Expulsion or Differential Inclusion? Governing Undocumented Migrants in France

Abstract

This chapter examines the apparent paradox of French deportation policy: although thousands of undocumented migrants are arrested and detained for deportation, the process often goes uncompleted, as most migrants are never actually deported. But the failure to deport is not the failure of the deportation policy. Drawing on ethnographic data collected between 2006 and 2013 among undocumented migrants who remained in France after at least one detention period, I explore how this policy affects the lives of undocumented migrants. I argue that deportation and the threat of deportation are two sides of the same policy, which is, among other things, about population control, achieved by slowing down movement and confining people on both sides of the border.