(Un)Conditional Welfare? Tensions Between Welfare Rights and Migration Control in Swiss Case Law

Abstract

This analysis of Swiss Federal Supreme Court judgements shows the coupling of welfare and migration control. Foreign nationals depending on social assistance might face the withdrawal of their residence permits. We show how the conveyed legal logics create conditionality of rights and a differentiation of (non-)citizens. The judgements individualise social assistance dependence and follow a neoliberal logic of economic participation. They establish rationalities which reinforce politics of belonging and welfare chauvinism.

Failing, writing, litigating: daily practices of resistance in Belgian welfare bureaucracies

“…Dealing with such contradictory injunctions often requires serious emotional and political work: civil servants work for and represent the state, yet they remain critical of its policies and often try to find ‘ways of coping’ (Borrelli and Lindberg, 2018) that do not dehumanise applicants. In most European countries, welfare reforms – and the bureaucrats tasked with implementing them (Pfirter, 2019; Borrelli et al , 2021) – are increasingly aligned with the policies espousing migration control: civil servants are, therefore, confronted with the conflicting logics of both policy fields. In such a context, scholars point to social workers’ lack of ‘resistance’ (Humphries, 2004; Pfirter, 2019), particularly when working for and within state institutions.…”

Navigating the European Migration Regime

“…This 'spread of legal precarity and temporariness' (Ellermann, 2020(Ellermann, : 2470 therefore coincides with requirements which are conditional on how useful migrants are in the labour market, forcing noncitizens to continually verify their 'integration', which is primarily assessed according to their economic performance (Matejskova, 2013). Many people remain in a state of 'temporary admission' and stuck in long-term insecurity, allowing states to limit their financial allowances while simultaneously blaming and eventually punishing recipients for not 'integrating' well enough (Borrelli et al, 2021b). This also deflects attention from the fact that the state-imposed 'precarious inclusion' (Rytter and Ghandchi, 2019) renders participation in the labour market, social life and educational programmes particularly challenging, permitting only the fittest and most resilient to succeed (Wyss and Fischer, 2022).…”

Engaging with the State. Illegalized migrants, welfare institutions and the law in French-Speaking Belgium

“…Migrants' stories and their interactions with their lawyers ultimately conNirm the legal and political constructedness of 'illegality' (De Genova 2002), but they also highlight how 'legality' can be equally constructed on the basis of welfare entitlements. While dependency is usually associated with a lack of deservingness, leading to the withdrawal of residence permits (LaNleur & Mescoli 2018;Borrelli et al 2021), in Belgium, severely ill migrants can (sometimes) use dependency as an argument in their favour in immigration courts. !…”

“…Beyond social assistance, these lawyers also use welfare courts to establish their clients' non-deportability -due to health or administrative reasons. In a context where receiving social assistance is often perceived as harming migrants' resident status (LaNleur & Mescoli 2018; Borrelli and al. 2021), I point instead to an exception -one that is still heavily debated both in the courtrooms and in the case law (see Andreetta 2019).…”