The Governance of International Migration Ayşen Üstübici Irregular Migrants’ Access to Right to Stay in Turkey and Morocco The Governance of International Migration The Governance of International Migration Irregular Migrants’ Access to Right to Stay in Turkey and Morocco Ayşen Üstübici Amsterdam University Press Cover illustration: Photo by Ayşen Üstübici Cover design: Coördesign, Leiden Lay-out: Crius Group, Hulshout Amsterdam University Press English-language titles are distributed in the US and Canada by the University of Chicago Press. isbn 978 94 6298 276 5 e-isbn 978 90 4853 280 3 (pdf) doi 10.5117/9789462982765 nur 747 Creative Commons License CC BY NC (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/3.0) The author / Amsterdam University Press B.V., Amsterdam 2018 Some rights reserved. Without limiting the rights under copyright reserved above, any part of this book may be reproduced, stored in or introduced into a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means (electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise). To my parents Nafiye and Ahmet Table of contents Acknowledgements 11 Abbreviations 13 1 Introduction 15 1.1 Researching irregular migration as ‘migrant illegality’ 19 How migrant illegality as juridical status is produced 20 Irregular migrants and subordinate incorporation 22 Migrants as political actors? 27 Individual tactics 30 1.2 Researching migrant illegality in new immigration countries 31 1.3 Comparative research design and case selection 34 1.4 Data collection 36 Legal documents 37 Expert interviews with state officials and civil society actors 37 Migrant interviews 39 Ethical issues and negotiating resources 42 1.5 Mapping the book 44 2 The production of migrant illegality 47 International and domestic dynamics in a comparison 2.1 Becoming lands of destination 49 2.2 The international context in the production of illegality 53 Morocco’s migration diplomacy 55 Irregular migration in Turkey’s long-standing EU accession 58 From international production of illegality to public policy 63 2.3 Moroccan immigration politics from criminalization to integration 64 Emergence of immigration policy and criminalization/ 64 Towards integration? 68 2.4 Migrant illegality as Europeanization in Turkey 72 Emerged as refugee, developed as an EU issue 72 New legislation and the institutionalization of migrant illegality 74 3 Morocco as a case of political incorporation 83 Introduction 83 3.1 Deportability as part of daily experience 85 Deportability at the borderlands 86 Deportability in urban life 90 After the King’s speech 92 3.2 Illegality in (semi-)settlement 94 Settling into violent neighbourhoods 94 ‘The problem is work’ 97 3.3 Access to public healthcare and education 105 Healthcare between formal recognition and bureaucratic incorporation 106 Public education: Bureaucratic sabotage and self-exclusion 108 3.4 Reversing illegality through mobilization 112 Emergence of civil society networks 113 Migrants’ self-organizations 115 Brothers in arms: What makes alliances possible? 120 Mobilization for individual mobility 123 4 Turkey 129 Depoliticized illegality and a quest for legitimacy 4.1 Migrant deportability beyond the EU borders 131 Experiences of deportability: Between tolerance and arbitrariness 135 4.2 Illegality in (semi-)settlement: Incorporation into informality 141 Settling into informality 142 ‘We arrived, slept, and the next day we started working’ 145 Limits of labour market participation 151 Opening access to healthcare? 157 Education 163 4.4 Reversing illegality: Mobilization or moving sideways? 166 Civil society working on immigration issues 167 Legal sidesteps in the absence of mobilization 172 5 Migrant illegality beyond EU borders 181 Turkey and Morocco in a comparative perspective 5.1 Deportations and perceptions of deportability 181 5.2 Socio-economic participation and daily legitimacy 184 5.3 Access to rights through institutions and the role of ‘street- level advocacy’ 189 5.4 Reversing illegality 194 Mobilization for the rights of irregular migrants 194 Migrant mobilization for legal status 199 Conclusion 201 6 Conclusions 205 6.1 Researching migrant illegality beyond externalization 205 6.2 Production of migrant illegality at the international and national levels 210 6.3 Migrant incorporation styles: The problematic role of the market 212 6.4 Migrant mobilization between (in)visibility and recognition 214 6.5 Ways forward 216 Annex 219 References 233 Index 245 List of figures and tables Figure 3.1 A protest by migrants in the streets of Rabat, ‘Halt Raids, we are in Morocco, we live in Morocco we love Morocco’ 83 Figure 3.2 Street pedlars along the main road, next to the walls of the Medina, Rabat 102 Figure 3.3 Members of the Democratic Organization of Migrants Workers taking part in a march organized by Moroc- can CSOs during pre-COP22 meetings in Tangiers, 24.10.2016 113 Figure 4.1 Kumkapı, packing and carrying goods before shipping them overseas 150 Table 1 Interviews with state institutions − Turkey 219 Table 2 Interviews with international organizations, non- governmental organizations − Turkey 219 Table 3 Interviews with migrants − Turkey 220 Table 4 Interviews with state institutions − Morocco 221 Table 5 Interviews with International Organizations, NGOs – Morocco 222 Table 6 Interviews with migrants − Morocco 222 Table 7 Immigration flow into Turkey and Morocco 224 Table 8 Migration policies in Morocco and Turkey (2000-2014) 226 Acknowledgements The genesis of this book was my PhD dissertation, which I defended at Koç University and the University of Amsterdam in 2015, it further evolved dur- ing my post-doctoral fellowship at MiReKoc and assistant professorship at Koç University. I would like to thank all of the academic and administrative staff at both institutions for providing me with intellectual homes during the fieldwork and writing stages. I would like to thank Koç University, the Bucerius PhD Scholarship Program Settling into Motion , the Center for Gender Studies at Koç University (KOÇKAM) and the Scientific and Technological Research Council of Turkey (TÜBİTAK) for their financial support at different stages of my doctoral research. This book is indeed a product of the long physical, intellectual and mental journey that I have taken alongside several wonderful people to whom thanks are due. Unfortunately, I can only mention a few of them in this short piece. I would first like to thank my supervisors, Prof Ahmet İçduygu and Prof Jan Rath for their invaluable guidance. Additionally, Dr Sebastien Chauvin, Dr Özlem Altan, Prof Deniz Yükseker and Prof Mine Eder were always ready to read earlier drafts of my chapters and discuss my ideas. Conducting fieldwork in two different countries would not have been possible without the valuable help of precious people. In Morocco: Apostolos, Babacar, Fatima, Moussa, Cewad and Najat, among others, helped me immensely in navigating my way in a land where I considered myself an outsider. Without the help of Deniz Sert, Deniz Karcı, Biriz, Uğur and Fattah, and many others, fieldwork in Turkey would have been much more challenging. I am indebted to my colleagues: those in the Settling into Motion programme, in Morocco, at the International Migration Institute Oxford, at Koç University and at UvA with whom I had the chance to discuss different bits of my research in various formal and informal settings. I would also like to thank Eda Kiriscioglu, Judy Woods, Lara Savenije and Emrah Celik for their able assistance with editing and referencing during the transition from dissertation to book. Above all, it has been such a relief to have a home to return to with precious old friends and beloved family at the end of every venture. My parents, Nafiye and Ahmet, my brother, Alican, my aunts Kadriye and Güzin were always there for me with their unconditional love and support. Işık, my dearest, has been supportive, comforting and engaged throughout every bit of this physical and intellectual journey. Last but not least, my deepest gratitude is to the participants of my study who gave me their valuable time 12 The Governance of InTernaTIonal M IGr aTIon and trusted me with their professional and personal experiences. Without their contribution, this book would be too dry or would not exist at all. Along with my parents, I dedicate this book to all migrants for whom the journey and the home are mostly intertwined as they seek better opportunities in life. Finally, I would like to acknowledge that some parts of the book have ap- peared in different publications. – Part of Chapter 3 was published in a shorter and substantially different form in Geopolitics (Üstübici 2016) – Part of Chapter 2 in a substantially different form was published in Migration and Development (Üstübici 2015) – Part of Chapter 2 was published in a different form and in Turkish in Toplum Bilim (Üstübici 2017). Ayşen Üstübici February 2018 Abbreviations ABCDS Association Beni Znassen for Culture Develop- ment and Solidarity AFVIC Association for Victims of Clandestine Migration and their Families ALECMA Association Lumiere sur L’Emigration Clandes- tine au Maghreb AMDH The Moroccan Association for Human Rights ANAPEC The Moroccan National Recruitment and Employment Agency ARMID Association Mediterranean Encounter for Immigration and Development ASAM Association for Solidarity with Asylum Seekers and Migrants ASEM Association for Solidarity and Mutual Aid with Migrants ATMF Association of Workers from Maghreb in France CCME The Council of the Moroccan Community Living Abroad CMSM Council of Sub-Saharan Migrants in Morocco CNDH National Council of Human Rights CSOs Civil society organizations DGMM Directorate General of Migration Management DRC Democratic Republic of Congo ECHR European Convention on Human Rights ECtHR European Court of Human Rights EU European Union FOO Foundation Orient-Occident GDA Migrant Solidarity Network GADEM The Anti-racist Group for the Support and Defence of Foreigners and Migrants HCA Helsinki Citizens Assembly HRDF Human Resource Development Foundation IOM International Organization for Migration LFIP Law on Foreigners and International Protection MAD Moroccan Dirham Mazlumder Association of Human Rights and Solidarity for Oppressed People 14 The Governance of InTernaTIonal M IGr aTIon MSF Doctors Without Borders MÜLTECİ-DER Association for Solidarity with Refugees NGO Non-governmental organization ODT Democratic Organizations of Labour ODT-IT ODT-immigrant workers OMDH Moroccan Organization for Human Rights POS Political opportunity structures RA Readmission Agreement SAFS Social Assistance and Solidarity Foundations TNP Turkish National Police TRY New Turkish Lira TOHAV Foundation for Society and Legal Studies UJRT Union of the Young Refugees in Turkey UNHCR United Nations High Commission for Refugees 1 Introduction André, 1 a 42-year-old migrant, originally from Cameroon, came to Morocco in May 2011, with the intention of going to Europe. After entering through Oujda, André spent several months in Tangier and in the forest near Ceuta and made several attempts to cross: When you make several attempts and when it does not work, you need to reflect on it [...] I have attempted several times in Tangier, several times in Ceuta. It did not work [...] We could organize among ourselves, buy a zodiac and [make an ]attempt. [...] I told myself, I need to change, I would not say change tactic [sic], but my idea to go to Europe. I have decided that I can make my life here and in 2013, the King has given his discourse for the integration. Since the summer of 2012, André has been involved with a migrants’ solidarity association. The association was founded to raise awareness about racist attacks in poor neighbourhoods of Rabat. André has been doing voluntary jobs in collaboration with Moroccan associations and has actively worked to raise awareness about migrants’ demands for rights and for regularization. While still dreaming of going to Europe, he is himself awaiting regularization. Harun left Afghanistan in October 2009, at the age of 17, together with a cousin and two friends from his village. He planned to join his elder brother, who was living and working in Istanbul with other men from the village. After a three-week stay in Iran, they found a smuggler to take them to Istanbul. After crossing the border on foot, the smuggler took them to the United Nations High Commission for Refugees (UNHCR) office in the Iranian border city of Van. Harun went to the office to register without any knowledge of the asylum process in Turkey. ‘I wanted to come to Istanbul, did not want to stay there. I never told them this.’ During the application process, he explained that he wanted to go to Turkey to work and never mentioned his relatives in Istanbul or the smuggler. After leaving Van, Harun did not follow his asylum file. He arrived in Istanbul and settled in the flat shared by his brother and other single Afghan men. In the last three years, he has been living and working in Istanbul, moving from one workplace to another: ‘Then, back in 2009, the work was scarce in Turkey. 1 All names are pseudonyms, unless indicated otherwise. 16 The Governance of InTernaTIonal M IGr aTIon I had no jobs for the first two months. Then, I went to work in leather. [...] When the leather season was over, I left the job and went into the bag atelier.’ He was later joined by his family members, who also crossed the border without documents. As of August 2013, the family had a pending residence permit application via their relatives, who were among Afghan nationals settled and naturalized in Turkey in the early 1980s. Juxtaposing the stories of André and Harun illustrates the fragmented and dangerous journeys migrants must endure because of the existence of borders. The conditions of both men’s journeys to the ‘West’ are similar, in the sense that they risked their lives crossing borders, getting help from smugglers, and facing the threat of detention and deportation, all in order to generate better opportunities in life. While there is a growing literature on borders and border crossings, this study is about the experi- ences of settlement beyond the borders of the European Union (EU). In addition to discussing the changing political environment, this book sheds light on how irregular migrants’ ‘uncertain legal status’ (Menjívar 2006) within the national territories in which they reside is the result of law, practiced, and negotiated by the state, by civil society actors, and by migrants themselves. I incorporate migrant perspectives to help us grasp the processes that led André to become a political activist for migrant rights in Rabat, and Harun a textile worker in the informal sector in Istanbul. Interestingly, both have prospects for legalizing their ‘illegal’ status, but through different means. The research questions reflect the multiple levels of analysis I embraced in addressing the question of migration governance at the periphery of the EU and irregular migrants’ access to rights: – How have changing policies and practices regarding the rights of ir- regular migrants produced migrant illegality in Turkey and Morocco as de facto immigration contexts? – How do migrants experience their illegality and negotiate their pres- ence in society in general, and their access to rights and legal status in particular? – Under what circumstances do irregular migrants mobilize to claim their rights and legal status? Through analysis of two country cases, this book contributes to the broader conceptual puzzle of how people in highly precarious positions, in terms of their relations to state authority, seek legitimacy. More specifically, my comparative inquiry aims to reveal the conditions under which irregular migrants in new immigration contexts may or may not seek ‘political InTr oducTIon 17 recognition’ , i.e. formal recognition of their presence and rights by authori- ties (Menjívar and Coutin 2014). I explore how this quest for recognition is interlinked with control mechanisms or, more generally, forms of govern- ance of irregular migration that shape migrant illegality. Amid growing concerns about irregular migration within the context of declining economic growth and the securitization of immigration, the developed world has adopted a more restrictive approach towards im- migration and asylum. Particularly in the European migration system, emerging norms of EU migration controls have led to the expansion of security measures at the external borders of the EU. This research has primarily been motivated by the conviction that it is critical to explore what is happening beyond EU borders in terms of ‘the production of migrant illegality’ and ‘migrants’ access to rights’. This study not only conceptualizes irregular migration in the Mediterranean as an externalized EU border problem, but also looks at the different ways in which irregular migration becomes an issue of governance at the periphery of the EU. It is necessary for research to explore the implications of the increasing calls to halt irregular crossings at EU borders for the wider region, particularly for the people who suffer from policies and practices aimed at curtailing mobility into the EU. Especially in the context of current fatalities at the borders of the EU, the book provides a perspective on the conditions that have precipitated and, arguably, intensified the widely used notion of ‘crisis’ since the summer 2015. It does so by exploring what preceded the current ‘migration governance crisis’ at the external and internal borders of the EU. I use the concept of ‘governance’ to refer to a multiplicity of actors and to policies as processes rather than end products. The term indicates that the focus is ‘on processes of rule and not only on institutions’ or on formal rules, but also on informal practices (Lemke 2007: 53). The term, as I use it, also refers to the fact that, in the realm of international migration, deci- sions and practices are contested by a variety of state and non-state actors; consequently, governments are not the only rule-making authorities (Betts 2011: 4). Meanwhile, the distribution of power and resources among these actors is unequal (Grugel and Piper 2011). The research suggests that chang- ing migration policies, and their enforcement in Turkey and Morocco, have given rise to distinct forms of governance. Existing research has explored changes in the legal framework and the emergence of rudimentary im- migration regimes in both Turkey and Morocco (Elmadmad 2011; Kirişci 2009). Little has been written, however, on how migrants themselves are influenced by changing policies and practices and how these practices are negotiated on the ground. 18 The Governance of InTernaTIonal M IGr aTIon As two countries at the periphery of the EU, Turkey and Morocco have been subjected to the externalization of EU migration policies. In this context, a growing body of literature on EU migration controls, particu- larly on critical border studies, has focused on the external borders of the EU (Wunderlich 2010; Carling 2007; Collyer 2007; Mountz and Loyd 2014; Tsianos and Karakayali 2010; Pallister-Wilkins 2015). Since the early 2000s, Turkey and Morocco have increasingly been hosting immigrants who are either on their way to Europe, or who have crossed borders to look for opportunities to work, study and/or settle in relatively more developed countries in the region (İçduygu and Yükseker 2012; De Haas 2014). Despite this general observation on changing mobility patterns, less research has looked at the incorporation experiences that migrants and asylum seekers 2 have before reaching Europe (Collyer 2007; Suter 2012; Danış, Taraghi and Pérouse 2009). Even less research has explored the link between emerging forms of governance of irregular migration at the periphery of Europe and migrants’ experiences of informal incorporation from a comparative perspective. This book aims to address how legal frameworks produce migrant illegality in new immigration contexts, in which international politics applies pressure in order to govern unauthorized human mobility. This study analyses the production of illegality through emerging immigra- tion policies and practices from a comparative perspective. In fact, comparative studies on migrant illegality are rare and rather new (Garcés- Mascareñas 2012; Lentin and Moreo 2015). Furthermore, few studies frame migrant illegality within an international context, in which illegality has resulted from interacting control and border regimes (Menjívar 2014). Given the recent changes to migration policies within the EU and new restrictions on mobility along EU borders, the book promises to explore how migrant illegality has been translated into these rather marginal spaces of immigration, beyond these borders, into what I refer to as ‘new countries of immigration’. Morocco and Turkey, where immigration has only recently become a subject of governance, have been subjected to geopolitical pressures to stop irregular border crossings into the EU; they provide underexplored ground for re-thinking the processes through which migrant illegality has been produced, experienced, negotiated, and contested. To fill this gap, this book looks at how migrant illegality 2 While the book does not directly deal with asylum and refugee issues, as it is a specific area of international law, references are given to asylum issues especially when the issues pertaining to asylum and irregular migration are intermingled. InTr oducTIon 19 influences migrants’ participation in economic, social, and political life, as well as how migrants challenge their ‘illegal’ legal status at the individual and communal levels. By focusing on Turkey and Morocco as new immigration countries, the research brings together two levels of analysis; institutional, policy-oriented analyses on the impact of the external dimensions of EU migration control policies, one the one hand, and sociological analysis on migrant experiences of uncertain legal status on the other. The book addresses the missing link between migration governance and migrants’ incorporation at the periphery of the EU in order to understand how irregular migrants seek legitimacy, while policies make them illegal. This introductory chapter provides the overall conceptual frame for the following chapters of the book and details the methodological approach. The first part of the chapter reviews analytical tools to understand the processes through which irregular migrants are rendered illegal and subject to state controls; it looks at different ways in which irregular migrants participate in socio-economic life and negotiate their presence within economic, political, and legal structures despite their illegality. The second part elaborates on the methodological approach, where I discuss the logic of a comparative research design, the multi-layered data collection process, and the challenges of conducting fieldwork in two different contexts, the ethical issues emerging from my fieldwork experience. 1.1 Researching irregular migration as ‘migrant illegality’ The term irregular migration generally refers to the presence of migrants in a given territory without authorization by the sovereign state. Irregular migration is more complex than crossing borders without the necessary documents. An immigrant with genuine entry documents, such as a tourist visa, could be living and/or working within the country with no legal status. An immigrant who is staying in a country legally with a residence permit may be considered an irregular worker if he/she is working without the necessary permits or beyond the authorized hours. An irregular migrant can also be a former asylum seeker whose application for refugee status was rejected. Despite the categories of legal and illegal fixed by law, people with no status may acquire a legal status, just as legal entrants or legal workers may fall into irregularity (Cvajner and Sciortino 2010: 214; Villegas 2014). Given the permeability between the categories of irregular migra- tion and asylum and the malfunctioning of the asylum system, migrants