1 Introduction
The recent so-called âmigration crisisâ in the EU has been perceived by many as new and unprecedented. However, it is actually a part of the long-term process of increased mobility across national borders in combination with insecurity (Wihtol de Wenden 2017). Amid economic globalization, governments at different levels are struggling to manage migration, particularly since the 1990s. Migration control tends to be seen as the âlast major redoubt of unfettered national sovereigntyâ (Opeskin 2012: 551) or as the âstate striking backâ (Schain 2009: 93). Over the years, immigration policies have shifted from low to high levels of politics (Lahav and Guiraudon 2006: 202). Furthermore, security concerns, especially since 2001, have mixed with the regulation of international migration (Faist 2002), and have elevated the repression of unauthorized or irregular migration to the highest priority among state policies in this field (Balibar 2012). In the European Union, the establishment of the agency Frontex in 2004 marked a steady advancement in the âsecuritizationâ of migration and asylum issues, that is, âthe extreme politicisation of migration and its presentation as a security threatâ (LĂ©onard 2010: 231). The fight against abuses of the asylum system, particularly the application of Dublin II and Eurodac, has contributed to recasting refugees as âillegal migrantsâ (Schuster 2011). The lack of legal means to enter countries where asylum seekers can apply for refugee status has the same effect. Moreover, migrants fleeing wars and oppression on the one hand and those fleeing inequality and the lack of perspective on the other hand have started to merge. Consequently, asylum and irregular migration have come to be seen as interrelated rather than as separate issues, which they are, in legal terms.
Irregular migration is not only driven by differences in wealth and expanded means of communication and transportation, but it is also related to migration laws. Critics often observe that many migrants are âillegalizedâ by State powers. However, this is not entirely true: at times, migrantsâ identities or activities are legal and known by the authorities (Schweitzer 2017). More importantly, every crime is recognized as such because a law identifies and sanctions it. It is well known that human activities or behaviours that constitute crimes in one country may be legal in another (for instance, polygamy) or are illegal in one period but not in another (for example, in peacetime or during wars). Thus, this constructionist argument is not fully convincing. The decision of democratic powers to define as âillegalâ the entrance or residence of (certain) foreign people who lack the proper authorization is a political choice and as such can be contested, modified or reversed, but it is not particularly unusual or unreasonable.
Illegalization should mean that a certain action was once legal but is now treated as a crime. It is true that until the 1970s unauthorized migration was tolerated more than it is now; today, it is the target of increasing restrictions. However, a simple contrast between behaviour that was âlegalâ in the past and is âillegalâ now would be misleading.
On both sides of the Atlantic, studies converge in observing that increasing restrictiveness has magnified the salience of the unauthorized population (Donato and Armenta 2011). Stricter rules create a greater risk that people will become law breakers, and in areas such as family reunification, these laws impact minors.
Borders have acquired a new prominence and have been re-articulated and de-territorialized; for instance, border control has been delegated to transportation companies and consulates (Ribas-Mateos 2015). Deportation efforts have intensified, especially in the USA, recovering their historical meaning of âdividing insiders from outsiders, the wanted from the unwanted, the deserving from the undeservingâ (Drotbohm and Hasselberg 2015: 552). In this regard, Gibney (2008) speaks of a âdeportation turnâ. Moreover, fences are multiplying across the world, including in Europe; it is a very old technique that has reclaimed its original meaning, aiming to separate the âcivilizedâ from the âbarbariansâ, âusâ from âthemâ.
On the other side of the Atlantic, Massey and Riosmena (2010: 295) claim that âthe MexicoâU.S. border became the most militarized frontier between two peaceful nations anywhere in the world. Indeed, Border Patrol grew into the largest arms-bearing branch of the federal government except for the military itself (âŠ). From 1986 to 2004, its budget increased tenfold, the number of officers tripled, the number of hours they spent patrolling the border grew eight times, and internal deportations expanded by a factor of tenâ. Today, the number of Border Patrol agents is just under 20,000, and most of them are deployed on the USA-Mexico border (Alden 2017). The election of Donald Trump as the President of the US means a new escalation of investments in this field, according to his electoral programs and repeated statements; in particular, Trump announced a 2.6-billion-dollar investment in, among other things, the construction of new physical barriers, such as a âbig beautiful wallâ that would cover the entire border (Alden 2017). However, the US is not an exception. In most of Europe, borders are more closely watched than they were previously and internal migration controls have supplemented these checks in a myriad of ways (Dekker et al. 2015).
In short, intricate processes of debordering and rebordering are taking place across the globe (Rumford 2006). For citizens of the Global North who hold âstrongâ passports, highly skilled professionals, and wealthy tourists, borders are largely unproblematic. In contrast, for manual workers and their family members from less developed countries, borders matter. Thus, borders have become more selective, stratifying people in terms of mobility rights. As Faist states, âthe movement of persons is dichotomized in public debate into mobility and migration, with mobility connoting euphemistic expectations of gain for individuals and states and migration calling for social integration, control and the maintenance of national identityâ (2013: 1640). In relation to this observation, Glick Schiller and Salazar (2013) introduced the concept of âregimes of mobilityâ, which normalize the movements of certain travellers but criminalize and entrap the ventures of many others (ibid.: 189). The authors also note the intersection between the two populations: âIt is the labour of those whose movements are declared illicit and subversive that makes possible the easy mobility of those who seem to live in a borderless world of wealth and powerâ (ibid.: 188). This is reflected in the apt subtitle of a book on irregular migration: âHow globalization creates migration and criminalizes immigrantsâ (Bacon 2008).
These global developments form the general framework in which the present book aims to insert itself. With a focus on Southern EuropeâItaly in particularâthe object of this study is the interaction between legal and political systems and between markets and the migrants who do not have permission to reside or work in the country where they live or those who fall into the contested category of âasylum seekersâ. I will address fundamental questions regarding this type of migration, including the following: Why, despite so many public discourses and the ongoing production of laws and regulations, does irregular migration persist? Why and how do so many irregular migrants live and work for years in societies that target them as undesirable? Why can some of them achieve legal status? Why, in some countries, is the passage through an irregular status often considered a normal phase in a migrantâs career, whereas in others countries an irregular status seems to lead to a dead-end situation? Why are asylum seekers so often confused with unauthorized migrants?
Research into these categories of migrants and those who interact with them in receiving societies is difficult and time consuming (DĂŒvell 2006). With a focus on a crucial area of European migration policies, I will explore the relationship between the public representation and actual profile of irregular migration, emphasizing the interactions of irregular migrants with other actors in receiving societies.
2 A Blurred Concept
According to IOM, an international migrant is an individual who is moving or has moved across an international border from his or her habitual place of residence, regardless of (1)...