Enforced temporariness and skilled migrants’ family plans: examining the friction between institutional, biographical and daily timescales

Multiple (il)legal pathways: The diversity of immigrants' legal trajectories in Belgium

“…While most existing studies on the role of immigrants' legal status in their subsequent pathways in the host society focus on their initial situation at the time of their arrival, these findings suggest that a long-term perspective on their life course at destination is needed to fully grasp the nature and potential complexity of their administrative journey in the long run. Even though our results focus on Belgium, they echo qualitative findings in several Western countries (Bailey et al 2002;Brekke 2010;Goldring and Landolt 2021;Merla and Smit 2020). We thus expect the strong heterogeneity in legal status trajectories, the widespread presence of precarious trajectories, and the strong links between types of trajectory and countries of origin, social ties, and claims for international protection to be relevant in other countries as well.…”

“…First, we expect to find substantial differences in legal trajectories depending on immigrants' country of origin, and especially its level of development. We anticipate third-country immigrants coming from high-income and emerging countries to be more likely to have simple administrative trajectories, in part because they often come to Belgium as highly skilled immigrants (for work reasons or for higher education) or as their relatives (MYRIA 2020), and sometimes benefit from substantial assistance from employers for administrative matters (Merla and Smit 2020). 4 They are also more likely to be viewed as the 'right kind' of immigrant, with easier access to Belgium and to longterm settlement (Czaika and de Haas 2017).…”

“…For immigrants who intend to stay in the destination country in the long term, a desirable prospect is sometimes considered as one that follows a linear and upward administrative pathway, from (possibly) a short-term residence permit to a 'limited' permit and, eventually, a permanent residence permit (Aussems 2012: 4). However, a growing number of qualitative studies have recently shown that legal trajectories are often more complex (Jacobs 2019;Merla and Smit 2020;Vianello, Finotelli, and Brey 2019). Non-linear patterns such as moving back and forth between legal statuses and periods without any residence permit are common among immigrants in Western countries (Vickstrom 2014).…”

“…These "precarious legal status trajectories" (Goldring and Landolt 2021) can also take the form of successive legal but temporary statuses over indefinite periods of time. These patterns can affect immigrants with various socioeconomic profiles, including highly skilled individuals (González 2020;Jasso et al 2010;Merla and Smit 2020). From this perspective, some authors question the reductive binary categories of documented/undocumented immigrants, underlining the ambiguous positions of individuals in-between legal statuses and in situations of "liminal legality" (Menjívar 2006) or "semi-legality" (Kubal 2013).…”

“…Numerous qualitative studies point to the way these long periods of temporary residence or work permits punctuated by periods with no permit at all create situations of "enforced temporariness" (Merla and Smit 2020) or "permanent temporariness" (Boersma 2019). These situations induce stress and insecurity, as individuals have to repeatedly engage in time-consuming and sometimes expensive administrative procedures to constantly renew their residence permit, with no assurance of success (Goldring and Landolt 2021;Vianello, Finotelli, and Brey 2019).…”