Integration against the state: Irregular migrants’ agency between deportation and regularisation in the United Kingdom

Abstract

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.

‘I Would Never Have Come If We’d Know It Might Be Like This’

“…implementation (Travis, 2016) that the UK is not as welcoming and desirable a destination as may have been portrayed in online discourse or family migration narratives (Boehmova, 2016;Travis, 2016;Parutis, 2014;Grill, 2011;Dekker et.al., 2016). In this way, our research enhances the understanding of the consequences of welfare governance of EU Roma migrants in Britain, contributing to the wider literature on migrants' agency in dealing with administrative removals and deportations from the UK (Sardelić, 2017;Schweitzer, 2017) and on the growing body of work that explores EU minority rights and the social justice dimension of the European Union citizenship (Kochenov and Agarin, 2017;O'Brien, 2017).…”

The Study of Irregular Migration

“…From this perspective, migrants are all but passive victims of state action. Indeed, they observe, analyse, share information, develop counterstrategies, and adapt to new conditions (Cornelius & Salehyan, 2007;Schweitzer, 2017;Stavilă, 2015). As noted by Düvell, irregular migrants are often individualist and entrepreneurial, highly responsive to labour-market needs and more mobile than indigenous populations (Düvell, 2006(Düvell, , 2011b.…”

The Politics of Disintegration

“…That said, however, a certain relationship between the integration of individuals and that of society is usually recognised and many grassroots initiatives, as well as research projects focusing on the local level are explicitly trying to build on this conceptual but also practical overlap. Arguably, both an individual's integration into society, and that of society as a whole, thereby hinge on the same connections and interactions between people (and institutions), which also means that the two cannot be regulated as if they were entirely separate processes (Schweitzer 2017). By building and maintaining social relations with others, individuals thus always also contribute to a (more) integrated collective.…”

“…Annals of the American Academy of Political and Social Science,530(1), 74-96. Schweitzer, R. (2017). Integration against the state -The state against integration?…”

“…Particularly where rigorous exclusion would create significant costs or contradictions, however, migrant irregularity is often more or less routinely accommodated within existing organisational structures and institutional logics (Schweitzer 2018b). Conceptually but also empirically, this implies a certain level of recognition and incorporation of formally irregular migrants and can thus not only make visible but also further their claims for social membership Hellgren 2014;Schweitzer 2017b). The next section theorises the underlying negotiation processes in more detail to better understand the crucial role that local institutions and individual street-level bureaucrats (can) play within the broader politics of (dis) integration.…”