Do restrictive asylum and visa policies increase irregular migration into Europe?

Abstract

This article investigates the extent to which restrictive asylum and visa policies trigger an unintended behavioural response of potential and rejected asylum seekers. Based on our analysis of bilateral asylum and visa policies on migrant flows to 29 European states in the 2000s, we find evidence of a significant deflection into irregularity at work. Our estimates suggest that a 10% increase in asylum rejections raises the number of irregular migrants by on average 2% to 4%, and similarly, a 10% increase in short-stay visa rejections leads to a 4% to 7% increase in irregular border entries. We identify significant nuances in the impact of restrictive asylum and visa policies on the number of apprehensions ‘at the border’ versus ‘on territory’.

Keywords

Asylum deflection migration policy effects visa

Get full access to this article

View all access options for this article.

References

Avdan

(2013) Controlling access to territory: Economic interdependence, transnational terrorism, and visa policies. Journal of Conflict Resolution 58(4): 592–624.

Barthel

Neumayer

(2015) Spatial dependence in asylum migration. Journal of Ethnic and Migration Studies 41(7): 1131–1151.

Beine

Bertoli

Fernandez-Huertas Moraga

(2015) A practitioners’ guide to gravity models of international migration. The World Economy. . Epub before print 9 March 2015. DOI: 10.1111/twec.12265.

Beine

Docquier

Ozden

(2011) Diasporas. Journal of Development Economics 95(1): 30–41.

Bertoli

Fernandez-Huertas Moraga

Ortega

(2013) Crossing the border: Self-selection, earnings and individual migration decisions. Journal of Development Economics 101(1): 75–91.

Bhagwati

(2003) Borders beyond control. Foreign Affairs 82: 98–104. (January/February).

Bonjour

(2011) The power and morals of policy makers: Reassessing the control gap debate. International Migration Review 45(1): 89–122.

Brochmann

Hammar

(1999) Mechanisms of Immigration Control, Oxford/New York: Berg.

Broeders

Engbersen

(2007) The fight against illegal migration: Identification policies and immigrants’ counterstrategies. American Behavioral Scientist 50(12): 1592–1609.

10.

Buehn

Schneider

(2012) Shadow economies around the world: Novel insights, accepted knowledge, and new estimates. International Tax and Public Finance 19(1): 139–171.

11.

Carling

(2002) Migration in the age of involuntary immobility: Theoretical reflections and Cape Verdean experiences. Journal of Ethnic and Migration Studies 28(1): 5–42.

12.

Castles

(2004) Why migration policies fail. Ethnic and Racial Studies 27(2): 205–227.

13.

CEPII (2012) GeoDist database. Available at: http://www.cepii.fr/CEPII/ (accessed May 2013).

14.

Cornelius

(2005) Controlling ‘Unwanted’ immigration: Lessons from the United States, 1993–2004. Journal of Ethnic and Migration Studies 31(4): 775–794.

15.

Cornelius

Salehyan

(2007) Does border enforcement deter unauthorized immigration? The case of Mexican migration to the United States of America. Regulation & Governance 1: 139–153.

16.

Cornelius

Tsuda

Martin

(2004) Controlling Immigration: A Global Perspective, Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press.

17.

Czaika

de Haas

(2013) The effectiveness of immigration policies. Population and Development Review 39: 487–508.

18.

Czaika

de Haas

(2015) The effect of visas on migration processes. International Migration Review. (forthcoming).

19.

de Haas H (2011) The determinants of international migration. DEMIG Working paper no. 2. Oxford: International Migration Institute. Available at: http://www.ilo.org/dyn/migpractice/docs/225/Determinants.pdf (accessed 5 February 2016).

20.

de Haas H, Natter K and Vezzoli S (2014) Growing restrictiveness or changing selection? The nature and evolution of migration policies. IMI working paper No. 96, International Migration Institute, Oxford.

21.

Düvell

(2005) Illegal Immigration in Europe. Beyond Control?, Houndmills: Palgrave/Macmillan.

22.

Eurostat (2012a) Eurostat Database: Third Country Nationals Refused Entry at the External Borders – Annual Data (rounded) (migr_eirfs) & Third Country Nationals Found to be Illegally Present – Annual Data (rounded) (migr_eipre). Brussels: Eurostat. Available at: http://epp.eurostat.ec.europa.eu/ (accessed July 2013).

23.

Eurostat (2012b) Eurostat Database: Police Officers (crim_plce). Brussels: Eurostat. Available at: http://appsso.eurostat.ec.europa.eu/ (accessed July 2013).

24.

Eurostat (2014) Incoming transfers by submitting country and type of ‘Dublin’ request. Total/total number of request. Available at: http://ec.europa.eu/eurostat/statistics-explained/index.php/Main_Page (accessed July 2013).

25.

Filindra A (2012) The myth of self-deportation: How behavioral economics reveals the fallacies behind “Attrition through Enforcement”. Policy Report. Immigration Policy Center, American Immigration Council, Washington, DC.

26.

Finotelli

Sciortino

(2013) Through the gates of the fortress: European visa policies and the limits of immigration control. Perspectives on European Politics and Society 14(1): 80–101.

27.

Freedom House (2012) Freedom in the World 2011. Washington, DC: Freedom House. Available at: https://freedomhouse.org/report-types/freedom-world (accessed July 2013).

28.

Gammeltoft-Hansen

(2011) Access to Asylum: International Refugee Law and the Globalisation of Migration Control, Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press.

29.

Geddes

(2003) The Politics of Migration and Immigration in Europe, London: Sage.

30.

Hatton

(2004) Seeking asylum in Europe. Economic Policy 19(38): 5–62.

31.

Hatton

(2005) European asylum policy. National Institute Economic Review 194(1): 106–119.

32.

Hatton

(2009) The rise and fall of asylum: What happened and why? The Economic Journal 119(535): 183–213.

33.

Hatton

(2011) Seeking Asylum. Trends and Policies in the OECD, London: Centre for Economic Policy Research (CEPR).

34.

Hobolth

(2012) Border control cooperation in the European Union: The Schengen visa policy in practice. . PhD Thesis, London School of Economics, UK.

35.

Hobolth

(2014) Researching mobility barriers: The European visa database. Journal of Ethnic and Migration Studies 40(3): 424–435.

36.

Holzer

Schneider

Widmer

(2000) The impact of legislative deterrence measures on the number of asylum applications in Switzerland (1986–1995). International Migration Review 34: 1182–1216.

37.

Huysmans

(2006) The Politics of Insecurity: Fear, Migration, and Asylum in the EU, Abingdon/New York: Routledge.

38.

Kaufmann D, Kraay A and Mastruzzi M (2010) The worldwide governance indicators: Methodology and analytical issues. World Bank Policy Research Working Paper No. 5430. Washington, DC: World Bank.

39.

Keogh

(2013) Modelling asylum migration pull-force factors in the EU-15. The Economic and Social Review 44(3): 371–399.

40.

Koser

(2000) Asylum policies, trafficking and vulnerability. International Migration 38(3): 91–111. Special Issue 2000/1).

41.

Kraler

Reichel

(2011) Measuring irregular migration and population flows – What available data can tell. International Migration 49: 97–128.

42.

Massey

Pren

(2012) Unintended consequences of US immigration policy: Explaining the post-1965 surge from Latin America. Population and Development Review 38(1): 1–29.

43.

Mayda

(2010) International migration: A panel data analysis of the determinants of bilateral flows. Journal of Population Economics 23: 1249–1274.

44.

Neumayer

(2004) Asylum destination choice: What makes some west European countries more attractive than others? European Union Politics 5(2): 155–180.

45.

Neumayer

(2005) Bogus refugees? The determinants of asylum migration to western Europe. International Studies Quarterly 49: 389–409.

46.

Neumayer

(2006) Unequal access to foreign spaces: How states use visa restrictions to regulate mobility in a globalized world. Transactions of the Institute of British Geographers 31(1): 72–84.

47.

Ortega

Peri

(2013) The effect of income and immigration policies on international migration. Migration Studies 1: 47–74.

48.

Santos Silva

JMC

Tenreyro

(2006) The log of gravity. Review of Economics and Statistics 88(4): 641–658.

49.

Santos Silva

JMC

Tenreyro

(2011) Further simulation evidence on the performance of the Poisson pseudo-maximum likelihood estimator. Economics Letters 112(2): 220–222.

50.

Sherman

(1973) Island Refuge: Britain and Refugees from the Third Reich, 1933–1939, Berkeley: University of California Press.

51.

Thielemann

(2006) The effectiveness of governments’ attempts to control unwanted migration. In: Parsons

Smeeding

(eds) Immigration and the Transformation of Europe, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, pp. 444–474.

52.

Toshkov

(2014) The dynamic relationship between asylum applications and recognition rates in Europe (1987–2010). European Union Politics 15(2): 192–214.

53.

UNHCR (2012) UNHCR Statistical Online Population Database: Asylum Seekers. Geneva: United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees. Available from: http://www.unhcr.org/pages/4a013eb06.html (accessed July 2013).

54.

Watson

(2009) The Securitization of Humanitarian Migration: Digging Moats and Sinking boats, London/New York: Routledge.

Supplementary Material

Please find the following supplemental material available below.

For Open Access articles published under a Creative Commons License, all supplemental material carries the same license as the article it is associated with.

For non-Open Access articles published, all supplemental material carries a non-exclusive license, and permission requests for re-use of supplemental material or any part of supplemental material shall be sent directly to the copyright owner as specified in the copyright notice associated with the article.

0.16 MB

0.00 MB

0.46 MB