ABSTRACT

One particular characteristic of globalization’s transformation of everyone’s lives is its ‘unruliness’: in the widespread avoidance, or circumvention, of border regulatory mechanisms, its informal, underground economy associations, and in the growing complexity of global labour flows (Conway 2006). Consequently, irregular worker migration is affecting more and more nation states – as sources, destinations and transit countries. Concerns for irregular immigrants’ human rights, as well as border security and regulatory concerns, fuel contemporary debates over the impacts and consequences of these volatile, unpredictable and difficult-to-estimate flows (Bogusz et al. 2004; Düvell 2006). In the first decade of the twenty-first century, both regulated and unregulated international migration are raising complex human rights and ethical issues, that challenge national and global regimes (Schindlmayr 2003; Taran 2000). Irregular migration from the perspective of

the country of destination – as the host society – refers to non-nationals who have not complied with the required formalities of entry, staying and/or working. There can be irregular entry (with such ‘clandestine migration’ usually considered the most heinous/illegal); irregular residence (overstaying a visitor’s visa being a common strategy, but less heinous); and irregular activity or employment (where non-nationals undertake unlawful activities, ranging from minor felonies to major criminal activities, or seek and undertake employment for which they do not have the required authorization or work permit). Irregular immigration – entry and residence – does not imply that irregular employment will occur, while all clandestine workers (employed in contravention of labour laws) are not necessarily illegal immigrants (Ghosh 1998).