Üstübici The of Governance Migration International Ayşen Üstübici The Governance of International Migration 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 5 13 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 MIGRATION 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