(Un)making illegality: Border control, racialized bodies and differential regimes of illegality in Morocco

Abstract

What role does race play in the construction of illegality in the face of pervasive border control? Sociologists and anthropologists of migration have apprehended illegality as a constructed category, produced by immigration policies and laws aimed at ‘illegalizing’ established mobility flows. ‘Illegality’ operates as an exclusionary category not only because it is constructed by law, but also because it is activated by racialized forms of prejudice which structure societies according to hierarchies of dangerousness, visibility and deservedness. Scholars, however, have tended to examine the entanglement between race and illegality by focusing mostly on the experience of black and brown people, especially those coming from poor countries in the Global South, thus overlooking how whiteness influences and alters the workings of border control. Drawing on qualitative data gathered between 2013 and 2019 in Morocco, this article questions the category of ‘illegality’ as it is policed at the street level and experienced by different groups of foreigners in Morocco. Building on Sara Ahmed’s understanding of whiteness as an ‘orientation’, in this article the author argues that illegality is a label which is racially altered and expanded by border bureaucrats, who use it to differentially police the presence of migrant bodies pre-emptively visualized as legal or illegal. Whereas black people undergo pervasive containment procedures, white privilege allows white migrants to be oblivious of the border, even when their administrative situation is not compliant with migration law.

Doing Barzakh, Making Boza

“…Across Morocco, Black immigrants to the country encounter racialised forms of violence and exclusion enacted by the state as well as by everyday citizens. Other scholars of migration in Morocco have outlined the racialisation of the country's border and migration regulations, especially with regard to how (potential) illegality is marked, policed and tied into local class politics (Gazzotti 2021;Gross-Wyrtzen 2020). What I have outlined here, however, queries the interplay of various dynamics of difference once racialised exclusion has already produced the figure of the 'Black African migrant' as a category outside of normative belonging in Morocco.…”

Surveying the Landscape of Labor Market Threat Perceptions from Migration: Evidence from Attitudes toward Sub-Saharan African Migrants in Morocco

“…Finally, we report mixed results on whether living in areas with high sub-Saharan migrant presence or a sudden upsurge in foreigners increases Moroccans’ labor-market threat perceptions. Indeed, it will be imperative for future work on migrants’ perceived role in the labor market to try to disentangle how actual labor market encounters and competition can be disaggregated from persistent racist stereotypes (Menin 2020; Gazzotti 2021). A “culture of silence” characterizes Morocco’s racially stratified society, and Moroccans neglect “to engage in discussion on slavery and racial attitudes” (El Hamel 2002: 29).…”

“…Morocco’s police became more violent, treating all sub-Saharan migrants “as if they were illegal” and ignoring differences between labor migrants and asylum seekers (Léonard 2010: 240–41; Natter 2018). Gazzotti (2021: 277) noted that police differentially imposed “pervasive containment procedures” on sub-Saharan migrants compared with non-Black migrants, even when their administrative statuses similarly contravened migration law. Sub-Saharan migrants often faced harsh workplace conditions, including as Bachelet (2014: 87) described, “precarious and poorly paid jobs” in the informal sector.…”

As if there was a border. Bordering through excision in Melilla and the Canary Islands

“…This is particularly evident in the case of the Canary Islands, where identity checks at airports – justified under the guise of COVID19 travel inspections – disproportionately targeted Black and brown people. It would be important to more systematically investigate how racialized control creates borders where the law establishes none, and how whiteness acts as a form of credential at border posts (Garelli and Tazzioli, 2017; Gazzotti, 2021).…”