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Abstract
Debates about migration issues are spread across various levels of contemporary Belgian society, where a process of policy restriction is in place, as well as federal discourse aimed at discouraging arrivals. This climate affects not only newcomers, but also those who have been residing in the country for years without managing to regularize their residence status. Within this global framework, local initiatives have developed to support migrants and their needs, as well as to propose broader political claims. In this article, I will discuss these issues by analyzing the case study of a group of undocumented migrants that occupied uninhabited buildings in Liège—with the help of a network of mobilized citizens and associations that are active in the territory—in order to launch a claims process for regularization. The local government of the city tolerates and supports the initiatives of the group to a certain extent, thus making Liège a “sanctuary city”, i.e. both a secure space for migrants and a setting for resistance. Such a socio-political space takes shape within a context of multi-level governance targeting migration issues (reception and integration), which is characterized by gaps in policy implementation and subsidiarity. Within this setting, undocumented migrants exert their agency and claim human and civil rights through a series of concrete mobilization actions. The aim of this article is to show how local action affects the process of migration governance in Belgium.
Notes
1 Throughout this article, I will use the general term “migrant” to designate individuals that have left their country of origin to reach a country of destination, notwithstanding their reasons for doing so, their intention to stay or not, and their legal status in Belgium. By using “immigrants”, I will stress the fact that the concerned individuals are in a process of immigration, i.e. settlement in Belgium. Instead, I will use the terms “asylum seekers” and “refugees” to designate those migrants/immigrants that are assigned the respective legal status described by these terms, when this information is relevant for the analysis.
2 Reception mainly concerns asylum seekers, who are accommodated into collective reception centres, or, less frequently the most vulnerable people, such as single mothers with children, unaccompanied minor migrants, and disabled individuals.
3 As examples of these changes in the legislation and its enforcement, we can mention the law of 17 May 2016 amending articles 10ter and 12bis of the law of 15 December 1980 on the access to the territory, stay, settlement and removal of foreigners, that extends the time limit for processing of applications for family reunification. Moreover, following the law of June 1, 2016, refugees recognized in Belgium are no longer immediately granted a right of residence of unlimited duration, but first a temporary residence permit (see https://www.cgra.be/fr/actualite/refugies-reconnus-mise-jour-de-la-brochure-suite-la-modification-de-la-loi, accessed on 2 April 2021). With regard to regularization procedures for “exceptional circumstances”, there are no clear criteria and “there is a lot of room left to the power and discretion of the Administration (Office des étrangers)” (see, https://www.vivreenbelgique.be/sejour-en-belgique/la-regularisation, accessed on 2 April 2021). This fact determines a continuous decrease in permanent residence permits (according to the Federal Migration Center, Myria, see: https://www.myria.be/fr/publications/la-migration-en-chiffres-et-en-droits-2018, accessed on 2 April 2021). Indeed, these elements highlight a process of progressive tightening of the conditions for granting residence permits, as well as a federal repressive approach to migrants in an irregular situation (Debelder, Citation2020, p. 47).
4 In some cases, the involved associations may receive institutional funding to continue its work at a later date.
5 Despite differences in practice that may be present in the three Belgian regions concerning the ways in which responsibilities are delegated and in regard to the actors involved, subsidiarity is an overall approach of the Belgian polity.
6 In Belgium, undocumented migrants are only entitled to the right to access Urgent Medical Aid (UMA).
7 PUMOMIG – Public opinion, mobilisations and policies concerning asylum seekers and refugees in anti-immigrants times (Europe and Belgium), founded by BELSPO – Belgian Science Policy Office (see https://www.belspo.be/belspo/brain-be/projects/PUMOMIG_en.pdf, accessed on 3/9/2020). The writing of this article has also benefitted from the research activities and funding of the “TREE – Training for integrating refugees in the Euregio” project, founded by Interreg-Euregio Meuse-Rhine (see https://www.interregemr.eu/projects/tree, accessed on 3/9/2020).
8 In total, I realised 65 formal semi-structured interviews in Liège, in addition to the activities of participant observation.
10 See https://liege-diversites.be/la-charte-liege-contre-le-racisme/, accessed on 3/9/2020.
11 Along with this campaign, several municipalities, including Liège, also voted in favour of a motion to oppose a proposed law that authorizes the police to search for undocumented migrants hosted in private homes, see https://communehospitaliere.be/Motions-contre-les-visites-domiciliaires-dans-diverses-communes, accessed 8 March 2019. The proposed law has not been approved to date.
12 See https://www.communehospitaliere.be/, accessed on 14 May 2020.
13 Regular meetings are organized between the promotors of the campaign and institutional representatives, in order to guarantee that they continue the implementation of the announced measures in concrete terms, as well as to plan new measures on the basis of contingent needs.
14 Fieldnotes, the reference is to the occupation of public buildings, tolerated and supported by the local government.
15 This information stems from informal conversations with some research participants and from some field documents, but it is not officially relayed.
16 The buildings previously occupied were bought by a private owner and needed to be freed. The local government was solicited to take responsibility for this issue, and after a long period of negotiations with the claimants, a concrete–albeit still temporary–solution has been found. The Covid-19 crisis accelerated this process, as I will discuss later.
17 See http://citiesofmigration.ca/ezine_stories/inclusion-of-migrants-with-irregular-status/, accessed on 8 March 2019.
18 Cooking is indeed a gendered “modality of engagement” (Douzina-Bakalaki, Citation2017).
19 Despite the fact that the VSP’s claim for regularization is collective—meaning that they call for a global measure, as well as for a clear legal definition of the regularization criteria, with the aim of permanently ensuring the ability to regularize individuals—some members of the VSP also filed individual requests for regularization.
20 They were distributed for free, but those who ordered them could make a donation to the group.
21 This is due to the fact that, during the lockdown, police could stop people in the streets to check why they were out–since only going to buy food was allowed for a period of time—and ask for identity documents.
22 Associations recognized by the Region (Wallonia) as operators in the field of integration and interculturality.
23 This institution is federal.
24 On the complex ways of reading and filling the stuckedness of the life in precarious situations such as camps, and to distinguish—and dissociating—physical immobilities from existential stuckedness and agency, we can refer to Turner and Jensen (Citation2019), Agier (Citation2013) and Ramadan (Citation2013), among others.