Illegally Staying in the EU: An Analysis of Illegality in EU Migration Law

This book examines the boundaries of the overarching concept of illegality at the EU level and considers situations that fall outside the traditional binary of legal and illegal. It identifies a two-tier regime that discriminates on the basis of wealth and the instrumentalisation of access to legality by Member States for their own purposes. It proposes a corrective rationale for the regulation of illegality through access to legality and provides normative suggestions to remedy current deficiencies.

Format: Hardback
Length: 232 pages
Publication date: 22 February 2018
Publisher: Bloomsbury Publishing PLC

This book delves into a comprehensive analysis of the illegality of third-country nationals' stay by examining the boundaries of the overarching concept of illegality at the EU level. It identifies that the holistic conceptualization of illegality, constructed through a combination of EU and national law, falls short of adequacy. Consequently, the book explores situations that fall outside the traditional binary of legal and illegal under EU law. Two examples are provided: unlawfully staying EU citizens and non-removable illegally staying third-country nationals. Through these cases, the book reveals the fragmentation of legal statuses in EU migration law and the broader issue of inadequate and unsatisfactory categorization of migrants.

The book also highlights the potential conflation of illegality with criminality due to the way EU databases regulate the legal regime of illegality of migrants' stay. It then examines the functions of accessing legality, both instrumental and corrective. This analysis reveals a two-tier regime in the EU illegality regime that discriminates based on wealth and the instrumentalization of access to legality by Member States for their own purposes.

To address these deficiencies, the book proposes a corrective rationale for the regulation of illegality through access to legality and provides several normative suggestions to remedy the current shortcomings arising from the present supranational framing of illegality.

Weight: 516g
Dimension: 240 x 163 x 24 (mm)
ISBN-13: 9781509912872