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The political regulation of
immigration:
the issue of irregular migrations
Maurizio Ambrosini, University of Milan, editor of the
journal “Mondi migranti”
A recent issue
• Immigration policies have increased in their importance
in the political agenda, in Europe and elsewhere
• The issue of irregular migrations is quite recent: it has
acquired salience only in the ‘70, in relation with the
political choice to close the borders against economic
immigrants
• Only in the ‘90 provisions have become more stringent
(technologies of identification, exclusion from welfare
rights), and after 2001 security goals have been meshed
with immigration control
The general trend
• The general trend in Europe and in the Global
North is towards more closure: voters seem to
demand more restrictions on further admissions
of migrants, rights, and tolerance towards
diversity
• New political parties have gained ground, with big
success in several countries, emphasizing
opposition to immigrants and cultural diversity
• In US now a debate on regularization of about 11
millions of irregular immigrants is open
The puzzle of irregularity
• It is not clear what is irregular immigration and who
is an irregular immigrant
• Irregularity in the access to a country or in the
residence in the country (most of irregular
immigrants enter in a regular way, as tourists,
students, pilgrims, asylum seekers, sportspersons…)
• Irregularity in residence, in work, in documentation
• Difficulty (and costs) in handling the condition of
irregular residents, in implementing deportations, in
punishing the employers
Four visions of irregular migrants
 The main vision: irregular migrants as vilains
(B.Anderson)
 The opposite vision: irregular migrants as victims
 An alternative: the heroes of the globalization from
below
 An other vision: undocumented migrants as actors
struggling for a better life, embedded in networks,
sponsored by native families and solidarity
institutions
Irregular condition as a passage
 In the period 1996-2008 in the European Union about 5-6
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million of migrants (ICMPD 2009) have passed from an
irregular status into a regular one.
Among 27 EU countries, 22 have adopted some measures of
regularization.
Southern Europe is at the forefront
The enlargement of EU to Eastern Europe has been a non
declared measure of regularisation
The official policy has hardened, but actual policies are not
so rigid: a distance between rhetoric and practice
The irregular condition, so becomes a temporary and
changeable status for many migrants.
The causes of irregular migrations
 Labour market demands
 Other vested interests (turism, international trade,
cultural exchanges, etc.)
 Liberal constraint: the “embedded liberalism” and
human rights
 Normative production of illegality (e.g.: family
reunions)
 Migrants agency: the action of the networks
 Lack of ressources, inefficiency of the repressive
system
Rethoric and reality of the repression of
irregular immigration
 Italy is the EU country that has granted the highest number
of regularizations, through seven amnesties in 25 years,
and other forms of hidden regularization
 in the last decade 1,5 millions of migrants were regularized,
and many other migrants have been regularized by the
decree-flows.
 In 2009-2010, against an estimate of about 500,000
undocumented immigrants, expulsions have been less than
14,000, namely less than 3%.
 Places available in the Identification and Expulsion Centres
are around 2,000 in all the country, and the actual rate of
inmates’ expulsions in 2010 was bout 40%
The Italian case: irregular
immigration and invisible welfare
 In Italy, as in other countries, a huge number of immigrants are
employed as domestic workers, baby-sitters or carers of the
elderly in Italian families (officially 700-800,000, in reality
probably more than one million)
 The families, as employers, have been the main actors of the
regularization process
 When it comes to women engaged in household chores and
care, the unwritten rule is almost that of a generalized
tolerance.
 One could say that they are not politically treated, nor socially
perceived as illegal immigrants
Ressources for surviving in the
home care sector (1)
 Networks
 Work
 The assertion of social utility
 Involvement in familiar relationships
 Support from the solidarity institutions
Ressources for surviving in the
home care sector (2)
 Access to some public services
 Lack of effectiveness of the repressive apparatus and
expectation to acquire a legal status
 Love ties and marriage alliances
 Caring and frontiering
 Reverse remittances: the support from the left behind
families
The irregular condition as a
pathway
- The arrival and inclusion, supported by networks
- The phase of survival in the shadow, where central
is the relationship with the Italian families their work
for,
- The emergence stage, during the periodical
campaigns of regularization,
- the eventual release from live-in jobs and, in
case, the reunification of the family
The “three hands” of the receiving States: 1) they create the
conditions for the demand: subcontracting, flexibilization,
reduction of welfare provisions, etc.; 2) they declare to want to stop
illegal immigration; 3) they regularize undocumented migrants
(specially in the care sector)
The irregular condition as a dynamic social construction, where
different actors and structural forces are involved.
See: M.Ambrosini, Irregular migration and invisible welfare, Palgrave-MacMillan 2013; or:
M.Ambrosini, Immigrazione irregolare e welfare invisibile. iI lavoro di cura attraverso le frontiere,
Bologna, Il Mulino 2013