Migration forms

This paper gives an overview of the current integration standards established within the Common European Asylum System and highlights the possible effects of the changing EU and national legal environment on the integration of beneficiaries of international protection. These integration standards are the starting point of the development of the integration indicators within the project “National Integration Evaluation Mechanism” (NIEM), which aims to support key integration and social actors in 14 EU Member States and Turkey to evaluate and improve the integration outcomes of beneficiaries of international protection. The EU’s greatest impact on the integration of beneficiaries of international protection has been through the stable legal framework of the Common European Asylum System (CEAS). The recast Asylum Procedures, Reception Conditions, Qualification and Family Reunification Directives all build on the standards set by the 1951 Geneva Convention and aim for its full and effective implementation. They set a series of standards that shape the integration process, starting from the reception phase until the full legal, socio-economic and socio-cultural integration allowing refugees to realise their full potential to contribute to society. These binding legislative acts are complemented by the Common Basic Principles for Immigrant Integration Policy in the EU1 and its re-affirmation, 10 Years On2 , which guide Member States on how to respond to the needs and opportunities that beneficiaries of international protection bring to their new homes. However, in the past year, the emergence and strengthening of exclusionary, anti-migrant narratives has threatened to undermine national – and now the EU’s – stable legal framework and level of ambition to promote refugee integration. The negative political discourse induced a surprisingly coordinated race-to-the-bottom reply at national level, whose approach is reflected in the most recent European Commission Communication “Towards a Reform of the European Common Asylum System and Enhancing Legal Avenues to Europe”. This document shows a fundamental change in the approach towards beneficiaries of international protection. These proposals reframe the logic of asylum to a more temporary legal status in its nature and have more often recourse to the cessation clause4 , without assessing the long-term consequences: how will it affect the integration of beneficiaries of international protection?

This report synthesises previous ReSOMA briefs concerning the crackdown on NGOs and volunteers helping refugees and other migrants. Section 1 captures the main issues and controversies in the debate on the policing of humanitarianism and the potential impacts of EU and national anti-migrant smuggling policies on civil society actors. This section has drawn on academic research in this area, and in particular on CEPS expertise in this field. Section 2 provides an overview of the possible policy options to address this phenomenon taking stock of the ongoing policy debate on solutions and alternatives. Section 3 aims to identify and quantify criminal cases of individuals, volunteers and NGOs providing humanitarian assistance to migrants in the European Union. This monitoring exercise has been carried out by MPG through ReSOMA’s collaborative and participatory process involving experts from NGOs, researchers and other stakeholders. Section 4 provides overall summary conclusions and recommendations to end the crackdown on NGOs and to prevent further policing of civil society. The final section proposes approaches to returning responsibility to EU actors, to be further explored by the ReSOMA platform, with a focus on good governance, human rights defenders, and the protection of humanitarian space inside the EU.

The proposed research develops and tests models of individual behavior to provide evidence on the magnitude, causes and consequences of the mass migration between Europe and the US that occurred at the turn of the twentieth century. Underlying the project is the availability of electronic administrative records for 24 million migrants who arrived in the US via Ellis Island between 1892 and 1924, that we have obtained access to. Our earlier work using this data [Bandiera et al. 2011] shows that migration at the turn of the twentieth century was effectively a two-way flow between the US and Europe, rather than a one-way movement from Europe to the US. This insight is what the proposed research agenda seeks to build on. The proposed project will develop and apply economic theory and micro-econometric methods related to core questions in the economics of migration. Our proposal will provide theory and evidence on four broad research themes: (i) the determinants of temporary versus permanent migration, and consequently how each type of migrant is differentially selected; (ii) the behavior and socio-economic outcomes of migrants who endogenously chose to remain in the US; (iii) the impact of mass migration on the labor market outcomes of Americans; (iv) whether institutional change in the US was driven by the nature of selective migration into America and where migrants chose to settle. In consequence, and to return full circle to the original insight from Bandiera et al. [2011] that underlies this research proposal, we ask whether migrants that returned to Europe from the US drove institutional change across European countries at the turn of the twentieth century.

This set of indicators compares several dimensions of migration policies as of early 2009. For a selected set of 28 countries, both developed and developing, the indicators address admission criteria, policies on integration and treatment of migrants, and efforts to enforce those policies. Irregular migration is a particular area of focus. The analysis distinguishes between different entry regimes, namely: labour migrants (high or low skilled, with a permanent or a temporary permit), those who move with a family-related visa, humanitarian migrants (asylum seekers and refugees), international visitors and international students. The indicators cover three main areas of policy interest: admission, treatment, and enforcement. Most of the 84 questions were multiple-choice, but there were also open-ended questions to allow comments and explanations. The data is drawn from an assessment by country experts as well as by desk-research of Human Development Report Office staff. Information was collected in two parallel and complementary efforts during early 2009: through a questionnaire answered by International Organization for Migration (IOM) country-level staff and other world-wide migration experts, and through internal desk-web research

Highly Skilled Migration and International Flows of Talent, Knowledge, and Capital (TKC) is a project funded by the French National Research Agency (ANR). TKC aims to improve our understanding of whether and how highly skilled migrants activate their social networks and leverage their role as international knowledge gatekeepers, contribute to solve cross-border information problems, and transform the brain drain into brain gain and brain circulation. Highly skilled workers play a key role in today’s knowledge economies, as they introduce and diffuse innovations that encourage economic growth and well-being. Migrants are an essential component of these highly skilled workers worldwide: in 2013, the worldwide stock of migrants stood at 230 million, namely 3.2% of worldwide population (UN-DESA and OECD, 2013). However, important variations emerge across skills’ groups: tertiary educated immigrants living in OECD countries augmented by 70% during the 2000s, with just 10% for low-educated ones. Migration rates for the tertiary educated are higher than for the rest of the population, and generally increase with further education. Thus, differently from the past, highly skilled individuals represent the most dynamic component of international mobility flows. Far from taking place exclusively along a South-North or East-West axis, highly skilled migration occurs also between advanced economies, with the UK, Germany and other European countries as both destinations and origins. Science, technology, and engineering migration contributes heavily to these trends, including to its geographical variation. TKC’s research topic stands at the cross-roads of different disciplinary approaches, ranging from the geography of innovation, the economics of migration, and IB studies. All of them can be re-examined within the general theoretical framework of diaspora economics. Constant and Zimmermann (2016) define diasporas as “well-defined group(s) of migrants and their offspring with a joined cultural identity and ongoing identification with the country or culture of origin”, and propose to put them at centre-stage in all studies concerning migrations. While migration is the necessary precondition for diasporas to exist, not all migrant groups are internally bound by diasporic ties, nor ethnicity is the only source of such ties. In the case of highly skilled migrants, professional ties matter, too, as they both imply different migration channels and cohorts, and allows for specific forms of interaction. TKC is a theoretical and empirical project, whose deliverables will consist in research papers and open access datasets. Its ambition is to enrich the debate on migration on a global scale, but especially in Europe and France, where the dominant focus on low skilled or refugee immigration both obscures the importance of highly skilled flows and contributes to negative stereotyping. TKC will be articulated in six work-packages, taking a complementary approach between the macro (country), meso (firm), and micro (individual) levels of analysis. TKC has a strong engagement towards collecting micro-data concerning specific categories of very highly skilled workers, such as inventors, scientists and executives, with the migrant status to be ascertained by available biographic information and/or name analysis. These data may provide a suitable and interesting alternative to more classic data sources, both because of their detail and for their pointing at homogenous professional groups, rather than generically tertiary educated workers.

This paper reviews the comparative multi-level quantitative research on the links between integration policies, the integration situation of immigrants and a wide range of individual and contextual factors. Twenty-one reviewed studies and additional supporting articles indicate that a number of individual and contextual variables explain most of the variation between countries in terms of immigrants’ labour market integration, educational attainment, naturalisation and political participation. Thanks to the use of MIPEX and similar indices, some evidence is emerging that certain integration policies can be related to the specific integration outcomes that they aim to address. So far, only certain general and targeted employment policies can be directly associated with better labour market outcomes for immigrants and a lower incidence of employment discrimination. More indirectly, facilitating naturalisation, a secure residence and a secure family life seems to have positive effects on boosting labour market outcomes for certain immigrants. In the area of employment, studies rarely focus on a specific policy or properly match it to its specific intended target group and outcome. In the area of education, the inclusiveness of the school and education system seems to matter most for immigrant and non-immigrant pupils. Although targeted immigrant education policies adopted at national level do not display consistent results across countries in terms of pupils’ tests scores, most studies conclude that inclusive schools and education systems are more successful when they also target the specific needs of immigrant pupils. Several studies on the acquisition of nationality find that naturalisation policies are perhaps the strongest determinant of the naturalisation rates for immigrants from developing countries. Further research can explore which specific elements of naturalisation policies most help or hinder naturalisation. The few studies on political participation find that targeted policies and the acquisition of nationality may boost participation rates for certain immigrant groups. The fact that studies find no link between the general integration policy (i.e. MIPEX overall score) and a specific labour market outcome (i.e. employment rates for foreign-born) does mean that no causal relationship exist between integration policies and outcomes across countries. Considering that this multi-level research is still in infancy, studies have great room for improvement in terms of their use of databases and methodological tools. A more robust methodological approach using new international datasets can better explore the nuanced links between policies and societal outcomes. Future research needs to pay greater attention to linking a specific integration policy with its actual target group and target outcomes. Studies must also take into account time-sensitive contextual factors and general policies. International surveys can improve their measurement of integration policy outcomes in terms of longterm residence, family reunification, anti-discrimination, language learning, and, to some extent, political participation.

This study explores factors that initiate and perpetuate low skill labour migration from India to the EU, examines the migration processes and evaluates the policy prescriptions available to manage such migration flows. Based on a survey of the available quantitative and qualitative evidence, our study points to the existence of a fairly stable and persistent demand for low skilled labour in the EU, at least in the medium term. As this demand cannot be fully met from within the EU, there is and will remain a strong demand for low skilled migrant workers from non-EU countries. This offers immense scope for traditional labour sending countries like India as well as destination countries in the EU to strengthen the migration–development nexus. Unfortunately, on both sides, there seems to be an absence of a coherent and focused policy for governing migration of low skilled workers. Considering that migration of low skilled workers from India is mainly directed to the Persian Gulf, the study also makes a comparison between the existing immigration policies in EU countries and the Persian Gulf in order to draw relevant policy perspectives. Evolving appropriate policy response in relation to low skilled migration to Europe is also necessary given that a significant share of such workers end up as irregular migrants in transit or at the destination.

In the latest issue of ELIAMEP Thesis Anna Triandafyllidou states that the European Commission has recently issued a proposal for a Directive regulating the conditions of entry and residence of third-country nationals for the purposes of seasonal employment (COM (2010) 379 final). This Directive proposal is part of the Commission’s strategy to regulate labour migration through a piecemeal approach; notably through regulating specific categories of migrant workers. This paper discusses what seasonal migration is and how it differs from circular, temporary, or shuttle migration. It argues that seasonal migration is a form of temporary migration that has a seasonal character and hence concerns employment sectors which are characterised by seasons of high and low employment, including thus not only agriculture but also tourism and catering but normally excluding construction or domestic work for instance.The essay in hand reviews critically the Directive Proposal and argues that although it may be seen as a step forward in transparency and in bringing closer Member State provisions in the area of seasonal migration, it needs a boost as regards the protection of seasonal migrants’ labour conditions and employment rights. In view of regulating seasonal labour migration at the EU level, the Directive should also consider whether seasonal labour migrants should be allowed to move also between Member States. On the other hand, the proposal is evaluated positively for a number of features such as: not tying the worker to her/his employer, allowing for the right to join trade unions, and proposing a simplified bureaucratic procedure for multiple entry visas.

The number of migrant children, including unac- companied minors, registered as present in the European Union (EU) rose between 2020 and 2021, then went on to rise significantly between 2021 and 2022. According to Eurostat, the 27 EU Member States (EU-27) and Norway1 received over 518 000 first time asylum applications from children under 18 years of age and 79 000 asylum applications from applicants considered unaccompanied minors in 2020-2022.3 This included 13 620 unaccompanied minor applicants in 2020, 25 290 in 2021, with a large jump to 40 175 in 2022. Not all unaccompanied minors arriving in the EU apply for asylum or are beneficiaries of temporary protection. Data are not collected systematically across the EU on those children who do not apply for, or benefit from, either regime and it is difficult to give a total number of those involved. However, unaccompanied children registered by child protection services can help to fill in the gaps in many EU countries (see Table 1). With increasing numbers of migrant children arriving in Europe and children’s rights on the agenda of different EU and national institutions, including as part of the negotiations of the new Pact on Migration and Asylum,4 the protection of children in migration remained an area of considerable development in legislation and policy throughout 2021-2022, at both EU and national level. Several EU Member States reported introducing policies and practices to better identify children in migration procedures, as well as detect and address any additional vulnerabilities they may have. Six EU Member States and Norway implemented meas- ures to safeguard vulnerable groups in reception centres in 20216 or 2022,7 while three others increased the provision of special accommodation places for families or unaccompanied minors. New alternative (non-institution- al) care options for unaccompanied children, particularly family-based care/care families, were introduced or improved by four Member States in 2021, and by Norway in 2022. In 2022, several EU Member States reported overall pres- sures on reception systems, which affected places for chil- dren, and/or higher numbers of unaccompanied children arriving, which impacted reception facilities generally. New provisions to strengthen guardianship systems were introduced, and the group of minors eligible for a care order or a guardian allocation was expanded during the reporting period. Procedural safeguards were strengthened in several Member States, including to ensure that the best interests of the child were examined in different procedures,15 or by including additional safeguards in procedures specifically for children. A majority of EU Member States started new initiatives to support unaccompanied minors transitioning to adult- hood, mostly in the areas of employment, education and accommodation

Migration policy is one of the fields least scrutinized in the Arab world. Responding to international economic trends, policy makers, social partners, and civil society players in Jordan and Lebanon have come to the realization that certain labour market bottlenecks can only be overcome by bringing in foreign workers. This has led to a significant immigration of laborers from a wide variety of countries and forced all relevant participants in the policy making process to renew their interest in coordinated temporary labour migration schemes. Both in Jordan and Lebanon, experts and policy makers alike see opportunities in these schemes that can help them meet the changing demands in their labour markets without permanently adding to their populations and labour forces. In the countries of origin, reciprocally, temporary labour migration schemes are intended to allow governments to alleviate pressures on their labour markets in the short and medium-term, and also let them reap the benefits of migration, through remittances and skill acquisition. In this study the authors will consider, based on a tripartite approach, whether the interests of employers and workers organizations coincide with those of governments in designing and implementing temporary migration schemes. The internationally codified rights of migrant workers to equality and non-discrimination and to their integration into societies and workplaces will be compared to the realities on the ground in Lebanon and Jordan. Have the limited provisions for protecting employees’ rights and a lack of their integration into the host societies negatively affected policy goals, closely linked to social cohesion? Does the effective protection of migrant workers contradict the needs of the indigenous populations in Lebanon and Jordan in general? Can the empowerment of the migrants themselves and their inclusion into the tripartite decision making process facilitate migration policy reform? Which social players can – and have – step in if the state and social partners neglect those roles foreseen for them by the international organizations dealing primarily with migrant labour, first and foremost the International Labour Organization (ILO)?