Public preferences for policies vis-à-vis irregular migrants in Europe : the roles of policy design and context

Abstract

The presence of millions of irregular migrants in Europe poses a significant challenge for both policymakers and voters: how to protect individuals’ fundamental rights and, at the same time, establish effective migration controls? We lack research evidence on how Europeans think about this fundamental goal conflict and, crucially for policy-making, on how public attitudes to policies toward irregular migrants may be dependent on policy design and contextual factors. To address this gap, we theorise how public preferences for regularisation policies and access to legal rights for irregular migrants are shaped by specific policy features that provide control and/or protection, and by migrants’ prior legal status and contributions in the host country. Our empirical analysis of these questions is based on data from a novel conjoint survey experiment that we conducted with 20,000 respondents across Austria, Italy, Poland, Sweden, and the UK. The results indicate that host country residents prefer policies that include, rather than exclude, targeted opportunities for regularisation. We also find a preference for granting access to primary health care (an in-kind public service) over low-income support (a form of cash benefit). In line with existing research, our results suggest that combining irregular migrants’ access to rights with migration controls can generate public support. This latter effect however is not universal but varies across different types of rights. Our analysis further demonstrates that inclusive regularisation policies and rights protections for irregular migrants receive greater public support when targeted at visa overstayers with a history of legal employment in the host country, particularly in essential occupations. Overall, our study shows that when it comes to public preferences for policies vis-à-vis irregular migrants, policy design and context matter. These insights have important implications for public debates and policy-making at a time when European countries are in the process of reforming rights and enforcement in policies toward irregular migrants.