Overview

Project Objectives

• Generate more accurate information about the size and characteristics of the population who are in an irregular situation in Canada, and identify innovative and scalable estimation methods.
• Develop a systematic and in-depth understanding of how migration policies and practices shape migrant irregularity in Canada and how this compares to EU member states, the United States, and other relevant countries.
• Establish a stakeholder network for knowledge exchange about estimates on irregular migration and regularization.
• Disseminate strategies for assessing the costs and benefits of regularization and develop new pragmatic and evidence-based regularization programs.

Research questions

• How do legal frameworks in Canada define migrant irregularity?
• What are the characteristics of irregular migrants in terms of age, gender, nationality or other socioeconomic variables?
• How can the effects of policy measures, such as regularization, be assessed?

Background

Irregular migration is a dynamic and multifaceted phenomenon. A migrant in an irregular situation may fall within, or identify with, one or more of the following circumstances: a person may enter a country irregularly, for instance, outside of an official border crossing point and or with falsified documents; they may reside in a country irregularly, for instance, beyond their permitted timespan as noted in their entry visa/residence permit; or a person may be employed in a country irregularly, for instance, he or she may be authorized to reside in the country but not to take on paid employment. The irregular “status” of a migrant is constantly shifting (i.e. moving “in and out” of status) and is impacted by changing laws and policies. Irregularity is therefore attached to the immigration status of a person at a specific point in time or within a certain period, and is not a permanent category assigned to an individual – status can constantly be in flux.

There is no clear definition of “irregular migration” in Canadian law. The law, through the Immigration and Refugee Protection Act (S.C. 2001, c. 27), narrowly refers to irregularity in terms of “arrivals”, that is, “a group of people who enter or try to enter Canada in a way that is against the law” (Government of Canada, n.d.). In these terms, the framing of irregularity has usually been ascribed to the categories of 1) people arriving to Canada through human smuggling (migrant smuggling in Canada has been connected to the handful of arrivals by boat) and 2) arrivals to Canada at unofficial points along the Canada-US border.

Legal immigration practitioners and other immigrant service providers rarely use the term ‘irregular migrant’ to refer to a person who has fallen out-of-status. Ascriptions to people who have entered Canada through legal pathways such as temporary migrants who subsequently lost their legal stay status, are called “out of status” or “non-status” persons.

To be effective, targeted policy responses to address irregular migration require better knowledge about the characteristics of the irregular migrant population and the dynamics of irregular migration, as well as the effects of previous policy measures. Yet, quantitative data relating to irregular migration are scarce, often outdated and contested. In Canada, there are no official metrics to document this population. Previous qualitative studies have produced estimates that are largely unverifiable, given the unreplicability of methods used and the limited scope. This leaves researchers and policymakers to depend on statistics related to the numbers of migrants accessing service gathered from, for example, CSOs and NGOs, border apprehensions, incarceration statistics, among others. The inadequacy of current data makes it challenging for stakeholders to develop and monitor the effectiveness of policies.

MIrreM addresses the challenge of insufficient knowledge about irregular migration and regularization by actively involving relevant stakeholders as co-creators of its results and as stakeholders to its mission at every stage of the project. In a rigorous, comparative and multi-level study, the project will assess the policies, data needs and estimates for migrant irregularity in Canada, which will be integrated into a larger project measuring irregularity in 11 EU member states, the UK, the USA and five transit countries. Using coordinated pilot studies, MIrreM Canada will develop new and innovative methods for measuring irregular migration and regularization scenarios. 

Outcomes

• Develop two public databases with estimates on irregular migration stocks and irregular migration flows, including processes for regularization, respectively
• Publish two Handbooks based on findings: 
  • Handbook on data on irregular migration
  • Handbook on regularization policies and programs that will support evidenced-based and targeted policymaking concerning irregular migration.
• Develop training resources for policymakers, practitioners, journalists and early-career researchers.