Godfried Engbersen

A Continent Moving West? : EU Enlargement and Labour Migration from Central and Eastern Europe

A Continent Moving West? argues that the conceptualization of migration as a one-way or long-term process is becoming increasingly wide of the mark. Rather, east-west labor migration in Europe, in common perhaps with other flows in and from other parts of the world, is diverse, fluid, and influenced by the dynamics of local and sector-specific labor markets and migration-related political regulations.

Point and interval estimation of the population size using the truncated Poisson regression model

A method is presented to derive point and interval estimates of the total number of individuals in a heterogenous Poisson population. The method is based on the Horvitz-Thompson approach. The zero-truncated Poisson regression model is fitted and results are used to obtain point and interval estimates for the total number of individuals in the population. The method is assessed by performing a simulation experiment computing coverage probabilities of Horvitz-Thompson confidence intervals for cases with different sample sizes and Poisson parameters. We illustrate our method using capture-recapture data from the police registration system providing information on illegal immigrants in four large cities in the Netherlands.

A room with a view Irregular immigrants in the legal capital of the world

In this article we combine field observation, interviews, cartographic and police data on nationality and illegality to analyse the social and economic mechanisms explaining the rising presence and social relations of irregular immigrants in the Schilderswijk (disreputable inner district) in the Dutch city of The Hague. Secondly, we pay attention to some unintended consequences of the restrictive policies, such as the rise in subsistence crime among irregular immigrants. Four factors are described that underline the structural nature of irregular migration: (1) the continuing immigration of non-western and East-European immigrants to the Netherlands; (2) a demand for cheap labour in specific (informal) sectors of the post-industrial economy and in remnants of industrial and agricultural sectors; (3) a steady supply of (informal) housing in poor urban districts provided by private (ethnic) households and big landlords; and (4) a demand for potential partners, partly partners who are in a dependent and powerless position.

The State versus the Alien: Immigration Control and Strategies of Irregular Immigrants

In the past decade the Dutch state and the European Union have initiated a number of measures to make the strategies of irregular immigrants more visible in order to exclude, apprehend and expel them more effectively. These measures have limited the scope of irregular immigrants to manoeuvre in the legitimate institutions of society. As a consequence irregular migrants are pushed towards the fringes of legality and beyond. This article discusses three shifts in the residence strategies of irregular immigrants: (1) from formal to informal work, (2) from legitimate to criminal behaviour, and (3) from being identifiable to being unidentifiable. In reaction to these strategies, the state is countering again with new measures, especially with instruments to identify immigrants who do not reveal their true identity. There is a constant struggle in the field of migration, in which individual and collective actors involved respond to each other with different strategies.

Striving for a Better Position: Aspirations and the Role of Cultural, Economic, and Social Capital for Irregular Migrants in Belgium

Drawing upon 120 semi-structured interviews with irregular migrants in Belgium, this article focuses on their aspirations and the resources needed in order to realize these. It is demonstrated that specific aspirations require specific forms of capital. A typology is constructed, based on three types of aspirations with corresponding resources. First, investment migrants, who aspire to return and invest in upward social mobility in their country of origin, require job competencies (cultural capital) and social leverage (social capital). Second, legalization migrants, who aspire to obtain legal residence, require different forms of capital, depending on the marriage market they are active in. Third, settlement migrants, aiming at residing legally or illegally in the receiving society, require both social support and social leverage (combined social capital). These findings indicate it is important to adopt a contextualized approach studying the mechanisms through which various forms of capital lead to different outcomes for irregular migrants.

The Fragmentation of Migration and Crime in the Netherlands

International migration processes have drastically changed the face of Dutch society. Following changes in migration patterns, the research on migrants and crime is developing into two distinct lines of research. The postcolonial guest worker migrations from the 1950s and 1960s and subsequent family reunification led to attention to problems of crime among second‐generation youngsters. More recently, asylum migration (peaking in the 1990s) and irregular migration generated problems of crime among first‐generation asylum seekers and immigrants without a residence status. These groups are much more fragmented than the preceding immigrant groups, and their societal position is even more vulnerable. Findings in both fields make clear that research on immigrants and crime should take into account the changing contexts of reception and incorporation. The role of the state has become crucial in understanding some of the patterns found.

Local Limits to Migration Control: Practices of Selective Migration Policing in a Restrictive National Policy Context

Governments are increasingly developing policies to apprehend and deport unauthorized migrants. Compared to the United States, the legal and administrative framework in Western European countries generally allows for a stricter interior policing of unauthorized migrants. This article describes and explains the limits to in-country migration policing in the Netherlands. On the basis of extensive urban field research in the country’s two largest cities, as well as national police apprehension data, it is shown that even in a restrictive policy context immigration rules are not categorically enforced; assumed “deviant” unauthorized migrants run much higher apprehension risks than “nondeviant” unauthorized migrants. However, unauthorized migrants run much higher interior apprehension risks than in the United States. It is argued that the selective interior enforcement of immigration rules can be understood by taking into consideration the interests and values of three local agents that structure in-country migration policing: regular police, neighborhood residents, and city governments.

Globalisation, migration, and undocumented immigrants

Abstract One of the manifestations of globalisation is the rapid increase in international migration. Most countries in the Western world have tried to restrict the migratory flows from peripheral economic areas. A new category of migrants has thus been created: the illegal aliens. The present article attempts to answer the question of how illegal aliens manage to survive in the Dutch city of Rotterdam. Applying theoretical notions which have recently been developed in the field of urban studies, and more particularly in the work on ‘global cities’, we expected to find illegal migrants coming mostly from the countries from which guest‐workers were formerly recruited and from former Dutch colonies. Furthermore, we expected to find that illegal aliens would be employed in the basic levels of traditional sectors such as agriculture and manufacturing and in parts of the expanding service industries. Although both hypotheses were confirmed, two findings stand out. First, more than half of the illegal aliens ha...

Illegality and Criminality: The Differential Opportunity Structure of Undocumented Immigrants

Over the past ten years, politicians and the media in North America, Western Europe and Japan have become more concerned with the issue of undocumented immigration (Cornelius et al., 1994; Der Spiegel, 1995; Espenshade, 1995; Groenendijk and Bocker, 1995; Meissner et al., 1993; Morita and Sassen 1994). In most ‘advanced’ societies confronted with growing numbers of immigrants, both the public and politicians increasingly believe that the national absorption capacity is insufficient to accommodate all immigrants. People fear that a surplus of immigrants will disrupt the culture, economy and the level of public services of the welfare state. Most Western countries have therefore adopted more restrictive migration policies. Despite this, migration flows are still increasing. The new restrictions place special emphasis on the most feared immigrant, that is, the undocumented or ‘illegal’ immigrant.

The Silent Transformation of the Dutch Welfare State and the Rise of In-Work Poverty

For a long time in-work poverty was not associated with European welfare states. Recently, the topic has gained relevance as welfare state retrenchment and international competition in globalized economies has put increasing pressures on individuals and families. This book provides explanations as to why in-work poverty is high in certain countries and low in others.