Magazine / Current / Illegality / Background | 09/07/2008

Being there

Undocumented immigration to Europe is a very new phenomenon, for which data has only been collected since the 1980s. Who actually comes to Europe, and why – and what is illegal about it?

For 20 years, irregular migration ranks high on the European policy agenda.

Photo: AP

Attention is often triggered by the arrival of boat people on the Southern shores of Europe, by groups of migrants illegally crossing the Schengen land borders in the East, bodies found on Greek island beaches or in sealed containers arriving in Dover, by an increase of asylum seekers who often arrive on false or no papers or by irregular immigrant workers arrested in workplace raids. What is the wider context of such observations?

Phenomenon of the late 20th century

Migration only becomes irregular because politics and law declare certain migration undesired and irregular. Irregular migration ultimately is a legal, political and social construct. As such it is a historically new phenomenon. Irregular migration was first recorded in the 1930s when British authorities declared Jewish migration to Palestine politically unwanted and illegal. It was again observed after guest worker and other labour migration to various countries was terminated in the wake of the recession in the early 1970s. Large-scale irregular migration to Europe is only recorded since the 1980s. It is a phenomenon of the late 20th century and must be analysed within the framework of its specific economic and political conditions.

Three processes

Accordingly, irregular migration can be explained within three processes. First, it is related to the neo-liberal transformation of economy and society, as in Northern EU and the US, and is an expression of broader trends towards precarisation and informalisation. Second, it is related to traditions of informal arrangements and laissez-faire practices, as in Southern Europe. Third, it is a result of tensions between economics and employers' demand for labour, migrants' aspirations to change and improve life prospective and governments' policies to restrict migration.

Confusing terminology

So far, terminology is confusing and various expressions are applied such as illegal, irregular, clandestine, undocumented or unauthorised migration. Equally, individuals are referred to as illegals, sans papiers (French) or Papierlose (German). Whilst all expressions seem to mean the same there are nevertheless differences in their scope and discursive purpose. For instance, illegal migration not only refers to a punishable violation of the law that results in removal but also entails stigmatising and criminalising the phenomenon. In contrast, irregular migration refers to a wider range of practices that also include less serious violations of the law; furthermore, the term aims to avoid a normative judgement.

0,1 percent of all international arrivals

Stocks and flows of Irregular migration, by definition, are impossible to measure. Instead there are more or less politicised guesses and estimations. According to various estimates the level of irregular immigration in the EU is between 4-8 million, plus up to 9 million in the Russian Federation and some hundred thousand in Turkey, Ukraine and other European non-EU countries. Their proportion of the immigrant populations ranges from a 2 per cent (Sweden) to 15 per cent (Germany). Annually, around 300,000 thousand people are prevented from illegally entering EU territory, this represents around 0.1 per cent of all international arrivals.

Most enter on a visa

Irregular migrants can be immigrants, temporary migrants or in transit, they can be labour migrants, refugees or seeking to join their families or improve their education. Most irregular migrants enter regular and on a visa and only afterwards get involved in irregular activities; the minority enters on false papers or clandestinely. As a consequence the binary of legal/illegal migration is unsuitable; instead, it is more appropriate to think on a scale of full-, semi- and non compliance with immigration law. The UK issues annuallly approximately 1,500 individual case-by-case regularisations, on compassionate grounds by discretion of secretary of state of immigration. The German regularisation of tolerated asylum seekers (Altfallregelung geduldeter Ausländer), who are technically illegal because they are served with removal directions which were only suspended, could also be counted. Of the 250,000 individuals about 40 per cent received an Aufenthaltserlaubnis.

From low-wage to white-collar

The role that irregular labour migrants play in the various member states' labour markets differs and depends on the characteristics of national economics. Under certain conditions, irregular migration stabilises economies. For instance, in the 1980s, and 1990s, irregular immigrant workers contributed to the survival of British textile industries. In other cases, irregular migration facilitates economic transformation. Notably in Germany, it undermined regular employment arrangements and speed up the deregulation of labour relations in the construction industry. Irregular immigrants are crucial for labour intensive agriculture in Spain and Italy and for low-wage care work in Germany; but they also work in the white-collar sector, as in the city of London.

Various policies

Various policies are designed to address the issue, some aim to produce results whilst others are rather rhetoric. Obviously, introducing legal migration channels diminishes irregular migration flows. Regularising irregular migration, as practiced in Southern countries and in Belgium, transforms stocks of irregular immigrants into legal members of society. Expansion of the EU, too, transforms irregular into regular migration. Finally, politics of detention and removal aim to deter irregular immigrants, punish migrants for breaking the law and aim to reduce the overall population.

Franck Duvell

Franck Düvell, born 1961 in Wilhelmshaven, is senior researcher at the Center on Migration, Policy and Society in Oxford and currently works for the transeuropean ...
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Further articles on the subject » EU Enlargement / Neighbourhood Policy, » EU Policy, » Migration, » Integration, » Europe
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