Jurisdictional games and decision making: The Belgian approach in dealing with migrant smuggling

Abstract

The article presents a case study focusing on the Belgian approach to deal with migrant smuggling and more broadly on the governance of migrants in transit on its territory. Drawing from the literature on jurisdiction and scales and combining it with the scholarship on bureaucrats' decision making, the article sheds light on the messy dynamics and realities of legal governance of migrants transiting through Belgium in their journey to the United Kingdom. By focusing on the multilayered nature of the issue, the distinct legal regimes and the various actors involved, the article argues that the jurisdictional separation of the realms of criminal and administrative law enables a decision to mobilize a set of law over or in combination with another. The article explores the situation at the local and national scales and, as jurisdictions overlap and competences are scattered between distinct entities and actors, specific attention is paid to "passing the buck" behaviors and discourses which have substantial consequences for the situation of migrants in transit in Belgium. | INTRODUCTIONIn a European context, when thinking about (irregular) migration and migrant smuggling, images of overcrowded rubber boats crossing the Mediterranean Sea at the external European Union (EU) borders almost immediately come to mind. The situation at the internal borders of the Schengen Area, perhaps with the exception of Calais, appears to be less salient in the collective imagination. Nonetheless, in recent years, more scholarly attention has been devoted to "bordering practices" 1 occurring at the EU internal borders and its consequences for migrants (see Barbero, 2020;Tazzioli, 2020). Contributing to this body of scholarship, this article looks