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Despite increasing measures to control and regulate migration flows, irregular migration has grown in the last few years in Spain, Malaysia and the United States. This increase in irregular immigration has mainly been explained in relation to socio-economic factors. However, while these factors explain the presence of migration flows towards these countries, they do not succeed in explaining why an important part of these flows takes place on a non-regular basis. This can only be considered by taking into account the State and its immigration policies. Starting out from this statement, this research paper analyses to what extent, how and why the immigration policies of Spain, Malaysia and the United States produce «illegals«. This means not only analysing how and why immigration policies contribute to the increase in the number of irregular immigrants, but also how and why, by denying their rights and often their existence, they create the figure of the «illegal immigrant». As this research note demonstrates for the Malaysian case, irregular immigration is not despite immigration policies but because of them. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]