By David Neal

In July 2021, I announced my intention to conduct ‘An inspection of the Satellite Tracking Service Programme’ (STSP). I agreed with the Home Office to delay my inspection given the electronic monitoring service had yet to commence, and to avoid overlap with STSP project assurance reports. The purpose of tagging is to reduce absconding and increase the number of foreign national offenders (FNOs) removed, the latter being a key Home Secretary priority. It also enables, in certain circumstances, the Home Office to see where an FNO has been. The service is still in the first 6 months of rollout and it cannot yet demonstrate it is achieving these aims. My inspection team found staff in the Home Office’s Electronic Monitoring (EM) Hub (the Hub) to be hard-working, dedicated and ready to ‘muck in’ to get things done. They reported feeling well supported by managers, and inspectors noted a positive workplace culture. However, their efforts have been hampered by protracted government recruitment processes, a lack of training and an underestimation of the volume of legal challenges. Staff shortages meant that the Hub has had to prioritise certain areas of work to the detriment of others, leading to delays, for example, in the 3-monthly reviews of those who are on a tag and a lack of use of formal sanctions for breaches, including prosecutions. The latter point leads to multiple warning letters being sent out to individuals who have breached the conditions of their tag, which threatens to undermine the effectiveness of the whole programme. This requires urgent senior management intervention. I am pleased that there appears to be some recent progress on recruitment and that new staff were due to start shortly after the onsite phase of the inspection concluded. However, the Hub needs to have a clear plan for what can be achieved with its current level of resources and as the Home Office expands its use of EM, including the delayed introduction of non-fitted devices, a key part of its strategy. This expansion should be supported by a comprehensive training package for both existing and new staff alongside the implementation of quality assurance processes and more effective performance management of the supplier, to help drive continuous improvement.  

London: Independent Chief Inspector of Borders and Immigration, 2022.  43p.

By Bail for Immigration Detainees (BID) , Medical Justice and the Public Law Project

This report explores the use of GPS Electronic Monitoring (EM), which is more colloquially referred to as ‘GPS tagging’, as one of the conditions of an individual being released from immigration detention on bail. Anyone residing in the UK and who is subject to either deportation proceedings or a Deportation Order may be tagged as part of their immigration bail conditions [1]. Two recent changes introduced by the Home Office have greatly increased both the number of people monitored and the intrusiveness of the monitoring technology. First, in November 2020 the Home Office transitioned from radio frequency electronic monitoring (EM) to a far more intrusive system of Global Positioning System (GPS) electronic monitoring for people on immigration bail [2], thereby monitoring the wearer’s location at all times. Second, since 31 August 2021 the home secretary has a duty to electronically monitor those on immigration bail who reside in England and Wales and who could be detained because they are subject to deportation proceedings or a Deportation Order (‘the duty’)[3]. From 31 August 2022, the duty has also applied to those residing in Scotland or Northern Ireland, although it is not expected to become available in Northern Ireland until November 2022[4]. As a result of these two changes, electronic monitoring is now a mandatory condition for many people on immigration bail in the UK, and the overwhelming majority of those subject to it will be fitted with a GPS tag [5]. This research is based on a review of medical-legal assessments written by clinicians concerning the impact of electronic monitoring, conducted by Medical Justice, and interviews with 19 of Bail for Immigration Detainees (BID)’s former clients who have been fitted with a GPS tag as part of their immigration bail conditions. Through these two streams of research, this report seeks to provide a snapshot of the everyday experiences of wearing a GPS tag whilst on immigration bail.   

London: Bail for Immigration Detainees (BID) and Medical Justice, 2022. 49p.

By Rudy Schulkind and Idel Hanley

New research published today by Bail for Immigration Detainees (BID) and Medical Justice documents the devastating impact upon immigration detainees in prisons of conditions amounting to indefinite solitary confinement. People held for immigration reasons (including torture survivors and those with serious vulnerabilities) are locked in their cells for over 22 hours a day, most often 23.5, with people sometimes being held in their cells for days at a time and unable to take a shower. Some are self-harming, attempting suicide and unable to sleep or eat. They report existing in a state of endless despair. Physical symptoms include involuntary shaking, memory loss and physical pain. As one man told us:

“I didn’t enter prison with mental health problems but I’m not the same person I was. My mind is not the same. I’m not sure if what has happened to be can be repaired.”

Another said: “It just feels illegal because of what it’s doing to my mind and body. If this isn’t breaching my rights, then what will? It’s as though I’ve fallen into a crack that the Home Office opened and I can’t get out.”

The research released today is based on interviews with 5 immigration detainees and on medico-legal reports produced by doctors, as well as reviews of case files that argue for the release of people held in prolonged confinement – either solitarily or with a cell-mate. 

Key findings: Five disturbing statements describe people being pushed to the limit of what a human being can be expected to endure. Two people described the experience as torture. Their statements are distressing to read but they have been included in this report.  The medico-legal reports illustrate severe impact on health including the exacerbation of pre-existing mental health conditions and the onset of new conditions. The severe harm caused is reflected in the literature on the impact of solitary confinement on health. It can cause long-term and even irreversible harm and may increase the risk of suicide. Prolonged solitary confinement is prohibited by the United Nations and can amount to torture or cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment, according to the UN Special Rapporteur on Torture. The report also finds that in individual cases and in official correspondence the Home Office has failed to engage with the issue of prolonged solitary confinement in prisons.  It appears that severely restrictive prison conditions are not being considered when assessing the proportionality of immigration detention.   

London: Bail for Immigration Detainees (BID) and Medical Justice, 2021. 33p.

By Rebecca Gambler; et al.

Each year, EOIR issues decisions for hundreds of thousands of cases of foreign nationals charged as removable under U.S. immigration law. EOIR is facing a significant and growing backlog of cases pending before the immigration courts. At the start of fiscal year 2023, EOIR’s backlog was about 1.8 million pending cases—more than triple the number of pending cases at the start of fiscal year 2017. In 2017, GAO reported on EOIR’s management practices, including how it manages and oversees workforce planning and immigration judge hiring. GAO was asked to review various EOIR management functions, including actions taken since GAO’s 2017 report. This report assesses, among other things, EOIR’s (1) workforce planning practices; (2) judge performance appraisal program; and (3) policies and procedures for reporting quality data to the public. GAO analyzed EOIR staffing data from fiscal years 2017 through 2022—the most current data available. GAO reviewed EOIR documentation and interviewed officials from headquarters and four immigration courts selected to include different caseloads, among other factors. What GAO Recommends GAO is making six recommendations to improve, among other things, EOIR’s workforce planning, judge performance appraisal program management, and data quality practices. EOIR identified ongoing and planned steps to address these recommendations.   

Washington, DC: GAO, 2023. 61p.  

By Matthew Chang

What does adequate legal representation for noncitizen criminal defendants look like? After the Supreme Court decided the landmark case of Padilla v. Kentucky, criminal defense attorneys became responsible for advising clients if and when there might be immigration consequences that accompany acceptance of a guilty plea deal, such as a potential risk of deportation. Currently, the criminal and immigration representation are completely divided. This Comment argues that the Padilla mandate alone, while important, fails to adequately provide noncitizen criminal defendants their Fifth Amendment Due Process Right and Sixth Amendment Right to Counsel. Using the Supreme Court’s legal analysis in Padilla and similar cases, I contend that the criminal and immigration divide is not so discrete. Inadequate representation in either criminal or immigration courts is considered a failure of the Fifth Amendment. Nevertheless, one way to rectify this constitutional shortcoming is to create and implement government-appointed counsel for all noncitizen criminal defendants facing criminal and removal proceedings. This Comment evaluates local, government-enacted immigration public defender programs that have experienced great success within California. Further, this Comment posits that to fully comply with the Fifth Amendment’s requirement of adequate representation, Congress must follow suit and expand quality legal access across the nation for noncitizens facing deportation proceedings, modeled after successful immigrant defender programs in California.

112 J. Crim. L. & Criminology Online 29 (2022).

By Frohar Poya

In Europe, undocumented migrant women constitute one of the most at-risk groups across several socio-economic domains, with frequent, severe and often tragic consequences for these women, as well as their children and families. Already in the pre-COVID period in Europe, undocumented migrant women suffered financial exploitation, often exposed to discrimination, homelessness, intimate partner and domestic violence, and sexual harassment and abuse, both at work and in the public sphere. During and post-COVID, the inequalities and discrimination to which undocumented migrant women are subjected have intensified. This briefing paper summarises the key areas of concern and offers a number of recommendations to inform EU and national decision makers and stakeholders for improved formulation of policy responses and strategies to address the situation of undocumented migrant women in Europe. The main intention of this paper is to highlight the lack of protection of undocumented migrant women, and to help ensure their well-being during the post-COVID pandemic period, in particular, in the context of a number of key international legal instruments, including the EU Fundamental Rights Charter.

St Gilles,

Belgium: HumMingBird project , 2023.  11p.

By R. J. B. Bosworth

From the Preface: “My task… has been to unveil the lives of Italians under a generation of dictatorship, be they men, women or children, party officials and party intellectuals or anti-Fascists, landowners and industrialists or workers and peasants, all coming from the many and varied regions of Italy or, on occasion, emigrants passed beyond the national border. It is, of course, an impossible protect. Aspiring to write the tout history of a totalitarian society is a delusion. Yet any reader who consults the book’s pages will find that a vast array of people rum up »n my tale and that it spans from Sardinia to Sicily, from Tumi to Reggio Calabria, from Trieste to Bari and beyond. There are many stories in the pages that follow and my hope must be that readers will find them emblematic and will draw a general picture from their impressionist detail.”

London. Penguin. 2005. 689p.

Zeynep Şahin-Mencütek, N. Ela Gökalp-Aras, Ayhan Kaya, Susan Beth Rottmann

This open access book provides a comprehensive analysis of Turkey’s response to Syrian mass migration from 2011 to 2020. It examines internal and external dimensions of the refugee issue in relation to Middle Eastern geopolitics as well as the salience of controlling irregular migration to the European Union. The book focuses on policies and discourses developed in the fields of border management, reception, asylum and protection, and integration of refugees with an emphasis on continuities, ruptures and changes. One of its main goals is to compare differences in policy practices across provinces in order to better capture ways in which Syrian refugees claim agency, develop belonging and experience integration in the context of cultural intimacy, precarity and temporariness. By providing rich empirical evidence, this book provides a valuable resource for students and scholars in migration studies, political science, anthropology, sociology and public administration disciplines as well as policy makers, stakeholders and the general public.

Springer Cham

Pragna Rugunanan, Nomkhosi Xulu-Gama

This open access Regional Reader proposes new ways of theorizing migration in Southern Africa by arguing that traditional western forms of theorizing do not adequately fit the South-South migration context.  It explores the existing definitions of a ‘migrant’ with a view to conceptualise a definition which will speak to the complexities, envisioning a more inclusive Southern African region. The book investigates the various levels of migration moving from the local (rural to urban and urban to rural) to cross border migration; middle-class versus working-class migrant household livelihoods; livelihoods procurement versus wage earning; social capital (networks) and how they make meaning of their circumstances in a ‘foreign’ space. It also acknowledges the intertwined issues of gender and class as important in analyzing migration processes and the chapters feature both in varying dimensions. As such, the book provides a great resource for students, academics and policy makers.

Springer Cham

Peter Scholten

This open access textbook provides an introduction to theories, concepts and methodological approaches concerning various facets of migration and migration-related diversities. It starts with an introduction to migration studies and continues with an introductory reading of migration drivers, migration infrastructures, migration flows, and several transversal topics such as gender and migration. It also covers politics, policies and governance as well as specific research methods.

As an interactive guide, this book develops an innovative format that brings a connection with various online sources. This means that whereas the chapters bring together literature in a coherent way, they are also connected to IMISCOE's online interactive Migration Research Hub for further reading and for more empirical material on migration and diversity.

As such, this textbook provides a very useful introductory reading for undergraduate and graduate students as well as for policymakers, policy advisors, and all those interested in studies on migration and migration-related diversities.

Springer Cham

Jens Schneider, Maurice Crul, Andreas Pott

This open access book comparatively analyses intergenerational social mobility in immigrant families in Europe. It is based on qualitative in-depth research into several hundred biographies and professional trajectories of young people with an immigrant working-class background, who made it into high-prestige professions. The biographies were collected and analysed by a consortium of researchers in nine European countries from Norway to Spain. Through these analyses, the book explores the possibilities of cross-country comparisons of how trajectories are related to different institutional arrangements at the national and local level. The analysis uncovers the interaction effects between structural/institutional settings and specific individual achievements and family backgrounds, and how these individuals responsed to and navigated successfully through sector-specific pathways into high-skilled professions, such as becoming a lawyer or a teacher. By this, it also explains why these trajectories of professional success and upward mobility have been so exceptional in the second generation of working-class origins, and it tells us a lot also about exclusion mechanisms that marked the school and professional careers of children of immigrants who went to school in the 1970s to 2000s in Europe – and still do.

Springer Cham

Joseph Kofi Teye

This open access Regional Reader examines the dynamics and impacts of international migration within and from West Africa. The book presents key theoretical perspectives and empirical findings on historical trends, geographical patterns, drivers and socio-economic impacts of both voluntary and involuntary migration in West Africa, a region that is characterised by high level of mixed migration flows. The book is divided into three main parts: changing patterns and governance of migration, managing environmental and forced migration, and diaspora, transnationalism and development. The chapters raise key research questions and outline recommendations for improving migration governance, protecting migrants and harnessing the benefits of migration for socio-economic development for both countries of origin and destination of migrants. As such this Regional Reader provides an interesting read to students, academics, researchers, migration experts, development practitioners and policy makers.

Springer Cham

Steffen Pötzschke, Sebastian Rinken

This open access book explores implications of the digital revolution for migration scholars’ methodological toolkit. New information and communication technologies hold considerable potential to improve the quality of migration research by originating previously non-viable solutions to a myriad of methodological challenges in this field of study. Combining cutting-edge migration scholarship and methodological expertise, the book addresses a range of crucial issues related to both researcher-designed data collections and the secondary use of “big data”, highlighting opportunities as well as challenges and limitations. A valuable source for students and scholars engaged in migration research, the book will also be of keen interest to policymakers

Springer Cham

Gioconda Herrera, Carmen Gómez

This open access regional reader examines emerging issues around new migration patterns in South America and their relationship with changing migration policies over the last twenty years. The first part of the book looks at conceptual discussions on mixed and survival migration, the link between migration and extractivism, and the specific character of transit migration. A second part examines how these debates have led to transformations in state policies, and the shift in government policies from a human rights-based approach towards more restrictive ones. Finally, the third section revisits the relationship between racism, xenophobia and colonialism in contemporary migrations. As such this book makes an interesting read to students, academics, policy makers and all those working in the field.

Springer Cham

Sabrina Marchetti

This open access short reader offers a systematic overview of the scholarly debate on the experiences of migrant domestic workers at a global level, in the past as well as in present time. It tackles the nexus between migration and domestic work with a multi-layered approach. The book looks into the issue of (paid) domestic work in migratory contexts by investigating the feminization of migration, thereby considering the larger framework within which this specific phenomenon takes place. The author explains notions such as the “international division of reproductive labor” or “global care chains” which emphasize the inequality in the way care and domestic tasks are distributed today between middle-class women in receiving nations and migrant domestic workers. Moreover, the book shows how women migrating to work in the domestic work and private care sector are facing a complex landscape of migration and labor regulations that are extremely difficult to navigate. At the same time, this issue also addresses employers’ households who cannot find appropriate or affordable care among declining welfare states and national workers reluctant to take the job, whilst legal regulations make difficult to hire a domestic worker who is a third country national. As such this book offers an interesting read to academics, policy makers and all those working in the field.

Springer Cham

Maria Kousis, Aspasia Chatzidaki, Konstantinos Kafetsios

This open access book offers a cross-disciplinary view of challenging mobility issues for migrants and refugees in Europe and particularly Greece during the last decade when the economic and refugee crises coincided. It offers new analyses and data on a diverse range of topics concerning new emigrants as well as refugees and mobilities in Greece. The book covers themes which are not only related to refugee and immigrant integration and governance challenges, but also describes host attitudes, solidarity, political and protest claims in the public sphere, as well as the changing emigration environment in Greece within a European context. With contributions from the fields of philosophy, anthropology, sociology, economics, political science, geography and linguistics, this book provides a unique resource for students and scholars, but also for policy-makers and social scientists working on migration-related issues within and beyond Europe.

Springer Cham

Roxana Barbulescu, Sara Wallace Goodman, Luicy Pedroza

This open access book critically re-examines the theoretical and empirical interconnections between integration and citizenship, specifically, naturalisation. With new, empirical-grounded analyses of what we term 'citizenship-integration nexus' the central, shared contribution is showcasing how membership is informally achieved through everyday integration —usually around, but sometimes in spite of, formal citizenship requirements. By providing evidence of a nexus disjuncture, the book contributes to critical dialogues on immigrant integration and political incorporation, relevant for policymakers, civil society actors, and academics alike.

Springer Cham

By Diego Chaves-Gonzalez and Carlos Echeverria Estrada

According to the Regional Coordination Platform for the Response for Venezuelans (R4V), co-led by the International Organization for Migration (IOM) and UN High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) and composed of more than 150 organizations, as of June 2020, more than 5 million refugees and migrants from the Bolivarian Republic of Venezuela had left their country due to the ongoing political and economic crises there, with more than 4 million of them migrating to other Latin American and Caribbean countries. Until 2015, the region had largely been characterized by high levels of emigration, and neighboring countries had never experienced migrant inflows at this scale.1 Since then, receiving countries have largely maintained an “open-door” approach toward Venezuelans, with significant policy innovations allowing many to enter, remain on an interim basis, and receive legal status via existing visa categories and special regularization programs, as well as the reception of requests for asylum. However, the COVID-19 pandemic that hit the region in early 2020 has added a new layer of complexity. Receiving countries now face the challenge of managing a public-health crisis while also addressing the needs of displaced Venezuelans and the communities in which they live.

Washington, DC and Panama City: Migration Policy Institute and International Organization for Migration. 2020. 31p.

Edited by Robert T. Chase

This volume considers the interconnection of racial oppression in the U.S. South and West, presenting thirteen case studies that explore the ways in which citizens and migrants alike have been caged, detained, deported, and incarcerated, and what these practices tell us about state building, converging and coercive legal powers, and national sovereignty. As these studies depict the institutional development and state scaffolding of overlapping carceral regimes, they also consider how prisoners and immigrants resisted such oppression and violence by drawing on the transnational politics of human rights and liberation, transcending the isolation of incarceration, detention, deportation and the boundaries of domestic law.

Durham, NC: University of North Carolina Press, 2019. 440p.

Steven F. Lawson

Running for Freedom, Fourth Edition, updates historian Steven Lawson’s classic volume detailing the history of African-American civil rights and black politics from the beginning of World War II to the present day.

Offers comprehensive coverage of the African-American struggle for civil rights in the U.S. from 1941 to 2014

Integrates events relating to America’s civil rights story at both the local and national levels

Features new material on Obama’s first term in office and the first year of his second term

Includes addition of such timely issues as the Trayvon Martin case, the March on Washington 5oth anniversary, state voter suppression efforts, and Supreme Court ruling on Voting Rights Act

US. McGraw-Hill. 1991. 317p.