Setting of the scene

Governmental policies on irregular or illegal immigration are notorious for their ambiguities, as even a superficial glance at public discussions on the issue in the Netherlands can illustrate. Contentions that illegal or undocumented immigrants1 are not entitled to medical care alternate with messages that everybody who needs medical treatment of any kind should receive it. Representatives of municipalities openly back local initiatives to support illegal immigrants, while at the same time the national government emphasises that illegal immigrants are utterly responsible for themselves. Public assertions that there will be no regularisation schemes in the Netherlands are followed by a series of amnesties for semi-integrated ‘white illegals’. These few out of many examples illustrate that societal reactions to illegal immigration, and the presence of unauthorised immigrants are anything but clear-cut. Officially, the political aim is to put an end to the issue by implementing a sound and coherent ‘discouragement policy’ or ontmoedigingsbeleid. Comparable sets of policy measures are introduced all over the European Union, which is frequently depicted as ‘fortress Europe’. Yet in the meantime, the presence of illegal immigrants has become a common feature of many advanced states, including those that did not perceive themselves as countries of immigration for a long time.

The presence of illegal immigrants is a corollary of large-scale movements of people across national borders on the one hand and governmental attempts to regulate immigration on the other. Without the coincidence of these two processes, and without the imperfection or the imperfect application of regulations, there would be no illegal immigrants (Sassen 1999). These processes – and the driving forces commonly subsumed under the label of internationalisation or globalisation – are having a considerable impact on Dutch society, as they are in the surrounding countries. Since the 1980s, it has finally begun to dawn on the Netherlands that it has become a de facto country of immigration and that many newcomers eventually will stay. In particular in the larger cities, immigrants from all walks of life are adding to the variety of the population and policies are increasingly oriented at encouraging their wellbeing and their integration through intensive integration schemes. At the same time, visa requirements, work permits and behind-the-border checks aim at controlling unwanted immigration.