Inside Immigration Law

Whisper down, up and between the lanes: Exclusionary policies and their limits of control in times of irregularized migration

“…It discusses how these patterns are used, and highlights that studying communicational processes is of crucial relevance, as they impact case outcomes and thus the migrant subject. This work further enriches the theoretical work on public administration (Tullock ; Lipsky ) with multi‐sited, ethnographically collected material (see Fassin ; Eule ; Zacka ) in the field of migration enforcement, although it aims for a more general critique of communication and information transmission in government agencies.…”

“…Their semi–permeability gives liberal states great discretionary powers, often relying on somewhat insufficient information (Mau et al , p. 49). Street‐level bureaucrats wield often largely discretionary decision‐making (Lipsky ; Eule ), trying to seek out the ‘limits of law’ (van der Woude and van der Leun ).…”

“…Hence, communication is understood as a form of exchange regarding knowledge, needs, emotions and information, transmitted down, between and up the lines of hierarchies. This exchange is part of discretionary decision‐making (see Eule ; van der Woude and van der Leun ) as the observed practices often rely on the use of knowledge and information exchange.…”

“…Thus, the impact of migration policies and migration control does not end at the borders of states and neither do factors limiting policy implementation. As several studies argue (Sassen ; Joppke ; Castles ; Eule ), policies and legal guidelines aiming to restrict migration can potentially end up limiting the state in implementing the intended restrictions. Especially in the context of migration, the limits of governing and controlling were analysed in order to define which factors within the governmental structure are potential sources disabling the application of given law and regulations (Castles ).…”

“…Thus, this article will focus on a particular entanglement impacting policy implementation understood as ‘whispering down, up and between the lanes’. It will highlight that besides the already studied limiting factors, such as discretionary practices of street‐level bureaucrats (Fassin ; Eule ; Zacka ) and ambiguous legal text (Falk Moore ; Barsky ), this game‐like situation is a crucial factor in negotiations and policy implementation. Borrowing the term ‘whispering down the lane’ from the game and Tullock's () description of communication and transmissions processes in bureaucracies, the concept will be expanded by a more bottom‐up approach, including the ‘whispering up and between the lanes’.…”