Migration policing experiments such as boat turn-backs
and offshore refugee
processing have been criticised as unlawful and have been characterised as exceptional.
Policing Undocumented Migrants explores the extraordinarily routine,
powerful and above all lawful practices engaged in policing status within state
territory. This book reveals how the everyday violence of migration law is activated
by making people ‘illegal’. It explains how undocumented migrants are
marginalised through the broad discretion underpinning existing frameworks of
legal responsibility for migration policing.
Drawing on interviews with people with lived experience of undocumented
status within Australia, perspectives from advocates, detailed analysis of legislation,
case law and policy, this book provides an in-depth
account of the experiences
and legal regulation of undocumented migrants within Australia. Case
studies of street policing, immigration raids, transitions in legal status such as
release from immigration detention, and character based visa determination
challenge conventional binaries in migration analysis between the citizen and
non-citizen
and between lawful and unlawful status. By showing the organised
and central role of discretionary legal authority in policing status, this book proposes
a new perspective through which responsibility for migration legal practices
can be better understood and evaluated.