Season 3, Ep. 4: Irregular not irrelevant – Conceptualizing and measuring irregular migration
Show notes
Below, you will find links to all of the research referenced by our guests, as well as other resources you may find useful.
Project Page
MIrreM – Measuring Irregular Migration (external link)
Donate or Get Involved!
Aidez Nous à Aider (external link)
Canadian Council for Refugees (external link)
Justice in Motion (external link)
United We Dream (external link)
Media & Blogs
Bauder, H & Landau, L. (4 October 2018). Why cities hold the key to safe, orderly migration (external link) . World Economic Forum.
Campbell, A. (19 June 2024). Who were the Windrush generation and what is Windrush Day? (external link) BBC News.
Giuffrida, A. (16 September 2024). How has Italy sought to cut irregular migration and could UK copy the policy? (external link) The Guardian.
Kassam, A. (23 October 2014). African migrants look down on white-clad golfers in viral photo (external link) . The Guardian.
"Lost" Surinamese nationals to be given Dutch residency rights (external link) . (27 June 2024). Dutch News.
Moroccan police stop hundreds of migrants from entering Spanish enclave of Ceuta (external link) . (15 September 2024). Euro News.
Taylor, Diane. (7 October 2024). Irregular migration into UK and large European countries is same as 2008, research shows (external link) . The Guardian.
Tracing the Origin of the Sanctuary City (external link) . (17 March 2017). The Daily Podcast, New York Times.
What makes a city solidary? (external link) Podcast. Salto.
Zaanoun, A. (18 June 2024). Irregular migration and border security in Morocco (external link) . Carnegie Endowment.
Reports and Policy
Access to City Services for Undocumented Torontonians (external link)
Municipal IDs for Inclusion (external link) , University of Oxford.
Hajer, M., Vasileiadi, C., & van Liempt, I. (2024). (PDF file) The Legal and Policy Infrastructure of Irregularity (external link) . I-CLAIM Country Report.
Books & Book Chapters
Ambrosini, M., & Hajer, M. H. (2023). Irregular Migration: IMISCOE Short Reader (external link) (p. 151). Springer Nature.
Bakewell, O. (2020). Undocumented migration and development (external link) . In Routledge handbook of migration and development (pp. 74-83). Routledge.
Bah, T. L., & Batista, C. (2020). (PDF file) Why Do People Migrate Irregularly?: Evidence from a Lab-in-the-field Experiment in West Africa (external link) . Helen Kellogg Institute for International Studies.
Baldwin-Edwards, M., & Kraler, A. (Eds.). (2009). REGINE-Regularisations in Europe. Amsterdam University Press.
Sanchez, G., & Achilli, L. (2020). Stranded: The impacts of COVID-19 on irregular migration and migrant smuggling (external link) . European University Institute.
Van Liempt, I., Schapendonk, J., & Campos-Delgado, A. (Eds.). (2023). Research handbook on irregular migration. Edward Elgar Publishing.
Scholarly Articles
Belval, J., Lambert, S. D., Miller, C. A., Grosse, J., Boudreault, P., & Belzile, E. (2023). An ID card allowing access to municipal services for migrants with precarious status in Montreal and its influence on social inclusion: a mixed method study (external link) . International Journal of Migration, Health and Social Care, 19(3/4), 338-350.
Boswell, C., & Badenhoop, E. (2021). “What isn't in the files, isn't in the world”: Understanding state ignorance of irregular migration in Germany and the United Kingdom (external link) . Governance, 34(2), 335-352.
Chauvin, S., Garcés‐Mascareñas, B., & Kraler, A. (2013). Working for legality: Employment and migrant regularization in Europe (external link) . International Migration, 51(6), 118-131.
Gonzales, R. G., Terriquez, V., & Ruszczyk, S. P. (2014). Becoming DACAmented: Assessing the short-term benefits of deferred action for childhood arrivals (DACA). (external link) American behavioral scientist, 58(14), 1852-1872.
Kraler, A., & Reichel, D. (2011). Measuring irregular migration and population flows–What available data can tell (external link) . International Migration, 49(5), 97-128.
Kraler, A. (2019). Regularization of irregular migrants and social policies: Comparative perspectives (external link) . Journal of Immigrant & Refugee Studies, 17(1), 94-113.
Kraler, A. (2009). (PDF file) Regularisation: A misguided option or part and parcel of a comprehensive policy response to irregular migration (external link) . IMISCOEWorking Paper.
Koinova, M. (2024). Governing transit and irregular migration: informality and formal policies (external link) . Journal of Ethnic and Migration Studies, 1-22.
Watkins, J. (2020). Irregular migration, borders, and the moral geographies of migration management (external link) . Environment and Planning C: Politics and Space, 38(6), 1108-1127.
Zijlstra, J., & Liempt, I. V. (2017). Smart (phone) travelling: Understanding the use and impact of mobile technology on irregular migration journeys (external link) . International Journal of Migration and Border Studies, 3(2-3), 174-191.
Transcript
Clarification (December 6, 2024): Both I-CLAIM and MirreM are co-funded by the European Union under the Horizon Europe research and innovation program.
Correction (December 6, 2024): In this episode, we mentioned that Albert Kraler is an Associate Professor. The correct title is Assistant Professor.
Maggie Perzyna
Welcome to Borders & Belonging, a podcast that explores innovative migration research and connects the dots to real world impact. This series is produced by CERC Migration in collaboration with Lead Podcasting. I'm Maggie Perzyna, a researcher with the Canada Excellence Research Chair in Migration and Integration program at Toronto Metropolitan University. In today's episode, we're looking at research projects that confront the complexities of irregular migration. I'll be joined by two migration researchers to explore challenges around contested evidence, and discuss how collaboration between researchers, policy makers, and migrants can help shape more informed and inclusive policies. But first, let's head to Morocco, a key stop for many migrants trying to reach Europe. Nestled in North Africa, Morocco is located directly across from Europe, making it an important transit point for migrants heading north. With mainland Spain just 14 kilometers away at its narrowest point across the Mediterranean Sea, the Spanish enclaves of Ceuta and Melilla directly border Morocco as the only territories on the African mainland.
Brynn Campbell
We all have human rights. We all have rights to a life of dignity and respect. And unfortunately, if you don't have specific papers to be somewhere, I don't know, for some reason, people feel that you're less than a human.
Maggie Perzyna
That's Brynn Campbell. She's the founder of Aidez Nous à Aider, or ANA, an organization that works closely with migrants in Morocco.
Brynn Campbell
There's also two Spanish enclaves, Melilla and Sebtah. So, if you cross over the barricades to get there, you can apply for asylum, basically. These are the two kinds of routes that migrants take to get to Europe, and they're very dangerous and they're very, very risky.
Maggie Perzyna
Did you notice that Brynn said Melilla and Sebtah in Morocco? These territories are referred to as the occupied Sebtah and Melilla, while the rest of the world recognizes them as the Spanish enclaves of Ceuta and Manila. Many Moroccans see the territories as rightfully theirs, despite Spain's long-standing control dating back to the late 15th century.
Brynn Campbell
When migrants try to get to Melilla or Sebtah, it's like two levels of bordered fences, like, I guess, barbed wire fence, kind of high barricaded fences, and so often, when migrants are caught by police, the police will take away their shoes, as well.
Maggie Perzyna
As irregular migration toward Europe intensifies, Morocco has stepped up its border control measures. The Ceuta and Melilla city lines are heavily fortified. Over the past five years, Moroccan authorities have intercepted a staggering 366,000 crossings, with about 75,000 apprehensions occurring just in 2023. And while migrants all over the world face risks of injury, imprisonment or even death when they make the journey towards asylum, migrants in Morocco face a unique and demoralizing risk. Upon being apprehended, many have their shoes confiscated, making their journey even more difficult.
Brynn Campbell
A lot of police will do this as a form of control and to intimidate them from wanting to do this or to make their journey a lot more difficult. It's not like it's a part of their protocol. It's just, you know, there's bad police and some of them like to abuse their power.
Maggie Perzyna
Think about how limited you become if you don't have access to a single pair of shoes. For detained migrants, this loss of mobility hampers their chances of continuing their journey. It's a particularly cruel practice, and when Brynn first heard about it, it changed her life.
Brynn Campbell
I was just trying to find different ways to help people find solutions. In Morocco, there's a lot of poverty. It's like always in your face, and it's just really heartbreaking. And being from Canada, I have a much more privileged background, so I just like to see in which ways I can take the skills that I've inherited and pass those on to others and help find different connections to work with different people.
Maggie Perzyna
Brynn first came to Morocco as a solo traveler in 2008 and it was 2015 when she came up with the idea for ANA.
Brynn Campbell
I was working as a project manager for a nonprofit where I was helping create photography exhibits that focused on social issues. I'm just kind of someone that's like, you know, I don't like just to talk. I like to take action. We initially started by doing food security. By like, once a month or every second week we provide, there's like, a group of women that would come and we'd provide food for them. So, then this past year, we changed the organization a bit because we wanted something that was more focusing on sustainability and long-term change, rather than, food is important, but it's not solving any problems. So, we started focusing on skill development and doing a little bit of advocacy for undocumented migrants in Morocco.
Maggie Perzyna
One of the migrant empowerment projects to come out of ANA is Merch by Migrants, a way from migrants to earn a wage from the online sales of shoes that they design.
Brynn Campbell
In Morocco as an undocumented migrant, you can't work anywhere unless someone's like very generous under the table, helping you. So, many migrants just ask for money on the street, and that's how they survive. So, we're trying to get, like, kind of create an idea that's like, you don't have to depend on the local economy, and you can work anywhere when you're online.
Maggie Perzyna
The project empowers migrants to use their creativity to create shoe designs on the graphic design tool Canva. A portion of every sale goes directly to the migrant who designed them. Each pair is unique, and they give migrants in Morocco the opportunity to express themselves, to earn a living and to take back agency.
Brynn Campbell
I work with some individuals that came from Cameroon and to get from Cameroon to Morocco took about a year and seven months, and then they've been stuck in Morocco for like, maybe seven to nine years now, because it's the security at the borders is becoming more and more difficult to get across to Europe.
Maggie Perzyna
And without shoes, a migrant journey across the border becomes exponentially more dangerous and difficult. But Brynn says that tighter border security isn't going to stop irregular migration from happening in Morocco. More needs to be done, and outlooks need to change.
Brynn Campbell
Migrants do contribute to the economy as well. They're paying rent. They're buying from your local stores, your farmers. Having that kind of outlook as well towards migrants would also be something I think more people, including the local people, should take into consideration.
Maggie Perzyna
And with ANA, Brynn and her team work every day to help make those changes a reality.
Brynn Campbell
We have made sure that our board of directors, because we're a nonprofit, is all migrants. We want to make sure that the decision makers and the people who are putting out these ideas, they're coming from people who are directly affected by the situation. I hope that our projects just help remind people like to see like, oh, look at the skills these people have. Look at the creativity, and just kind of have a different perspective on what you're, what someone might stereotypically think of an undocumented migrant.
Maggie Perzyna
You may have seen their work before. Their logo is painted on murals around the world to raise awareness of Migrant Justice and climate change. It's a painting of the silhouettes of a man, woman and child, all wearing bright orange life jackets, representing the dangerous trip across the Mediterranean Sea.
Brynn Campbell
It's a great way of, you know, get people talking to like public art and just putting in in people's faces. So, we have painted our logo, the first one was in Tétouan, which is in Morocco, and then we had someone in Libya, Tunisia, two in Cameroon, Congo, Kenya. We had one in Belgium, France, Australia, Germany, Canada. Two in Mexico, one in Peru, one in Colombia.
Maggie Perzyna
As ANA grows, Brynn continues to advocate for migrant rights in Morocco with a focus on improving the hostile relationship between police and migrants and improving access to official documentation.
Brynn Campbell
Being a migrant in Morocco, you're scared of the police, so you're not going to go the police and ask them necessarily, "how do I get my documents to be here"? Because a lot of people do want that. You know, if they had the proper paperwork to be in Morocco, it would make things a lot easier. My like, long term goal is to put together a program where we can work with the government to help people get paperwork, and so, that's what we'd like to do. There would be specific requirements. I mean, this is a this is a big, big goal, and it's going to require a lot of networking.
Maggie Perzyna
Brynn Campbell is the founder of Aidez Nous à Aider. Many thanks to her for sharing her insights on migrant justice in Morocco and how collaboration with migrant communities can improve their rights and access to resources.
Joining me today to examine the complexities around defining irregular migration are Ilse van Liempt and Albert Kraler. Ilse is an Associate Professor in urban geography at Utrecht University, specializing in migration, refugee studies and urban diversity. She is the coordinator of I-CLAIM, a Horizon Europe project investigating the living and working conditions of migrant households with precarious legal status in Europe. Albert is an Associate Professor at the Department for migration and globalization at Danube University, Krems in Austria. He is the coordinator of the MirreM project, funded by UK Research and Innovation under the UK government's Horizon Europe funding guarantee. MirreM focuses on understanding the realities of irregular migration and how we shape more effective responses. Thank you both for joining me today.
Ilse van Liempt
Hi, thank you.
Albert Kraler
Hi.
Maggie Perzyna
Ilsa, you're the coordinator of I-CLAIM, can you tell us more about the project?
Ilse van Liempt
Yeah, sure. So, I-CLAIM stands for Improving the Living and Labour Conditions of Irregular Migrant households in Europe. So, that's a mouthful. In our project, we focus on the way irregular migration is produced. So, we really look at how different policies, migration policies, labour policies, but also welfare policies, how they interact and how they produce conditions of irregularity. And we research different sectors where irregular migrants work. So, our project involves empirical research on the ground with migrant workers in the cleaning sector, the delivery work sector and agriculture. And we examine this in six different countries in Europe. So, it's a very exciting project, and we're halfway through.
Maggie Perzyna
Wonderful. Albert, you're the coordinator of MirreM. Can you paint a picture of who the project involves and what research questions motivated the project?
Albert Kraler
MirreM is actually quite a large project with altogether 18 partners involved in it, and a couple of other experts working with us on the project, and our main goal is really to provide some basic evidence, some facts, what irregular migrant irregularity is, and how we can actually assess it and measure it, and what kind of policies actually shape the understanding and forms of irregularity. So, there is some interesting also synergy with I-CLAIM, I think. And we have two main research strands. One is conceptual and quantitative, where we try to define migrant irregularity for the purpose of actually measuring it and nailing it down. And secondly, we also look into our regularization policies, so policies to provide an exit from irregular status.
Maggie Perzyna
What are some of the challenges around defining and measuring irregular migration? Ilse, let's start with you.
Ilse van Liempt
Well, there is a lot of challenges involved in defining irregular migration. I think we spent the first year of our project discussing the definition of irregular migration. And it's not clear cut, so, it's very dynamic. I think it's important to stress that people really can move in and out of irregularity. So, it's not something fixed. So, sometimes it's presented as a status of a person, but in reality, it's much more complex and fluid. So, it can consist of different situations, different conditions, and it varies very much according to different policies and time frames. So, we just finished policy analysis of the last 25 years of policies in the different countries that we study of irregular migration policies, and then it becomes very clear that the same person that 20 years ago was defined a regular migrant will now be defined as an irregular migrant. So, I think it's a challenge to capture that dynamics in the way we discuss and talk and write about irregular migration. So that's a challenge when it comes to definitions. It captures so many different situations and stories that it's really hard to pin down. And when it comes to measuring, I think Albert is more in the position to talk about measuring.
Albert Kraler
Yeah, maybe I just jump on it. I can just agree with what Ilse has said. And what is more, actually, for the purpose of measuring irregular migration, you have to move beyond acknowledging the fluidity and also temporal fluctuations of irregularity and have to fix it somehow. To have a discrete category that you are going to measure. And I think one starting point that we had and where we actually borrowed or built on work that has been done previously, 15 years ago, in an earlier project called Clandestino, is that we distinguish between changes, flows into irregularity and flows out of irregularity, certain dynamic dimensions, then the stock, the situation and the population in any given point of time. And you always have these changes that make people become irregular. It could be because they unlawfully cross a border. They could lose their resident status. They can also be born into irregularity. We can distinguish different ways how people become irregular, and similarly, you can differentiate different ways in how people cease to become irregular. They might lodge an asylum claim and then are in a sort, what we call a provisional status. It's not fully legal in the sense that a labour migrant is legal and has been admitted for the purpose of labour employment and has a residence permit for a certain period of time. For asylum seekers, it's a residence permit pending their procedure, so until the status is fully determined. And there is a couple of other situations in which people are in a similar provisional situation. But people can also exit irregularity simply because they die. And so that, of course, they also cease to be part of that population, or because they move on or return to their country or region. And if you look at the population in an irregular situation, what we clearly separate out is that population that we have called the population in a migrant population, the provisional status. Whereas actually in the European context, but also in other contexts, a sizable population who have some sort of permission to stay, but who are liable, who are still obliged to leave a country but that obligation has been suspended. In the US, the population that is covered by DACA, that is such an example for such a population who they have a deferred - deportation is suspended - but they don't have full, long-term, permanent legal status. But they are also not in an irregular situation, because they do have permission to stay temporarily and often also have access to work. Also in the European Union, we have a sizable population of that group. People who are obliged to leave but are still here. And then you have people are more fully in an irregular situation and don't have any valid documents or not the right documents, and which we would see as the population, narrowly speaking, as being in an irregular situation. So, we have to make all these differentiations also to show the complexity of different legal statuses people can find themselves in. Being in an irregular situation could mean very different things. It could mean having an expired permit. It could mean that one has just missed a deadline and may still hope for getting a grant to renew ones permit even though one has missed the deadline, or it could be, we refer to a person who has never had any legal documents to stay and still is in the country. And then you can actually put that together and try to see for which kind of situations do you have any indications, quantitative indications. How could you measure it using different methods that are available?
Ilse van Liempt
Yeah, I just wanted to add that next to this large variety of different statuses and definitions in our project we also try to shed light on the conscious and unconscious biases with regard to who people actually consider to be irregular migrants, because there is this large group of migrants that people associate with being undocumented or irregular, but there is so many other groups that people might not consider being an irregular migrant. And I think it's really important to also show the variety and all the different stories and experiences within that definition. So, in the Netherlands, for example, we now have recently had a really large group of Surinamese undocumented older people who were in the country for more than 40 years without documents, and because Suriname was a former colony of the Netherlands, they arrived here, they never really felt the urgency to register. And for a long time, it was also possible to work and to get a work permit, even though they didn't have the right documentation. And now, increasingly, over time, it has become more difficult for them. So, they cannot get access to health care anymore, and it's become a huge problem. So, now there is a campaign to regularize undocumented Surinamese people in the Netherlands, which I think really shows that these experiences can be so varied, and it can be about so many different groups, different histories and different administrative situations. So, also, I think when people think about irregular migration, they often think about border crossing, but most of the time, becoming an irregular migrant has an administrative origin.
Maggie Perzyna
Such a hard concept to define. Albert, the evidence around irregular migration is often contested and uncertain. How can researchers deal with these uncertainties while still gleaning information to create policies?
Albert Kraler
Yeah, that's, of course, a major challenge, and we have set out to provide some evidence, but at the same time also communicate that the evidence is insecure, and I think that the only way to deal with it is that one as a researcher, first of all, one has to critically reflect what one communicates and when one communicates what. And especially in regard to quantitative data, there is a certain esthetics and also persuasiveness of statistics which seem to be more robust than any narrative that you that you provide, but which is actually a misguided or an erroneous perception. And then what is necessary when this figures is, for example, to not mention a single number, but provide ranges if you talk about the possible size of a population. And also point out that, you know, we don't actually know so well how what people are covered in a particular figure that is circulating. And I think there is, of course, for some purposes, and you have two points to come up with a single number but communicating that this number is uncertain is a key element. And just also, just as we do now in our conversation, pointed with different shades of irregularity and with different constellations. So, the point that those of Surinamese region, or in the UK, the migrants of Jamaican origin caught in the Windrush scandal, which is a similar comparative group of often elderly people already who have lived in a country for generations, or maybe not for a generation, but for a lifetime and are not in the public imaginary of irregular migrants, which is often focused nowadays, and especially after the so called migration refugees crisis in Europe on young males crossing borders, which doesn't really reflect the diversity of the population and that there is. And I think that it's also fair to point out that there is certain privileged migrants in an irregular situation, people who work as consultants and may not have to bother that much about papers, because they can work the way around controls more easily than others in a more precarious and more controlled situation.
Maggie Perzyna
Ilsa, can you talk about how including voices from civil society, NGOs and migrants themselves, can influence the way we approach migration research? How can this create a more comprehensive picture of a regular migration?
Ilse van Liempt
Yeah, I think it's really important to include the stories and the experiences of people. So, I'm not sure if the fact that there is no real hard statistics makes it contested. Because I think it's equally important to show the people's experiences with being undocumented or living in an irregular situation. And I think very often policy makers are not aware of the implications it has on people's everyday life. So, I think it's very valuable to include people's stories and experiences. And in our project, we take the household as a perspective. And I think we do that because we want to move beyond the individual experience as well and show how being irregular has implications also for parents and children and even sometimes the wider community. So, yeah, I think it's really vital also, because the situations keep changing. So, there is always new stories and new experiences in the cities where we live.
Maggie Perzyna
Albert maybe building on what Ilsa said, what role do cities and communities play in creating effective responses to irregular migration?
Albert Kraler
Well, I think one big issue is that a lot of the challenges that irregular migrants have and conversely, communities have, are taking place on the local level. So, it's for the state as a whole on national level, it's mostly about numbers and control of migration. But when it comes to services, when it comes to housing, employment, that's always anchored in a local particular context. And therefore, communities have, and cities have a very well often have a very strong interest in engaging with that population, which is de facto, living in their localities. They also often have a stronger incentive to adopt some kind of response to their presence, and often a more accommodating response than is discussed and debated on the national level. So, very often, what we find is that communities and cities deviate from national policies, restrictive policy stances, because if people are here and if you're not responding to health needs or to housing needs, it may have negative impacts. I think that can be very clearly seen in relation to homelessness, for example, where it's, where any approach that tries to differentiate between different types of homeless by country of origin or by legal status is is meaningless, because it, in the end, will end up in not addressing the problem and creating more homelessness and any problems that go with it. So, it’s often a very - there's a strong pressure for pragmatic responses. And I think similar things can be said about health care, even though I would say in terms of health care, it's even more complicated, because there is, by now, relatively widely shared consensus that emergency health care should be provided to everybody, irrespective of legal status. Consensus that is shrinking in some countries and that have undergone went through political changes recently, but there is an issue about longer term care for people who are with chronic illnesses or once the emergency treatment has been received, how do you support people's recovery, longer term recovery from an illness or an accident and similar things. So, but again, I think here is a strong overall, a very strong role of communities and cities.
Ilse van Liempt
Yeah, I agree. I am. I'm currently working, actually, on an article where we explore the city ID initiative. So, there is cities in the US, but now increasingly also in Europe, that experiment with their local identity card for irregular migrants that allows them to get access to certain services on the local level, just like Albert is saying, The healthcare, housing. But also, very importantly, this card prevents them from being arrested on the streets, so it gives some sort of a security that they're safe in their local community. And I think that's a very interesting example to see how, in some cities - not in all cities because there are also cities who are more restrictive than national policies and have the opposite policies or practices - but I think there is huge potential at the local level to do things differently. And the city where I work, in Utrecht, is very known for implementing policies that go against the national policy, and it has a history in providing care for homeless people. Like Albert was also pointing out that they had, as a city, they had the slogan that in their city, nobody sleeps on the streets, and therefore they were in this situation that they wanted or needed to offer more rights to homeless people than nationally was allowed. And I think in the US, you have examples of sanctuary cities, it's also a really interesting example where cities explicitly say that they are welcoming for irregular migrants. This sometimes doesn't go beyond a symbolic measure, but it's still very important for people to feel at home.
Albert Kraler
I think one caveat here is also, if one also looks at the cities that declare themselves sanctuary cities and are very active in this field, it's a certain type of city and many smaller cities, localities and medium sized localities are actually, well, they are not part of this picture. Often also because they simply don't have the capacity and resources or even the legal mandate to respond in any way. But capacity is a major issue, and it's quite an uneven response there, but still, there is a potential, actually, also to equip cities with more resources and capacities to be able to be responsive on the local level.
Ilse van Liempt
Yeah, and finances is a huge issue, because currently in the Netherlands, we're in the situation where our new government no longer wants to provide shelter to undocumented migrants, and this was funded by the national government, and now there is certain cities that still want to offer this service, but basically it means that they need to pay for it themselves now, which is a huge burden on the local budget. So, yeah, I agree with Albert. It sounds, it sounds positive, and it sounds hopeful, but there is, there is a lot of problems involved as well, when national governments do no longer take responsibility, and local cities do not have the capacity or the means to provide basic rights and services.
Maggie Perzyna
That's really interesting, and actually ties in with another episode this season on the Soli*City project, which explores the concept of solidarity cities. Did you discover any examples of successful collaborations in your research that help to change policy and positively affect the lives of migrants?
Albert Kraler
In regard to policy, I think it's generally, perhaps also a little bit much to ask from researchers to have a huge impact, especially on national politics, because national politics is first and foremost guided by political logic and that is where elections and electoral cycles and party politics are the main drivers of policy making, and where the main influence that researchers actually can have is maybe not so much on the political level, even though there is always this one or the other party that aligns with your findings and takes up the findings. But generally, it's more on the administrative level. So, with people that develop legal proposals or implement legislation that you find your audience and where you can influence and change also practices, or at least raise a certain understanding that there are issues around the implementation of a certain policy in this or the other way. I think that's really where researchers can influence the most. This doesn't say that we cannot also put agendas or topics on the European level or on the national level, but it happens more rarely. And I think back in on my research career, I think, for a core political issue, namely, in regards to the feasibility or desirability of regularization, so amnesties for migrants who are in an irregular situation and full regularization may obtain a regular residence permit that happened once, some 10 years ago, where a study that was conducted 15 years ago was put on the European Union discussion forum of senior experts, and they at least debated and considered the fact that not doing anything with people who are not returned but don't leave the country for a longer period of time, that you have to do some something about them, and cannot just leave them in a limbo situation for ages. At the time where policy proposal put forward by the European Commission, it was a very vague and very discretionary recommendation on basically addressing the situation of such people and it was rejected by the European member states, but at least it was a in a sense, it was a successful agenda setting. But it took five years to get to the table, and as such, opportunities to influence high politics are really rare, I would say.
Ilse van Liempt
I agree with Albert that most of the time, we try to find the right audience, and we try at the end of the project to come up with policy briefs and recommendations. But one thing that we're doing in the I-CLAIM project, which I think is really successful, is that we work with national and also European stakeholder groups. So, from the start of the project, we discuss with people from the field and also policy makers, what the issues are that really need to be researched. And I think sometimes it can be a really small thing. For example, I collaborate with an NGO called Fair Work in the Netherlands, and they really work hard on claiming wages back. Because all workers are workers, so workers with an irregular status are also workers, and very often it happens that they don't get paid. So, claiming wages back is one of their agenda points. So, in the research project, we collaborate around this issue. It is a very concrete issue that we can then from the research provide evidence. And I think these smaller collaborations are often more effective than trying to get your recommendations on the agenda for the European Commission. I mean, which, we also try and do, but I think sometimes in the way we do research, we can also think a bit more creatively in how we, from the start, make sure that we align with certain needs in the communities or in the field of policy.
Maggie Perzyna
So, for some final thoughts, maybe reflecting on both of your projects, why is this research so crucial right now, and how does it push the conversation forward on understanding and addressing irregular migration? Ilse?
Ilse van Liempt
I think it's really crucial to, I think we're in in this political age where migration is criminalized. There is, like an anti-migration agenda at the moment in Europe, and there is a lot of dehumanization going on. So, I think it's really important to show the human side. So again, the stories and the experiences of migrants, and our project I-CLAIM has a focus on work. And most irregular migrants work. They work in the vital sectors of our economy. They clean they do delivery work, they work in the care sector, in restaurants, in agriculture. Maybe it's a bit different from the US, but in the European context, and especially in the country where I reside, in the Netherlands, irregular migrants are not associated with work. They're not even imagined to be working. So, I think it's really important to give them a voice, to show that they are actually part of our economy, and at the same time, they're often exploited and maltreated because of their precarious situation. So, for this research, for my particular project, it's also really important to provide evidence to their working conditions and hopefully find some solutions on how to improve that.
Maggie Perzyna
Albert?
Albert Kraler
Yeah, I think the project is timely, because, as Ilse pointed out, we are living in an in a time and in a period where migration is really the overarching issue, and irregular migration, combating irregular migration has become a core objective of policy makers on the national level and the European level, and even, you know, knowingly sacrificing some other objectives that we might have and knowingly also accepting that it will cost resources and may not be economically sufficient. So, it really has become an ideological issue to a very large extent. And in this context, it's useful to show well that, unlike everyone thinks, irregular migration, the population of migrants in an irregular situation actually hasn't increased in the European Union. We have collated estimates from different countries, and can basically show that there has not been any discernible change between 2008 and the present period, despite the dynamic migration situation. And this, I think, also points to another aspect that Ilse already has been pointing at, the criminalization of migration, and you could also say, well, the irregularization of certain forms of migration, where people are considered and framed as a as irregular migrants who actually shouldn't be considered as irregular migrants, because we are protection seekers, for example. There's been a recent study that came out earlier this year, I think, that has shown that, on average, between 2009 and 2021 more than half of people who have been apprehended in the European Union at external borders of the European Union are likely to have had a positive asylum claim afterwards. So, actually, if you take away this, this figure, and during 2015 it was even a higher share of more than 80%, if you take away this, so called problem of irregularity, becomes a smaller one, a very much smaller one. And also, you realize that the main issues is actually how to provide international protection in a world that is becoming increasingly volatile, and where globally, the numbers of refugees are increasing, and the spaces for protection shrink, and still, the majority of protection seekers are actually hosted by countries in the Global South and not in the Global North. I think that's also an important addition to be made.
Ilse van Liempt
This very important addition. Also, yeah, I totally agree with Albert, and I just wanted to add that I think we started this conversation with the definition, and I think in the media and in public discourse at the moment, irregular migrants are often conflated with asylum seekers, and that's really wrong. As Albert pointed out, asylum seekers are people who apply for protection, and they're in a procedure, and most of them will probably get a refugee status. So, I think coming back to the definition, it's really important to be clear who it is that we are referring to.
Maggie Perzyna
Thank you both for joining me today. It was so wonderful to have you.
Ilse van Liempt
Thank you very much.
Albert Kraler
Thank you also for having us.
Maggie Perzyna
Thanks to Ilse van Liempt and Albert Kraler for joining me today and thank you for listening. This is a CERC Migration podcast produced in collaboration with Lead Podcasting. If you enjoyed the episode, subscribe to Borders & Belonging on Apple, Spotify or wherever you get your podcasts. For more information on irregular migration, please visit the show notes. Do you want to share your thoughts or additional research about irregular migration? We'd love to hear from you. Follow the Borders & Belonging LinkedIn page and be part of the conversation. I'm Maggie Perzyna. Thanks for listening.