ABSTRACT
The trend in Europe has been toward the gradual removal of the restrictions on the migrants’ economic and social rights though only sporadically of the restrictions on their political rights – and there has occurred a settling process of substantial and quite unexpected proportions. Acquisition of year-round worker status by former seasonal migrants in turn brings about additional legal immigration, as all these workers then have the right to be accompanied by their families, and some of the family members in turn enter the host countries’ labor markets. The refugees and asylees come from Southeast Asia, South Asia, the Middle East, Africa, and Latin America. Incentive appears to be the existence of established migrant communities, whether their members arrived earlier as refugees or as year-round workers. Illegal migration to European countries is not a new phenomenon; it accompanied also the labor migrations in their earlier, pre-1974 phase.
