Local policies and politics addressing non-regularised migrants in five European capitals (ETFIM 2nd meeting)

Local contexts have played a crucial role in the politicisation of irregular migration in the EU. Shores of the Canary Islands or Lampedusa, and the "Jungle" in Sangatte have become the very symbols of the challenge of irregular migration in Europe. The local can also provide the grounds for a challenge to national governmental responses to irregular migration: in 2009, for example, the Mayor of Paris challenged the national policy of non regularisation, emphasising the difficult situation non regularised migrants endured, but also the impact of their situation on local labour market and communities. The Mayor of London had advocated a few months earlier a comparable approach, which challenged the British national policy.

ETFIM's second workshop is dedicated to the study of this interplay between the local and the national levels of the politics and policies addressing the issue of migrants in an irregular situation.

We try to identify the various logics at play in both the politicisation of and the policymaking on irregular migration at local levels in France, Germany, Italy, Spain, and the United Kingdom. How has irregular immigration been politicised at local levels in these countries? How far has the issue of irregular migrations impacted the relationship between local authorities and national governments? How do local authorities deal with undocumented migrants? Eventually, could the local level provide a framework for the changing of policy and p ublic attitudes vis-à-vis undocumented migrants and regularisation?

List of invited participants :

Philip Anderson, Professor, Catholic University of Applied Sciences, Munich, Germany

Antoine Bussy, Head of Cabinet of the St-Denis City Mayor, France

Elizabeth Collett, Policy Analyst, European Policy Centre, Brussels, Belgium

Johannes G. Knickenberg, Director, Catholic Forum on Life in Illegality, Germany

Laura Lopez de Cerain Salsamendi, Director General of Immigration and development cooperation, City of Madrid, Spain

Akli Mellouli, Special adviser, Presidency of Conseil régional d'Ile-de-France, France

Nadan Petrovic, Director, Central Service of the Protection System for Asylum Seekers and Refugees and Consultant for the Italian Interior Ministry, Rome, Italy

Robin Schneider, Senior Officer for the Office of the Commissioner of the Berlin Senate for Integration and Migration, Germany

Nando Sigona, Senior Researcher, Centre on Migration, Policy and Society (COMPAS), University of Oxford, UK

Olga Trostiansky, Deputy Mayor in charge of Family, Solidarity, and the Fight against Exclusion, City of Paris, France

The Members of the ETFIM group are:

Arianna Cascelli, Sapienza University, Rome

Stefano Bertozzi, Bureau of European Policy Advisers (BEPA), EU Commission

Hector Cebolla Boado, National University of Distance Education, Madrid

Luìs Garido Medina, Head of Department of Social Structure, National University of Distance Education, Madrid

Danièle Joly, Director of the Centre of Research in Ethnic Relations, University of Warwick

Johannes G. Knickenberg, Catholic Forum on Life in Illegality, Berlin

Barbara Laubenthal, Chair of Sociology Department, University of Bochum

Patricia Pielage, University of Bochum

Gemma Pinyol, Migration Program Coordinator at CIBOD, Barcelona

Ayesha Saran, Barrow Cadbury Trust, London

Sarah Toucas, Sciences Po Paris, France

Khursheed Wadia, Centre of Research in Ethnic Relations, University of Warwick

Catherine Wihtol de Wenden, Centre for International Studies and Research (CERI), Paris

The group is supervised by Christophe Bertossi, Senior Research Fellow and Director of the "Migrations, Identities, Citizenship" Program at Ifri, Paris.