Qualifying deportation: How police translation of ‘dangerous foreign criminals’ led to expansive deportation practices in Spain

Abstract

In 2009, in a move to improve the situation regarding the deportability of illegalized migrants in Spain, a left-wing government led by the Socialist Workers’ Party drafted a new policy aimed at focusing police efforts exclusively on the deportation of ‘foreign criminals’. Ethnographically tracing the enforcement of deportation by a central police unit in Madrid, this article shows how the practical implementation of a policy that seemingly sought to limit the use of deportation in fact allowed for continuous and even reinvigorated deportation practices aimed at all categories of illegalized migrants. Operating under the idea that they were now fighting ‘dangerous criminals’, many police agents felt increasingly motivated about carrying out deportations and reassured about the morality of doing so. Rather than focusing on illegalized migrants who had been indicted for serious crimes, most police agents considered anyone with a police record to fit their target group. As a result of the specific police interpretation of the new policy, the deportability of illegalized migrants in Spain was not only increased but also left to be enforced according to the racialized and racist ideas of police agents. The article argues for the need to scrutinize all new deportation policies within Western liberal states in terms of their effect on deportability by highlighting entrenched and institutionalized forms of racism against illegalized migrants within the police force.

Multiple functions of immigration detention: Police measures in the governance of mobile populations

“…Notwithstanding varying detention practices across countries (and spatial and institutional arrangements under different titles), detention facilities are logistics centers of the border regime that can serve different functions in the governance of mobile populations, from the enforcement of removals to flexible means of social control (Campesi and Fabini, 2020; Leerkes and Broeders, 2010). While varying enforcement capacities and the de facto deportability of certain nationalities constrain immigration detention, the significant role of the police in immigration enforcement in many European countries shapes detention and removal practices (e.g., Kalir, 2022); even more than in crime control (see Peeters, 2015), executive police powers are pivotal in the formation of detention policies due to broad discretionary powers and indeterminate legal frameworks. Compared to the strictly regulated criminal justice system, which is predicated on the autonomy and equality of all participants (Dubber, 2018), immigration law produces deportable and detainable foreign nationals with only limited rights and protections, consequently differentiating them as subordinate objects under police rule.…”

“…The police have considerable discretion in the enforcement of removals, having the power to decide which persons to remove, when, and how. In practice, the police prioritize the removal of foreign offenders and others considered to pose a threat to public order and security (see Kalir, 2022). Detainees' levels of resistance affect police methods in immigration enforcement: in many cases, immigration detention is a response to migrants' resistance toward removal.…”

Insecurity, deportability and authority

“…Here, deportability research risks losing its critical edge as it implicitly sanctions the legitimating discourse of the immigration enforcement regime, or what Jansen et al (2014) describe as a kind of blindness that refuses to recognize the racism inherent in immigration control regimes. Kalir's (2024) article seeks to address this gap through a study of deportability in Spain. His work specifically focuses on the policy of 'qualified expulsion' whereby Spanish politicians claimed to aim to target deportation on those unauthorized residents who had committed criminal offences.…”

“…Kalir’s (2024) article seeks to address this gap through a study of deportability in Spain. His work specifically focuses on the policy of ‘qualified expulsion’ whereby Spanish politicians claimed to aim to target deportation on those unauthorized residents who had committed criminal offences.…”

Removals of ‘Dangerous’ Mobile EU Citizens: Public Order and Security as a Police Paradigm

“…While the EU acquis leaves it for the Member States to determine the notions of 'public order' and 'public security' in accordance with national needs (European Commission, 2013: 8), in reality, everyday police practices shape the conceptions of a threat to public order and security in immigration enforcement. In addition to crime control, the police also participate in deciding which cases constitute a threat to public order and security by initiating the removal process for foreign offenders (Franko, 2020;Kalir, 2022;Könönen, 2023b). According to Ellermann (2009: 4), 'Deportation is an expression of the basic policing powers of the state: its agents employ this tool to enforce laws that regulate entry across and residence within its borders, and to exclude individuals who may pose a threat to the public order'.…”