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The article discusses the political aspects of migration and austerity in the European Union countries. The crisis of austerity and a confrontation between the European Central Bank, European Commission and the International Monetary Fund on austerity measures as a condition of bailout funds is examined. The political debates and public opinion on the issues related to immigration and the definition of migrants in the context of the government of Great Britain are also highlighted.

In public debates support for migrants' rights has generally taken two approaches: the migrant as "Good Worker" or the migrant as "Poor Slave". This paper will constructively critique these approaches by considering the case of a U.K. campaign demanding a specific visa for migrant domestic workers and how they drew on the Good Worker/Poor Slave. It describes the campaign's initial focus on domestic workers as workers and how this required demanding special rights as migrant workers on the basis of the specific conditions in the private household, at the same time as calling for paid domestic work to be recognised as a job like any other. The campaign was initially successful, but the right to change employer was withdrawn in 2012. The revived campaign was this time situated within the debates about "modern slavery" and the paper will consider some of the ways in which the U.K. government has responded to this. It will argue for the importance of not reifying the difference between "migrant" and "citizen", thereby recognising connections between national and non-national workers, and also between commodified and non-commodified reproductive labour. Given the low level of public debate at the moment this may not be possible for campaigners but academics must continue in attempts to raise the level of public debate. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article examines how differences between 'migrants' and citizens are forged and sustained in law and social practice with reference to welfare benefits. It explores how citizenship is made and what this reveals about citizenship as a legal status through considering firstly naturalization, i.e. the laws and policies that govern how foreigners become citizens, and secondly immigration and enforcement practices, the flipside of naturalization in the ways they literally make the difference between migrants and citizens. The article argues that enforcement promotes an equation between legal citizenship and full inclusion. Yet citizenship is being evacuated of much of its social content and there are multiple exclusions within formal citizenship. Attention to the position of naturalizing migrants and welfare benefit claimants indicates the rise of the worker citizen. The article concludes by suggesting that, as well as a free standing subject of study, migration can be a lens through which to study societies. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Immigration controls serve a crucial symbolic function of delineating the nation and the people, the boundaries of 'Us' and 'Them' and state legitimacy is, through immigration policy, linked to ideas of nation building and preservation (Honig, 2003). Labor migration policy is not simply an instrumental response to the needs of employers but highly symbolic and politically contested terrain that assumes intense public significance. This is particularly evident in the case of domestic workers, who are embedded in the family, the 'heart of the nation'. This paper explores the ways in which migration policies on domestic work not only produce a subordinated workforce, but reflect and construct ideas about family, work, and Britishness, with a particular focus on two visa types: domestic worker accompanying an employer and au pair visas. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article considers the argument that immigration controls can be protective of migrants/victims of trafficking. It examines how the avoidance of “harm” has become central to immigration enforcement and considers the implications of this with particular reference to children. It argues that the language of protection and harm risks inscribing the state as an appropriate protector, not just for children, but for at-risk migrants more generally. This is deeply problematic when, through immigration controls and practices, the state is implicated in constructing this vulnerability. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

This article discusses employer demand for migrant labour. We argue that the UK's growing reliance on migrant workers cannot simply be explained by lax immigration controls or migrants' superior 'work ethic'. It arises from the complex interactions between institutions, public policies and social relations. A wide range of public policies have contributed to a growing demand for migrant workers in the UK. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

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Taking the growing use of deportation by many states, including the UK and the USA, as its point of departure, this article examines the implications of deportation for how citizenship is understood and conceptualised in liberal states. We follow scholars such as Walters (2002, Citizenship studies, 6 (2), 265-292) and Nicholas De Genova (2010, The deportation regime: sovereignty, space and freedom of movement. Durham, NC: Duke University Press, 33-65) in seeing deportation as a practice that is 'constitutive of citizenship', one that reaffirms the formal and normative boundaries of membership in an international system of nominally independent states. However, we draw on the UK to show that, as a particularly definitive and symbolically resonant way of dividing citizens from (putative) strangers, deportation is liable to generate conflicts amongst citizens and between citizens and the state over the question of who is part of the normative community of members. Such conflict is, we show, a key and everyday feature of the many local anti-deportation campaigns that currently operate in support of individuals and families facing expulsion in liberal states. Although often used by governmental elites as a way to reaffirm the shared significance of citizenship, deportation, we suggest, may serve to highlight just how divided and confused modern societies are in how they conceptualise both who is a member and who has the right to judge who belongs. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article explores the semi-compliance and illegality of migrants in the labor markets in Great Britain. It discusses the various aspects of legality in the employment of migrants, and the functions of these aspects form the perception of the migrants, the employers and the state. The author had founded out from their interviews with the East European migrants and employers that the employers could distinguish the different types of illegality.

The article discusses the effects of foreign workers on labor markets during periods of economic recession, using Great Britain as an example. The popular perception that foreigners take jobs from British citizens during times of rising unemployment is analyzed and found to be based on various misunderstandings about the nature of labor supply and demand. Employer demand for migrant labor is discussed, as are the implications for immigration and economic policy, and economic growth and competitiveness.

This article examines how immigration controls and practices work with (and against) migratory processes and migrant subjectivities to help produce types of labour with particular relations to employers, and types of resident with particular relations to citizens. It considers the social and legal construction of the figure of the migrant, and taking the case of au pair and domestic worker visa holders, examines how and why it is that despite these two groups doing the same kinds of tasks, the ways in which these tasks are imagined, and the relationships produced, are often very different. It illustrates how immigration controls, social and historical conditions, and life stages and subjectivities help explain the different experiences of different visa holders, and shape the possibilities for collective action. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article discusses several papers published within the issue including one about the struggle of migrants to obtain citizenship and another regarding immigration regulations in Great Britain.

This article considers whether there is a specific demand for migrant domestic workers in the UK, or for workers with particular characteristics that in theory could be met by citizens. It discusses how immigration status can make it easier not only to recruit domestic workers, but also to retain them. ‘Foreignness’ may also make the management of the employment relation easier with employers anxious to discover a coincidence of interest with the worker. Employers are not only looking for generic ‘foreignness’ however, but typically also seek particular nationalities or ethnicities of worker, which can raise difficulties for agencies who are not allowed to discriminate on the basis of ‘race’. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Reproductive labour is increasingly globalised. The United Workers' Association (UWA), a migrant domestic workers' group based in London that has successfully campaigned for changes in immigration rules, is taken as a case study of transnationalism from below. Members link with their countries of origin through remittances and communications with family, and use the organisation to meet up with women from the same region and/or state. However, what is particular about this group is that gender, a common immigration status, and shared employment experiences have provided a basis for members to organise despite national, ethnic and religious differences. Their struggle for visas has met with opposition both by the receiving state and by their states of origin. For most, however, the struggle has been ultimately successful. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Paid domestic work is a feature of households all over the world, from Ecuador to Swaziland, from Spain to the Ivory Coast. In many countries, it probably constitutes the single largest female employment sector (though its invisibility can make this difficult to document). It is work that is predominantly performed by women, and is usually managed by other women. Yet it has received very little attention, either from feminists or from trade unionists, or indeed from political activists in general – many of whom, particularly if they are women, depend on a domestic worker to facilitate their activism. This paper explores the experiences of migrant domestic workers in Europe, and in particular in the UK. However, the issues it raises present challenges – both personal and political – for women and men throughout the world, whether they are domestic workers or employers. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

An introduction to the journal is presented in which the editors discuss various reports within the issue on topics including citizenship and deportation, the historical roots of expulsion as a practice, and a legal investigation of British deportation system.