In recent decades, irregular migration has emerged as a significant policy concern across the Europe and North America. While border enforcement continues to dominate political discourse, regularisation—mainly the conferral of a regular residence status to those without it—has also become a key policy instrument. Indeed, States have intermittently adopted mass amnesties or individualised mechanisms to address the legal and social limbo of irregular residents. Even in Latin America, over 100 regularisations have been implemented in the 21st century. Such measures are part of the toolkit for policymakers dealing with irregular migration, although they cannot invariably be regarded as standard programmes. This is evident not only in contexts characterised, on the one hand, by high numbers of irregular migrants and, on the other, by persistent labour demands which create ambivalent opportunities. The rationale for regularisation is often but not always pragmatic: persistent labour demands, humanitarian concerns, and the presence of long-term undocumented residents contribute to adopt and shape regularisation solutions. This report undertakes a detailed comparative analysis across nine Global North countries: Canada, Ireland, the United States, Spain, Germany, Portugal, Belgium, France, and Italy. Drawing on country-specific research and interview evidence from these cases, the objective is to analyse the societal challenges and benefits of regularisation. The report also aims to highlight how the selective and conditional logic underpinning regularisation schemes may reproduce social hierarchies. (...)

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Relatório anual de projecto internacional