Cem had already been in the UK for 13 years when interviewed. He had been politically active in Turkey and continues his political activities in London, although this had caused him some difficulties when working in Turkish-owned restaurants where other staff members were hostile to Kurds. Due to a serious back problem, he was now able to work only part-time and this made life even more difficult, as he had a young family to support.

Being undocumented has consequences in every sphere of life. In this chapter we focus on the ways in which undocumented migrants experience the exclusions of their status and develop strategies for managing these status-based exclusions. The context is of course crucial; status matters more in places where documents are checked or required, which means, argues Khosravi (2010), that illegality is produced and is, as a consequence, situational. As internal controls, such as raids and sanctions on business and document checks for renting housing, are increasingly rolled out into civil society, so too do the sites increase in which the effects of being undocumented are experienced. However, it is not only policy than impacts on the ways in which being undocumented is lived and experienced. Personal biographies are also crucial in understanding variable experiences (Anderson and Ruhs, 2010a). The variation in experiences in terms of personal characteristics and biographies – which can include the reason for migration, persecution and/or fear of persecution in the countryof origin if returned, age at the time of migration, education, gender, social capital – all determine the variable experiences of undocumented migrants. Moreover, differences will determine visibility, claimsmaking and access to certain public provisions.

In Chapter Four we explored the impact of being an undocumented migrant on employment experiences, and demonstrated the centrality of status to these experiences, as well as the exclusion of most undocumented migrants from the more formal parts of the economy simply because these are sites where documents will be requested. We are not suggesting that undocumented migrants do not use constructed documents to access parts of the labour market that might otherwise be closed (see Vasta, 2011; Reeves, 2013).