From “illegality” to Tolerance and Beyond: Irregular Immigration as a Selective and Dynamic Process
| Date | 01 April 2016 |
| Published date | 01 April 2016 |
| DOI | http://doi.org/10.1111/imig.12214 |
| Author | Maurizio Ambrosini |
From “illegality”to Tolerance and Beyond:
Irregular Immigration as a Selective and
Dynamic Process
Maurizio Ambrosini*
ABSTRACT
Immigration defined as “illegal”is a typical area where the dominant representations differ
from social phenomena. Starting from this point, this article deals with two issues. The first is
the selective treatment of irregular immigration by receiving societies. Diverse interests and
social representations of irregular immigration tend to redefine it in different ways: formal
authorization and social recognition should be distinguished, and they can go in different direc-
tions. Their intersection determines four cases: exclusion, stigmatization, tolerance, integration.
The second, and related, issue is the easier transition to a legal status of some irregular
migrants, especially those who encounter some forms of tolerance in receiving societies. Three
devices of regularization will be identified and discussed: deservingness; liberal legalization;
victimization. In regard to processes of acceptance and legalization, the action of various inter-
mediaries between the receiving societies and irregular immigrants will be highlighted.
INTRODUCTION
Immigration defined as “illegal”is a typical area where the dominant representations differ from
social phenomena. In particular, actual policies differ from declared policies, and the behaviours of
many actors, including public authorities and civil servants, diverge from declarations and formal
rules. Within this framework, this article deals with two issues. The first is the selective treatment
of irregular immigration by receiving societies: some forms of irregular immigration are widely tol-
erated, others are more actively rejected. The second, and related issue, is the easier transition to a
legal status of some irregular migrants, especially those who encounter some forms of tolerance in
receiving societies.
Focusing mainly on Southern European and the Italian setting, I will start by discussing how
some immigrants are labelled as illegal and thus stigmatized, while other immigrants, even when
living in the receiving society without the necessary authorization, are neither perceived nor treated
as “illegal”. I will then discuss the passage to a legal status, in particular through regularization
processes, concerning mainly “tolerated”irregular immigrants. To explain first tolerance and then
the passage to a legal status, I will focus on actors who enable immigrants’survival and progres-
sion, and in particular on the intermediaries between the receiving societies and irregular immi-
grants. In this perspective, the governance of immigration is a more complex and multi-stakeholder
process than it is usually conceived to be, thus deepening the findings of the recent literature.
1
*University of Milan.
doi: 10.1111/imig.12214
©2015 The Author
International Migration ©2015 IOM
International Migration Vol. 54 (2) 2016
ISS N 00 20- 7985 Published by John Wiley & Sons Ltd.
FORMAL AUTHORIZATION AND SOCIAL RECOGNITION
For several decades, and even more so since 2001, human mobility across national borders has
become a selective and unequal process (Faist, 2013): it is easy for citizens of developed countries
of the Global North; it is encouraged when it concerns managers, researchers, nurses and other
health professionals, or other people labelled as “skilled migrants”; but it faces growing restrictions
in the case of manual workers and their families coming from the South of the world. In reality,
these are often not only “wanted but not welcome”, as Zolberg (1987) has stated, but also attracted
without it being recognized that some segments of labour markets need them (Castles, 2002).
Domestic services are a case in point.
Amid economic globalization, migration policies have gained salience on governments’agendas
(Wihtol de Wenden, 2010), and they tend to be seen as the “last major redoubt of unfettered national
sovereignty”(Opeskin, 2012, 551). In the same vein, Schain (2009) talks of neo-nationalism, claim-
ing that “the State strikes back”(p. 93). Security concerns, especially since 2001, have been mixed
with the regulation of international migrations, and they have designated the repression of irregular
immigration as the main target of state policies in this field (Balibar, 2012). Consequently, most of
the literature of recent years has emphasized the stricter controls of borders and the salience of legal
status for the destiny of migrants, but I would like to stress that despite growing investments in
migration control, irregular immigration has not been defeated (Triandafyllidou, 2010), neither in
Europe nor in the USA. Many reasons can explain these poor results: economic interests, liberal val-
ues, but also high costs (Stavila, 2015), and organizational and political problems, create many
obstacles to the enforcement of rules, and especially of deportations (Ambrosini, 2013a).
In this article, however I shall explore another aspect of the story. My focus is on Italy and
Southern Europe, and my discussion is based mainly upon studies on domestic care workers
(Ambrosini, 2013a) and on asylum seekers (Ambrosini, 2014) in Italy, but I will also cite studies
conducted in other European countries and in the USA to broaden the scope of my analysis. Hence
this article is in part a reflection based on empirical results, and in part a review of the international
literature. In any case, its purpose is to discuss in general terms the reception, treatment and trajec-
tories of irregular migrants: in other words, the practical governance of this issue beyond public
declarations and formal rules. With the support of three tables, I shall highlight: 1) the relations
between the social recognition and formal authorization of migrants; 2) the three devices that immi-
grants can use to acquire legal status; 3) the main intermediaries who support immigrants in enter-
ing a new country, integrating into local society, and acquire legal status.
To begin with, despite official statements and declared policies, host societies in fact distinguish
and classify various categories of irregular immigrants (Menj
ıvar, 2006; Sciortino, 2012; van der
Leun and Ilies, 2012): women attract less attention than men, unless they perform sex work in pub-
lic spaces; irregular immigrants in work are less subject to control than unemployed ones; those
who have somewhere to sleep are less targeted than the homeless; those who harass passers-by are
more likely to be detained than those who try to remain unnoticed. In fact, there are many gray
and blurred areas between illegal migration (to be repressed) and authorized migration. Hence the
governance of irregular migrations is not only managed by political authorities and market forces;
it is also an outcome of the interplay among different actors and their interests.
Moreover, situations of uncertainty also arise in the legal system. They concern, for instance,
irregular immigrants for whom employers have applied for regularization but have not yet received
a reply; asylum seekers whose claims have been rejected but who have appealed and are awaiting
the outcome; women who have escaped prostitution networks and have applied for state protection
but still do not know if their applications have been accepted.
On the other hand, immigrants develop forms of “irregularity negotiation”with both the networks
of compatriots and the receiving societies (McIlwaine, 2015). They invent practices of survival
From “illegality”to tolerance and beyond 145
©2015 The Author. International Migration ©2015 IOM
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