Local policies for immigrants in recent years have attracted a growing interest among scholars. It is increasingly accepted that they are distinct units of analysis in the governance of migration, with significant degrees of autonomy with regard to national policies. Most of the literature, however, deals with the inclusive role of local policies. The argument of this article, on the contrary, is the development of local policies aimed to exclude migrants from various kinds of benefits and rights. It is based on a pilot research, conducted in Lombardy (northern Italy), on seventy cases, referred to forty-seven different local authorities. Then, the outcome of these policies is analysed: the exclusion of migrants is a tool to seek political consent, but is also a battlefield, where anti-discrimination institutions, advocacy groups and courts react against the measures approved by local authorities.

Despite many efforts to combat irregular immigration, there is a widespread perception of a failure of public policies in this field. But because unauthorised immigrants are officially excluded from formal labour markets, housing markets and most welfare provisions, they can settle if they find other sources of work, income, housing, and social protection. In this regard, a crucial role is played by various intermediaries: people or institutions who favour the entrance of immigrants, their entry into the labour market, accommodation, response to their social needs, and possibly regularisation. They can act for profit, but also for moral reasons. They can break the laws and work in the shadows, but they can also work in legal forms. In this article, I will explore the identities of these intermediaries and their practices of support towards irregular migrants. My purpose is to show (1) what precisely constitutes intermediation, in what activities it can be factored, and what the main categories of intermediaries are; (2) that the implementation of migration policies is hindered not only by migrants’ practices to circumvent controls but also by the action of these intermediaries. For this reason, too, it is so difficult to eradicate.

Italy and Greece have been often blamed by their fellow EU Member States for the excessive permeability of their borders, their inability to stop irregular migration, and their inefficient asylum systems. In addition the two countries have weak internal controls, especially as regards the sectors of the labour market where immigrants are usually employed e.g. agriculture, domestic work, tourism and catering. This article seeks to make sense of these fundamentally contradictory policies that characterise Greece’s and Italy’s approach to managing migration. The article starts by outlining the common features of Italian and Greek immigration policies and proposes an analysis of immigration control regimes along two dimensions: their internal (within the country’s territory) or external (at the border or outside the border) character, and their fencing (stopping) vs. gate-keeping (preventing) nature. Section 3 discusses critically the irregular migration inflows in Greece, the policies implemented to address them and their contradictory results. Section 4 reviews the related policies in Italy and casts light to their inconsistencies. In the concluding section, we highlight the possible explanations for these two countries’ lack of direction in immigration management pointing to the opposition between excessively regulated labour markets, large informal economies and strict border controls which however become lax and ineffective once irregular migrants or asylum seekers are within the country.

Scholarship has sought to develop theoretical frameworks to set order on the rather muddled web of actors, interactions and tensions involved in asylum and immigration policies. The article considers three of them: the “venue shopping approach”, the “multi-level governance approach” and critical humanitarian studies. The purpose is to contribute to this debate by elaborating the concept of “battleground” of asylum (and immigration) policies. With this concept, I mean that they are a contentious field in which different actors interact, cooperating or conflicting. Different levels of public responsibility are involved but also non-public actors play a role. They encompass various pro-migrant supporters but also xenophobic movements. The article will analyse the crucial actors involved, with a focus on the local level: pro-refugee civil society; coalitions of diverse pro-refugee actors; opponents to refugee reception; local governments acting for and against refugee and migrant reception and asylum seekers and irregular immigrants themselves.

(2015). Introduction to the Special Issue: Implementing Human Rights: Civil Society and Migration Policies. Journal of Immigrant & Refugee Studies: Vol. 13, Immigration and Civil Society, pp. 103-115.