Irregular migration

Abstract

Irregular migration is a multifaceted, dynamic phenomenon that has attracted disproportionate media and political attention since the early 2000s. It has been at the forefront of the political debate in most of the European Union’s Member States since the outbreak of the so-called ‘migration crisis’ of 2015. Indeed, the political attention paid to irregular migration is disproportionate to its volume. Migrants are estimated to represent 3.3% of the world’s population (IOM, 2017, from UNDESA, 2017) with migrants in an irregular situation between 15% and 20% of them. This is approximately 1% of the global population, some 30–40 million individuals worldwide (UN OHCHR, 2014; ILO, 2015). In the USA, the undocumented population was estimated in 2015 to be 11 million (Rosenblum & Ruiz Soto, 2015); while in Europe it was estimated to be 1.9–3.8 million in 2008 (Kovacheva & Vogel, 2009); and between 2.9 and 3.8 million in 2018 (Pew Research Centre, 2019). This chapter starts with defining the variants of irregular status and the paths through which a migrant may become irregular, with a view to showing that this status is a continuum rather than a clear-cut distinction. We explore the links between irregular migration and irregular/informal work and how flows and stocks relate to segmented labour market dynamics. The chapter considers the lived realities of the daily lives of irregular migrants before turning to the universal human rights that migrants with irregular status should enjoy and reasons for their limitation in practice. We conclude by critically surveying recent policy trends on enforcement and criminalisation, as well as the counter trend of semi-inclusion at particularly local and regional levels.