A study of discretionary decision-making in the enforcement of (cr)immigration laws
Description: Processes of ‘crimmigration’ – the convergence of crime control and immigration control – have attracted academic attention over the last decade. The increasing use of criminal justice tools for controlling immigration has a profound impact on the lives of people involved. Empirical research on crimmigration practices has been conducted in prisons, courts, immigration detention centres, etc., showing that national and European (cr)immigration policies are characterised by exclusionary decision-making mechanisms. Yet, the administrative decision-makers/(cr)immigration officers, who implement these policies and decide on the imposition of crimmigration measures, scientifically, remain a ‘black box’. (Cr)immigration officers are ‘streetlevel bureaucrats’ with large discretionary powers. Insight in their decision-making is indispensable to understand how governmental rationales are translated in concrete social practices and whether and why ‘governmentality gaps’ arise. This research will study Belgian (cr)immigration decision-making practices such as the imposition of (immigration) detention, expulsion, re-entry bans and the revocation of residence permits, and will relate these practices to national and European policy developments and rationales. Ethnographic fieldwork will be carried out at the Belgian Migration department, combining observations, interviews and file analysis.
Outputs:
Breuls, L. (2022). Vreemdelingendetentie in de Lage Landen. Een etnografisch onderzoek naar uitvoeringspraktijken van vreemdelingendetentie in België en in Nederland. The Hague: Boom, 323 p.
Breuls, L. (2022). Werken aan terugkeer in vreemdelingenbewaring? Een blik op de werkpraktijken van terugkeerfunctionarissen en hun interacties met opgesloten personen. Justitiële Verkenningen, 48(2), 70-95.
Breuls, L. & Vandennieuwenhuysen, E. (2022). De vrijlatingsprocedures voor niet-verblijfsgerechtigde gedetineerden: Evoluties sinds de inwerkingtreding van de Wet Externe Rechtspositie. Fatik, 39(173), 28-36.
Van Houte, M., Leerkes, A., Slipper, A. & Breuls, L. (2021). Globalised citizenship and the perceived legitimacy of immigration control: Narratives and acts of resistance in immigration detention. Migration Studies, 9(3), 1269-1291.
Breuls, L. & Beyens, K. (2021). ‘You don’t belong here!’: Expulsion doubles the punishment for one criminal offence. In: I. Adam, T. Adefioye, S. D’Agostino, N. Schuermans & F. Trauner (Eds.), Migration, equality & racism. Brussels: VUBPRESS, 240-243.
Coordinators: Kristel Beyens, Olga Petintseva
Promotors: Kristel Beyens, Olga Petintseva
Researcher: Lars Breuls
Funding: FWO
Duration: 2021-2025