Governance in Times of Crisis: Does Executive Policy-Making Undermine Migrant Rights?

Crises, such as COVID19, reinforce concerns about ‘executive policy-making’, i.e., policy-processes that bypass parliamentary and other scrutiny mechanisms of the more ordinary legislative process. These concerns have been particularly relevant when it comes to policies aimed at regulating migration, as the rights of migrants are particularly precarious in the context of populist calls asking policy-makers to put the interests of their citizen first. Crises (real and perceived) have prompted many executive decisions that have restricted migrants’ rights, with executive orders by the Trump administration, migration decrees issued by the Salvini government in Italy or the infamous EU-Turkey refugee deal being only some prominent examples. However, executive decisions can also lead to the strengthening of migrants’ rights as shown by President Obama’s decision to halt deportations of some irregular migrants (the ‘dreamers’) or Angela Merkel’s decision to facilitate the entry of Syrian refugees to Germany in 2015. During the Covid19 crisis, there have again been examples of rights restricting executive policies (e.g. in relation to refugees in Hungary and Greece) but also evidence of rights enhancing executive measures (e.g., amnesties for irregular migrants in Italy and Portugal). This paper seeks to provide the first systematic overview of states’ migration policy responses during the Covid19 crisis. It focuses on policies towards the two most vulnerable migrant groups, namely irregular migrants and asylum seekers, in those European countries that have been facing some of the largest numbers of migrants. It will then provide a comparative analysis of these post Covid19 policy responses and the pre-Covid policy status quo. In doing so, the paper will seek to address the following questions: How common is ‘executive policy-making’? Under what conditions is it more likely to be used? And what is its impact, not only for migrants' rights, but also government accountability more broadly?