This article explores the mobilization and activities of irregular migrant social movements in France and the United Kingdom. It analyses the impact of irregular migration on conceptions of rights and citizenship and examines the role of mobilization by irregular migrants and their supporters to stress the importance of irregular migrants’ everyday struggle for existence.
The authors define an irregular migrant as someone who migrates for work purposes and has both entered and worked irregularly since arriving in a country; someone who migrated legally but subsequently lost their permit of stay because their request for asylum was rejected or finished their studies or their tourist visa expired; or someone who migrated irregularly then requested asylum but was rejected and thus returned to irregularity.
The research methodology is not discussed, but a quote from a Chinese irregular migrant in the article suggests that the authors conducted interviews with irregular migrants in France and the United Kingdom for the research. The authors also analysed interview data presented in other studies, in addition to analysing the literature on irregular migration and irregular migrant social movements.
The authors describe the mobilization of irregular migrants in France in the 1980s; for example, the Turkish and Chinese irregular migrants in the Sentier neighbourhood of Paris, who organized and went on hunger strike in reaction to Bonnet’s Circular (which led to the large-scale forced deportation of irregular migrants). They note that in the United Kingdom in 2007, a number of police raids occurred in Chinese restaurants in London’s Chinatown and among enterprises that employed irregular migrant cleaners. Chinese irregular migrants were mobilized as the result of a campaign that aimed to organize low-paid workers in the London to secure better work conditions. These campaigns were led by unions, community networks and faith institutions and involved all categories of workers, including irregular ones for whom the main concern was with regularization. The authors argue that these cases highlight the ways in which irregular migrant mobilizations are often triggered by a specific context, such as an event or action that is perceived as unjust and as creating subjective suffering.
Through their analysis of recent irregular migrant mobilizations, the authors find that irregular migrants are not a uniform group and that their social and economic rights vary according to the history of migration, the kinds of policies aimed at restricting migration and the demand for particular kinds of labour. The authors conclude that irregular migrant mobilizations have limited transformative potential; however, the micro changes they provoke may contribute to deeper social changes that can increase a society’s ability to coordinate its diversity.
Due to the analysis of interviews conducted with irregular migrants, the article provides new insights into the factors that fuel irregular migrant mobilizations in destination countries.
