From expulsion to extortion: deportability, predatory policing and West African migrants in Angola

Abstract

This article contributes to the study of migrant ‘illegality’ and deportability by focusing on informal regimes of citizenship and regulation between state and society. It sheds light, in particular, on the interactions between West African migrant traders and immigration officers in Angola. Although Angola deports thousands of ‘illegal’ West African and other migrants every year, during everyday checks police officers often extort money from, rather than expel, undocumented migrants. Far from jeopardizing immigration enforcement, this kind of predatory policing is sustained by the deportation apparatus. The article demonstrates that illegalization and the threat of deportation spread discretionary power and authoritarianism down the state hierarchy, resulting in more intense and frequent street-level predation. What deportability downgrades is therefore not only migrants’ formal rights, but also the more informal rules of corruption through which migrants negotiate their inclusion in the state.