Migration control through social policy

Abstract

A growing body of research explores how social policy is implicated in ‘remote control’ of migration (Ataç and Rosenberger, 2018), i.e. migration control beyond the national territorial border. Internal border control through social policy can occur indirectly, for example as migrants who lack formal entitlement to basic social support because of their legal status are socially provided for in ways that enable them to remain on the territory. This can be the outcome of street-level decision that effectively expand access to social services and benefits (Van Der Leun, 2006) or through local schemes of provision that contradict national migration policy (Spencer 2020). Border control through social policy can also occur in more direct ways, for example by way of linking entitlements to proof of legal residence and making social administration responsible to report to migration control authorities (Van Der Leun, 2006), or by making social benefits conditional on return to countries of origin (Ataç 2019). These are not new developments; poor laws that pre-dated the modern welfare state typically enforced (im)mobility between and within local communities across Europe. Nevertheless, migration control through social policy appears to have gained renewed relevance in the context of EU free movement and associated cross-border social rights. EU citizens’ social rights are connected to legal residence, which is rarely examined other than at the point of seeking access to public services or social support (Lafleur and Mescoli, 2018). In this connection, social workers and welfare administrators whose traditional mandate refers to the provision of services and allocation of resources come to exert internal migration control. This panel brings together research using different theoretical lenses and methodological approaches to explore connections between migration control and social policy at different levels of government and governance in various country context, including the UK, Germany or France. The empirical case studies from policy areas such as youth, health and social security illustrate how welfare administrations as well as civil society organisations become implicated in filtering practices of who gets to stay or not.

Title	Details
Refugee health as migration control: Western donors and the politics of humanitarian health	View Paper Details
Between Control and Protection: Separated young people's experiences of the transition to adulthood in Northern France.	View Paper Details
Changing mandates: How welfare institutions respond to migration control	View Paper Details