Western societies are immersed in debates about immigration and illegality. This book examines these processes and outlines how the figure of the "crimmigrant other" has emerged not only as a central object of media and political discourse, but also as a distinct penal subject connecting migration and the logic of criminalization and insecurity. Illegality defines not only a quality of certain acts, but becomes an existential condition, which shapes the daily lives of large groups within the society. Drawing on rich empirical material from national and international contexts, Katja Franko outlines the social production of the crimmigrant other as a multi-layered phenomenon that is deeply rooted in the intricate connections between law, scientific knowledge, bureaucratic practices, politics and popular discourse.

This book provides a systematic and comprehensive overview of the increased role of criminal law in managing migration, from a European, domestic and comparative law perspective. The contributors critically engage with the current trends leading to the criminalisation of irregular migrants, asylum seekers and those who engage in 'humanitarian smuggling' and the national and common policies calling for a broader use of criminal law measures. The chapters explore the measures used to protect borders and their impact in terms of effectiveness and their ability to strike a fair balance between security and the protection of human rights. The contributors to the book cover a range of disciplines within law, human rights and criminology resulting in a broad understanding of the issues at play.

This book explores the criminalisation of irregular migration in Europe. In particular, it investigates the meaning, purpose, and consequences of criminalising unauthorised entry and stay. From a theoretical perspective, the book adds to the debate on the persistence of irregular migration, despite governments’ attempts at deterring it, by taking an interdisciplinary approach that draws from international political economy and criminology. Using Italy and France as case studies, and relying on previously unreleased data and interviews, it argues that criminalisation has no effect on migratory flows, and that this is due to factors including the latter’s structural determinants and the likely creation of substitution effects. Furthermore, criminalisation is found to lead to adverse consequences, including by contributing to vicious cycles of irregularity and insecurity.

The book illustrates how the trend of associating migrants and refugees with criminality is on the rise. In political discourses and popular media alike, migrants and refugees are frequently portrayed as being dangerous, while cultures intent on welcoming newcomers are increasingly seen as being naïve, and providing assistance to migrants is more and more frequently subject to administrative or criminal penalties. At the same time, nondemocratic trends and practices that violate human rights and equality are gaining momentum in Europe, the US and Australia. Racism, xenophobia and anti-Islamism are simultaneously becoming more open and public; they are no longer restricted to clandestine platforms but are increasingly being mainstreamed into the political programs of parties that are entering both the EU parliaments and member state legislatures. Similar developments can be seen in the US and Australia. Such transformations in societies, governments, and institutions seem to reflect a growing amnesia regarding the lessons of the two World Wars of the 20th century, and the role that Europe, the US and Australia played in developing a post-war legal framework based on a shared, if imperfect, commitment to human rights. The book presents individual national analyses to reveal an emerging trend of “crimmigration” regardless of the peculiarities of national legislatures and internal political dynamics. By collecting original contributions from scholars based in and focused on each of these regions, it addresses above all the causes and impacts of the criminalization of migration in the early 21st century. It tackles the direct causes of these trends and encourages readers to rethink their broader political and socio-historic context. Importantly, the book does so by highlighting the ties between the criminalization of migration and equality, racism, and xenophobia. As the politics of migration become more perilous for political alliances like the EU as well for individual migrants, it is more important than ever to critically examine the cause and consequences of migrant criminalization. This collection does so from a variety of disciplinary perspectives and political traditions, seeking to overcome the distractions of charismatic politicians and the peculiar factions of national political systems, in order to reveal the underlying trends and disturbing patterns that are of interest to a broad, internationally-focused audience.

This book offers a fresh, multi-disciplinary, and international examination of a phenomenon that has altered the landscape of migration in the United States and is now taking root in Canada and throughout Europe: 'crimmigration law.' Crimmigration law consists of the letter and practice of laws and policies at the intersection of criminal law and immigration law. Crimmigration scholars study the creation of laws and policies, their enforcement, as well as the institutional dynamics that create crimmigration law and are created by it. Many have written about the use of crimmigration law to exert social control over groups marginalized by ethnic bias, class, or citizenship status. This book's contents include: Crimmigration, Securitization, and the Criminal Law of the Crimmigrant * A Reflection on Crimmigration in the Netherlands * Entering the Risk Society: A Contested Terrain for Immigration Enforcement * The Changing Landscape of the Criminalization of Migration in Europe * Disappearing Rights: How States Are Eroding Membership in American Society * The Impact of Immigration Enforcement Outsourcing on Ice Priorities * The Spirit of Crimmigration * Crime and Immigration: The Discourses of Fear as a Theoretical Approach of Critical Evaluation * Recorded Crime Committed by Migrant Groups and Native Dutch in the Netherlands * The Foreign-Born in the Canadian Federal Correctional Population * The Impact of Safety on Levels of Ethnocentrism * The Control of Irregular Migrants and the Criminal Law of the Enemy * Crime among Irregular Immigrants and the Influence of Crimmigration Processes * The Wide Scope of Immigration in the Azores and Its Relationship with Crime * Irregular Immigrants and Their Irish Citizen Children: The Limits of National Citizenship * The Treaty of Prum * Unauthorized Migration

This open access book explores the conceptual challenges posed by the presence of migrants with irregular immigration status in Europe and the evolving policy responses at European, national and municipal level. It addresses the conceptual and policy issues raised, post-entry, by this particular section of the migrant population. Drawing on evidence from different parts of Europe, the book takes the reader through philosophical and ethical dilemmas, legal and sociological analysis to questions of public policy and governance before addressing the concrete ways in which those questions are posed in current policy agendas from the international to the local level. As such this book is a valuable read to researchers, practitioners and policy makers as well as to students working on irregular migration in Europe in a comparative and/or country based perspective.

EU criminal law is one of the fastest evolving, but also challenging, policy areas and fields of law. This Handbook provides a comprehensive and advanced analysis of EU criminal law as a structurally and constitutionally unique policy area and field of research. With contributions from leading experts, focusing on their respective fields of research, the book is preoccupied with defining cross-border or ‘Euro-crimes’, while allowing Member States to sanction criminal behaviour through mutual cooperation. It contains a web of institutions, agencies and external liaisons, which ensure the protection of EU citizens from serious crime, while protecting the fundamental rights of suspects and criminals. Students and scholars of EU criminal law will benefit from the comprehensive research present in this Handbook. National and EU policy-makers, as well as judges, defence lawyers and human rights lawyers will find the analysis of current legal action, combined with proposed solutions, useful to their work