregular migrants and keep track of their numbers. There is a general denial of the predicament, but also a strong tendency to ‘adapt’. The article examines the situation in Norway, but there are reasons to believe that the predicament defines politics in the EU and elsewhere.
This paper aims at understanding inclusive capacity of legal system in Turkey by evaluating dynamics of professional advocacy in administrative detention for Syrian refugees in irregular positions. ...Our empirical study revealed Turkish judicial system, despite its push toward centralization and professionalization in the name of identification by the European impact, has a serious lack of translation and interpretation facilities, procedural incompleteness as the issue of bureaucracy in overloaded functions, and incompetency in migration-specific jurisdiction. We claim these shortcomings associating with manifestation of discrimination toward Syrians disallow to overcome the exclusionary mechanisms toward irregular migrants, except for some attorneys' professional efforts.
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