Introduction to the special issue: implementing Human Rights: Civil Society and Migration Policies

Immigration issues have gained salience at political agendas of governments and in public discourse in most countries of the global North. Public attention for the presence of immigrants and their offspring has mobilized outspoken moral positions over the last 20 years in Europe and the United States. These positions have translated into increasingly restrictive state-level migration policies (Bonjour, 2011). State policies to control unwanted migration have evolved since about the early to mid-1990s and overwhelmingly have been control oriented. There are no states in the world that do not regulate immigration, as this is a crucial feature of national sovereignty (Opeskin, 2012), and many states have increased restrictions on immigration. Apart from trying to curb the influx of people from other parts of the world in a selective way, governments have increasingly designed internal or post-entry policy measures aimed at protecting the labor market, fencing-off publicly funded social provisions and expelling unwanted persons (Leerkes, Engbersen, & Van der Leun, 2012). At the same time it is obvious that these measures can never by fully effective as they do not influence the powerful underlying forces that drive international migration (Engbersen & Broeders, 2009; Koser, 2005). As a result, irregular migration and irregular residence have become a fact of life across the globe including all EU countries (Triandafyllidou, 2009; Van Meeteren, 2014). In addition to state policies, and to a certain extent in reaction to these, civil society has also responded to the presence and needs of immigrants, including those without residence rights.