Refugees, expellees and immigrants: comparing migrant reception policies and practices in post-war Bristol, Dortmund and Malmö

The vital role that cities play in the governance of migration is increasingly recognized, yet migration scholars still perceive this ‘local turn’ as a recent phenomenon. This article presents a cross-country and cross-city comparative analysis of three mid-size European cities during the post-war period: Bristol, Dortmund and Malmö. It analyses administrative cultures and local policy arenas, exposing the complexity of local migration policy-making and the crucial importance of historical perspectives. It reveals the inherent local variation in policies and practices, and argues that traditional national-level studies do not fully capture how urban actors responded to migration.

In the wake of the hostile environment: migration, reproduction and the Windrush scandal

This article examines the place of reproduction in the UK migration policy popularly known as ‘the hostile environment’, introduced in 2012 by the Conservative–Lib Dem Coalition government, and the ‘Windrush scandal’ that followed. In order to think through how the reproductive sphere comes in to play in this policy and its consequences, I draw on theoretical insights from the work of Christina Sharpe and Saidiya Hartman, both of whom invite us to reflect on the ways in which the afterlife of enslavement and empire continues to impinge on the status of Black subjects, and the ways in which our notions of the maternal, reproduction, kinship and belonging are entangled in this process. I begin by examining the place of the reproductive sphere in the hostile environment policy itself, before moving on to discuss the Windrush scandal and the ways in which it can be seen as an attack on the reproductive needs of its victims. I then consider these findings further through an engagement with the work of Sharpe and Hartman, arguing that the scandal reveals ways in which we continue to live ‘in the wake’ of racialised understandings of the reproductive that mean that some people are refused the possibilities of attachment and affiliation, so that, in Hartman's words, theirs is ‘the perilous condition of existing in a world in which you have no investment’. In the final section, I respond to Sharpe's call for white people to ‘rend the fabric of the kinship narrative’ that produces these exclusionary terms of belonging and permits the repetition of such brutalities as the hostile environment.

The Migration Crisis and the Problems of “Soft Security” in Germany

The current migration crisis has far-reaching challenges for EU countries. Global migration is forcing countries to completely reconsider their migration policies, the effectiveness of control, and the integration of migrants. As one of the EU's leading countries, Germany is the biggest lobbyist for the establishment of a common migration policy in the EU. This chapter contributes to the academic discussion on establishing a single mechanism for managing migration flows in the European Union. The analysis confirms that EU countries are faced with the need to find new ways to resolve the migration crisis. In this direction, Germany has become the country where one can trace the uniqueness of the political phenomenon of integration of migrants into the host community as a measure to overcome the migration crisis. The evidence reveals the growth of threats for national, regional, and international security caused by the growing migration crisis and transformation of the policy of integration of migrants in Germany under the influence of this factor.

Development of the German Immigration Policy after 2015

Germany is seen and presented by itself as a welcome country. It is a country of immigration. First, there was the “Gastarbeiter” period when within agreements made by Germany and southern European states several thousand worker arrived in Germany and most of them made the country their permanent home. The country experienced another migration wave when the former Central-European countries became members of the European Union. In 2015, similar to other European States, Germany too experienced a migration-shock which resulted in a political-social turmoil in the German society. Not only politicians, but average people faced the same never-seen-before challenge on different levels, due to the number of migrants arriving in short term onto the territory of the state: one in the everyday life of its community, one in the political and legal perspective. Irrespectively of their reactions or adaptation methods, one common point of these actors was that they had to come to terms with the fact that a huge number of irregular migrants will stay long-term in Germany. However, the wave challenged the “welcome” country attitude both at political and at societal level. The author argues that roles, namely, the country affected by the migration wave, and the country being a leading European Union Member State became contradicted because of the measures introduced after 2015. This is underlined by the normative analysis of the main measures in this article, but because migration policy overlaps other policy areas, for example integration policy, interior policy, these measures touch upon different issues.

CRISIS ON THE POLISH-BELARUSIAN BORDER IN LIGHT OF THE EVOLUTION OF THE V4 MIGRATION POLICY

The author undertakes the attempt to trace in development and diversity the approaches of the Visegrad Group countries to the problem of refugees and migrants from the beginning of transformational processes in this part of Europe to the latest crisis on the Polish-Belarusian border. In this perspective, the study of the problem is being undertaken for the first time. The novelty of the study is the comparison of not only approaches, but also the typology of migration problems that the region faced during the «post-socialist period» and the initial stage of reforms. The study of the problem in this perspective helps to understand the causes and features of the approach of such countries as Hungary, Poland, Czechia and Slovakia to the current migration crisis and the reasons for contradictions with the EU’s general policy on this issue. Intraregional migration of the late 1980’s was gradually replaced at the beginning of the second decade of the 21st century by the problem of inocultural migration, which could not be combined with the tasks of transforming societies and, in itself, along with the usual ones, required new approaches from these countries, which are discussed in this study.

EU Legal Migration Policy: Are There Prospects for Progress or Is It at a Standstill?

The aim of the article is to attempt to identify the state of, and prospects for, the development of the common policy of the European Union regarding legal migration from third countries. The subject of interest is, above all, legal economic migration, which is crucial from the perspective of certain demographic processes taking place in the EU, the changes and needs of the Community’s labour market, and the challenges posed by the digital transformation. The adopted hypothesis assumes that, within the framework of EU migration and asylum policy, policy as regards legal economic migration is still an underdeveloped area and remains in the hands of individual Member States. Initiatives undertaken in this area remain overshadowed by the main focus of the common migration and asylum policy, namely the development of a common asylum system and the prevention of irregular migration. Policy regarding legal economic migration in the near future will mainly be created by Member States and play out on the domestic stage due to the lack of direct motivation for its development at the Community level. In this case, the strength of particular stakeholders’ interests is not balanced out by any direct and easily identifi able benefits to be gained from the adopted common solutions.

Legal regulation of combating illegal migration in Ukraine and the EU

Through a methodology of legal interpretation and analyze the stages of formation of migration policy and legislation in Ukraine since its independence. It was determined that in the initial stage the main elements of the legal regulation of migration processes in Ukraine were the development of the legal framework on migration, the initiation of international cooperation and the creation of organizational structures that address migration issues. The article also analyzes the extensive system of normative acts developed in Ukraine today, aimed at the legal regulation of migration processes and the fight against illegal migration. In this context, the details of the fight against illegal immigration in EU countries are described. Finally, the guidelines for EU migration policy in the field of combating illegal immigration are studied. It is concluded that, unlike Ukraine, where the fight against illegal immigration is mainly limited to the establishment of prohibitions and fines for illegal immigrants, the EU has developed a system of incentives and measures aimed at supporting third countries, among other aspects.

Las formas de lo arbitrario: Los altos y bajos de Towards a Theory of Arbitrary Law-making in Migration Policy de Patricia Mindus

El presente artículo se centra concretamente en dos cuestiones. En primer lugar, se presenta la iluminadora reciente obra de Patricia Mindus en la que se realiza una distinción conceptual entre las concepciones de arbitrariedad en diferentes ámbitos semánticos, particularmente en la filosofía y el derecho, así como la exposición de una tipología donde se distinguen los diferentes usos en el derecho. En segundo lugar, se despliega una crítica a diferentes aspectos de la tipología de Mindus apoyada por una argumentación sobre los que considero son usos incorrectos señalados por la autora.